The Margin Notes to Auto-Tunes

It’s time to learn a little history about one of America’s favorite plug-ins; the almighty Auto-Tune. It seems to be all the rage currently with hip-hop, county, and pop artists who continuously are using the tool on their vocal projects. Artists such as T-Pain, Faith Hill, and Cher have openly admitting to using this voice correcting tool.

Engineer Andy Hildebrand accidentally invented this pop-culture tool while doing research on electric waves that affect the earth’s surface. After experimentation, Hildebrand concluded that his tool can also affect pitch by analyzing, detecting and even modifying it.

After further modification and minor tweaking, Antares Audio Technologies created the first version of Auto-Tune, which we know today. Antares Audio Technologies created this tool to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. This nifty little gadget can disguise mistakes and even give artists the boost of vocal pitch they’ve been longing for. With this being said, Auto-Tune can be used on recorded tracks as well as LIVE performances.

Some artists and fans are reluctant to accept this growing “gimmick.” Released mid 2009, Jay-Z’s, D.O.A (Death of Auto-Tune), obviously speaks volume on his abhor for this fad along with rock band, Death Cab for Cutie, appearing on the 51^st Grammy Awards wearing blue ribbons honoring their protest against Auto-Tune. In early 2009, a Grammy-winning recording engineer gave an anonymous interview with Time Magazine saying, “Let’s just say I’ve had Auto-Tune saved vocals on everything from Britney Spears to Bollywood soundtrack albums. And every singer now presumes that you’ll just run their voice through the box.”

Spectators love to love and love to hate on the new and old trends of the industry. Will this fad die out? Or will our music forever be turned into cheap gold with the magic of Auto-Tune? You decide.

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