Gregory Oertel
The Industrialization of Music
The Invention and Application of Auto-Tune
Introduction
If you have listened to any pop music in the past five years, it is more than likely that you have heard Auto-Tune in use. As of its creation in 1997, this technology has become tightly knotted into today’s diverse music scene. In fact, most listeners have no idea that auto-tune is used in almost every recorded song. It is almost impossible to listen to a CD or the radio without hearing Auto-Tune’s “spell check”-like effect on the pitch and the overall quality of sound in the music. Very few music technologies have had such a pressing cultural impact as this software has had. Though it was initially employed covertly in the music industry due to fear of public disapproval, Auto-Tune has developed into an unconcealed tool for efficiency and creativity in the music industry. The software has allowed music to continue its evolution into the 21st century.
Origins
Auto-Tune was developed by Dr. Harold (Andy) Hildebrand, an engineer and founder of Antares Audio Technologies. Before focusing on audio engineering, Hildebrand worked as a geophysical research scientist for Exxon Production Research and Landmark Graphics. While in this position he developed a technique to search for oil deposits on the ocean floor using signal processing and auto-correlation. Simply put, carefully placed dynamite charges would send sound waves into the crust, and the reflection from the waves’ interceptions would be recorded and interpreted to create images of layer structure and deposits [1]. After retiring from his job at Exxon in 1989, Hildebrand returned to study music at Rice University and founded Antares Audio Technologies. It was around this time that Hildebrand realized that the same engineering techniques he used to locate oil reserves under the sea floor could be applied to music. Using the human voice like the dynamite charges, he was able to create software that could perfectly tune a wavering sound to the nearest perfect pitch. Thus, in 1997 Auto-Tune was born (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Auto-Tune is a pitch-correcting software developed by Anteras Audio Technologies
Capabilities and Early Use
To understand the capabilities of Auto-Tune, it is helpful to have some knowledge about sound and pitch. Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a medium (such as a solid, liquid, or gas), composed of frequencies within the range of hearing [2]. The number of times that this sound wave vibrates in a second is called its frequency, measured in Hertz (Hz). Pitch is an auditory sensation in which a listener assigns musical tones to relative positions on a musical scale based primarily on the frequency of vibration [3]. So if you produce a sound wave with a frequency 440Hz, this frequency is associated with the sounding pitch “A”. One is considered “in tune” if they can match this frequency either exactly or very closely. When this sound is “out of tune”, its frequency does not match the exact frequency which creates a specified pitch. Auto-Tune can record the exact frequency of one’s voice and can place it over a graph that displays your pitch (see Figure 2). Then, the audio engineer simply sets a reference point and a rate at which deviations from this point will be corrected. This rate can be carefully calibrated so a voice sounds “natural” by taking the voice smoothly back to the reference pitch [6]. Auto-Tune can resolve pitches in a very smooth way, making it practically undetectable to the untrained ear.
Figure 2. In addition to correcting pitch, Auto-Tune can also adjust vibrato and rhythm
Auto-Tune became an instant phenomenon in the world of audio engineers and music production studios, firmly establishing Antares as a developer of a revolutionary product using digital signal processing (DSP) technology [4]. Despite its availability in 1997, Auto-Tune remained largely unknown outside of these professional cliques. Use of Auto-Tune was kept covert because many artists did not want to be accused of “cheating” vocals. Mass public disapproval could potentially end a musical artist’s career.
Overt Use of Auto-Tune
While at first Auto-Tune was primarily used as a subtle tool to fix vocal mistakes, this all changed in 1998 when musical artist Cher released her single, “Believe” (Suggested video: Cher- Believe []). Within the first minute of this song, Cher exposed Auto-Tune in a seemingly apparent way. Cher’s voice moved instantly from one pitch to the next giving an electronic and rigid quality to the sound. Many first believed that Cher created this effect via a vocoder — a well-known system in which speech is modulated with instrument pitches acting as carriers, creating an effect that gives a voice a robotic sound at a given pitch or chord [6]. Eventually the secret was out, and Auto-Tune was revealed to the public. By altering the rate at which a pitch was corrected, gradual slides between notes could be reduced to nothing. This instant shift between notes produced the synthetic effect found in “Believe”. When asked if he had ever planned for Auto-Tune to be used in this way, Hildebrand responded, “No, I didn’t. I didn’t think anybody in their right mind would use it that way [9].”
In 2003, musical artist T-Pain began experimenting with Auto-Tune not expecting anyone to want to listen to it [8] [9]. After the release of his first single “I’m Sprung” in 2005, he was surprised to see the positive response from the public (Suggested video: T-Pain- I’m Sprung [ ]). This response spurred T-Pain’s creative use of Auto-Tune and he began to use the software for not only phrases within songs, but throughout the entirety of his albums, like Rappa Ternt Sanga. His method had a significant impact on the music community and opened the gates for artists everywhere to begin their own experimentation and use of Auto-Tune. Now, almost all music artists have used Auto-Tune in one way or another, including artists such as Madonna, Celine Dion, and Reba McEntire.
“Industrialization” of Music
The invention of Auto-Tune has made pitch correction and virtually “perfect” vocals possible. According to Marco Alpert, vice president of marketing for Antares Audio Technologies:
“The beauty of Auto-Tune is that instead of an artist having to sing take after take, struggling to get through a song flawlessly, Auto-Tune can clean up small goofs…It used to be that singers would have to sing a song over and over, and by that time you've lost the emotional content of the performance. Auto-Tune is used most often for an artist who has delivered a fabulous performance emotionally and there may be a few pitch problems here and there…[the software] can save a once-in-a-lifetime performance [5].”
Indeed, Auto-Tune can save studio and editing time, save a powerful emotional experience that may lack the best pitch, and end the sluggish practice of recording multiple takes. All of the problems associated with music recording are virtually eliminated and time and money are saved.
Auto-Tune has also provided means for further creativity by the musical artist. The technology allows artists to experiment with sound quality and pitches that may be beyond their natural ability. In this regard, the vocal range of a song can be increased dramatically, the natural quality of one’s voice can be synthesized into that of an electronic quality, and vibrato can be added to any vocal. The artist now has more options than ever before.
Criticism
Like a great deal of new technology, Auto-Tune does have its criticisms. As the new technology emerged, artists and producers alike began to questions the ethics of its use. The major argument against Auto-Tune has almost always been a taste discussion veiled as a discussion of standards — the belief that there is something intrinsically “wrong” with using Auto-Tune, either to fix the flaws in a vocal performance or creatively distort one, is born of a work-ethical view of music that prizes technical facility over inspiration [10]. It seems that the United States is particularly consumed with singing as a skill, rather than an art. This can be seen by the numerous singing shows on television, such as American Idol, Glee, The Voice, and X-Factor. But to modify something does not necessarily make it evil. As Hildebrand put it, “My wife wears make-up. Is that evil [1]?”
Truthfully, artists, producers, and sound engineers have been using electronic technology to modify multiple genres of music for the past few decades. Effects pedals, reverberation, overdubbing, electronic harmony, modular synthesis, and multi-track recording are just a few of the technologies that are commonplace in music studios across the globe. Auto-Tune can now be added to this list.
A more important concept to bear in mind is that there is no cheating in art — Music is not a test in mathematics.
Moving Forward
Since its creation and first appearance in the late 1990s, Auto-Tune has surfaced as the newest software to “industrialize” music into the 21st century. It has proven itself as an indispensable tool in the music industry. This technology has an extensive history of development, beginning with its framework in the field of non-musical engineering. And as with most technology, despite its extensive popularity, the fate of Auto-Tune is unknown. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that musical technology is always moving forward. It is the responsibility of the coming generation to build on top of these technologies to create another world of options for the musical artists to come.
References
[1] Frere-Jones, Sasha. (2008, June 9). The Gerbil’s Revenge [Online]. Available:
[2] Pickett, Joseph P. “[Sound].” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
[3] Davy, M., Klapuri, A. Signal Processing Methods for Music Transcription. New York, NY: Springer Science and Business Media LLC.
[4] Antares Audio Technologies. (2009). A Brief History of Antares [Online]. Available:
[5] Hadhazy, Adam. (2010, September 10). What’s Auto-Tune and How Does it Work? [Online]. Available:
[6] Anderton, Craig. (2006). How Vocoders Work [Online]. Available:
[7] PBS. (2009, July 1). Nova Science Now: Auto-Tune [Online]. Available:
[8] skeetv. (2008, November 17). T-Pain video discusses autotune, his new album, music & haters w/ DJ Skee [Online]. Available:
[9] Unknown. (2011). T-Pain Biography [Online]. Available:
[10] Pappademas, Alex. (2011, August 11). The 6th Floor: Really Now, What’s So Bad About Auto-Tune Pop? [Online]. Available:
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