AutoTune
audio processor that alters pitch
AutoTune is an audio processor software application 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. AutoTune can be used in both post-production music mixing and in real-time live performances.
AutoTune 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 AutoTune 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 wrote that AutoTune had "revolutionized popular music", calling its use for effects "the fad that just wouldn't fade. Its use is now more entrenched than ever."
Function
AutoTune 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).
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This entry incorporates text from “AutoTune” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.