It is a bonafide position to respect an artist more for having personally produced every sound in a song, but this is a matter of opinion. Personally, I don’t believe that using the Auto-Tune automatically precludes a particular song or an artist’s oeuvre from being “legitimate.” Rather, it can expose bad musicians.

With Lil’ Wayne, if any part of a piece of music is left to his discretion or execution, he will inevitably make it worse (see “I Feel Like Dying” – great idea, good beat, but his mistaken belief that anything he does is clever and golden makes it terrible). In the case of T-Pain, it doesn’t seem there is much talent there to begin with. His success likely has as much to do with the paucity of good “hook” men today as his aptitude for the job.

But put the technology in the hands of someone like Kanye West, who has all the taste, talent, knowledge, and cleverness in the world, as well as an overpowering will to make a piece of music as good as it can be, then the Auto-Tune has the potential to be a good thing. Just because his toolbox-o-talents didn’t come with a voice doesn’t mean he should have to leave it to someone else to sing the lyrics he came up with. I don’t know what you’re basing your argument that Antares came up with it to “build on something that was already there,” but even if this is true, I think it can serve just as valid a purpose as an enabling device as it can a perfecting device.

Discuss.

Thanks man, for starting this conversation, I think with the technology seeing a rebirth, it’s a topic that should be discussed. Good stuff.

I’m not too fussed about a-t being used on the whole, but it depends on the context.

More the point I was trying to make was that a song shouldn’t stop being ‘wicked’ or be a ‘problem’ because a computer gets involved.

For me this recent bout of a-t seems to be used more as a production technique rather than a correctional tool. Producers are creating that ‘robot’ sound along with more electronic beats to fabricate a trademark sound… rather than becoming great vocalists. Illustrated in the first sentence of T-Pain’s Wikipedia page…

Musicians make an absolute killing through their ‘live’ tours, when very few actually perform without playback. I have a lot of respect for the bands/musicians who never use playback, but most of the people mentioned above are not in this group.

It is, however, a case of opinion. Each person has a different view on Auto-Tune… all I know is that it would anger me if I paid money for a live performance, and we didn’t get one. What do you think?

You know the drums on every single one of their tracks… they’re not really the sound of the drums, they’re some computer generated voodoo that has no resemblance to how they truely sound!

Anyway bro, the blog looks good, but Facebook me on how things are going. I haven’t heard from you in too long.

You make a good point- I found Auto-Tune really intriguing when I first heard it on a record, but its been over-used and is getting old really quickly.

I saw Stevie Wonder using a vocoder at the Grammys last week and it was incredible. The thing is, he used it as an instrument rather than as a way of compensating for no vocal skills.

I saw the Ting Tings last year and it was okay I suppose. Nothing too incredible, but yes, their loops are rather annoying. I think its passable though as their drummer cues them all with his feet!

Really well written. I basically agree with everything you say, except I don’t like lil’ wayne or Kanye.

When I attend a band performance, I will check to see what they are like on youtube. For example, I wouldn’t go to see the Ting Tings or any other band which uses too many loops or just aren’t good performers.

People like the Ting Tings, Kanye won’t be remembered forever, they will just be seen as popstars. It’s good performers who live on like Nirvana and The Strokes.