Learn How to Get the T-Pain Sound

The "T-Pain sound" is becoming increasingly popular. It is a cheap alternative to a talkbox or vocoder and takes a lot less skill than either of them.

To achieve the "T-Pain sound," you can use Autotune maxed out on Automatic setting. T-Pain might even sing out of tune (sing higher and lower and do vibratos) to make that extreme tinny sound. You can tell only at some points it starts to get extremely metallic and tinny sounding.

T-Pain doesn't use any vocoder. He has high sounds playing the same melody he's singing, but he never uses a vocoder. Roger (Zapp) and Bosko use vocoders.

If you do want to use a vocoder, here's how to get the vocoder plugin working in FL Studio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91igHV0CwJk (www.warbeats.com). The video drags a little but it explains how to get it to work. In short, you put the modulator (usually the voice, the sound that the frequency fluctuation is based on) panned all the way left, and you put the carrier (usually a synth, the sound that plays) panned all the way right. You can switch it, but that's the default setting. Pan the tracks before sending em into the Vocoder mixer Send Track, and disable their send to the master track.

The most common brand of Autotune is Antares Autotune. You can use autotune as a plugin in almost any program. It works with Pro Tools, Adobe Audition (Cool Edit Pro), Reason, FL Studio, etc. The official website of Antares Autotune says it's for "TDM (Mac & PC), RTAS (Mac & PC), VST (Mac & PC) and Audio Units."

Here's an interesting video of a live T-Pain performance on the Jimmy Kimmel show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6lfHb2DDLw. I think a lotta y'all out there in your shower probably sing better than he does in this performance.

(note: This is in no way in disrespect to T-Pain. He's gettin' his money, and he has shown the bay much love.)