The discussion and debate about autotune is old and tired. It's been done to death. I fully expect most of the replies in this thread to be negative, but it serves a purpose. I hated kanye's 808's & Heartbreak when it came out, but now it's one of my favorite albums from Kanye, behind College Dropout and MBDTF. I think the people that hate it are just bandwagon jumpers, or they hate it when rappers do it. But no one complains when someone like Bon Iver uses it. Hm.
Overall autotune is an incredible tool, providing it's used the way it was designed to be used, ie. polishing out vocal tracks (as no one can sing perfectly all the time). In fact, I'd be shocked if any professional album that's been released in the past 15 years doesn't have it in some form. This new trend of tacking a shit vocal take and making it sound even worse needs to stop though. There's overkill, and then there's widespread idiocy. Edit: As for Kanye West, even if he didn't use autotune he'd still be an overrated, egotistical prick. Edit 2: The comment about how people that hate autotune being bandwagon jumpers makes no sense, surely if they jumped on the bandwagon then they'd all love ridiculous amounts of autotune?
I'm pretty sure most people on the internet hate autotune for whatever reason, so I'm just assuming that people don't have a real reason to hate it other than the mob mentality. And that's all well and fine that you think Kanye is overrated and an egotistical prick, but he made an album entirely with autotune that doesn't suck (in my opinion, hindsight, blah blah). Dude's got talent and swagger out the asshole. And if you can't find enjoyment in T-Pain's music, then you have no soul and you don't really enjoy music, you take it too seriously.
The ironic thing is, although t-pain is the dude who made the effect so mainstream, he can actually sing. [video=youtube;3x4si3W-lqw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x4si3W-lqw&feature=related[/video] Personally I don't mind people using it if they actually have talent. I just hate it when people who have no songwriting, singing, or producing talent use it.
If it cannot be heard obviously, I don't mind. But if your a singer, and you can't sing, then why are you a singer?
I don't mind it when it's used as an effect a few times (not every song) but I don't like it when I can hear auto-tune being used where it's for purposes of pitch correction only and not the robot-y sound and I come to find out the singer can actually sing. No, it's possible to sing everything right all the time, but that's why you just punch-in the parts of a vocal track that need fixing.
If it is just used to touch up vocals then that is good. I would like the studio product to sound the best it possibly can sound. It would be nice if that was raw, but sometimes it just isn't. If it is used in a song somewhat minimally or creatively then I am also okay with it. I liked Kanye in Hurricane by 30STM (even if I think I ultimately prefer the other version). If it is just used across the board in an obvious way as the singer can't really sing, well, I have never found myself enjoying such an artist.
So you don't have to pay someone else I would prefer it not to be used for 'polishing up vocals.' particularly if the singer couldn't reproduce it in a live setting. I prefer it for making strange effects that makes it obvious that it's not the singer's real voice. By that I mean a moral thing. It still sounds like utter crap. Though, I prefer it in the same way I prefer my hypothetical roommate not to sneak a snack out of my food now and then. It's something I don't really care about in the big picture.
T-Pain took autotune and ran it to the ground. But if it's used strategically to enhancing the music then I'm all for it. Also, lot of artists include subtle use of autotuning in their songs, I don't mind that either.
This is how I see it. I don't have anything against autotune for effect, I just don't like the way it sounds.
It depends who uses it, is it YC or Yeezy? I use it on a few songs because it adds a different texture or element, just like screaming or a good female voice. Im not a great singer at all, so if its a more electronic song i tend to add auto-tune
Most of the time I can tolerate it as long as it still sounds like a normal human voice (at least somewhat). But here's an example of a song that's ruined by autotune: [video=youtube;PFSnnnvIPl4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFSnnnvIPl4[/video]
By and large, most of this is true. However, there are many of us that hate autotune for legitimate reasons. I hate autotune when fuckers like Kanye and Lil Wayne use it. They aren't using autotune for the effect, the way it's SUPPOSED to be used. They're using it as a crutch because they WISH they could sing and they can't. If they were to truly sing, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Which is why I look at autotune as either a tool or a crutch. If you're using it for the effect or to fit the song, it's a tool. If you're using it as a crutch, well, look at Lil Wayne and Kanye. You may sound okay at best using it, but in the end you're still handicapped. And to address what travz said, yes a lot of people mistake other effects as autotune, but the discussion is focused on the most obvious use of auto-tune: in the studio. I'd like to imagine that people around here would know the difference between autotune, vocoders, talkboxes, etc. but that'd be thinking too highly. As a post-note, 808s and Heartbreak sucked so much balls it's almost as bad as Meteora.