Jeff Hendricks (.net)

If you haven’t heard of autotune, I can bet you’ve most certainly head it used on the radio… possibly without even realizing it. Basically, it allows studio producers to correct singers who sing slightly off-key. If you crank the knobs all the way, you get a robot-like sound, much like the rapper “T-Pain”. This is becoming a common effect in pop music, and it’s kinda fun to listen to (but not for an entire song, of course).

The good side is that you can make a recording really sound nice, and can make every note pitch-perfect in tune. There are even singers who use it in live performances (such as Faith Hill and Tim McGraw) to make sure they sound good. However, not everybody is okay with this. There are now performers who are openly against the Autotune craze, and think it damages people’s expectations of what performers can do, and what a good performer should be.

Here’s an excellent article on the subject, written by Michael McCall. It’s based on country singers in Nashville, but the topics are just as easily applicable to modern pop music, too. I’ll also note that this article was written six years ago… this phenomenon is nothing new. However, viewed as a gimmick, you can use the Autotune phase vocoder to do some really funny stuff, and to great effect on techno and rock recordings (within limits).

So the question is: would you rather listen to perfect recordings, or more passionate but slightly imperfect recordings? Do you think Faith Hill would have become a star if her recordings and live performances were not “fixed?” Do you think Hollywood is having a hard time finding really good performers who are also attractive (which seems to be a must nowdays)?