If you switched on the radio in the summer of 1998, chances are you got a taste of Cher's 'Believe,' an up-tempo ode to bouncing back after a rough breakup. More than a quarter century after first rising to prominence as a 1960s folk artist, the 52-year-old Cher was once again climbing the charts. In malls, dance clubs and laser bowling alleys across the country, 'Believe' played frequently. By the time the dust had settled, the song had become Cher's bestselling recording ever -- and one of the bestselling singles of all time.

1. Vocal Autotune Free Software
2. Auto Tune Distorting Vocal Tracking
3. Human Vocal Tract
4. Auto Tune Distorting Vocal Tracks
5. Autotune Distortion Vocal Track 2017

Just like a real human voice, the software will take a few milliseconds to gently ease from one note to the next. But Auto-Tune came with the option to reducing the space between notes to zero, thereby forcing the notes to change instantaneously from one to the other, giving the vocal track an eerie, computerized timbre. Auto-Tune Realtime Access can correct the pitch of vocals and instruments in real time without distortion or artifacts. From subtly tweaking a violin track in mix down to all-out robot-speak, you can make bold or nuanced decisions while preserving the feel of the original performance.

At the time, the most notable feature of the song was an electronic modification on the vocals. The effect first appears 35 seconds into the song, while Cher sings 'I can't break through.' On each of the last three words, Cher's voice undergoes a bizarre electronic glitch.

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The reason behind that glitch was Auto-Tune, a pitch-correcting software designed to smooth out any off-key notes in a singer's vocal track. Released only the year before 'Believe,' it was the recording industry's favorite dirty secret: With only a few clicks of a mouse, Auto-Tune could turn even the most cringe-worthy singer into a pop virtuoso. But most music studios kept it around simply to fix with the occasional wrong note.

Vocal Autotune Free Software

During the recording sessions for 'Believe,' however, Cher's British producers had put the software into overdrive. Instead of lightly tuning the pitch of Cher's voice, they had adjusted the levels so sharply that it became an unmistakable part of the song. The effect was weird and robotic, but against a background of synthesizers and high-energy percussion, it worked like a charm. Opera singers have long been using vibrato, a technique of delivering a note in a constantly wavering pitch. As far as Cher and her producers were concerned, though, Auto-Tune was simply a computerized twist on the technique.

As 'Believe' hit the airwaves, the producers aimed to keep the lid on their new toy. So much so, that when interviewed about the technique by a sound engineering magazine, they lied and said it was due to a vocoder, a well-known voice modulation device used since the 1970s [source: Sillitoe].

Auto Tune Distorting Vocal Tracking

But the truth eventually trickled out, and when it did, Auto-Tune's inventor, Harold 'Andy' Hildebrand, was shocked. Auto-Tune was supposed to be a behind-the-scenes trick for the recording studio. Auto tuned the room song. The New Yorker had compared it to blotting out the red-eye in a photograph, and Hildebrand himself compared it to wearing makeup [source: Frere-Jones, NOVA].

But now, Hildebrand's brainchild was making Cher sound like a robot. 'I never figured anyone in their right mind would want to do that,' Hildebrand told Time magazine [source: Tyrangiel] Whether he realized it at the time or not, Hildebrand's electronic creation was about to become one of the largest technological influences on popular music since Les Paul invented the modern electric guitar.

It's rare that a performer can sing flawless vocals in one take. For proof, try listening to a live recording of your favorite band. Most likely, some of the vocals will all be a bit off -- maybe not by much, but just enough that they sound rough when compared to the studio version. Traditionally, studio engineers obtained clean, polished vocals on a song by making the artist record the vocals dozens of times -- then, they edited the best parts together. From Frank Sinatra to Tammi Wynette, laying down multiple vocal tracks in the studio was par for the course.

Human Vocal Tract

With Auto-Tune, engineers suddenly didn't need to rely on endless re-recordings to obtain perfect vocals. The singer's last note was a little flat? The engineer simply calls up the full performance on a computer screen and, using a mouse, digitally 'nudges' wrong notes into the right key.

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Engineers have been able to change the pitch of a singer's voice ever since magnetic tape was invented. All you have to do is record your voice onto a tape recorder and play it at a faster speed. The problem is, the trick leaves your voice with a high-pitched 'chipmunk' sound. The genius of Auto-Tune is that it can alter the pitch of your voice while still preserving its original quality of the overall recording. Using immense quantities of math, Auto-Tune is able to map out an image of your voice. Using that data, it can then tweak the pitch of your voice without doing too much damage to your voice's original tone and feeling.

Auto Tune Distorting Vocal Tracks

The new program saved time and money, and, according to Hildebrand, it made for better music. Here's what Hildebrand told the Seattle Times in 2009:

'Before Auto-Tune, sound studios would spend a lot of time with singers, getting them on pitch and getting a good emotional performance. Now they just do the emotional performance, they don't worry about the pitch, the singer goes home, and they fix it in the mix' [source: Matson].

Within years, 95 percent of all Top 40 songs counted traces Auto-Tune in their production [source: Freeman]. Still, purists derided the software as 'cheating'; artists just weren't taking the time to record quality vocal tracks anymore. American singer-songwriter Neko Case summed it up in a 2006 interview: 'When I hear Auto-Tune on somebody's voice, I don't take them seriously' [source: Dombal].

Worse, Auto-Tune was also accused of filling pop music with attractive yet untalented singers. Only a few years before Cher's 'Believe,' the pop duo Milli-Vanilli had been charged with fraud after audiences discovered that the band's two members had actually been lip-syncing vocals performed by different musicians. Fearing a similar scandal, engineers took pains to disguise their vocal-correction footprints as much as possible.

Meanwhile, buried deep in the software was a setting known as the 'zero function.' One of the ways Auto-Tune makes its pitch-corrections sound natural is by putting small spaces of time in between notes. Just like a real human voice, the software will take a few milliseconds to gently ease from one note to the next. But Auto-Tune came with the option to reducing the space between notes to zero, thereby forcing the notes to change instantaneously from one to the other, giving the vocal track an eerie, computerized timbre.

Autotune Distortion Vocal Track 2017

It was like using Photoshop to dial up a picture to 100 percent brightness. Sure, you could do it, but it would turn your image into a washed-out mess. Similarly, engaging the zero function would transform your vocal track into a clutter of warbly, sci-fi sounds. Surely, the engineers thought at Antares, nobody would ever need to use the zero function. Right?