The Auto-Tune is the music industry’s audio version of Photoshop. It’s allegedly been used to fix the off-key singing of Britney Spears, Reba McEntire, Faith Hill and was used to create the yodel-esque effect in Cher’s 1998 hit Believe. It’s apparently so commonplace in the profession, that Seattle band Death Cab for Cutie appeared on the 51st Grammy Awards wearing blue ribbons to protest the use of the technology.

Another reason to hate the oil industry: Auto-Tune was the result of research into using sound to search for crude. (Click to enlarge)

It was created by Andy Hildebrand, an 18 year oil industry veteran who specialized in the signal processing used to map the Earth to determine where the crude was. Apparently it corrects crude voices, too. After taking some music courses, he focused his audio tuning expertise on the recording industry.

Antares Audio Technologies offers Auto-Tune in both a plug-in for various professional audio editing software packages and as a stand-alone rack-mounted unit for use in live performances, Britney.

Well, my wife wears makeup. Is that evil?
– Andy Hildebrand, when asked if his Auto-Tune software was “evil.”

Not everyone agrees that it’s that simple. (more…)