• Modern Musicians Who Don't Use Autotune Free
• First Use Of Autotune
• Modern Musicians Who Don't Use Autotune Video

Oct 04, 2009 I read an interview (natch, don't remember who was being interviewed) wherein the person stated that just about the only singer he/she knows that doesn't use Autotune is Nelly Furtado. It has reached the point where almost everyone uses it not because the singer.needs. to be corrected, but because it is the.sound. that is currently en vogue. Sep 16, 2016 Has it lowered the expectations for how talented modern day artists need to be? This is the main question that arises when people contemplate autotune’s impact on the music industry. In most cases, I don’t think autotune is actually able to override the important of actual artistic talent. Successful modern artists who do NOT use pitch correction / autotune for vocals? I've been trying to think of artists who do not typically use pitch correction in their studio / live performances. Most of those who come to mind are punk / metal guys. Apr 18, 2018  OK then-What major artists/bands today DON'T use vocal pitch correction!? Gearslutz is part-supported by our visitors. When you buy products through links across our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Modern pop singers lack humanity, says Elton: Musician attacks today's artists as 'processed performers' Elton said autotune had lead to a lack of humanity in songs. Nov 06, 2018  For many of you, this is going to be a great article about the creative and practical uses of Auto-Tune in modern music. For another significant portion of you, this will be a great opportunity to make not-so-clever jokes like “the best technique with Auto-Tune is hiring a better singer!” Love it or hate it, Auto-Tune is a thing.

Oct 25, 2012  How come punk, rock and metal bands don't use AutoTune? You'd think that maybe half would, but I actually can't think of one band of those genres that use AutoTune. When I say AutoTune, I mean using it to perfect the voice, pitch and tone because their voices sound kind of bad.

Auto-Tune — one of modern history’s most reviled inventions — was an act of mathematical genius.

The pitch correction software, which automatically calibrates out-of-tune singing to perfection, has been used on nearly every chart-topping album for the past 20 years. Along the way, it has been pilloried as the poster child of modern music’s mechanization. When Time Magazine declared it “one of the 50 worst inventions of the 20th century”, few came to its defense.

But often lost in this narrative is the story of the invention itself, and the soft-spoken savant who pioneered it. For inventor Andy Hildebrand, Auto-Tune was an incredibly complex product — the result of years of rigorous study, statistical computation, and the creation of algorithms previously deemed to be impossible.

Hildebrand’s invention has taken him on a crazy journey: He’s given up a lucrative career in oil. He’s changed the economics of the recording industry. He’s been sued by hip-hop artist T-Pain. And in the course of it all, he’s raised pertinent questions about what constitutes “real” music.

The Oil Engineer

Andy Hildebrand was, in his own words, “not a normal kid.”

A self-proclaimed bookworm, he was constantly derailed by life’s grand mysteries, and had trouble sitting still for prolonged periods of time. School was never an interest: when teachers grew weary of slapping him on the wrist with a ruler, they’d stick him in the back of the class, where he wouldn’t bother anybody. “That way,” he says, “I could just stare out of the window.”

After failing the first grade, Hilbrebrand’s academic performance slowly began to improve. Toward the end of grade school, the young delinquent started pulling C’s; in junior high, he made his first B; as a high school senior, he was scraping together occasional A’s. Driven by a newfound passion for science, Hildebrand “decided to start working [his] ass off” -- an endeavor that culminated with an electrical engineering PhD from the University of Illinois in 1976.

In the course of his graduate studies, Hildebrand excelled in his applications of linear estimation theory and signal processing. Upon graduating, he was plucked up by oil conglomerate Exxon, and tasked with using seismic data to pinpoint drill locations. He clarifies what this entailed:

“I was working in an area of geophysics where you emit sounds on the surface of the Earth (or in the ocean), listen to reverberations that come up, and, from that information, try to figure out what the shape of the subsurface is. It’s kind of like listening to a lightning bolt and trying to figure out what the shape of the clouds are. It’s a complex problem.”

Three years into Hildebrand’s work, Exxon ran into a major dilemma: the company was nearing the end of its seven-year construction timeline on an Alaskan pipeline; if they failed to get oil into the line in time, they’d lose their half-billion dollar tax write-off. Hildebrand was enlisted to fix the holdup — faulty seismic monitoring instrumentation — a task that required “a lot of high-end mathematics.” He succeeded.

“I realized that if I could save Exxon $500 million,” he recalls, “I could probably do something for myself and do pretty well.”

A subsurface map of one geologic strata, color coded by elevation, created on the Landmark Graphics workstation (the white lines represent oil fields); courtesy of Andy Hildebrand

So, in 1979, Hildebrand left Exxon, secured financing from a few prominent venture capitalists (DLJ Financial; Sevin Rosen), and, with a small team of partners, founded Landmark Graphics.

At the time, the geophysical industry had limited data to work off of. The techniques engineers used to map the Earth’s subsurface resulted in two-dimensional maps that typically provided only one seismic line. With Hildebrand as its CTO, Landmark pioneered a workstation — an integrated software/hardware system — that could process and interpret thousands of lines of data, and create 3D seismic maps.

Landmark was a huge success. Before retiring in 1989, Hildebrand took the company through an IPO and a listing on NASDAQ; six years later, it was bought out by Halliburton for a reported $525 million.

“I retired wealthy forever (not really, my ex-wife later took care of that),” jokes Hildebrand. “And I decided to get back into music.”

From Oil to Music Software

An engineer by trade, Hildebrand had always been a musician at heart.

As a child, he was something of a classical flute virtuoso and, by 16, he was a “card-carrying studio musician” who played professionally. His undergraduate engineering degree had been funded by music scholarships and teaching flute lessons. Naturally, after leaving Landmark and the oil industry, Hildebrand decided to return to school to study composition more intensively.

While pursuing his studies at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Hildebrand began composing with sampling synthesizers (machines that allow a musician to record notes from an instrument, then make them into digital samples that could be transposed on a keyboard). But he encountered a problem: when he attempted to make his own flute samples, he found the quality of the sounds to be ugly and unnatural.

“The sampling synthesizers sounded like shit: if you sustained a note, it would just repeat forever,” he harps. “And the problem was that the machines didn’t hold much data.”

Hildebrand, who’d “retired” just a few months earlier, decided to take matters into his own hands. First, he created a processing algorithm that greatly condensed the audio data, allowing for a smoother, more natural-sounding sustain and timbre. Then, he packaged this algorithm into a piece of software (called Infinity), and handed it out to composers.

A glimpse at Infinity's interface from an old handbook; courtesy of Andy Hildebrand

Infinity improved digitized orchestral sounds so dramatically that it uprooted Hollywood’s music production landscape: using the software, lone composers were able to accurately recreate film scores, and directors no longer had a need to hire entire orchestras.

“I bankrupted the Los Angeles Philharmonic,” Hildebrand chuckles. “They were out of the [sample recording] business for eight years.” (We were unable to verify this, but The Los Angeles Times does cite that the Philharmonic entered a 'financially bleak' period in the early 1990s).

Unfortunately, Hildebrand’s software was inherently self-defeating: companies sprouted up that processed sounds through Infinity, then sold them as pre-packaged soundbanks. “I sold 5 more copies, and that was it,” he says. “The market totally collapsed.”

But the inventor’s bug had taken hold of Hildebrand once more. In 1990, he formed his final company, Antares Audio Technology, with the goal of innovating the music industry’s next big piece of software. And that’s exactly what happened.

The Birth of Auto-Tune

A rendering of the Auto-Tune interface; via WikiHow

At a National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) conference in 1995, Hildebrand sat down for lunch with a few friends and their wives. Randomly, he posed a rhetorical question — “What needs to be invented?” — and one of the women half-jokingly offered a response:

“Why don’t you make a box that will let me sing in tune?”

“I looked around the table and everyone was just kind of looking down at their lunch plates,” recalls Hildebrand, “so I thought, ‘Geez, that must be a lousy idea’, and we changed the topic.”

Hildebrand completely forgot he’d even had this conversation, and for the next six months, he worked on various other projects, none of which really took off. Then, one day, while mulling over ideas, the woman’s suggestion came back to him. “It just kind of clicked in my head,” he says, “and I realized her idea might not be too bad.”

What “clicked” for Hildebrand was that he could utilize some of the very same processing methods he’d used in the oil industry to build a pitch correction tool. Years later, he’d attempt to explain this on PBS’s NOVA network:

'Seismic data processing involves the manipulation of acoustic data in relation to a linear time varying, unknown system (the Earth model) for the purpose of determining and clarifying the influences involved to enhance geologic interpretation. Coincident (similar) technologies include correlation (statics determination), linear predictive coding (deconvolution), synthesis (forward modeling), formant analysis (spectral enhancement), and processing integrity to minimize artifacts. All of these technologies are shared amongst music and geophysical applications.'

At the time, no other pitch correction software existed. To inventors, it was a considered the “holy grail”: many had tried, and none had succeeded.

The major roadblock was that analyzing and correcting pitch in real-time required processing a very large amount of sound wave data. Others who’d made an attempt at creating software had used a technique called feature extraction, where they’d identify a few key “variables” in the sound waves, then correlate them with the pitch. But this method was overly-simplistic, and didn’t consider the finer minutia of the human voice. For instance, it didn’t recognize dipthongs (when the human voice transitions from one vowel to another in a continuous glide), and, as a result, created false artifacts in the sound.

Hildebrand had a different idea.

As an oil engineer, when dealing with massive datasets, he’d employed autocorrelation (an attribute of signal processing) to examine not just key variables, but all of the data, to get much more reliable estimates. He realized that it could also be applied to music:

“When you’re processing pitch, you add wave cycles to go sharp, and subtract them when you go flat. With autocorrelation, you have a clearly identifiable event that tells you what the period of repetition for repeated peak values is. It’s never fooled by the changing waveform. It’s very elegant.”

While elegant, Hildebrand’s solution required an incredibly complex, almost savant application of signal processing and statistics. When we asked him to provide a simple explanation of what happens, computationally, when a voice signal enters his software, he opened his desk and pulled out thick stacks of folders, each stuffed with hundreds of pages of mathematical equations.

“In my mind it’s not very complex,” he says, sheepishly, “but I haven’t yet found anyone I can explain it to who understands it. I usually just say, ‘It’s magic.’”

The equations that do autocorrelation are computationally exhaustive: for every one point of autocorrelation (each line on the chart above, right), it might’ve been necessary for Hildebrand to do something like 500 summations of multiply-adds. Previously, other engineers in the music industry had thought it was impossible to use this method for pitch correction: “You needed as many points in autocorrelation as the range in pitch you were processing,” one early-1990s programmer told us. “If you wanted to go from a low E (70 hertz) all the way up to a soprano’s high C (1,000 hertz), you would’ve needed a supercomputer to do that.”

A supercomputer, or, as it turns out, Andy Hildebrand’s math skills.

Hildebrand realized he was limited by the technology, and instead of giving up, he found a way to work within it using math. “I realized that most of the arithmetic was redundant, and could be simplified,” he says. “My simplification changed a million multiply adds into just four. It was a trick — a mathematical trick.”

With that, Auto-Tune was born.

Auto-Tune’s Underground Beginnings

Hildebrand built the Auto-Tune program over the course of a few months in early 1996, on a specially-equipped Macintosh computer. He took the software to the National Association of Music Merchants conference, the same place where his friend’s wife had suggested the idea a year earlier. This time, it was received a bit differently.

“People were literally grabbing it out of my hands,” recalls Hildebrand. “It was instantly a massive hit.”

At the time, recording pitch-perfect vocal tracks was incredibly time-consuming for both music producers and artists. The standard practice was to do dozens, if not hundreds, of takes in a studio, then spend a few days splicing together the best bits from each take to a create a uniformly in-tune track. When Auto-Tune was released, says Hildebrand, the product practically sold itself.

With the help of a small sales team, Hildebrand sold Auto-Tune (which also came in hardware form, as a rack effect) to every major studio in Los Angeles. The studios that adopted Auto-Tune thrived: they were able to get work done more quickly (doing just one vocal take, through the program, as opposed to dozens) — and as a result, took in more clients and lowered costs. Soon, studios had to integrate Auto-Tune just to compete and survive.

Images from Auto-Tune's patent

Once again, Hildebrand dethroned the traditional industry.

“One of my producer friends had been paid $60,000 to manually pitch-correct Cher’s songs,” he says. “He took her vocals, one phrase at a time, transferred them onto a synth as samples, then played it back to get her pitch right. I put him out of business overnight.”

For the first three years of its existence, Auto-Tune remained an “underground secret” of the recording industry. It was used subtly and unobtrusively to correct notes that were just slightly off-key, and producers were wary to reveal its use to the public. Hildebrand explains why:

“Studios weren’t going out and advertising, ‘Hey we got Auto-Tune!’ Back then, the public was weary of the idea of ‘fake’ or ‘affected’ music. They were critical of artists like Milli Vanilli [a pop group whose 1990 Grammy Award was rescinded after it was found out they’d lip-synced over someone else’s songs]. What they don’t understand is that the method used before — doing hundreds of takes and splicing them together — was its own form of artificial pitch correction.”

This secrecy, however, was short-lived: Auto-Tune was about to have its coming out party.

The “Coming Out” of Auto-Tune

When Cher’s “Believe” hit shelves on October 22, 1998, music changed forever.

The album’s titular track -- a pulsating, Euro-disco ballad with a soaring chorus -- featured a curiously roboticized vocal line, where it seemed as if Cher’s voice were shifting pitch instantaneously. Critics and listeners weren’t sure exactly what they were hearing. Unbeknownst to them, this was the start of something much bigger: for the first time, Auto-Tune had crept from the shadows.

In the process of designing Auto-Tune, Hildebrand had included a “dial” that controlled the speed at which pitch corrected itself. He explains:

“When a song is slower, like a ballad, the notes are long, and the pitch needs to shift slowly. For faster songs, the notes are short, the pitch needs to be changed quickly. I built in a dial where you could adjust the speed from 1 (fastest) to 10 (slowest). Just for kicks, I put a “zero” setting, which changed the pitch the exact moment it received the signal. And what that created was the ‘Auto-Tune’ effect.”

Before Cher, artists had used Auto-Tune only supplementally, to make minor corrections; the natural qualities of their voice were retained. But on the song “Believe”, Cher’s producers, Mark Taylor and Brian Rawling, made a decision to use Auto-Tune on the “zero” setting, intentionally modifying the singer’s voice to sound robotic.

Cher’s single sold 11 million copies worldwide, earned her a Grammy Award, and topped the charts in 23 countries. In the wake of this success, Hildebrand and his company, Antares Audio Technologies, marketed Auto-Tune as the “Cher Effect”. Many people in the music industry attributed the artist’s success to her use of Auto-Tune; soon everyone wanted to replicate it.

“Other singers and producers started looking at it, and saying ‘Hmm, we can do something like that and make some money too!’” says Hildebrand. “People were using it in all genres: pop, country, western, reggae, Bollywood. It was even used in an Islamic call to prayer.”

The secret of Auto-Tune was out — and its saga had just begun.

The T-Pain Debacle

In 2004, an unknown rapper with dreads and a penchant for top hats arrived on the Florida hip-hop scene. His name was Faheem Rashad Najm; he preferred “T-Pain.”

After recording a few “hot flows,” T-Pain was picked out of relative obscurity and signed to Akon’s record label, Konvict Muzik. Once discovered, he decided he’d rather sing than rap. He had a great singing voice, but in order to stand out, he needed a gimmick -- and somewhat fortuitously, he found just that. In a 2014 interview, he explains:

“I used to watch TV a lot [and] there was always this commercial on the channel I would watch. It was one of those collaborative CDs, like a ‘Various Artists’ CD, and there was this Jennifer Lopez song, ‘If You Had My Love.’ That was the first time I heard Auto-Tune. Ever since I heard that song — and I kept hearing and kept hearing it — on this commercial, I was like, ‘Man, I gotta find this thing.’”

T-Pain — who is capable of singing very well naturally — decided to use Auto-Tune to differentiate himself from other artists. “If I was going to sing, I didn’t want to sound like everybody else,” he later toldThe Seattle Times. “I wanted something to make me different [and] Auto-Tune was the one.” He contacted some “hacker” friends, found a free copy of Auto-Tune floating around on the Internet, and downloaded it for free. Then, he says, “I just got right into it.”

An old Auto-Tune pamphlet; courtesy of Andy Hildebrand

Between 2005 and 2009, T-Pain became famous for his “signature” use of Auto-Tune, releasing three platinum records. He also earned a title as one of hip-hop’s most in-demand cameo artists. During that time, he appeared on some 50 chart-toppers, working with high-profile artists like Kanye West, Flo Rida, and Chris Brown. During one week in 2007, he was featured on four different Top 10 Billboard Hot 100 singles simultaneously. “Any time somebody wanted Auto-Tune, they called T-Pain,” T-Pain later told NPR.

His warbled, robotic application of Auto-Tune earned him a name. It also earned him a partnership with Hildebrand’s company, Antares Audio Technologies. For several years, the duo enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship. In one instance, Hildebrand licensed his technology to T-Pain to create a mobile app with app development start-up Smule. Priced at $3, the app, “I Am T-Pain”, was downloaded 2 million times, earning all parties involved a few million dollars.

In the face of this success, T-Pain began to feel he was being used as “an advertising tool.”

'Music isn't going to last forever,' he toldFast Company in 2011, 'so you start thinking of other things to do. You broaden everything out, and you make sure your brand can stay what it is without having to depend on music. It's making sure I have longevity.'

So, T-Pain did something unprecedented: He founded an LLC, then trademarked his own name. He split from Antares, joined with competing audio company iZotope, and created his own pitch correction brand, “The T-Pain Effect”. He released a slew of products bearing his name — everything from a “T-Pain Engine” (a software program that mimicked Auto-Tune) to a toy microphone that shouted, “Hey, this ya boy T-Pain!”

Then, he sued Auto-Tune.

T-Pain vs. Auto-Tune: click to read the full filed complaint

The lawsuit, filed on June 25, 2011, alleged that Antares (maker of Auto-Tune) had engaged in “unauthorized use of T-Pain’s name” on advertising material. Though the suit didn’t state an exact amount of damages sought, it does stipulate that the amount is “in excess of $1,000,000.”

Antares and Hildebrand instantly counter-sued. Eventually, the two parties settled the matter outside of the court, and signed a mutual non-disclosure agreement. 'If you can't buy candy from the candy store,' you have to learn to make candy,' T-Pain later told a reporter. “It’s an all-out war.”

Of course, T-Pain did not succeed in his grand plan to put Auto-Tune out of business.

“We studied our data to see if he really affected us or not,” Hildebrand tells us. “Our sales neither went up or down due to his involvement. He was remarkably ineffectual.”

For Auto-Tune, T-Pain was ultimately a non-factor. More pressing, says Hildebrand, was Apple, which aquired a competing product in the early 2000s:

“We forgot to protect our patent in Germany, and a German company, [Emagic], used our technology to create a similar program. Then Apple bought [Emagic], and integrated it into their Logic Pro software. We can’t sue them, it would put us out of business. They’re too big to sue.”

But according to Hildebrand, none of this matters much: Antares’ Auto-Tune still owns roughly 90% of the pitch correction market share, and everyone else is “down in the ditch”, fighting for the other 10%. Though Auto-Tune is a brand, it has entered the rarified strata of products — Photoshop, Kleenex, Google — that have become catch-all verbs. Its ubiquitous presence in headlines (for better or worse) has earned it a spot as one of Ad Age’s “hottest brands in America.”

Yet, as popular as Auto-Tune is with its user base, it seems to be universally detested by society, largely as a result of T-Pain and imitators over-saturating modern music with the effect.

Haters Gonna Hate

A few years ago, in a meeting, famed guitar-maker Paul Reed Smith turned toward Hildebrand and shook his head. “You know,” he said, disapprovingly, “you’ve completely destroyed Western music.”

He was not alone in this sentiment: as Auto-Tune became increasingly apparent in mainstream music, critics began to take a stand against it.

In 2009, alternative rock band Death Cab For Cutie launched an anti-Auto-Tune campaign. “We’re here to raise awareness about Auto-Tune abuse” frontman Ben Gibbard announced on MTV. “It’s a digital manipulation, and we feel enough is enough.” This was shortly followed by Jay-Z’s “Death of the Auto-Tune” — a Grammy-winning song that dissed the technology, and called for an industry-wide ban. Average music listeners are no less vocal: a comb of the comments section on any Auto-Tuned YouTube video reveals (in proper YouTube form) dozens of virulent, hateful opinions on the technology.

Hildebrand at his Scotts Valley, California office

In his defense, Hildebrand harkens back to the history of recorded sound. “If you’re going to complain about Auto-Tune, complain about speakers too,” he says. “And synthesizers. And recording studios. Recording the human voice, in any capacity, is unnatural.”

What he really means to say is that the backlash doesn’t bother him much. For his years of work on Auto-Tune, Hildebrand has earned himself enough to retire happy — and with his patent expiring in two years, that day may soon come.

Windows 10 auto tune network. “I’m certainly not broke,” he admits. “But in the oil industry, there are billions of dollars floating around; in the music industry, this is it.”

He gestures toward the contents of his office: a desk scattered with equations, a few awkwardly-placed awards, a small bookcase brimming with Auto-Tune pamphlets and signal processing textbooks. It’s a small, narrow space, lit by fluorescent ceiling bulbs and a pair of windows that overlook a parking lot. On a table sits a model ship, its sails perfectly calibrated.

“Sometimes, I’ll tell people, ‘I just built a car, I didn’t drive it down the wrong side of the freeway,'” he says, with a smile. “But haters will hate.”

Our next post profiles an entrepreneur who wants to disrupt the only industry Silicon Valley won't touch: sex. To get notified when we post it →join our email list. A version of this article previously appeared on December 14, 2015.

Announcement: The Priceonomics Content Marketing Conference is on November 1 in San Francisco. Get your early bird ticket now.

Yeesh!!! What is this huge obsession with Autotune nowadays? Even talented singers use it and destroy their voices!!!

The Top Ten Singers with Too Much Autotune

1Will.I.Amwill.i.am is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, and actor known for being the lead vocalist in The Black Eyed Peas. He was born in Los Angeles, California. He has released several solo albums such as 'Songs About Girls' and 'Will Power' .

Ugh, can't stand the Black Eyed Peas. He abuses te crap out of autotune and the latest music trend. - DCfnaf

How could you forget this guy? this guy uses loads of Autotune in a horrible way - christangrant

It's so noticeable! He just uses autotune too much! - TheFourthWorld

All the members of the Black Eyed Peas, actually. - Misfire

2Jacob SartoriusRolf Jacob Sartorius (known by his middle name), born October 2, 2002, is an American singer and internet personality, who rose to fame via social media from posting lip-syncing videos on musical.ly and his Vines (on Vine). In 2016, he released his debut single 'Sweatshirt', which reached the Hot 100 ..read more.

Someone please change that ugly image. Nevermind it changed back - ElSherlock

He should be in first place. Watch his music video for 'Sweatshirt' and then compare that to his real voice. The autotune is so bad that he sounds like a robot. He can't sing! - olliv

Autotune Sartorius is what he should be called. - CommunismNow

So cheesy and squeaky! Really ear-piercing.

3Future

Just listen his voice in Endgame of Tay Tay. Although I like it in the context of this song, it's pretty bad.

I'm mixed on autotune, the type of songs you have depends, trap (which is guiltily one of my favorite genres) suits autotune the most.
Fetty Wap is awesome and uses A LOT of autotune and can be really fun to listen to.
Future is from the exact same genre but he is pretty boring and lazy. So overall, it depends on the user. - AlphaQ

4Paris HiltonParis Whitney Hilton is an American businesswoman, socialite, television personality, model, actress, singer, DJ, and author.

She sounds like a whiny robot when she sings. Her singing is some of the worst I've ever heard. - DCfnaf

Duh, of course she is number one she sounds like a horny robot. - DaisyandRosalina

She's a fake Barbie doll in general, so the awful autotuned singing fits her. - Elric-san

DCfnaf, You Shouod Remix The Worst 2017 Movies List Just To Put Beauty And The Beast As A Dishonorable Mention Because Its Number 6 - VideoGamefan5

5Ke$haKesha Rose Sebert (formerly known as Ke$ha) was born on March 1st, 1987 in Los Angeles, United States. She is best known for her hits like Timber, Tik Tok, and We R Who We R. ..read more.

Lol I know her older songs were at least 20% autotune, but it seemed more of like a stylistic choice rather than a 'I am talentless so I use this much auto-tune'. While I definitely don't think she is the best natural singer ever, her new album Rainbow is nothing like her old stuff and she actually shows she has real raw talent. So yeah lol, be kind to my Kesha baby! - Twixx

I notice that Ke$ha is just one of those 'talk singers' who puts no effort into their music. She basically just speaks into the microphone and then chooses to let autotune take care of the rest. This is evident when she sings live and does a poor job. - DCfnaf

If you think she can't sing, listen to 'The Harold Song.' It is pretty good. But she does use way too much autotune in her popular stuff. - 445956

Basically she talks and autotune does the rest. - DaisyandRosalina

6Lil WayneDwayne Michael Carter, Jr. is an American rapper from New Orleans, Louisiana. He was discovered by Brian 'Baby' 'Birdman' Williams at a very young age, and was signed to Cash Money Records, where he would be one quarter of the rap group Hot Boys. In the years to follow, he would go on to find his own ..read more.

He uses way too much autotune. He is literally abusing it. His rapping and lyrics don’t make up for that either. - Userguy44

Lil' Wayne is using autotune in his rock-oriented album..but it doesn't work. We can tell that he has no talent whatsoever. - DCfnaf

Listen to How to Love. I apologize for the pain in advance. - cjWriter1997

He sounds weird with autotune - ElSherlock

7Submarine ManWater Handblast (born Ardy Robert Andrews) better known by his name Submarine Man, is an American rapper known for his songs that heavily feature lyrics about foot fetishes as well as heavily autotuned vocals.

He is so hard to understand that some of his songs are not available on any lyric websites.

He's not even a real music artist, he's supposed to be terrible. - DaWyteNight

Imagine taking this guy seriously

This guy is a joke artist - ElSherlock

8Travis ScottJacques Webster, better known by his stage name Travis Scott, is an American hip hop recording artist, record producer and musician from Houston, Texas.

Love him or hate him, he created one of the most iconic albums of the 2010s

He sometimes uses autotune - ElSherlock

Asstroworld sounds like it was made by a robot singing into a fan

Yeeeah! It's liit! Oh my God! Straight up! - DaWyteNight

9Britney SpearsBritney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American singer and actress who was born in McComb, Mississippi, and grew up in Kentwood, Louisiana. She performed acting roles in stage productions and television shows like 'The Mickey Mouse Club' as a child before signing with Jive Records in 1997 ..read more.

It's honestly not Britney's fault for her using autotune. When she was young, she used to have a 'baby voice', but she has became older and her vocals are getting deeper. That's why she isn't live all the time. #FreeBritney - Bizcut4life

Some Top 40 artists have catchy, maybe even iconic, songs. I cannot think of a single Britney song I like. - RubyParagon

She wasn't bad, but she completely wasted her natural vocals with her 'particular' tone and autotune. - DaisyandRosalina

When 'Womanizer' came on in the car, I was yelling at my mom to switch it, and for some stupid reason she told me it was good and stayed at the station. Thankfully we only listen to the claswic alternative station. - 445956

10Jason DeruloJason Joel Desrouleaux, better known by his stage name Jason Derulo (an alternate spelling of his surname), is an American singer, songwriter, and dancer. He is best known for his singles such as 'Whatcha Say', 'Ridin' Solo', 'In My Head', 'What If', 'Wiggle', 'Talk Dirty', 'Trumpets' and 'Want To Want ..read more.

Such a talentless man, I mean, I remember listening to 'It girl' in 2011 and that sounded good, but nowadays.. Damn, it is really really bad and each time worse. All that I can ask is how somebody like this has even been called to sing live at BBC's Live Lounge for exemple.

He can actually sing without it and sounds much better so it's a shame that he uses it so much. - DaWyteNight

The Contenders

11Eric BellingerEric Bellinger, Jr., born March 26, 1986, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer from Los Angeles, California.

All of his songs sound the same

This gon be your (least) favorite song! - DaWyteNight

12Selena GomezSelena Marie Gomez is an American actress and singer. She is best known for songs like 'Come & Get It', 'Good For You', 'Same Old Love', and 'It Ain't Me'. Selena Gomez's voice is mezzo-soprano but she usually sings in alto. She is best known for her role as Alex Russo in Wizards of Waverly Place.

She is one of the worst vocalists of our generation, she is just whispering. - DaisyandRosalina

'Without autotune, Selena Gomez sounds like she's trying to teach a goat how to talk'

She already sounds good with her real voice but for some reason she ruins it by using autotune lol

She can't sing without autotune - ElSherlock

13Lil MeerkatAmeeer Pipi, better known by his stage name Lil Meerkat is a Canadian rapper and singer-songwriter. He is known for his infamous remix of the popular Queen song 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. He released his debut studio album 'Weeaboo Paradise, Vol. 1' in November 2018.

Just listen to his Bohemian Rhapsody remix - ShrekTheGoat

Another joke artist - ElSherlock

14Miley CyrusMiley Ray Hemsworth (born Destiny Hope Cyrus), known as Miley Cyrus, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She was born on November 23, 1992, in Franklin, Tennessee, to Tish Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus. Her voice type is Mezzo-Soprano and has 4 octaves. She became a teen idol starring as the ..read more.

Why does Miley Cyrus use such terrible autotune in her songs? She actually has a very talented voice, yet she wastes it for a fabricated media image and an uncontrollable butt and tongue as well as some alien-like autotune. - DCfnaf

She used too much autotune. Please, do not waste your talent. - MChkflaguard_Yt

She stopped using it - ElSherlock

Autotuned? Yes. But with too much autotune? No, she still can sing live. - DaisyandRosalina

She can sing, the problem is she covers her singing voice with the tech and that makes her sound like an alien. - DCfnaf

15QuavoQuavious Keyate Marshall, known professionally as Quavo, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as a member of the rap trio Migos.

Is Quavo even a human?

To be honest he should be #1.

He’s a robot

16Nicki MinajOnika Tanya Maraj, known professionally as Nicki Minaj (born December 8, 1982) is a Trinidadian/American rapper / pop music artist. Minaj is most known for her songs such as 'Anaconda', 'Super Bass', 'Starships' and her feature on 'Bang Bang'. ..read more.

If her voice makes my ears bleed, then isn't that a sign that she is using autotune? During her live performances, she has very questionable control with her singing voice. - DCfnaf

She sometimes uses autotune - ElSherlock

17Flo RidaTramar Lacel Dillard, better known by his stage name Flo Rida is an American rapper and pop music artist from Carol City, Florida. He is known for songs such as 'Low', 'Right Round', 'Sugar', 'Club Can't Handel Me', 'Good Feeling', 'Whistle', 'Wild Ones', 'My House' and 'GDFR.'

He uses loads of autotune and that's one reason why pretty much all of his songs are awful his only descent song is Got Me Runnin Around but that's with Nickelback and their part in the song is the good part the Flo Rida part is awful and ruins the song - christangrant

18Chris BrownChristopher Maurice 'Chris' Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer and actor. Born in Tappahannock, Virginia, he was involved in his church choir and several local talent shows from a young age. He is most well known for his physical assault towards the singer Rihanna in ..read more.

How is Mr. Clown so low on this list? He should definitely be in top 10! - DaWyteNight

Who wouldn't know that this guy uses autotune? - ElSherlock

Dis *cencored*drowned in autotune

19T-PainFaheem Rashad Najm, better known by his stage name T-Pain, is an American recording artist and music producer from Tallahassee, Florida.

T-Pain is the king of autotune, and uses it so much in his songs that he sounds like a robot.

Believe it or not, T-Pain sounds amazing without Auto-Tune. I can assume he wasted his talent with Auto-Tune. - Mumbizz01

He sounds better without autotune - ElSherlock

He is the king of autotune. He is so autotuned that his voice sounds unrealistic. He can actually sing without autotune, I saw a performance of him without it and he sounds better.

20Katy PerryKatheryn Elizabeth Hudson, professionally known by her stage name Katy Perry, was born on October 25, 1984 in Santa Barbara, California. She is a singer, songwriter, actress and an ambassador on one of the most popular companies of now, UNICEF. ..read more.

She is so squeaky at live performances

Sounds horrible with and without auto-tune. - DaWyteNight

She sounds a bit good without autotune - ElSherlock

21Dahvie VanityDavid Jesus Torres, better known by his stage name Dahvie Vanity, is an American singer-songwriter and rapper born on September 5, 1984, who is best known as one half of Crunkcore duo Blood on the Dance Floor and as the face and creative mind behind Industrial project Sinners are Winners. He is also ..read more.

How is this autotune abuser not in the top 10? Makes Kesha sounding like a natural singer. - Userguy44

He sounds terrible with autotune and he is an already awful singer - ElSherlock

Of all singers, why wouldn't I think to add Dahvie Vanity? - DCfnaf

Sound like what happened if emos used autotune. - AlphaQ

22RihannaRobyn Rihanna Fenty is a Barbadian-American pop singer. Born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, she first entered the music industry by recording demo tapes under the direction of record producer Evan Rogers in 2003. She ultimately signed a recording contract with Def Jam Recordings after auditioning ..read more.

Rihanna's voice isn't great to begin with, but when she uses autotune it's even worse. Just listen to the chorus of Live Your Life by T.I. or Disturbia if you want to give your ears a punishment. - DaWyteNight

Listen to Disturbia - ElSherlock

She sounds horrible. the end

23Rebecca BlackRebecca Black is a YouTube personality and singer who's infamous for her single 'Friday,' which was once the most disliked video on YouTube. She has also released other songs, including 'My Moment' and 'Saturday'.

Only in Friday - ElSherlock

HOW IS SHE NOT NUMBER ONE - THICCBOI

24Dua LipaDua Lipa (born 22 August 1995) is an English singer and songwriter. Dua Lipa was born in Westminster, London, to Albanian parents.

Have you heard her voice? In all her songs, her voice has this flat robotness to it. You can hear the autotune in her voice.

She overuses it - ElSherlock

25HalseyAshley Nicolette Frangipane, known by her stage name Halsey, is an American singer and songwriter. She was born on September 29, 1994 in New Jersey. She started her career by releasing songs on SoundCloud, and now she is a well-known pop singer with hits like Bad at Love, and Now or Never. She had originated ..read more.

Listen to Without Me, autotune is fie but this girl is untalented. - AlphaQ

The way she sings isn't natural and too robotic.

Listen to Without Me. - Userguy44

Her voice sounds too robotic with autotune - ElSherlock

27Danielle Bregoli

100% Stupid Teenager which does not deserve to be famous!

Talentless singer - ElSherlock

28Lady GagaStefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. ..read more.

Similar to Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, who has a talented singing voice, chooses to use autotune and a fabricated media image to win people over. She's still got a great voice nonetheless. - DCfnaf

Her sounds good without autotune - ElSherlock

See Miley. - DaisyandRosalina

29Kanye WestKanye Omari West is an American rapper, songwriter, and fashion designer. He was born on June 8, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia. After West's parents divorced, him and his single mother moved to Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 10, West temporarily moved to Nanjing, China, because his mother was teaching ..read more.

Not sure if he uses autotune - ElSherlock

31Kim KardashianKimberly Noel 'Kim' Kardashian West is an American reality television personality, actress, socialite, businesswoman and model.

In 'Jam' she doesn't even sing like a human. - DCfnaf

She isn't a singer - ElSherlock

She's a singer? :(

32Amy LeeAmy Lynn Hartzler, known professionally as Amy Lee, is an American singer-songwriter, classically trained pianist and composer. She is also the lead singer to the Arkansas band Evanescence.

On Fallen and in some parts of the self-titled album she used Autotune, however in The Open Door the vocals were not Autotuned or pitch corrected at all, there was an interview with the producer where he confirmed that. On Synthesis some pitch correction was used but no actual Autotune was used.
The reason she sounds different live than on the albums is because she actually sings live- most singers lip sync to a backing track instead of actually singing live, but Amy's live performances are actually live hence why they sound different, and not as good as in the studio.

She used some pitches but her voice is generally natural in her songs. - AlphaQ

Auto-tune all over, plus a bunch of other electronic effects and enhancements. Her real voice is not that great.

She doesn't use autotune. - Userguy44

34China Anne McClainChina Anne McClain was born on August 25, 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia . She is of African-American descent . China Anne McClain is a singer for her band, McClain, which she is in along with her sisters, Lauryn and Sierra . China Anne McClain is known for her starring roles in Disney's Ant Farm, and Tyler ..read more.

Listen to Whats My Name, then you'll see she uses way too much auto tune.

You guys are insufferable. Autotune does not equate to having a terrible live-singing voice and sounding decent on the studio version. This is a huge misconception. Studio vocals are filtered whereas live vocals are not. So it's filtration that's the issue, not autotune. The only people on this list who identifiably use autotune are Kesha, Will.i.am, and T-Pain. In the case of Kesha it's often used for effect.

I have Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus on the list, they use autotune, and they can sing. - DCfnaf

35Sabrina CarpenterSabrina Ann Lynn Carpenter is an American singer, songwriter and actress. She stars as the young version of Chloe Goodwin in The Goodwin Games and as Maya Hart in the Disney Channel series Girl Meets World. She plays Jenny Parker in the Disney Channel Original Movie Adventures in Babysitting . (She) ..read more.

She doesn't use autotune - ElSherlock

She barely uses autotune

39Emma WatsonEmma Charlotte Duerre Watson is a British actress, model, and activist. Born in Paris and brought up in Oxfordshire, Watson attended the Dragon School as a child and trained as an actress at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts.

She doesn't look like a singer - ElSherlock

Beauty and the Beast haters?
Either way, does have autotune. - DCfnaf

BRUH HER MUSIC HELLA LITðŸ'¥ðŸ'¥ðŸ'¥ðŸ'¥
Lol I'm kidding but she was pitch corrected in B&TB(2017). Good remake movie though

40Tessa Brooks

If you listen to 'Powerful Emotions' you don't need to dig ANY deeper you can already hear how much auto tune was put in.

41Lil PumpGazzy Garcia (known professionally as Lil Pump, born August 17th, 2000) is an American rapper, producer and songwriter. Gazzy began his career in 2016 with a collaboration freestyle with Smokepurpp, which was eventually posted in Soundcloud to popular success. He broke out to mainstream the following ..read more.

'I Love It' lol more like I hate it - B1ueNew

Listen to his song 'I Love It' - ElSherlock

44Justin BieberJustin Drew Bieber (born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. He currently resides in Ontario, Canada and is Christian. He is the son of author Pattie Mallette. ..read more.

I don't even like him and baby sounds cheesy

He used autotune a few years ago - ElSherlock

DISGUSTING.

45Taylor SwiftTaylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter. ..read more.

Without editing of her voice she can't sing or sustain higher notes. She runs out of breath way too fast - THICCBOI

She sometimes doesn't use autotune - ElSherlock

46Ariana GrandeAriana Grande-Butera, known professionally as Ariana Grande, is an American singer and actress. She was born on June 26th 1993 in Boca Raton, Florida to Joan Grande and Edward Butera. She is best known for her role as Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious and its spin-off show Sam & Cat. ..read more.

She sounds so much better without autotune since her vocals sound really good - ElSherlock

YT has videos with the autotune removed from her songs, and there is a huge difference.

There are mic feeds and there are clearly no signs of editing. If she edits her voice its not more than the standard which is as low as possible - THICCBOI

In my opinion she doesn't use auto tune.

Modern Musicians Who Don't Use Autotune Free

48Sophia GraceSophia Grace Brownlee and her cousin Rosie McClelland, both from Essex, England, make up the duo Sophia Grace & Rosie.

Listen to 'Girls Just Gotta Have Fun' - ElSherlock

49

First Use Of Autotune

CherCher is an American singer and actress. Her song Believe was the first song to use autotune. Described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry, she is known for her distinctive contralto singing voice and for having worked in numerous areas of entertainment, as well as adopting a variety ..read more.

She made autotune - ElSherlock

She invented it. - Userguy44

Modern Musicians Who Don't Use Autotune Video

She was the first singer to make a massive hit song with it but she did not invent it. - Powell