Friday, March 18, 2011

Poor Lead Singers Celebrate with an Autotune Plugin

By Andy Ainsworth


Are you an appalling vocalist with dreams of making it as a pop star? Want to circumvent your dearth of talent? Now you can. Ever debate why prominent singers sound excellent on their records but shocking during a live show. It is as simple as a little concept called autotune. An autotune plugin can assist any person attain musical greatness-even if your skills are not up to par.

Here is what an autotune plugin can do: Perfects the pitch of sung or instrumental performances Corrects mistakes or inaccuracies so you do not have to vocalize in tune Fixes timing difficulty in case you fluff a word or a beat Distorts the individual voice to cause you sound better than you really are Ability to instantaneously switch amongst the time-shifted audio soundtrack and the initial soundtrack Will record MIDI note data that is routed to it and can even register this on the Pitch Graph. Users can therefore make annotations about changes in real-time.

It is simple for a person to use, from the professionals to the amateurs. However, the issue remains: Is an autotune plugin just a tool for doctoring up substandard composition? Well, yes and no. While you can make use of autotune for various "valid" reasons- like you recorded a nearly flawless track with one or two mistakes-it can also be used to greatly skew an original soundtrack.

The first significant hit song that this software was used for was Cher's "Believe." After that, additional artists followed suit, realizing their dreams of fooling the public into thinking inferior singers were capable.

Other artists, however, have taken a stance against it. Country singers such as Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, and Loretta Lynn have refused to use AutoTune plugin tools. At the Grammy Awards in 2009, Death Cab for Cutie appeared dressed in ribbons that protested the use of AutoTune. Additionally, singer-songwriter Allison Moorer released a disc in 2002 that shed light on the row. The disc came with a sticker that said, "Absolutely no vocal tweaking or pitch modification was used in the making of this record."

One music critic went as far as to claim the autotune plugin was a "particularly foreboding creation." For bad and good singers similarly, one thing is clear: No need for gargling brine, practicing your pitch, and resting your pipes. Thanks autotune!




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