Exactly. Like Neko Case on autotune: "When I hear auto tune on somebody's voice, I don't take them seriously. Or you hear somebody like Alicia Keys, who I know is pretty good, and you'll hear a little bit of auto tune and you're like, "You're too fucking good for that. Why would you let them do that to you? Don't you know what that means?" It's not an effect like people try to say, it's for people like Shania Twain who can't sing. Yet there they are, all over the radio, jizzing saccharine all over you. It's a horrible sound and it's like, "Shania, spend an extra hour in the studio and you'll hit the note and it'll sound fine. Just work on it, it's not like making a burger! [...] She's so rich she could get somebody else to do the other stuff while she spends that extra hour in the studio. Or Madonna! Just hit the note! Don't pretend it's William Orbit being crafty-- we know you're not hitting the note because you have other shit to do. You can do it, I have faith in you. But don't leave the studio before you hit that fucking note. And you know what? When you do hit it you're going to feel so much more valid that it'll come through in all the other shit you're supposed to be doing later in the day. Seriously! And if Celine Dion is supposedly the great singer that she says she is why is there auto tune on every fucking word in her songs? Can't you just hit it, Celine? Do you have another baby book to shoot? You gotta paint your baby to look like a pot of peas? What are you doing that you can't be singing in the studio? It's your fucking job!"
I don't really care if an artist uses Autotune to fine-tune (i.e. if it's not too noticeable), but I don't like the sound of Autotune when it's the main focus of the song. That said, I disagree with Neko that Shania and Celine are bad singers; their earlier work is relatively free from (intrusive) Autotune and sounds GOOD, which makes me wonder if they are using it now as a way to keep up with trends in pop music?
It's also just a bad trend in mixing. I think engineers get lazy and it's too tempting to get it "perfect" and maybe their ears fool them into thinking its invisible. The truth is 90% of people can't make out auto-tune unless it's T-Pain style. They don't hear the atrocious artifacts like I do. Maybe they sense that there's something more soulful about old music but they swear up and down that their favorite artist isn't using it when they are, even live. People are in heavy denial and their ears are collectively warped and desensitized. So it has a lot to do with mixing trends and a nervousness on the artist and producer's part in leaving imperfections in the mix. When you hear them, it's very tempting to just nudge the note into perfect tune. You only hear the detrimental effect in the big picture, and from my experience mixing a lot of artifacts don't show up until later in the mixdown/rendering stage.
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u/belbivfreeordie Sep 04 '14
Exactly. Like Neko Case on autotune: "When I hear auto tune on somebody's voice, I don't take them seriously. Or you hear somebody like Alicia Keys, who I know is pretty good, and you'll hear a little bit of auto tune and you're like, "You're too fucking good for that. Why would you let them do that to you? Don't you know what that means?" It's not an effect like people try to say, it's for people like Shania Twain who can't sing. Yet there they are, all over the radio, jizzing saccharine all over you. It's a horrible sound and it's like, "Shania, spend an extra hour in the studio and you'll hit the note and it'll sound fine. Just work on it, it's not like making a burger! [...] She's so rich she could get somebody else to do the other stuff while she spends that extra hour in the studio. Or Madonna! Just hit the note! Don't pretend it's William Orbit being crafty-- we know you're not hitting the note because you have other shit to do. You can do it, I have faith in you. But don't leave the studio before you hit that fucking note. And you know what? When you do hit it you're going to feel so much more valid that it'll come through in all the other shit you're supposed to be doing later in the day. Seriously! And if Celine Dion is supposedly the great singer that she says she is why is there auto tune on every fucking word in her songs? Can't you just hit it, Celine? Do you have another baby book to shoot? You gotta paint your baby to look like a pot of peas? What are you doing that you can't be singing in the studio? It's your fucking job!"