BEST AUTO TUNE SOFTWARE
How does it work? The software tries to match what the singer is doing with a pre-determined scale, and gradually bends sharp or flat notes a semitone up or down to match the key of the song, trying to make the transition sound like a natural vocal inflection rather than a keyboardy pitch-bend. The arrival of “the T-Pain effect” in 2007 inspired everyone – news-spoofing geek comedians included – to take up the successful rapper’s ear-catching gimmick. Abusing the software’s settings to create bizarre vocal effects, however, is a much more high-profile matter. Auto-Tuning is now standard practice in mixing sessions, although it remains something singers are reluctant to discuss publicly. Who uses it? The question should be: “Who doesn’t?” Developer Antares launched the product in 1997, and by 2003 reports suggested that the majority of recording artists were using Auto-Tune to airbrush their singing. What is it? Now-omnipotent pitch-correcting software, originally devised as a “magic box” to fix bum notes in a vocal performance, but which in the last few years has become more synonymous with that robotic, vocoder-like warble smeared across pop and R&B hits.