T-Pain says goodbye to Auto-Tune
T-Pain T-Pain – whose real name is Faheem Rasheed Najm – is ditching the technology, which is a phase vocoder that corrects pitch in vocal and instrumental performances, in favour of his own new, vocal processor.
The 25-year-old told Allhiphop.com that he vows “right here, right now, to never use Auto-Tune again” because he is now “on to something that I think is bigger and better called The T-Pain Effect”.
T-Pain – who has 13 Grammy awards, including two best collaborations in 2008 for Good Life with rapper Kanye West and in 2009 for Blame It with Jamie Foxx – has teamed up with audio technology business iZotope to produce the T-Pain Effect.
Auto-Tune technology was developed by Antares Audio Technologies and became popularised in 1998, when Cher made use of the effect to alter her vocals on British No.1 hit Believe.
However, since then, artists such as Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, West and Janet Jackson have employed the tool on countless hits.
T-Pain’s use of Auto-Tune made the technology so popular that in September 2009 the platinum-selling artist partnered with Antares to make an iPhone app, the I Am T-Pain, that lets users auto-tune their voices on smartphones.
But, now that his Antares deal is finished, T-Pain and iZotope have got together to develop his sound by using iZotope’s proprietary vocal processing technologies.
The partners will now show off the new tool during the E3 Expo in Los Angeles on June 7.
