The rapper-singer certainly has a unique voice, and his songs are an interesting combination of hip-hop, country, and rock music influences. This has led many to wonder how he produces such an interesting sound. Is it simply a unique voice or does he use autotune?
Yes, Post Malone definitely uses autotune. The artist has produced music that demonstrates his diverse musical styles and interests and has songs that involve a lot of rapping, as well as whole albums devoted to singing.
Post’s second full-length album, Beerbongs & Bentleys doesn’t include a lot of the rapper rapping. It sticks to a lot of singing instead. Iin it, Post Malone uses autotune in nearly every song.
Post Malone + Autotune
So, what is autotune and how does it help Post Malone make his songs? Thinking of autotune is like thinking of spell check. We may make small mistakes here and there but the spell check on our phones or laptops help us correct these small problems.
Autotune works in the same way. A singer can have a few bad notes or a pitch that’s wavering and an autotune audio program can help fix these. A lot of artists, like T-Pain and Lady Gaga, use autotune. In fact, nearly everything we hear on the radio incorporates autotune in some capacity.
Autotune works by creating a reference point (i.e. where the singer’s voice should be). If, say, Post Malone misses a note or has a wavering voice, autotune can help to make it perfect. It can either correct it to sound “natural” or, in the case of many hip-hop songs, it can make it sound warbled and artificial.
In Post’s case, the autotune morphs his voice into unnatural intonations, making the unique sound that’s a feature of this new album. Post has a tendency to write his hooks using autotuned sounds as a starting point. When combined in a feedback loop, “otherworldly sounds” are the result.
These autotuned hooks are what we know and love. If you’ve heard the hit single “Rockstar” it was probably stuck in your head for days—and we have autotune to thank for that.
Post Malone Sans Autotune
We know that Post Malone has a team of super talented auto technicians to help him use autotune effectively—but what about his early days as an artist? How was his autotune game at that point?
This may come as a shock to some of his die-hard rap fans, but Post Malone didn’t always always have a preference for rhymes and beats—he used to prefer acoustic tracks. Recently, a SoundCloud page was discovered under the name of “Austin Richard” with some old-school Post Malone songs that weren’t transformed by autotune.
The SoundCloud songs aren’t to be found anywhere anymore but there are a few “Austin Richard” gems that include acoustic covers, like this one of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”
Sound Like Post Malone
Fans love Post Malone for a multitude of reasons. He’s quirky and super talented. He’s a unique face in the rap game and his sound is unlike anyone else’s. Perhaps it’s for this reason that fans around the world have been trying to sound like the famous rapper-singer.
Because he uses autotune it should be easy for anyone to replicate his sound, right?
Not exactly. While there’s no shortage of fans who have tried to add the rapper name Malone to their own name, there’s no amount of reverb that can transform just anyone’s voice into that of Post Malone.
While audio technicians have worked their magic to transform the singer-rappers voice, wannabe-Post Malone fans should remember just that—they work to transform his voice. It’s important to remember that mimicking anyone’s voice is nearly impossible, regardless of how much autotune you have available.
So yes, Post Malone does use autotune—but he certainly uses it well and his voice is still what makes him the famous artist he is today.