Yet Another Rant on Why Auto-Tune Is Evil

Posted by Craig Sanders Jul 19, 2009

I know that I am a bit late for jumping onto the whole “anti-Auto-Tune” bandwagon, but Auto-Tune has really been bothering me lately. So much that I am using my first blog post as Feature Writer to rant about it.

I don’t mean the whole “using it as a special effect” thing-- I kinda like that. I don’t like it when it is used on every song (this means you, Kanye), but every now and then, it is pretty cool. When Cher first used it on “Believe” I thought, “hey this is a sweet Yoko Ono effect” (just kidding, Yoko, I still love you).

What bothers me is that so many singers these days use Auto-Tune to touch up their vocals on albums. Stop it. You’re lying to your public. The voice is a musical instrument, and it should be treated as such. You would never see a guitarist or trumpet player using Auto-Tune to fix a wrong note (at least I hope not). Instead, they work on perfecting their instrument. If you can’t play your instrument, you shouldn’t be recording.

I bring this up because so many singer-songwriters and folk musicians have less than “perfect” voices. Bob Dylan comes to mind right away, but also Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, and Ian Felice-- from one of my new favorite bands, The Felice Brothers. Woody Guthrie wasn’t particularly known for his singing, and the entire genre of Bluegrass has that characteristic “high, lonesome sound” that turns many an ear.

It is the uniqueness --the gravel and the whisky and the whine-- that gives so much music its soul. Using Auto-Tune to bleach the sound takes the heart out of the song.

Look, I understand that not everyone can have a voice like Joni Mitchell or Tim Buckley, but it is flat out lying to pretend that you have what you don’t. If you can’t sing it, don’t sing it. Go back home and learn to sing instead or embrace the voice you have, in all of its awful, pitchy glory.