ITV defends X Factor in Auto-Tune row
Updated on 23 August 2010
X Factor producers admit to editing contestants' performances to deliver the most entertaining experience possible for viewers. Channel 4 News culture editor Matthew Cain analyses whether the row will damage ITV's biggest hit.
As the seventh series of ITV1's X Factor kicked off with more than 11mn viewers, fans accused editors of using technology to make some contestants' voices sound better.
The protests against the use of "autotuning" during the X Factor has inspired a Facebook campaign to switch off Auto-Tune on the programme.
Most of the allegations surrounded teenage contestant Gamu Nhengu, who sang a version of the Katrina and the Waves' hit Walking On Sunshine.
After hearing her effort, judge Simon Cowell told the 18-year-old from Clackmannanshire, Scotland, she was "really talented" before she was unanimously voted through to the next round.
But some viewers went online to accuse the producers of using Auto-Tune - used in studios to improve performances by correcting pitch and disguising off-key mistakes.
On the show's website, robhayes wrote: "Absolutely disgusting use of..autotune...does X-Factor really think we are idiots? I see the idea of making the show more entertaining, but this is taking the mick .. really .."
Smstrat91 added: "Cannot believe they autotuned her, listen to the words 'door' and 'telephone' and its very clear." Similar accusations were made about another contestant, G and S singer Caroline, who also made it through to round two.
A spokesman for The X Factor said post-production work was necessary due to the number of microphones used during filming.
"The judges make their decisions at the auditions stage based on what they hear on the day, live in the arena. The footage and sound is then edited and dubbed into a finished programme, to deliver the most entertaining experience possible for viewers."
Will The X Factor audience really notice or care about technical wizardry?
Today's audiences have become much more savvy than their predecessors and have learned to spot the difference between the vocal they hear on a CD and the vocal they hear during a live performance, when pitching and breathing delivers a noticeably different sound to a studio vocal that's often recorded line by line, writes Channel 4 News Culture Editor Matthew Cain.
This difference is even more noticeable when movement or a full-blown dance routine is factored into the equation. But if the artist is miming to the kind of vocal they'd deliver in a live performance, often the trick goes unnoticed.
X Factor bosses vehemently refute suggestions that any fakery whatsoever is used in their live studio shows. And the problem is that they could never be substantiated; should any malpractice be occurring, the only people who'd have access to any evidence are all on the payroll and reluctant to speak out. So the question remains.
Perhaps a more pertinent question might be, does the British public really care?
Read more
Ben Wood, a producer and lecturer at the London School of Sound, said he detected the use of Auto-Tune by at least three of the artists featured on this weekend’s X Factor and thinks that in one case the device may have been switched off half way through a performance.
Mr Wood said the programme used Auto-Tune in a "crass" way and dismisses the producers’ defence that it had edited the sound because there were so many microphones being used.
"That is nonsense," he said. "It’s like saying if you have ten cars you have to break the speed limit."
But he is confident that the talented singers will come out of the competition victorious, like Leona Lewis and Joe McElderry in previous years.
"All this editing technology can only take you up one level," he said. "The great singers are always going to be great singers."
Auto-Tune, was developed by Antares to correct pitch problems in vocals and other solo instruments. Launched in 1997 it quickly became the largest-selling plug-in of all time.
It is designed to instantaneously detect the pitch of a musical note produced by voice or instrument and shifts the pitch to the corrected tone.
The brains behind Autotune is Dr Harold Hildebrand, who worked as a research scientist in the geophysical industry before developing a series of programmes to improve digital technology for musicians.
In an interview on US broadcaster PBS's science programme Nova, Dr Hildebrand claimed that using Auto-Tune was just like his wife wearing make up.
He said that Auto-Tune's biggest effect on the music industry was changing the way that vocals were recorded by eliminating the need for endless retakes.
Robert Morgan-Males, director of Sonic 8, the UK distributor of Autotune, claimed that 90% of recordings over the past 20 years have been "autotuned" subtly.
"The trouble is, when you have a bad singer, you can hear that slightly metallic effect," he said. "What's happening much more now is that people are overcranking the effect to get that robotic sound."
Auto-Tune has been used for effect, most famously by Cher in Believe, various rappers and more recently by Owl City in the tune Fireflies. Rapper T-Pain is widely viewed as the most enthusiastic proponent of Auto-Tune and has even backed a version of the plug-in for the iPhone.
Mr Morgan-Males said the success of Auto-Tune has meant that his previously niche and specialist business is now much more of a talking point at dinner parties.
But he admitted that he finds it hard to listen to commercial radio these because of the dominance of Auto-Tune. "So much of it is on there," he said. "It's like a busman’s holiday."
