Auto-Tune is Nothing to Be Ashamed of

From an interview with Dr. Andy Hildebrand, head of Antares and co-inventor of “Auto-Tune,” who came to the audio industry after doing geological work for Exxon:

Interviewer:   Yesterday, I posted on my Facebook profile ‘I’m interviewing the inventor of Auto-Tune tomorrow’ and the only comments on my update were people saying, ‘Can you ask him why he ruined music?’

Dr. Hildebrand:    I just give people a tool. I don’t tell them how to use it. …  It’s as if I’d invented the automobile and was blamed for people causing car crashes.

read the rest of the interview at: Matson on Music | Inventor of Auto-Tune: “I’m innocent!” | Seattle Times Newspaper

Auto-Tune the way it SHOULD be used

Undeservedly, the reputation of a perfectly fine tool is ruined…  between the hiphop/dance genre abusers and the audiophile snobs, Autotune is misunderstood and unfairly maligned.

I’ve been using Antares Auto-Tune software on tracks for years – NEVER in a “Cher / T-Pain” way..    only to nudge a note here or there, nothing you would ever notice (believe me, if you NOTICE tuning on a vocal or an instrument, it was badly done).   Antares never meant for it to be used as a vocoder –  it’s meant to be invisible.   Now their flagship product’s trade-name, which represents at least one patent, I’m sure,  is equated with a style of hiphop that’s jumped the shark, and their unrelated trade-name is taking abuse.   They need to change the name of the studio tool, and just let “Auto-Tune” be a a spin-off vocoder-type tool.

Antares should let the REAL  ‘Autotune’ die an ignominious death, let it burn like disco records in the night…   then rename it “AT-X1” or something and continue to develop it, and I’ll hide it in my plugins folder.

Hey, look, there’s a time and place for warts-and-all, but between 1st-take energy and re-take fatigue,  why not ever-so-gently finesse a bass note here, nudge a background-voc there,… NO one hears my subtle edits, I’m a f*cking tuning NINJA, you’d never know I was there… besides,  the deadline is next week, and those in-tune notes fit themselves in the mix effortlessly.

And the vocalist loves to hear : “No, I didn’t touch it, that was all you!  You were just ON !”