

It was widely imitated and became known as the "Cher effect". In an attempt to protect their method, they initially claimed the effect was achieved using a vocoder. While Auto-Tune was designed to be used subtly to correct vocal performances, the "Believe" producers used extreme settings to create unnaturally rapid corrections in Cher's vocals, thereby removing portamento, the natural slide between pitches in singing. Use in music The American singer Cher (pictured in 1998) popularized Auto-Tune with her 1998 single " Believe".Īuto-Tune was popularized by Cher's 1998 song " Believe". 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. Īccording to the Auto-Tune patent, the referred 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. Music engineers had previously considered autocorrelation impractical because of the massive computational effort required, but Hildebrand found a "mathematical trick" to overcome this, "a simplification changed a million multiply adds into just four". Hildebrand's method for detecting pitch involved the use of autocorrelation and proved superior to earlier attempts based on feature extraction that had problems processing certain aspects of the human voice such as diphthongs, leading to sound artifacts. Over several months in early 1996, he implemented the algorithm on a custom Macintosh computer and presented the result at the NAMM Show later that year, where "it was instantly a massive hit". Hildebrand conceived the vocal pitch correction technology on the suggestion of a colleague's wife, who had joked that she could benefit from a device to help her sing in tune. research engineer who specialized in stochastic estimation theory and digital signal processing.

Development Antares Vocal Processor AVP-1 (middle)Īuto-Tune was developed by Andy Hildebrand, a Ph.D. Instruments such as the Peavey AT-200 guitar seamlessly use Auto-Tune technology for real-time pitch correction.
Auto tune for pro tools 8 professional#
Īuto-Tune has become standard equipment in professional recording studios. 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. The processor slightly shifts pitches to the nearest true, correct semitone (to the exact pitch of the nearest note in traditional equal temperament). Function Screenshot of Audacity showing spectrograms of an audio clip with portamento (upper panel) and the same clip after applying pitch correction showing frequencies clamped to discrete values (lower panel)Īuto-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. In its role distorting vocals, Auto-Tune operates on different principles from the vocoder or talk box and produces different results.

Its use is now more entrenched than ever." In 2018, the music critic Simon Reynolds observed that Auto-Tune had "revolutionized popular music", calling its use for effects "the fad that just wouldn't fade. The 1998 Cher song " Believe" popularized the technique of using Auto-Tune to distort vocals.

Īuto-Tune was originally intended to disguise or correct off-key inaccuracies, allowing vocal tracks to be perfectly tuned. It uses a proprietary device to measure and alter pitch in vocal and instrumental music recording and performances. Auto-Tune (or autotune) is an audio processor introduced in 1997 by the American company Antares Audio Technologies.
