Lil Nas X is a musician who is perhaps best known for his song ‘Old Town Road’. He is a singer and rapper, but does he use autotune?
Lil Nas X does use autotune, and the vocal processing technology is used on ‘Old Town Road’. The singer has, however, also shared a video where he sings the track without autotune.
Read more about Lil Nas X below.
Autotune/pitch correction can give certain effects to vocals that make them stand out, like more robotic voices/melodically clipped vocal lines (Ibeyi’s “Me Voy” is like a really subtle example of. The viral, already-forgotten-about internet stars use auto-tune on their tracks. The viral, already-forgotten-about internet stars use auto-tune on their tracks. Ron Browz Best known for his hit 'Pop Champagne' and featured on Busta Rhymes' 'Arab Money'. Best known for his hit 'Pop Champagne' and featured on Busta Rhymes' 'Arab Money.
Who is Lil Nas X?
Lil Nas X, real name Montero Lamar Hill, was born in Atlanta in 1999. He spent his early childhood living with his mother and father, though the family split when he was aged six.
Following this, he and his mother began living with his grandmother. These years were spent in a difficult area that had issues with violence and drugs.
A few years after moving in with his grandmother, he returned to live with his father and his new stepmother. The new area was more subdued with fewer problems with gangs, though the young Lil Nas X didn’t appreciate this as a child.
Singers That Use Auto Tune
“I didn’t want to leave what I was used to,” he recalls. “But it was better for me. There’s so much sh*t going on in Atlanta – if I would have stayed there, then I would have fallen in with the wrong crowd.”
His relationship with his mother became strained. For a period, they were in contact, albeit infrequently, but eventually lost touch with one another completely.
He succeeded academically and showed an interest in music from a young age. He played trumpet from fourth grade, but quit learning the instrument for fear of how his peers might view his hobby.
Around the time he began high school, he relocated once again to Lithia Springs with his father. He stopped attending extracurricular activities and instead spent much of his time on the internet.
“I started to isolate myself,” he says. “I don’t know why. I guess I was finding out who I am.”
He took a particular interest in Twitter, sharing amusing memes and trying to build his follower count. He then tried sharing his own comedy videos in the hope that he could use his following to promote himself.
Career
In 2018, while a student at the University of West Georgia, Lil Nas X took his first step into music. He recalls the event nonchalantly, saying “I got bored one day and made this song.”
He posted the track ‘Shame’ on Soundcloud, and it received a positive response. Only a few months later, he dropped out of college to pursue music.
He moved in with his sister and continued releasing songs, though they failed to make any real impact. He stumbled across a producer named YoungKio on YouTube and, enjoying what he heard, paid to use the producer’s beat.
This would form the basis of ‘Old Town Road’. He released the track on Twitter, continuously promoting it until it gained traction.
Just days after its release, he tweeted “Twitter please help me get Billy Ray Cyrus on this.”
Soon, he was being contacted by music executives. Eventually, he agreed on a deal with Columbia Records.
The song’s popularity exploded again when it was remixed, this time including a verse sung by country legend Billy Ray Cyrus, as Lil Nas X had wished for in his earlier tweet. Cyrus, he explains, is known by multiple generations, both as an artist in his own right and as the father of Miley Cyrus.
Rappers That Use Autotune
“Twitter can make a lot of things happen if you get enough retweets,” he says.
The song was the subject of some controversy when it was removed from the Country chart, as it was deemed not to be classified as a country song. Only a few months after the decision, the track won musical event of the year at the Country Music Awards.
For Lil Nas X, his fame can be “overwhelming,” though he appears to have his coping mechanisms. “I just shut down on everybody,” he says, “I’m still a loner in a lot of ways.”
To some music creators and fans, Auto-Tune is destroying American popular music. To others, it’s just a studio tool that makes people sound better. What is Auto-Tune? How do you use Auto-Tune properly? There are two sides to the argument. Which side are you on? But first, lets look at what Auto-Tune is and how it is used.
What is Auto-Tune?
Before we weigh in on other side, let’s be specific about what Auto-Tune is. As you probably already know, Auto-Tune is an app that corrects pitch. Engineers use it subtly during live shows to keep the vocals clear and in key. And it’s used as an obvious effect, creating a kind of computerized vocal sound. A famous example of the latter is actually the song that brought Auto-Tune to a massive audience — Cher’s 1998 monster hit Believe.
(Don’t confuse Auto-Tune with the vocoder, another effect that creates robotic-sounding vocals—compare Cher’s track with another late 90s hit, Daft Punk’s Around the World.)
Since the 90s there has been an incredibly long list of artists who use Auto-Tune. In hip-hop, you can hear it on songs by Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg and Drake. T-Pain used Auto-Tune so much that Jay-Z criticized him in his song D.O.A. — or “Death of Auto-Tune.”
Art rockers Radiohead used it on their seminal 2001 album Amnesiac. It’s all over the albums of pop singers like Britney Spears and Keisha. Crooner Michael Bublé criticized it, but then in the same interview admitted that he uses “as a means to get onto Top 40 radio.”
How to Use Auto-Tune
Auto-Tune uses a set reference point, a scale or note, and everything outside of this reference will be digitally corrected with autotune.
The most common and reasonable time to use Auto-Tune is when a vocalist delivers an emotional performance but has a few problems with pitch. The overall track is great and there is no need to re-record the song, but there are a few pitch problems that autotune can correct. You would be surprised but Auto-Tune happens on a large number of songs. Instead of a vocalist having to sing take after take ruining their voice, minor pitch problems can be corrected. This is similar to how audio software works when an instrument is played. If the instrument misses one or two notes, there is no need to re-record the whole track. Long gone are the days of re-recording tracks in full until they are meticulously perfect, playing late into the night and then into the next day.
So is it a good thing or a badthing?
On the “con” side, Auto-Tune has taken pop music away from the beauty of the human voice. T-Pain’s signature sound gets annoying pretty quickly. And one critic said that when Black Eyed Peas use it, which is a lot, it sounds like “music robots make when they’re trying to sell products to other robots.” Also, it was the imperfections that made a song, some favoring live performances because of the inconsistency in the vocals. Historically, it was an art to sing every note on tune and those out of tune actually made it unique.
But is it so terrible when it isn’tnoticeable? After all, engineers have been using technology to improve vocaltracks for about as long as there have been vocal tracks.
Is Auto-Tune “Cheating” for Artists?
People may be right when they thinkof it as a kind of cheating. Then again, it was an open secret in the industrythat 80s recording artists like Madonna and Paula Abdul needed help — a lot ofhelp — with their vocals. Auto-Tune is just the latest kind of fakery.
Auto-Tune is everywhere for threereasons: it makes singers sound better, some people like that robotic sound,and it helps make hits. And since the music business is a business, that thirdreason is probably the biggest.
There is a lot to be said for theunadorned human voice. But we have to admit that anytime we amplify or recordmusic, we’re always trying to make it sound better — with the best equipmentand yes, the best effects.
Free Auto Tune Rap
So Auto-Tune is really like anyanother effect. There is nothing wrong with using it judiciously. In fact, itcan save a lot of time and money in the studio. Rely on it too much, and yourisk sounding kind of ridiculous.
Either way, Auto-Tune is here tostay. That is, until the next big game-changing piece of technology comesalong.
Final Thoughts
Is Auto-Tune a useful tool? Is it an effect? It can be all of these things. Auto-Tune can correct the pitch of a singer’s voice or it can make the singer sound like a robot. It is to be used by the audio engineer, and it is up to the listener whether they accept the use of Auto-Tune as a parlor trick or amazing effect. Auto-Tune has become mainstream, and maybe in the future, artists and audio engineers will advertise that it was not used. Dr Seuss told a story about the Sneetches and how when one Sneetch got a star on their belly, they were unique. Then every Sneetch followed suit and got a star on their belly. The reverse happened and those not adding a star to their belly became the unique ones. The same can be said about Auto-Tune.
What Autotune Do Rappers Use
Want to Learn More?
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