The modern pop song is not just art: it’s an investment. And as with most investments, insurance is encouraged.
Thanks to new advancements in software technology, musicians can ensure a return on that investment with a flawless vocal performance guaranteed by the new aesthetic in popular music: Auto-Tune. This audio program has taken the pop, rap and R&B world by storm and made hugely successful singles by T-Pain, Chris Brown and Lil Wayne possible.
“It’s become a sound (artists) are using because everyone’s using it,” said Joseph Trapanese, a lecturer in the UCLA Department of Music.
Auto-Tune is a software plug-in, or downloadable attachment program that is used with audio editing programs such as Pro Tools or Logic, which corrects vocal pitch. In other words, it makes sure that all sung notes are not out of key. To apply Auto-Tune, an engineer inputs the key of the song into Auto-Tune and then adjusts several parameters of the vocal, and Auto-Tune adjusts the notes that do not fit the key. The digital pitch correction is often easy to identify because natural vocal pitch correction is gradual. The human voice slides between notes when going up or down, and digital pitch correction jumps between distinct notes to correct pitch. These jumps are what give Auto-Tune its distinct, sometimes robotic, sound.
This is not the first time pitch control has been used in popular music. The new adoption of Auto-Tune is heavily indebted to the popularization of the talk box in the 1970s. Stevie Wonder famously experimented with the device, but it is most heavily associated with Peter Frampton and Roger Troutman, in the rock and funk realms, respectively.
A talk box is a device that is essentially a small speaker attached to a plastic tube that is placed in the mouth. Musicians attach their instrument to the talk box and are able to shape the sounds of their instrument with their mouth and make the instrument “talk.” What is produced sounds like perfectly tuned robotic singing.
However, Auto-Tune has a little more in common with the audio technology of the vocoder. A vocoder is similar to a talk box in its final result but different in its execution. A vocoder takes vocal information and alters its formants, or the sound and shape of the vocals. This effect has been made famous in several Daft Punk songs (“Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and “Robot Rock”) as well as some more vintage Devo songs (“Beautiful World”). A vocoder is operated typically by playing a keyboard in real time to control the pitch of the vocals.
Auto-Tune itself operates on the same principle.
“Auto-Tune works by altering formants. Formants are certain frequencies … it emulates the shaping of the mouth and shaping notes,” said Trapanese. The main difference is that there is no one pressing keys to correct the pitch. Auto-Tune typically is used after a vocal track has been laid down, although it does have the capability to be applied in real time, as has been seen in live performances by Kanye West in his new singing endeavors.
The original Auto-Tune was developed by Antares technologies in the late ’90s. Its debut is largely credited to the 1998 Cher dance song “Believe.” Since then, it has had a wide array of applications in music. Its most obvious purpose is to guarantee a perfect performance.
“Let’s say you’ve got a singer,” said Trapanese. “This singer is the hottest thing ever, out partying last night, recording today, and you need to knock out this recording. That’s why the program is useful … It’s out of necessity and matching.”
However, the occasional pitch correction has turned into a full-blown phenomenon, with certain singers, such as R&B hit-maker and king of cameos, T-Pain, making it their signature. T-Pain even recently released a comedy video to popular Web site Funny or Die that details his relationship with his “vocoder.” Even teen idol Chris Brown seemingly borrowed the effect for his song “Forever” from Pain after having him appear as a guest on his song “Kiss Kiss.” Now even rappers, whose method of expression by very definition is mostly without pitch, are adopting the plug-in to enliven their raps. The effect can be heard on Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop,” and Kanye West’s guest verse on Young Jeezy’s “Put On.”
“There’s a degree of intensity that you can adjust … how far you can push the vocal with Auto-Tune,” said Trapanese. Modern artists have pushed their vocals beyond the quick fix into a bona fide cyborg-like croon.
With artists that make use of this new technology ruling the charts currently, and with several Auto-Tune-laden anticipated releases in the wings (Kanye West’s “808’s and Heartbreak,” Lil Wayne and T-Pain’s collaboration, “He Rap, He Sing”), only time will tell if Auto-Tune will continue its reign as an aesthetic movement or if more naturalistic singing will make a resurgence.
Trapanese said, “In older records like Johnny Cash, and others from the ’40s, their vocals aren’t perfect, and that’s the great thing.”