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Predictions on the end of Auto tune?

Idaho

Idaho

blah blah blah
When will we get rid of this abomination? If it was a wacky effect on 3 songs ever, it might be just about tolerable, but it's influence seems to be growing.

Perhaps humour is the best weapon against it: (a bit of an oldie).
 
Aren't you mistaking vocoder for Autotune, or just one of Autotune's effects?

Can't see a piece of software capable of making Victoria Beckham sound as good as Mary j Blige going out of fashion anytime soon.
 
kyser_soze said:
Aren't you mistaking vocoder for Autotune, or just one of Autotune's effects?

Can't see a piece of software capable of making Victoria Beckham sound as good as Mary j Blige going out of fashion anytime soon.
Click to expand...

I'm not making any mistakes. You are make a point of pedantry :p
 
Autotune will die out, when our "pop stars" learn to sing.

Which will be never then, the tallentless bunch of vacant muppetminges.
 
It's going nowhere. The overdone effect that turns any 2-bit RnB singer into a pitch-perfect robot might go out of fashion, but being able to (almost) imperceptibly fix any wavering in a recorded vocal is something that'll never get useless.
 
Wasn't the algo it's based on originally written by some oil analyst chap at Exxon to do help find oil wells when they used explosive survey charges?
 
'Glee' is the perfect example of how autotune is here to stay. I even hear "subtle" amounts of auto-tune on supposed cred acts. It doesn't sound like that Cher vocodery effect, but it's still discernible in the timbre of the voice: you can hear it kicking in, locking 'n' loading.

What's bizarre is you're now gonna get a whole generation of kids who grow up learning to sing with a slightly odd glissando and vaguely discernible metallic tone to their singing voice's timbre. Believe me, I've actually heard this at open-mics: kids in their late teens/early 20s whose natural singing voice sounds as if they have a light amount of auto-tune dialled in.
 
xes said:
Autotune will die out, when our "pop stars" learn to sing.

Which will be never then, the tallentless bunch of vacant muppetminges.
Click to expand...
It's used even when singers can sing. I watched Glee the other night with my daughter. People with good voiced were autotuned. FFS. There's no need for it.
 
Idaho said:
Strange use of tense in that sentence. Difficult to determine if you think that it should be considered, or it was considered old hat after Cher.
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It's quite clear.
I thought it would have been considered old hat after Cher.

After Cher, I thought it would immediately be considered old hat, but that seemed to just be the start of it.
 
Vocoder effects were old hat in the 1970s when they first came out.

I think Cher was probably the first example for about 2 decades when the song we're talking about but I can't remember came out...
 
kyser_soze said:
Vocoder effects were old hat in the 1970s when they first came out.

I think Cher was probably the first example for about 2 decades when the song we're talking about but I can't remember came out...
Click to expand...
She was the first mainstream commercial success using the auto tune program to similar ends.
 
kyser_soze said:
Aren't you mistaking vocoder for Autotune, or just one of Autotune's effects?
Click to expand...

No, the Cher style wobble that you hear on pretty much every record now is Autotune being abused.


matt m said:
'Glee' is the perfect example of how autotune is here to stay. I even hear "subtle" amounts of auto-tune on supposed cred acts. It doesn't sound like that Cher vocodery effect, but it's still discernible in the timbre of the voice: you can hear it kicking in, locking 'n' loading
Click to expand...

Used properly it's pretty much impossible to spot, the trouble is that nobody does. Anything more than slight pitch inaccuracy on the odd note and it becomes very obvious.

Engineers are now using it to create tracks by people who simply can't sing, rather than using it to correct a slight mistake by people that can.
 
The abused auto tune sound will go out of fashion eventually I'm sure, like all good gimmicks. And then every record with it on will sound incredibly dated and people will be wondering what the fuck that was all about.
 
I'm sure when some top 40 rapper finds a fresh new sound auto-tune will die on its arse again and we can look forward to a million copy cats of that sound instead.


dave
 
beesonthewhatnow said:
No, the Cher style wobble that you hear on pretty much every record now is Autotune being abused.




Used properly it's pretty much impossible to spot, the trouble is that nobody does. Anything more than slight pitch inaccuracy on the odd note and it becomes very obvious.

Engineers are now using it to create tracks by people who simply can't sing, rather than using it to correct a slight mistake by people that can.
Click to expand...


I'd still rather hear those 'mistakes' myself. What I think is the worst thing about auto-tune is it makes this horribly level, unwavering sound to a vocal. The human voice doesn't naturally hit a note spot on and stay irrevocably on it like dart in a dartboard.

The autotune used in Glee, or by Marina & the Diamonds, is not on a Cher vocoder wobble level, but it’s still very noticeable. I guess by “pop standards” a producer would call it subtle use of auto-tune (ie not very subtle at all)

But then you have the next level up. Something like this guy:
www.myspace.com/jimmoray
If you listen to the track ‘William Taylor’ on that page, it sounds to me like auto-tune is being used. It doesn’t have any of the metallic electronic timbre that obvious auto-tune does, but it does seem to have that ‘slidey’ quality to it, and just sounds too clean. (Hard to tell cos he’s also using an unpleasant delay on the voice, and the whole thing sounds over-produced and FXd)

Then you have something like this:
http://www.myspace.com/emilyGportman
It’s harder to tell on Emily G Portman's stuff, because I’ve heard her live and she has impeccably good pitch anyway. (Plus, that folk style of trill and ornamentation ironically sounds a bit like the glissando of auto-tune!)

But again, it just sounds too perfect – the voice doesn’t even waver once it hits a note.

Even if it's not auto-tune I'm hearing on her stuff – and FWIW I think it is, when you listen closely to the larger intervallic leaps – the end result is just the same, and ultimately a consequence of auto-tune’s perniciousness: each vocal note has an "horizontality" to it that I find v irritating.
 
Autotune will die when people start buying music based on talent rather than looks.

Don't hold your breaths though as shallow consumers seem prepared to accept almost anything if they think the artist is really hawt!
 
<60 years ago>
Beatlemania will die when people start buying music based on talent rather than looks.

Don't hold your breaths though as shallow consumers seem prepared to accept almost anything if they think the artists are really hawt!
 
Funny though how that Cher track, over a decade on now is still quite memorable for its gimmick.

I have to play a lot of chart music in my other job, and I think the robotic effect stuff will go out of fashion again. But autotune is generally here to stay. It's used across the board from rock and pop and many other types of music. If used well, it is actually a great plugin.
 
rutabowa said:
California Love, is that vocoder yeah? not autotune abuse. it sounds dirtier.
Click to expand...

That's vocoder, I'm pretty sure. Has the sound of the melody being played on a keyboard with pitch bend and wheel for the vibrato.
 
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