The Indian music scene has changed a lot. In the past, songs were recorded live with instruments in one go. Now, people from different parts of the world can create a whole song together. Auto-tune, often seen as making non-singers sound good, is now used in Indian music too. Arijit Singh, a popular singer, explains that auto-tune is just a tool used by many composers and doesn’t make non-singers into singers. He mentions that AR Rahman was the first in India to use it well, but now he doesn’t use it anymore.
Arijit Singh talked to The Music Podcast on YouTube and said that auto-tune can’t make a bad singer sound good. “Auto-tune can’t turn a non-singer into a singer. It’s not like that you sing anything, apply auto-tune and it will sound like it’s in tune. It’s not possible." He mentioned that AR Rahman used auto-tune effectively, making singers sound great and pleasing the audience. “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 added.
Explaining the technical reason for the same, the singer said, “When a singer sings, they sing with emotion. And when they sing with emotion, it is never perfect, they go away from the sur a little bit, most singers except Sonu Nigam, he can’t go out of tune I feel. The takes that are emotionally good, but are a little wobbly on the tune, we start tweaking them and with the emotional takes, as far as you can keep it human, you use it a little bit."
Arijit mentioned that Pritam uses auto-tune in every song, but there are composers like Mithoon Sharma and Vishal Bhardwaj who don’t use it at all. He also noted that AR Rahman used to use it, but now he doesn’t. “Some music composers don’t like it at all like Mithoon Sharma, Vishal Bhardwaj. AR Rahman also doesn’t do it anymore, earlier he used to. Now he goes with whatever voice is there. Pritam’s music always has auto tune, to make it sound better," he said.
Location: Mumbai, India