I use Auto-Tune but it's not to mask anything. If you come to see me live, I can sing on the spot. Auto-tune is just for the recording. It keeps everything really precise.
Evil or not, the recording industry kept Auto-Tune on the down-low. Cher's producer forced Auto-Tune to jump suddenly from one pitch to the next.
I think some people are born to Entertain. They just have those personalities and they are great at it. Their forte isn't singing so they use auto tune, etc... But they have a lot of talent in entertaining.
What is auto-tune? I don't even know what auto-tune is.
I have never used Auto-Tune in a live television performance, and I have never used Auto-Tune in any of my concerts. That is a promise.
The music on the radio is fine, it's just not my type of music. You don't play an instrument, and you don't need to be able to sing. You just need to be able to make a beat and use auto-tune. It's crazy!
The best way to use the auto-tune is not to! And that's what I do: I do not use auto-tune!
No disrespect to people that don't use music theory or don't know it. It does help to be able to figure out what key a song is in, even though with your scales you can figure it out so you can set your Auto-Tune right. So many songs with Auto-Tune are off or have the wrong note playing on the 808. And they pass it off as being hood.
The talent, including the talent for history - and I do think there are people who just have a talent for it, the way you have a talent for public speaking or music or whatever - it shouldn't be allowed to lie dormant. It should be brought alive.
Even with so many artists using auto-tune, there's still a growing group of artists rising up and going in the opposite direction, making music that's real and fresh. And those cats are getting back to the basics without auto-tune. And a lot of those cats are packing out venues without getting played on the radio!
The greatest records in the world were made without going to Auto-tune or Pro Tools, or having some click track. If they could do it, why can't we? Something's been lost in music. It's all been over-produced, squashed down, totally compressed.
I love 808s - not only the Auto-Tune but just ,in general, the embrace of a kind of digital style of working.
People got a little too self-conscious about the techniques that go into recording because sometimes, if you sing too well in tune, people accuse you of auto-tuning. It's like you have to use auto-detuning or something.
Swag defines an artist, period. Lil Wayne has his super-tattooed pierces and dreads swag. Jay-Z has his New York, grown man, Beyonce and 40/40 Club swag.
It was more just about serving the song, which is sort of the way that we work in general. We wanna do the best that we can with it and make it the most interesting to our ears. And putting auto-tune on 'California English', was just one reflection of that.
You need to get female talent which is good enough to compete at the right level because no team is going to compromise on on-track performance just to tick a gender box.