There are few artists who have found their voice the way T-Pain has. His signature vocal effect, achieved through the digital processor Auto-Tune, has become ubiquitous in contemporary hip-hop and pop, and is commonly referred to as the T-Pain effect. In response to criticism that he uses the tool as a vocal crutch, he's parodied his own style with the viral song/video I'm on a Boat with comedic band the Lonely Island, and hes wowed audiences by doing select performances without Auto-Tune.
In a recent Visiting Artist Series session, Berklee students saw the singular singer behind his public persona and got a rare look into what makes him tick, artistically.
Tom Baskett, assistant professor in the Voice Department-and self-declared fanboy of T-Pain-moderated the discussion, and asked the singer how he discovered his signature effect. While Auto-Tune had been commercially available since 1997 (most notably in Cher's Believe ), the effect had been somewhat of a studio secret, and definitely not something T-Pain was aware of as a teen in Tallahassee, Florida.
Nobody had really heard [Auto-Tune] the way I heard it. Not to say that it hadn't been done, it just hadn't been done the way I did it.
-T-Pain
He first heard it in the Jennifer Lopez song If You Had My Love, produced by production legend Darkchild, spawning a two-year obsessive search for the effect he'd heard in a small section of the song. I'd get these cracked CDs of plugins from my friends, and I'd go through every preset, and go One of these has got to be it. If it's available, then I gotta find it, T-Pain said. At the time, he was deep in the rap scene in Tallahassee and had been searching for something to set him apart. I was getting drowned out by the sound of everyone wanting to be a rapper . I was like, Man, I'll never be heard if I'm just that voice in the crowd. I gotta be that one that stands out, he said.
A Brief History of Auto-Tune
Listen to this playlist and discover the roots of T-Pains signature sing-rap style. He had a hunch that this vocal effect could help him do just that. Nobody had really heard [Auto-Tune] the way I heard it, he said, humbly clarifying, Not to say that it hadn't been done, it just hadn't been done the way I did it.
That level of obsession has been a defining characteristic of T-Pain's journey to music. In fact, one of his earliest musical memories is of his dad bringing home an old keyboard he'd found on the side of the road, only to find out the thing was crawling with ants. He purged the pests, got it working, and soon rigged it up to a radio, and would while away the hours trying to match basslines on whatever song came over the airwaves.
And though there was no mistaking the aura of celebrity in the Zoom room (T-Pain did, after all, come prepared with sound effects to punctuate his words), it's his meticulous tinkerer side that Berklee students got to see and relate to. For example, Baskett brought up T-Pain's iconic, stripped-down performance in 2014 on NPR Musics Tiny Desk concert series. The singer talked about how tired he was that morning, and that he, in fact, didn't even realize he'd be performing until he arrived at the station and noticed that his bandmates were set up and there were 300 people in an office, just staring at me. I was looking out thinking, Oh boy, this is gonna be bad.
Watch T-Pains performance for NPR Musics Tiny Desk series:
Video of T-Pain: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
The 14-minute set promptly shot down any notion that he needed to use something other than his lungs to sing (as one YouTube commenter puts it: T-pain didn't need auto tune, the auto tune needed T-pain ) and has been viewed almost 20 million times. One of those viewers was Berklee alumna Piao Huang B.M. '20, who in 2019 was inspired to do her own interpretation of T-Pain's NPR version of his massive hit Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin). The cover went viral and impressed T-Pain so much that he signed her as the first artist on the roster of his new record label, Nappy Boy Entertainment.
Near the end of the conversation, a student asked T-Pain for advice on how new artists can set themselves apart. You know that person that always says the opposite of what you like? You gotta be that person, he said, again emphasizing the kind of obsessive searching it takes to land on something that stands out. You gotta listen to music and you gotta say, Well, they already have that. It's really about knowing that you've done everything you can that you didn't adapt from anybody.
Related categories:
News
Related Reading
A Sonic History of Auto-Tune According to T-Pain From Roger Troutman to Dr. Dre, J.Lo to OutKast, listen to artists that shaped T-Pains signature sing-rap vocal style.
Miami's Hitmaker Now at Interscope, Nir Seroussi helps Latin artists take the world stage.
A Bedroom with a View As the Berklee community adjusts for remote learning and creativity, we offer a few artists who have used limitation as their inspiration.
More from Berklee Now
Most Popular
Berklee Announces Erica Muhl as New President Muhl comes to Berklee from the University of Southern California, where she was dean and founding executive director of the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation.
Latest
BerkleeNYC Announces Interim Directors for Master of Arts Program Berklees New York City campus taps Will Wells '11, Rona Siddiqui, and Loudon Stearns '01 to run its new graduate program's three specializations.
Along with Challenges, Remote Semester Brings Unexpected Rewards Upper-semester Berklee students recently reflected on their time off campus, taking stock of how their relationship to their music ha
Most recent headlines
18/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
18/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
18/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
18/12/2025
Long-term agreement includes the SES SCORE platform and hybrid distribution worldwide to deliver more than 5,000 hours of golf tournaments annually featuring th...
17/12/2025
Investigative journalists across the Western Balkans and T rkiye continue to con...
17/12/2025
Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Inducts 10 Industry Icons During Unforgettable ...
17/12/2025
ESPN to Debut MNF Playbook with Next Gen Stats, a New AI-Driven NFL Data-AltCastThe series, powered by Adrenaline TruPlay AI, launches Dec. 22 and runs through ...
17/12/2025
Inaugural Optum Golf Channel Games Debut Under the Lights' in Primetime on ...
17/12/2025
The right playlist is essential on New Year's Eve, building the energy as you get ready and keeping it high as you count down to midnight. This year, Spotif...
17/12/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
17/12/2025
Audiences Watched Over 103 Billion Minutes of TV on Thanksgiving Day
NFL Games ...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
17/12/2025
KPop Demon Hunters Stars Visit Berklee for Weeklong Celebration Andrew Choi and EJAE, who voiced the film's main characters and contributed to its soundtr...
17/12/2025
December 17 2025, 17:00 (PST) Dolby and LG Unveil a New Era of Home Audio With ...
17/12/2025
Wednesday 17 December 2025
Heated Rivalry will be coming to Sky and streaming service NOW on 10 JanuaryTurn on cookies to view this content. Go to Privacy opti...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Inside The Unseen World Of Indian Customs: Netflix Reveals The...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix announces PAPARAZZI KING: the docu series coming to Ne...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First Look at Jo Nesbo's Detective Hole Pr...
17/12/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Welcomes Warner Bros. Discovery Board Recommendation
Business
17 December 2025
Global
Link copied to clipboard
After Careful Revi...
17/12/2025
RT has announced that Kathy Fox has been appointed Commissioning Editor with re...
17/12/2025
The Hao AI Lab research team at the University of California San Diego - at the forefront of pioneering AI model innovation - recently received an NVIDIA DGX B...
17/12/2025
Editor's note: This post is part of Into the Omniverse, a series focused on ...
17/12/2025
With the new season of Dancing with the Stars shimmering in the not-too-distant future this New Year, the celebrity and dancer pairings of the twelve couples ha...
16/12/2025
Hawkins has landed on Spotify, just in time for Stranger Things Season 5, Volume...
16/12/2025
Wherever you are, your favorite music and audio content should go seamlessly with you. That's why Spotify has partnered with NAVER Corp, Korea's leading...
16/12/2025
2025 Wrapped arrived bigger and bolder than ever. This year's experience is designed to be ultra personal and shareable, with new features like Wrapped Part...
16/12/2025
Three 12-kilowatt Advanced Electric Propulsion System thrusters, supplied by L3Harris Technologies, form the core of Gateway's propulsion system. Pictured i...
16/12/2025
The challenge facing America's defense industrial base is not just about speed - its about rebuilding the foundation that makes speed possible. Our nations ...
16/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
16/12/2025
SEVILLE, Spain Canal Sur, the public broadcasting service for Andalusia, Spain, has completed a total technology refresh based on Pebble's resilient, softwa...
16/12/2025
NEW YORK Teleprompting hardware provider Telescript International has acquired all software code and intellectual property previously owned by Telescript West. ...
16/12/2025
As cable operators face increased competition from 5G fixed wireless access providers, a new report from Ookla Research finds that T-Mobile is the FWA speed lea...
16/12/2025
Apple has announced a major upgrade to the Apple TV app for device owners outside the Apple ecosystem with news that the Apple TV app for Android now supports G...
16/12/2025
Space42 grows Direct-to-Device partner ecosystem through a Memorandum of Underst...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON Announces Release Date for Full Year and Fourth Quarter 2025 R...
16/12/2025
16 Dec 2025
VEON's Kyivstar Invests in Renewable Energy in Ukraine with Acq...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Emma Appleton, Fares Fares, Frida Gustavsson and Jakob Oftebro...
16/12/2025
Back to All News
Docu-reality My Korean Boyfriend Gets a Trailer and Premiere D...
16/12/2025
Harmonic's XOS Advanced Media Processor Improves Streaming Video Quality and Boosts Viewer Engagement SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 16, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: ...
There are few artists who have found their voice the way T-Pain has. His signature vocal effect, achieved through the digital processor Auto-Tune, has become ubiquitous in contemporary hip-hop and pop, and is commonly referred to as the T-Pain effect. In response to criticism that he uses the tool as a vocal crutch, he's parodied his own style with the viral song/video I'm on a Boat with comedic band the Lonely Island, and hes wowed audiences by doing select performances without Auto-Tune.
