X-Factor and Autotune

[Ollie]

Couldn't believe what I heard tonight, some of the X-Factor auditionees (only ones that got through) had been Autotuned. I suppose this means they've given up any pretense that it has anything to do with talent.

[WiredWorm]

Can't say i'm a regular watcher of the X-Factor, but in my eyes this happened last year when Jedward seemed to get through on the basis that they were Irish.

Afraid I only watch it now for it's comedy value and in the hope that someone else will be number 1 at Christmas.

[Mayhem]

My brother commented that he thought a couple of the auditions sounded like they had been tweaked slightly. Maybe he was onto something then...

[Ollie]

I only saw the second half of the programme but the last audition was very obviously Autotuned. From earlier tweets I saw (which prompted me to watch it), apparently at least one of the earlier ones was as well. OTOH, there was one I saw (which didn't get through) that was very obviously not autotuned, so it very much looks like they're doing it to make their favoured acts sound better.

<edit> Here's a report of it, with videos: http://watchwithmothers.net/2010/08/22/ ... ne-deceit/

Amazingly, it's even more obvious on the two I didn't see than the one I did. It's so stultifyingly blatant, I can't believe they expected to get away with it. Particularly egregious is the one where they did it only to their favoured one of a double act.

I'm assuming the reason for this is the number of comments on twitter during last year's series about people being out of tune. They must have decided, since the judges obviously can't tell when someone is off-key, to make sure nobody else can either.

[PaulEMoz]

Just watching it now, and I've heard it twice so far as far as I can tell.

[gumboot]

Can't believe people watch that show.

[PaulCunningham]

Catch believe people who don't watch that show post about people watching that show

[arron]

I think this sums up my opinion better than I could in five minutes..

[OX mkII]

I can't believe it's not butter

[Viscount Charles]

Bloomin' nora.

I'm fed up to the back teeth of hearing it in commercial releases. These people are PAID to be able to perform, yet I seem to be able to hear it even when it's pretty subtle.

When they start using it to make talent show contestants reach an acceptable standard then they really are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Though I've never been a fan of the genre, I simply cannot watch them any more - besides, Ben Elton's Dead Famous read more like a piece of investigative journalism than fiction.

[Zen-Chan]

I noticed it, but at the end of the day it's an entertainment show so who cares? No-one's actually watching the X-Factor for a fix of musical satisfaction, they're watching it for the entertainment of things like embarrassingly bad acts or judge squabbling.

[Gorecki]

Simon Cowell- Ok, so the new series of X-Factor is nearly here, but we need a big talking point. Something really interesting that happens early on that people will talk about.

Marketing Flunky- How about a big controversy. People love arguing about controversial stuff, plus it hides the fact that what they're arguing about is inherently pointless and shit.

SC- I like your thinking. But it can't be too controversial. Something just controversial enough to kick up a fuss but not serious enough to actually matter.

MF- How about we auto-tune some of the early contestants a bit. Then we can orchestrate a media-induced shit-storm and just when it's at it's peak we can apologise, remove it and make a big deal about how it's all about the talent.

SC- Excellent, get this right and loads of people who wouldn't normally watch the show will tune into just to see what the fuss is about. But try to make sure the auto-tuning isn't too obvious. Have it so that most people won't even notice it. That way the people that do notice it can feel smug and superior and then both sides can argue about it.

MF- I'll get right on it.

SC- Have we sorted out the 'Anti-X-Factor Protest Single' yet? If we could make it a Curiosity Killed The Cat record that would be great as I still own the rights to them.

[merman]

Ben Elton. Chart Throb. Nuff said.

[sack]

autotune is bollocks. I mean if you can do it to newsreaders and it still sounds vaguely plausable isn't that proof enough that you don't even need any ability to sing for it to work?

[RiK]

Big fuss about it in the paper this morning with the production team claiming some bollocks about the autotune only being applied at a 'post-production' stage to make the whole thing better for the television viewers, and that 'of course' the audience in the theatre and the judges got to hear the raw unprocessed vocals at the judging stage..

Yeah, right.