2008 had autotune up the American pie holes with T-Pain, and come 2009 it was forced up the yin yang for all Kpop. Yes, I’m looking at you, G-Dragon! (You’ve got wayyy too many Autotune tracks!) I understand that some songs benefit greatly and listeners marvel with wonder. But after awhile, you come to realize that it’s getting quite old and then there’s a thousand other ways to add effects with vocals without using autotune or melodyne. All songs in 2009 on the radio started to sound exactly the same, and they still do!

BoA’s use for Autotune: I’d say I Did It for Love is a great reason for autotune. It has a great stutter effect, I love that song. BUT, the rest of the album could have benefited from not using it, because it started to sound more generic in other songs. Your preciously beautiful vocals were masked by a machine.

The time finally came in the summer when autotune was used more creatively:

Fortunately, in the mid 2009 era, a few Kpop artists team came up with a better way to process vocals. A good example is Brown Eyed Girls’ Abracadabra. The song alternated between filtering the vocal to sound like a telephone machine, then to stuttering for a few seconds, then back to Autotone, then back to clean. And indeed Autotune was was not applied the entire song. Son Dam Bi and After School’s used a very unique wind pipe filter on the vocals to alternate with autotune. Can you say.. AMOLED Can’t do it without effects!! Between that and the double stuttering, panning across the stereo spectrum and contrasting with plain vocals, this effect was used very creatively. Take notice it was not the whole song.

My great producer brothers, are you out of ideas? KVRAUDIO has a great selection of thousands of FREE home brewed vocal effects that you can get for your home or work studio.

So I give you all a challenge. Try using other digital effects besides autotune or melodyne. You might find something golden that change the way music is and make a new trend! There should be plenty of dance compatible filters around. Happy composing!