That hard-tuned, robot-like sound, first popularised by Cher, has now become something of a staple in modern pop

It might feel like a relatively new concept within the production psyche, but the process that we describe as ‘hard-tuning’ has been around for nearly 30 years.

Back in 1997, audio software company Antares released a new piece of software which it called Auto-Tune. Its sole purpose was to analyse an incoming audio signal, before correcting any imperfections in its pitch in real time. Prior to this, it was not uncommon for studios to play vocal parts into samplers, and correct serious tuning anomalies using the production equivalent of keyhole surgery. It was a labour-intensive process, and one that Auto-Tune eradicated overnight. Moreover, the product name became an adjective, mistakenly applied whenever an artist used pitch correction software (much like the famous Hoover/vacuum cleaner paradigm).

Rock-solid tuning

It didn’t take very long for early adopters of the Auto-Tune technology to realise that by increasing its auto-correction response time, you could engineer a sound which was quite otherworldly. Technically, the process is very different from vocoding, but the resulting output was certainly not a million miles away. It sounded different and contemporary, thanks to the lack of any remaining humanistic quality or inaccuracy.