For those of you who have managed to avoid all popular music for the past 15 years or so, Auto-Tune is an audio processor, usually used as a plug-in within a digital audio workstation. It is used to correct pitch inaccuracies.
Most commonly this is an out-of-tune vocal performed by someone young and very attractive - but often not particularly talented. This process is known as pitch correction, and Auto-Tune is the most well known pitch correction software on the market. The software analyses the incoming material, looks at whether or not it is below what the analyser believes to be the intended pitch (flat) or above the intended pitch (sharp), and then corrects the audio.
Auto-Tune is just one of many tools in a music producer's virtual toolbox.
Software can correct the timing of a drummer's performance and change the sound of their drum kit, or fix a guitar's tuning and timing and make it sound like it was recorded though a vintage amplifier.
There is even a plug-in that allows you to superimpose a modelled version of the acoustics of a world-class studio on your recordings - even if they were made in your basement.
The music producer's job is to create the illusion that the piece of music the listener hears was created by real people in a room, all playing together with a sense of energy and excitement.
This is almost never the case. Hours are spent doing multiple takes of a song, with editing then taking place to cut the best performances into one perfect take. Vocals are doubled to help the singer sound stronger. Instruments are overdubbed multiple times to create larger, wider-sounding productions.
All of these examples were possible well before digital audio became the norm, and certainly well before Auto-Tune became available.
This is not just the domain of processed pop music either - if you were to take a radio-friendly rock band and listen to what they sound like live in a room compared to their finished fully-produced record, you would see just how much most rock music also benefits from the tricks of the trade.
I believe that Auto-Tune gets singled out because the most basic human emotional response to music is the one we have to singing, and finding out that there was some software robot moving the singer's notes around makes us feel cheated.
Young musicians today are well aware of the tools available in the studio to fix their mistakes and, in my experience, are all too happy to use them. This often comes at the expense of practice and dedication to the improvement of their craft.
Ultimately, we need to recognise and acknowledge acts such as Britney Spears as entertainment rather than an expression of musicality.
We should just try to ensure that the tools of the trade used in making pop stars pitch-perfect don't interfere with the development of singers who actually want to be able to sing.
Yanto Browning is an associate lecturer in music at the Queensland University of Technology, and also works as a freelance music producer.
theconversation.edu.au
