In a recent interview, singer Arijit Singh talked about one of the most infamous things in the music industry – the autotune. He spoke about how AR Rahman brought autotune to India. The singer added that while autotune has changed how the music industry is perceived today, however, Rahman does not use it anymore.
In a conversation with the YouTube channel - The Music Podcast – Arijit Singh said, “Auto-tune can’t turn a non-singer into a singer. It’s not like you sing anything, apply auto-tune and it will sound like it’s in tune. It’s not possible.” He elaborated on the multiple ways autotune can be used and how Rahman used it to his advantage.
Singh said, “When people really liked to listen to Rahman’s songs, it was him actually who started using auto-tune in a very subtle way, that’s how a lot of singers started sounding beautiful.”
He noted that singers sing with emotions and bring an emotional depth to the song. He mentioned how he feels that Sonu Nigam is the one singer who can never sing out of tune. In his conversation, he added music composers like Vishal Bharadwaj and Mithoon Sharma detest autotune. He said that AR Rahman does not use it anymore and he goes with the singer’s voice.
Singh used the example of salt and talked about how autotune can be used sparingly, only as per the requirement to enhance the song. Spilling more beans about the music industry, he specified that Pritam always chooses to use autotune because he feels that it makes the music sound better.
Arijit Singh is one of the most successful singers in the country. He began his career as a contestant on the singing reality competition, ‘Fame Gurukul’, in 2005. He shot to fame in 2011 with the song ‘Phir Mohabbat’ from ‘Murder 2’ which topped all charts.
