Is auto tune socially accepted now as a musical device even though it allows for any person, who having

no musical talent at all jump on a stage and sound like the two famous hip hop artist T.Pain or Lil Wayne? From my background in music from working in a studio and using music programs to create music I know only a little about the program auto tune. It is a musical program that changes the pitch, amplitude and length of the sound wave to distort and achieve a certain sound hence the T.Pain sound or many others. There are many different auto tune programs in use today each one in its own respect is different but uses the same fundamentals. What top songs use auto tune? According to about.com article top 10 auto-tune songs there seem to be some pretty famous ones. For the older generation a good example of an auto tuned song would be Believe by Cher which came out in 1998. Didnt see that coming? Neither did I. Some popular songs of today would be Buy you a Drank by T-Pain (2007), Lollipop by Lil Wayne (2008) and Boom boom pow by the Black Eyed Peas (2009) . The Black Eyed Peas were featured in the Super Bowl XLV along with Usher. All of the performers had auto tuned microphones changing their voice in some certain way to accommodate their sound. The YouTube sensation song called Bed intruder by Antoine Dodson is the newest reinvention of auto tune where he uses auto tune as his voice in place for lack of musical talent. This is my opinion of

course but there is a clear overhaul in his voice which makes you wonder what he would sound like without auto tune. I have worked in a studio many different times where I encounter different mixers and auto tune programs and create beats and write lyrics for different artists. I have never personally put my voice through an auto tune program but I am eager to try. I have worked on it many times for others though and I can say without a doubt that the programs are now becoming more difficult to use. It takes continual use to stay in touch with most of the programs and computer software in the studio so if you dont use it you lose it basically. I got my hands on an auto tune program just recently and played around with it I quickly came to realize that I need to update my skills in the studio. The program I used was created by the makers of auto tune Antares Audio Technologies, which is the main and probably best auto tune program out there. With my experience using the program I took a standard soundtrack with vocals only and inputted them into the computer I then took a standard auto tune function to bend the pitch down maybe 2.0 decibels lowering the pitch to a deeper voice then you can take and clean it up and add some reverb or distortion and echo making the voice sound live or in a concert setting once I found the vocals I was looking for I then took the instrumentals put them into the mixer and

merge them back into one song. If you know what you are doing and you are skilled in all aspects of the studio world this could be done in less than a day if you already have the vocals and instrumentals laid down but if not your getting into a whole other ball game of making a song which takes 10 times longer even if you are skilled. If it were me I would demolish auto tune all together, it takes away from the real talent in the music business. I would then go back to having groups such as the temptations and the delfonics and the commodores and so many more that phased out as they got older and the new age of music phased in. Im not saying I hate the new music because frankly I like it just like everybody else likes it but I dont appreciate it as real music that has meaning and a good sound. There are still many artists who dont use auto tune because they have the real talent, maybe some of the artists who use auto tune have real talent too, they kind of have to at this point otherwise they would not be in the business at all. That is not to say that they may be less musically talented than others but maybe they just dont like the sound of their voice like myself, the key is to find what the people will like and I believe people today like T.Pains sound and I know they have to like Lil Waynes because his albums go platinum less than a week after they come out. So some must like it! But I still dont buy that it is better than real music without auto tune and mixing all they had was their sound and maybe a band.

In society I believe that the auto tune sound is now accepted at least amongst the younger generation, the reason why I have said this is because of my observations of the people I know inside and outside of the music industry. Why is this? I believe this is because we almost dont have a choice, the music industry bombed us with auto tune all at once we didnt have a chance to say no. I know myself and others I knew didnt like it at first but I too fell into the trap that auto tune was around and there was nothing we could do about it. At first I feel that this wasnt good for the music industry because with people not liking it they wouldnt buy cds and singles on Itunes, but now it is the newest and hottest thing around simply because it is around and not going anywhere for the time being. This takes away so much from the true talent in musicality. Auto tune isnt a new product either but as the years advance so does the software getting harder and harder to use requiring better engineers and mixers. Through my research I have discovered a few things that have helped get a better understanding on how auto tune is viewed by some of the biggest named producers in the business. A NPR segment called The making of a hit song: Jerry Wondas Platinum sound features a hit music producer Mr. Jerry Duplessis. In the segment he says a very valid point at least on how he personally uses auto tune, he says real singers dont need it when saying this he was talking about using auto tune to correct his pitch. He said this also the only thing we add on John is a nice verb and a delay this doesnt change his sound all it adds is emphasis on the voice which sounds a little raspy which brings out the bass in his voice and the delay does exactly what it says it creates an echo effect which stretches the sound wave out about to obtain a wonderful sound. There is two artists they

talk about in this segment are John Legend and Lupe Fiasco. With this new program both artists get on the track make a hit song without even seeing each other. Will this be the way music is made for the rest of time or will we ever go back to the down home style of music like Motown where groups shined or will single artists take over the future? -By Ed Keathley

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