Autotune in Music - What's your opinion on it?

[Sonygamer455]

Upon getting into a small discussion about this in another thread, I realized this would make for a great topic that I surprisingly haven’t seen anything on yet.

Autotune is something that’s been around for a while now and for better or worse, a lot of artists use it in their music for different reasons. Understandably, theirs a lot of people who don’t like the use of this, while others are actually okay with it, but what are your thoughts on it? Are you for it, are you against it or does it depend on the song?

Feel free to give your thoughts about it. It’s fine if you don’t agree with somebody on it, but please keep it civil.

 

[coryclifford]

People can’t sing? Use Auto Tune.

It’s like Pro Tools.

 

[05XR8]

I watched an Auto-Tune episode on Netflix, a few years back. Pretty good stuff.

People that can sing even use/used it.

 

[Joey D]

Some auto-tune fits the song and some artists use it to create a unique sound. Daft Punk is one group that I think really does auto-tune well, but only because it fits the whole futuristic robot thing. Even T-Pain isn't horrible since his does most of his stuff in a new jack swing style.

I don't like it when artists are trying to actually sing. It's popular in country music and I think it diminishes the performance. I know Tim McGraw and Shania Twain both used it and I'm sure others have as well.

 

[VBR]

I'm with Rick Beato on this one; too much autotune, too much quantizing, too much conpression, too much perfect compiling and OTT production generally makes modern music sound less dynamic and more sterile compared to last century's. That said, I don't hate it when it's used in moderation and is transparent, or as an occassional effect. But, in some genres autotune has it become so synonymous that you can't imagine said genre without it. It's kind of like the sidechain ducking effect in EDM, almost every song has it and 99.999% of the time it's just a lazy four to the floor sync.

 

[GingerBredMan]

I feel like T-Pain was the only musician to really do it well. It meshed with his music better than anyone else. Then the copycats came in and kind of ruined it

 

[Sonygamer455]

To give my answer, it depends on the song. For me, while I understand the issue people have with autotune, at the end of the day, whether or not it improves the listening experience is what matters most to me. I don't mind a little bit here and there, but ones like this I feel overdo it a bit. (language warning)

And I am sure if I were to turn it to my local rap station, I could probably name even more examples.

Some auto-tune fits the song and some artists use it to create a unique sound. Daft Punk is one group that I think really does auto-tune well, but only because it fits the whole futuristic robot thing. Even T-Pain isn't horrible since his does most of his stuff in a new jack swing style.

I feel like T-Pain was the only musician to really do it well. It meshed with his music better than anyone else. Then the copycats came in and kind of ruined it

Yea for some, it's a stylistic thing. I don't know much about Daft Punk, but I like a bit of T-Pain, was actually listening to "Buy U A Drank" earlier. The interesting thing about T-Pain is he actually can sing pretty well without it:

Won't lie, I actually prefer him with it though.

 

[CotillionRope]

I think it depends on the artist and song.
Music production can be so polished that a pitchy vocal performance kind of needs to be auto tuned (in most cases).
A vocalist can perform a great take in the studio but be off pitch however slightly, so it’s great for keeping the take and correcting the issue (which I’m pretty sure is one of the marketing points actually).

I think it comes down to the overall sound of the song at the end of the day, sometimes it will suit or won’t and sometimes it will detract or add.

 

[sirjim73]

I very much enjoy live music. And there's my issue with auto-tune.
When watching The Killers at Reading Festival in 2023, it wouldn't have been the same if I was listening to "a computer" rather than them personally (at least for the most part).
So I think the answer depends on how you listen to music in the first place. If you enjoy live music, you don't likely want to listen to auto-tune.
This is one of the reasons I prefer older music generally - if you were to listen to The Beatles/Kinks/Stones at a live concert (i saw The Kinks in 1994 whilst at university), it would sound very much like their record.