Recently, there’s been some brouhaha about Auto-Tune and its usage in a popular TV show – a show based largely on the premise of the supposed singing abilities of the contestants who appear on it.

Auto-Tune has been used in such shows for a long time, and it is only because it was used in a very obvious manner that it has suddenly become a hot topic. I am not going to talk about my opinion of such programmes, though I should include a disclaimer here just in case my objectivity wavers at times during the writing of this article. While I shall attempt to convey the simple facts, I may have a tendency to get a little righteous at points.

So, what is Auto-Tune, how prevalent is it, and does it spell the end of music, etc.?

The answer to the last question is a resounding ‘no,’ though it must be said that, without its existence, many annoying, mediocre-at-best pop acts would not have seen the light of day.

Auto-Tune is a software and hardware product created by Antares Audio Technologies. It is used to correct pitch inaccuracies and mistakes, making it possible for out-of-tune singers to deliver performances that sound perfectly in tune. Each sung note is pitch-shifted to the note that the singer intended (and in some cases actually tried) to hit. It can be used subtly, or in more obvious, creative ways. Its first obvious commercial use was on Cher’s ‘Believe’ vocals back in 1998. And it is such drastic altering of vocals that continues to make people aware of its use, with artists like T-Pain.

It isn’t necessary to use it (or other tools that do the job in a more sophisticated manner, such as Melodyne by Celemony) in such drastic fashions. Pitch and time correction software and hardware have been used in one way or another on just about every album released commercially since 2003. For all of the arguments about Auto-Tune’s pervasive negative effect on society's perception and consumption of music, it is everywhere, and it is here to stay.

The ‘lack of talent’ disguises that Auto-Tune has inflicted upon us are a definite downside, especially from the ‘live’ performance side of things. Oddly, it was a British bunch of female mediocrity ‘wannabes’ back in 1996 who were responsible for Auto-Tune being developed for live use more quickly than it would otherwise have been. This multi-million-selling act had gone into rehearsal for their first live tour, and it quickly became apparent that their lack of vocal ability would be painfully obvious to even the least-discerning members of their audience. So, a heap of cash was invested in the development of the technology to enable the girls to appear to be singing in tune onstage. The rest, as they say, is history.

Ironically, it is the more subtle ‘smoothing over of minor imperfections’ use of Auto-Tune that have had the more lasting effect on the Western ear. Like it or loathe it, once something becomes an industry standard, then it becomes all-pervasive, and our ears learn to accept it as the norm. So much so, that to hear tracks on which vocals have not been tuned sounds wrong.

The last time such a drastic stricture was imposed on our ears was back in the early part of the nineteenth century with the invention of the accordion, of all things. The accordion was the first portable, affordable equal-tempered keyboard. Before its advent, folk musicians around Europe had tuned to each other, resulting in a wide variety of inharmonic tunings that came to define certain regions and cultures by sound. As its popularity spread, the accordion being louder than most other acoustic instruments, musicians were forced to tune their instruments to it. Thus, over a relatively short period of time, equal-tempered tuning became the standard, with the older, traditional tunings sounding ‘off.’

With technology playing a major part in the production and recording process of all media, it would be naïve to think that it would not influence the way we listen to music. It applies to all musical performance, not just singers. No matter how good a drummer’s performance is, it is nigh-on inevitable that it will be quantized (time-corrected to fit to a more precise grid). This grid mentality is also applied to guitars, keyboards, even whole orchestras. Yes, even classical albums are heavily edited. Gone are the days when an orchestra was recorded performing an entire symphony from start to finish, with the end result being mixed, mastered, pressed and sold. Now, it is more likely that the orchestra will perform the symphony countless times. Each performance will be recorded, and then numerous renditions of it will be lined up in Pro-Tools, with a team of engineers selecting small musical segments and editing them together.

With the advent of Melodyne DNA (Direct Note Analysis), it is now also possible to change the timing and pitch of every note within chords. So, for example, a guitarist might have played a reasonable performance with the odd not out of time, and perhaps he hit a major chord instead of a minor – all of those imperfections can be changed transparently.

Do I make use of this technology? Of course. In my own recordings, I don’t use Auto-Tune on main vocals. This is predominantly out of pride in my craft – I even went as far as to record an untuned acapella track (Bring Out Your Dead) on my B.O.A.T.S. album as an ‘Auto-Tune is not required’ exercise.

But Melodyne and Auto-Tune are useful tools in other regards. If for example, I have recorded 30-40 backing vocals and I want them all to line up perfectly, it is handy to be able to go into grid mode and move each syllable the odd millisecond, and to time stretch start and end points so that they are perfectly aligned. I might also use Auto-Tune on the odd harmony note, shifting pitch by micro amounts if I feel it’s necessary. My way of working means that I tend to work towards getting things right at source, so my use of Auto-Tune tends to be tail-end production polish, rather than quick-fix talent glue. My intent is always to retain the organic nature of performance as accurately as possible, and I don't have a problem using the tools at my disposal to add a little sparkle where required.

The quality and quantity of products at our disposal now is staggering, and many are now compulsory purchases for anyone who uses a recording studio. How they are used is down to the individual.

As to whether such technology should be used to cover the inadequacies of tone-deaf, fame-hungry wannabes on mainstream TV shows watched by the masses; far be it from me to comment.