Created in the late 90’s, autotune is one of the more novel types of audio processing you can use in your mix. Autotune can be applied to instruments, but it’s most often applied to vocals as has been done in some very famous and recognizable examples, so let’s share some of those as we quickly explain what is autotune and how to use it.
What is Autotune
Autotune is an audio effect which automatically tunes (hence the name) notes, typically those of a vocal.
Essentially it can be applied to a vocal which contains notes which are sharp or flat relative to what they should be, and the autotune detects the tuning of each note and pulls them down or up as necessary in real time to get them to the closest in tune note.
While that’s what autotune does (tuning notes), it has a few purposes.
Making Bad Singers Sound Better
To anyone learning about autotune for the first time from the outside, the first thing which comes to mind is that it makes bad singers sound better.
This estimation is justified as typically one of the most common traits of bad or non-singers is their inability to sing on/in key.
By telling an autotune plugin like Antares’ Auto-Tune Pro (who incidentally pioneered the technology in 1997) that a vocal is in the key of C, for example, it will automatically remove any notes which are NOT within that key.
In other words, if a vocalist hits a note which is closer to C# than the C it should be, it will pull that note down to a C, basically rounding the sung note to the nearest in key note.
For what it’s worth, you can manually pick and choose which notes should be included in the scale and which should be avoided completely. This is useful in the event that you’ve got an unconventional note which would normally be outside of the scale which is part of the vocal that you need to account for.
If you’re listening for it, you’ll hear some subtle autotune at work a lot in Hollywood musicals which feature actors not known for their musical talents, allowing them to hold their own or at least pass while their more musical leaning costars shine.
Depending on how quickly the out of tune note is adjusted, you can hear the autotune working, particularly when the settings used are too aggressive so that the out of tune note snaps and clamps to perfect tuning with zero wiggle.
This is especially obvious on longer, more sustained notes which is why Antatre’s Auto-Tune Pro has a “Flex Tune” and “Humanize” settings to maintain a bit of the natural wavering around the perfect note on both short and sustained notes as I covered in my overview of the best autotune settings:
The key to natural autotune use is to not employ it so aggressively that the vocal is without expression and sounds robotic, unless that’s what you’re going for (more on this in a moment).
The “Retune Speed” is the main driver of how aggressively you’re hearing the effect of the autotune as this dictates how quickly one note transitions to the next. For what it’s worth, 40 is a nice compromise to keep notes in tune without making it explicitly obvious that the autotune is at work.
Expediting Manually Tuning Notes
The next purpose for autotune is that it makes tuning notes much easier by largely or even completely replacing the need to manually adjust notes.
For the mixing engineers like myself out there, autotune can be a serious time saver when a project doesn’t call for or warrant meticulous manual tuning of notes.
Even working “in the box” on a digital mix, when you’ve got a singer who has a number of “sour” notes let’s call them, it can be time consuming to adjust or even check each note manually one at a time.
It’s much easier to simply drop an autotune at the start of your vocal chain, tell it the key of the song and consequently the vocals, and let it do its thing.
Again, it’s just important to find that sweet spot where it’s correcting notes but maintaining the human element, accepting that part of the expression of the performance comes from the occasional (subtle) sharp or flatness on a note here or there.
Creating Interesting Aesthetic Effects on a Vocal
When some people think of autotune, they’ll undoubtedly automatically (no pun intended) go straight to the aforementioned robotic effect used occasionally in pop music.
For some producers, autotune is a tool like any other for adding a little ear candy to a mix, whether it’s used for a one-off line here or there or to completely soak an entire section.
The latter is certainly the case in arguably the most famous example of autotune in pop music, Cher’s “Believe” as is shown in this timestamped example:
While the effect is on her vocal on the titular chorus in a more constructive and natural capacity, it’s the timestamped instance in the verse where the effect is on full display.
There’s no nuance in the movement between the notes there, instead each note instantly snaps to the next in a millisecond, creating a very cool futuristic (certainly for the time) effect.
T-Pain is another artist who had a mutually beneficial relationship with autotune on tracks like “Buy U A Drank”:
Ironically in more recent years he has made it a point to show off his great voice on his own in stripped down settings without the effect yet people assumed he was a bad singer because of his extensive use of autotune.
Just like Cher, the effect isn’t used to cover up a poor vocalist but to add an interesting element and flavor to the vocal.
Check out my complete overview on how to use autotune in your next mix for a detailed overview on how to use it in your next mix whether you want to touch up a vocal, absolutely save a pitchy vocal, or just create some interesting effects or make a vocal more fun.
And note that while I talked about Antares’ Auto-Tune exclusively in talking about what is autotune here, as I covered in my overview on the best free vocal VST plugins, you can grab a decent option for free in Graillon. The interface isn’t quite as user friendly, but it will still get the job done.
