We did it. We were the first ones. I was talking to [producer] Mark [Taylor] about that last night when we were in the studio — about how we felt when we did it. I don’t think they called it Auto-Tune then. It was just a pitch machine. I was having a hard time with the song. That’s the only argument Mark and I ever got into.
He kept saying, “The chorus is fine, but you’ve got to sing the verses better…”I was singing and singing and singing, and finally he said, “Cher, you better do it better!” And I went, “You know what? If you want it better, get somebody else.” I walked out.
And then the next morning, I saw this beautiful boy on the morning show in England. His name was [Andrew] Roachford, and he was singing with a vocoder. So I called Mark, I said, “Could we use a vocoder?” He said, “No, but I’m working on something that I think might be amazing, but I’m not quite there yet.”
I went back to the studio, he started it, and we both jumped up and high-fived ourselves after we heard it. The record company didn’t want to do it. They said, “You can’t tell who it is.” I went, “Yes, I know, that’s the beauty of the whole thing!”
– Cher, while speaking to The Hollywood Reporter about “inventing” auto-tune with her hit 1998 single “Believe,” which turns 25 this year.
Believe was the first released track to use the new Melodyne plug-in, but she didnt ‘invent’ autotune.
Apart from anything else the effect they used isn’t even true ‘autotune’, its the effect turned right up and manually adjusted to cause that ‘yodel’ like sound effect. True Autotune used automatically just snaps notes to the scale, to correct flat or sharp notes.
There was nothing to stop you doing it before that, it just had to be done manually which took forever, so it was easier to just do multiple takes and edit them together.
@truth: I came on this post to echo your sentiment. I distinctly recall my mom playing Roger & Zapp on her record player in the early to mid-80s. Their auto-tuned songs were R&B staples during this era. As much as I like Cher, she needs to cut it out with her revisionist history!
Very true. I remember my older brother playing “More Bounce To The Ounce” constantly when it was out and then a few years later, hearing on the radio, “Computer Love” and “ I Want To Be Your Man” but Cher does not strike me as someone who would know about Zapp and Roger
Um, what? Of course she forgets all the pioneers who came before her. Zapp and Roger were doing this in the early 1980s, as well as a lot of other Black musicians.
You can definitely tell it’s Cher even with auto tune. She’s got one of the more distinctive voices in the industry.
Very true. I always thought that she was underrated as a singer