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Auto-Tune
Auto-Tune is audio processor software released on September 19, 1997, by the American company Antares Audio Technologies. It uses a proprietary device to measure and correct pitch in music. It operates on different principles from the vocoder or talk box and produces different results. Auto-Tune can be used in both post-production music mixing and in real-time live performances.
Auto-Tune was initially intended to disguise or correct off-key inaccuracies, allowing vocal tracks to be perfectly tuned. Cher's 1998 song "Believe" popularized the use of Auto-Tune to deliberately distort vocals, a technique that became known as the "Cher effect". It has since been used by many artists in different genres, including Daft Punk, Radiohead, T-Pain and Kanye West. In 2018, the music critic Simon Reynolds felt that Auto-Tune had "revolutionized popular music", calling its use for effects "the fad that just wouldn't fade. Its use is now more entrenched than ever."
Auto-Tune is available as a plug-in for digital audio workstations used in a studio setting and as a stand-alone, rack-mounted unit for live performance processing. The processor slightly shifts pitches to the nearest true, correct semitone (to the exact pitch of the nearest note in traditional equal temperament). Auto-Tune can also be used as an effect to distort the human voice when pitch is raised or lowered significantly, such that the voice is heard to leap from note to note stepwise, like a synthesizer.
Auto-Tune has become standard equipment in professional recording studios. Instruments such as the Peavey AT-200 guitar seamlessly use Auto-Tune technology for real-time pitch correction.
Auto-Tune was developed by Andy Hildebrand, a Ph.D. research engineer who specialized in stochastic estimation theory and digital signal processing. He conceived the vocal pitch correction technology on the suggestion of a colleague's wife, who had joked that she would benefit from a device to help her sing in tune.
Over several months in early 1996, Hildebrand implemented the algorithm on a custom Macintosh computer. Later that year, he presented the result at the NAMM Show, where it became instantly popular. Hildebrand's method for detecting pitch involved autocorrelation and proved superior to attempts based on feature extraction that had problems processing elements such as diphthongs, leading to sound artifacts. Music engineers had previously considered autocorrelation impractical because of the massive computational effort required. Hildebrand found a mathematical method to overcome this, "a simplification [that] changed a million multiply adds into just four".
According to the Auto-Tune patent, the preferred implementation detail consists, when processing new samples, of reusing the former autocorrelation bin, and adding the product of the new sample with the older sample corresponding to a lag value, while subtracting the autocorrelation product of the sample that correspondingly got out of window.
Originally, Auto-Tune was designed to discreetly correct imprecise intonations to make music more expressive, with the original patent asserting: "When voices or instruments are out of tune, the emotional qualities of the performance are lost." Auto-Tune was launched in September 1997.
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Auto-Tune
Auto-Tune is audio processor software released on September 19, 1997, by the American company Antares Audio Technologies. It uses a proprietary device to measure and correct pitch in music. It operates on different principles from the vocoder or talk box and produces different results. Auto-Tune can be used in both post-production music mixing and in real-time live performances.
Auto-Tune was initially intended to disguise or correct off-key inaccuracies, allowing vocal tracks to be perfectly tuned. Cher's 1998 song "Believe" popularized the use of Auto-Tune to deliberately distort vocals, a technique that became known as the "Cher effect". It has since been used by many artists in different genres, including Daft Punk, Radiohead, T-Pain and Kanye West. In 2018, the music critic Simon Reynolds felt that Auto-Tune had "revolutionized popular music", calling its use for effects "the fad that just wouldn't fade. Its use is now more entrenched than ever."
Auto-Tune is available as a plug-in for digital audio workstations used in a studio setting and as a stand-alone, rack-mounted unit for live performance processing. The processor slightly shifts pitches to the nearest true, correct semitone (to the exact pitch of the nearest note in traditional equal temperament). Auto-Tune can also be used as an effect to distort the human voice when pitch is raised or lowered significantly, such that the voice is heard to leap from note to note stepwise, like a synthesizer.
Auto-Tune has become standard equipment in professional recording studios. Instruments such as the Peavey AT-200 guitar seamlessly use Auto-Tune technology for real-time pitch correction.
Auto-Tune was developed by Andy Hildebrand, a Ph.D. research engineer who specialized in stochastic estimation theory and digital signal processing. He conceived the vocal pitch correction technology on the suggestion of a colleague's wife, who had joked that she would benefit from a device to help her sing in tune.
Over several months in early 1996, Hildebrand implemented the algorithm on a custom Macintosh computer. Later that year, he presented the result at the NAMM Show, where it became instantly popular. Hildebrand's method for detecting pitch involved autocorrelation and proved superior to attempts based on feature extraction that had problems processing elements such as diphthongs, leading to sound artifacts. Music engineers had previously considered autocorrelation impractical because of the massive computational effort required. Hildebrand found a mathematical method to overcome this, "a simplification [that] changed a million multiply adds into just four".
According to the Auto-Tune patent, the preferred implementation detail consists, when processing new samples, of reusing the former autocorrelation bin, and adding the product of the new sample with the older sample corresponding to a lag value, while subtracting the autocorrelation product of the sample that correspondingly got out of window.
Originally, Auto-Tune was designed to discreetly correct imprecise intonations to make music more expressive, with the original patent asserting: "When voices or instruments are out of tune, the emotional qualities of the performance are lost." Auto-Tune was launched in September 1997.