Cinema VinesOn the recent episode of the Game Changers podcast, celebrated Indian vocalist Sonu Nigam opened up about the growing role of auto‑tune in contemporary music production. In a candid interview with senior trade analyst Komal Nahta, the singer admitted that he personally employs pitch‑correction tools on some of his recordings, citing the shift from live, analog sessions to fully digitised tracks as the main driver behind this change.
“The era of auto‑tune has certainly brought a lot of changes,” Nigam said. “People say a lot of bad things about it, but I say ‘Jo bhi hua hai aacha hua hai’ – whatever has happened is for the good.” He explained that earlier generations of singers had to rely on flawless live vocals, while today the industry’s digital workflow demands near‑perfect pitch to fit neatly into a 440‑Hz standard. “Everything now is so 440; previously, everything was live. We had live sarangi, live strings, so somewhere our pitch didn’t have to be perfect,” he added.
Despite his own use of auto‑tune, Nigam cautioned against the unchecked application of the technology. “It cannot be used to create singers from scratch,” he warned. He stressed that artists should use pitch‑correction to polish their best performance, not to mask fundamental vocal shortcomings. “It’s our responsibility that we don’t use the resources to fix the voices of those who can’t sing,” he said, noting that while actors may benefit from auto‑tune to realize their musical dreams, it should not replace genuine vocal talent.
In recent work, Nigam lent his voice to the track “Tabassum” from the upcoming film Batwara 1947, composed by A.R. Rahman and penned by Javed Akhtar. The song, featuring actors Ali Fazal, Isha Sandhir, Karan Deol and Kanikka Kapur, is set to premiere in theatres on August 14 under the direction of Rajkumar Santoshi, who also stars alongside Sunny Deol, Shabana Azmi, Preity Zinta and Abhimanyu Singh.
Looking ahead, the veteran singer is scheduled to perform live at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre on August 30 as part of his Revolution Tour, marking another milestone in his long‑standing career that has spanned nearly two decades of influencing Indian music and cinema.
