Modern Music's Death By Auto-Tune

Its like plastic surgery. Always striving for what we think is perfect, not realizing that the imperfections are what makes us/music/basically anything interesting and unique and real.

Auto-tune is the high-fructose corn syrup of music.

Auto-tune is one of the products of a fast-paced society. Everything is rushed. Music is passion. Creating music requires patience.

How did I manage to stumble upon this genius? Rick, how do you even sleep at night with all of that knowledge in your brain? The names, the words, the vocabulary, the theory, the notes, the chords, the genres. Amazing.

"The only people who got record deals were people who could perform live" - that's a statement that goes so far beyond just singing.

I'm not against autotune, I'm against people getting famous because autotune will compensate for their lack or absense of talent.

My favorite use of Autotune is as a sort of vocal assistant. I recorded a vocalist who had trouble with pitches. I took the first take, and autotuned the heck out of it. Then recorded a vocal take using the tuned track as sort of a guide for the vocalist. Afterwards, muted the tuned track, and the second track without autotune is perfectly acceptable. I find that even I can sing better with my own voice as a pitch reference.

This isn't only informative, it's also entertaining. Great storyteller, and teacher. Keep it up, Rick! Cheers

"The better the singer's voice, the harder it is to believe what they are saying. So I use my faults to an advantage" -David Byrne

When Believe came out, it was considered a cool effect that gave the song a dance music vibe. Everyone knew Cher could sing. Now while some use auto-tune for effect, others use it as a crutch for poor vocal skills.

I was amazed recently to discover that many young people can't hear it. I was complaining that everyone sounded like robots and they have no idea what I meant.

Freddie Mercury was capable of double tracking his vocals so perfectly that it started to fase/chorus. Brian talks about that during an interview.

Everything we call ‘character’ is the deviation from perfection. So perfection to me is characterlessness. - Brian Eno

"...when I do my video on Bohemian Rhapsody." That's a WMTSG I've been waiting on for a long time.

I was the lead vocalist of a band back in the 80's and all I had at my disposal was simple reverb. If you sucked as a singer, reverb was not going to save you. You either had the ability or you didn't. I miss those days.

Rick, honestly, it is a blessing having such a channel on YouTube! You speak out what we - true music lovers - always thought))

Rick: "you want it to be out of tune a bit". Me: "my time has come"

I miss harmonies in music. People like The Beach Boys, CSN or the Beatles. Beautiful stuff when people work together to make a sound.

Omg... the first thing that happened when I clicked play was a horrid commercial came blasting out volume 11 straight away a perfect example of the auto tune that has, indeed, killed the soul out of modern music. Great episode Rick, as a session vocalist I have never needed auto-tune and am not interested to use it in my own productions.

Rick, so happy I came across this video to hear about this topic from a true professional. I absolutely hate auto-tune and I think there are way too many no talent singers out there making millions when I've seen better vocalists in bars pulling in a couple of hundred dollars a night. A couple of years ago I tuned into one of the award shows where one of the opening acts came out, sat down on a step and started to sing. It was auto-tuned to death. And I believe he was up for an award. It was embarrassing and I changed the channel. Years ago Leonard Cohen won a Juno award (sort of a Canadian Grammy) and he joked that only in Canada could a guy with his voice win an award for singing. He knew he wasn't perfect but that's what made him so interesting. Love your channel.