Used to hate auto-tune until I heard a 90s demo tape from my uncle's garage band

I always thought auto-tune was just pop garbage, but last weekend I found a cassette where my uncle and his buddies tried to record a cover of 'Take On Me' with zero pitch correction. The warbling was so bad it actually made me laugh and then appreciate why engineers use the stuff. Has anyone else heard a raw recording that flipped your opinion on a production trick?

2 comments

2 Comments

blake_martinez18d ago

My buddy Dave found a burned CD from his older brother's college band that was recorded in a dorm room with one microphone. The drummer kept hitting the hi-hat too hard so it sounded like a pan dropping every two seconds, and the singer was clearly standing in a closet to reduce echo. It was honestly terrible but hearing how raw it was made me realize why producers compress vocals and set up isolation booths. Now I get why people spend thousands on sound treatment instead of just hitting record and hoping for the best.

ivangrant18d ago

Read something similar on a music production subreddit the other day where someone found a 4-track demo recorded on a boombox in a basement and it was just pure noise floor and distortion but somehow it had more soul than half the cleaned up stuff on radio today. That kind of mess really makes you get why people mic things properly but also why they shouldn't overdo it.