T-pain Singing Live Without Auto-tune

1. T Pain Singing Without Autotune
2. T-pain Singing Live Without Auto-tune Download
3. T Pain Without Autotune

Technology has permanently changed the way we listen to music. One of the artists credited (or blamed) for that shift is T-Pain, the perpetually auto-tuned R&B and rap hit-maker.

Oct 29, 2014  Here's Video of T-Pain Singing Live and It Sounds Glorious. Though T-Pain has probably made the use of auto-tune more popular than anyone else in hip-hop and R&B in the last decade. Jan 14, 2015  T. Pain T-Pain continues his assault on conservative music listeners by uploading yet another video of himself singing without Auto-Tune. The new song, 'Say The Word (I'm Gone.

Some years ago, auto-tune was inescapable. Every rapper seemed to have an auto-tuned hook or run. The tacky technology was originally used by producers to help correct notes that an artist couldn't hit or hold. The hope was that listeners wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

In the mid-2000s, auto-tune broke onto the hip hop and R&B scene with producers and rappers exaggerating the effect to extremes. T-Pain was one of the first of those artists to feel the success and also the inevitable backlash of auto-tune. Critics said the technology was disingenuous and destroyed any need for vocal talent. Auto-tune wasn't just decried by music purists and angry bloggers — celebrated artists such as Jay-Z came out against it, and even released a song on his 2009 album The Blueprint 3, titled 'D.O.A. (Death of Auto-tune).'

Well T-Pain survived the barbs and is currently riding another wave of auto-tune success with the release of an iPhone app, novelty microphone and a brand new album, rEVOLVEr, released in 2011. The app, I AM T-Pain, lets users auto-tune their voice by singing into an iPhone, whereas the microphone, called the 'I AM T-Pain Mic,' is a stand-alone toy dedicated to auto-tuning.

Mashable had a chance to speak with T-Pain about auto-tune, his app and microphone and the future of music in the age of technology.

The Road to the App Store

T-Pain has always had a mind on technology and saw a perfect opportunity to get into the app game when other celebrities, such as Britney Spears, Pink and Lil' Wayne, started releasing their own apps.

'I said, 'Well, I guess I'm so famous for the auto-tune, I guess I should make an app.' And it's just been flying off the shelves,' T-Pain, born Faheem Najm, says. The app was a smart move. It has been downloaded more than 2 million times since its launch in 2009, according to T-Pain's team. That was just the start: 'You know I had pretty good projections with the mic and a lot of adults buy it, like, pretending they're buying it for their kids ... Adults would call me saying they're tired of their kids slobbering all over their phones,' T-Pain says of his decision to create a mic version of his auto-tune app.

T-Pain insists that the mic is all about making music fun. 'I don't do the whole, 'Put my name on it, make me famous' thing,' Pain told us, although there is a video on T-Pain's site in which he says of the mic: 'I mean, we're just, we're milking this thing baby. We're milking it.' Regardless of the intent, T-Pain's mic is selling well.

'Hard & B'

It's hard to stay mad at T-Pain, who swears by a type of music he calls 'Hard & B.' It's more about process than genre. 'Basically it’s the hard way of doing music,' T-Pain says. 'I write my music. I produce my music. I sing it. I damn near record all of it myself and you gotta go out and perform it. It’s a hard way of making music. On the other hand, [some artists] get someone to write and produce it and you just sing it in the middle like a puppet.'

In that sense, auto-tune is less a way for T-Pain to hide his voice but to create music in a different way. 'My dad always told me that anyone's voice is just another instrument added to the music. There was a time when people had seven-minute songs and five minutes of them were just straight instrumental,' T-Pain says. 'I got a lot of influence from [the '60s era] and I thought I might as well just turn my voice into a saxophone.' He credits the core of his music and lyric style to R. Kelly and Cee Lo Green, two R&B artists known for their expressive — and unfiltered — voices.

After years of success, however, T-Pain still enjoys talking about the tech he applies to his voice as a way of educating people on how it works. T-Pain says he studied the technology behind auto-tune to better understand his craft.

Auto-tune, it turns out, is actually sort of hard to pull off: 'You know, because it was made to correct bad notes and stuff, of course people say you just slap it on your voice and anyone who's tone-deaf can make a half-decent song.' It also turns out that T-Pain is a decent singer even without the tech. 'The crazy thing is ... there's always a song [on my albums] with no auto-tune and those are always the songs that go overlooked,' T-Pain says.

Social media has helped alleviate some of that frustration thanks to massive support from T-Pain's followers. Although he has more than 700,000 followers on Twitter, he tries to stay humble: 'I don't know man, because you look at someone like Soulja Boy and all these other people and they have millions of followers and I'm proud to even have two follows; my mom and my dad .... The way that people show me love on Twitter? I don't know man. It's amazing.'

T-Pain has a busy year ahead. After our phone call, T-Pain had a day of interviews with press before heading to Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform 'Drowning Again' on piano and without auto-tune. Through the madness, his iPhone app and auto-tuning microphone continue to sell to legions of would-be crooners and lotharios practicing their Hard & B.

The Top Ten Singers that Use Autotune but Can Sing Without It

he's great

Shes great

He's amazing and one of a kind

The king of r&b don't need no auto-tune! - RnBLover

T Pain Singing Without Autotune

Agreed. She's got a nice powerful voice and it shows in some of her live performances. - cjWriter1997

Her vpice is oncredoble and doesn't need to use all the autotune she uses for her songs, come on have you heard her? She is incredible! - DaisyandRosalina

Shes okay

She is truly an amazing singer. If you've listened to her performance at the Sound of Music celebration, this is an unquestionable fact.
I think that she just wastes her voice singing music that doesn't do her justice.

Shes awesome and better than Beyoncé in my opinion.

He sounds so much better without, his voice actually doesn't sound good with auto-tune. - DaWyteNight

he's okay

Shes okay but hardly ever uses auto-tune

She hardly ever had bad performances. - DaisyandRosalina

She is PERFECTION. literally everything about her, voice, personality, charm. SHE IS AN ABOLUTE LEGEND GODDESS QUEEN. - Twixx

He's the one of the rarest voices rather than many stupid singers and his highnotes sound much better live.
Thank God he left 1d so he can open up fully.
He's just so underrated and needs to advertise himself more.

The Contenders

Can't possibly sing without heavy autotune on everything.

The only song she used autotune on was. And that was for effect! Watch her Fallon performance.

Underrated and overhated by critics and fans. She can sing really well live (her solo X-factor audition got 4 yes-es). Even if she tries a bit too hard with the emotion and high notes, she's still a good singer.

T-pain Singing Live Without Auto-tune Download

Overrated? Yes.
Incredibly talented without autotune? Still yes. - DaisyandRosalina

Overrated? Yes.
Incredibly talented without relying on an army of songwriters, choreographers, costume designers, production managers, PR agents, and auto-tune technicians? No.

T Pain Without Autotune

Um she is amazing.. She is inspiring and she has amazing vocals. She doesn't need autotune.. - Jass1

Her voice isn't anything too amazing or groundbreaking with it or without it to be honest. Her annunciation is horrible, her high notes are shrill and annoying and she sounds (and looks) like a little girl. She's just a Mariah Carey wannabe anyway.

Ariana grande sucks - RnBLover

Her angelic voice does not need any support, she still great without using autotune. - DaisyandRosalina

He has one of the best voices of our generation - DaisyandRosalina

He doesn't really use auto-tune

'That's why you use auto-tune and I don't'

Shes a good singer but tends to oversing to the point where it sounds like yelling.

She is talented even if she oversings sometimes. - DaisyandRosalina

Jojo Siwa sucks at singing, so she just uses autotune.

Hate her all you want but she still can sing. - DaisyandRosalina

No, she can't.

As a rock singer, she is good. - DaisyandRosalina

She has a fantastic voice.

She doesn't use it on her voice, but rather uses it on background effects that use her voice.

Hate her music all you want, that girl sounds amazing live w/o autotune. Like all artists, she might use it for the effect and to perfect her recordings. She's only 17 and has amazing control of her voice.

I hate him so much. way too much autotune

Yeah... no.

She can't sing with or without auto-tune, she's just a bad singer. Just listen to her covering Hero by Mariah Carey and you'll know. She may have improved over the years but she is still not very good and doesn't deserve her fame. It's an insult to actual talented singers to call rihanna a good singer. You can like her catchy pop songs, but a good singer she is not. - RnBLover

Underrated by critics and fans, she can sing some songs nearly like the original, in others she put emotions in. She is lazy but she can sing. - DaisyandRosalina

Rihanna can't sing and auto-tune is her best friend. - DaWyteNight

Look...I love Riri and her pop music but she honestly could use some auto-tune from time to time. Have you heard her song 'Higher? ' Two words...no Bueno.
I don't know who added her, if they did it as a joke or were being serious but from someone who has heard her live I can tell you that she could use auto-tune. She makes amazing pop music though, all her albums are pop perfection.

His singing really isn't anything too special, most people can sing like he can. He's no Usher or anything. - DaWyteNight

He can sing without auto tune... He is decent singer - Nandani

Trash

I can't belive it... but he can... - DaisyandRosalina

Say what you want about her but the autotune actually sounds pretty good when it's used for effect. And even then she's definitely a better singer live than Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, and Selena Gomez.

Okay umm...I love Kesha and all but she really does need a bit of autotune now and then. - Twixx

She doesn't sing, she just whispers. - DaWyteNight

I'm dead serious, watch her sing Same Old Love live on Ellen. it is GOOD. I'M NOT ON DRUGS, Then you can whine to me about how she 'can't sing.' Because then you'll be wrong. She has improved A LOT. A LOT. She even lowered the autotune in Same Old Love.

Lata doesn't use auto tune because in her era auto tune was not invented - Nandani

I listen to her stripped songs and they’re so much better than the studio versions, that’s why I can’t wait to see her in concert!