I looked through the pop music rankings going from the mid 60′s through to the present.  Yep, right around 1988 +/- pop music started to really suck and big time in my book and it’s been downhill ever since.  I lost interest less due to age and far more due to the fact that, YES, it really was getting that bad!  So much trite garbage trying to pass itself off as serious musicianship!  Anyone who had a few tape loops and shallow musicians could put together bland crap that the masses would buy!  Of course the good groups soldiered on but no longer able to appeal to the young bumpkins who listened to crap rap, hip hop, syrupy all sound the same solo girls, and formulaic musical formulae pumped out by the faceless masters of bland mindless pop!  The front end of the industry went to schitte right about then.

Sorry, had to share this.  It was an epiphany!

I do agree, it’s a terrible effect, when overused (R&B anybody?). But the harsh autotune effect DOES have its place. Electronic and Industrial music are 2 great examples.

Learn to be flexible, rather than having a fixed opinion on a certain effect and you will definitely find more success.

Autotune is nice sometimes to have it for like, ONE or TWO corrections for when you’re pressed for time or it’s a needle in a haystack of good takes…but never in a million years would I automate it on vocals.

OK, I admit I do automate Autotune on one instrument only, but not often…and that is THE BASS GUITAR! And only on single note lines though. It’s such a wobbly instrument and the notes are so fundamental that depending on the guitar it needs it otherwise you get “beat frequencies” everywhere.

However if someone can’t hit a take, we’ll be there until we can and we say “That’s the one!” or just postpone it due to fatigue. Not, “Ok the song runs 3 minutes, we’ll do 2 takes in the booth…oh sh*t it’s getting late…whatever, I’ll fix it in post.” Those people should be out of a job since they’re sucking the feeling out of vocal performance. Yet that type of ignorance is bliss when in a time where music is produced an album per minute, studios overcharge and the record companies can’t wait to get their hands on the next 10 million album seller so they can pocket 90% of it, coupled with the fact a producer doesn’t want to get fired because the vocals were “pitchy”…Auto-Tune is a God-send for the suits and a security blanket for the performer. It’s dangerous.

- Many people get all furious over the idea that a supposed magic plug-in can make people sound like they can sing; don’t worry, it can’t! T-Pain may use the over-tuned effect to an extent that offends some people’s ears, but the fact is… even without it, he can sing. He’s also a talented musician–just hiding that behind pop music, but that’s his choice.

- Rebecca Black is proof positive that no amount of auto-tune can turn a crap voice into something good.

- When the delay effect came out decades ago, it got used to death on everything. After a few years, it became just another tool in the mixing arsenal. Same thing with reverb! History tells us that in a few years the blatant over-use of auto-tune as an effect will also take a back seat and not get abused. So relax ;)

- To the poster above who talked about Roger Troutman–that isn’t a vocoder, it’s a talk box. Same thing that Peter Frampton used on his guitar. Stevie Wonder actually put a synth through one first, then Troutman took it to a whole next level. This effect then got way over-used in funk and then west-coast rnb/rap of that decade. The anti-auto-tune set conveniently forgets this, but at least Troutman has gone down in history as a musical genius (RIP).

-Also, it’s funny that people keep mentioning vocoders. The vocoder has had times of great popularity (decades ago), then disappeared. A few years ago it came back in style again–and you hear it in music. In a few more years, it’ll go away again too. This is how musical trends work.

- We really shouldn’t equate “auto-tune” with “auto-tune intentionally turned up as an effect” because subtle use of this plug-in has been common… with even great singers, for years now. Tuning vocals is standard practice in professional studios (yes, it’s called “tuning vocals” cause there really isn’t much “auto” about it!).

- If an effect sounds bad to you personally, it isn’t wrong. If you don’t like death metal, then you can’t comment on the sound of the kick drum because you have no context to do so. As Dave Pensado pointed out in one of his recording tutorials, T-Pain has made great advances in the use of this effect… and he pointed out some clever lines in one of his songs. If this kind of music isn’t your bag, that’s fine… just don’t get so worked up over it like someone is going to erase every other genre just because a new effect is having a few years of popularity.

LOTS of these so-called artists coming in the studio now(doesn’t matter the genre of music), but especially the MC’s and the “love in this club”, “makin’ it rain” crooners KEEP asking for that sound…GOOD GRIEF!!

This over-production trainwreck is what will continue (among other factors) to make one-hit wonders A LOT faster.

Peace.