Autotune

Lore & Background

In the Skrillex universe of aggressive electronic production, Autotune occupies a place almost mythic. Where other producers might reach for it to tidy up a vocal take, Skrillex treats it as a sculpting blade. The widely discussed technique involves cranking the retune speed to its fastest setting, which eliminates any natural glide between notes and replaces the human vocal line with a rigid, step-quantised, almost mechanical delivery. From there, the vocal is often pitched up, run through distortion, and chopped into staccato bursts that function more like percussion than melody.

This approach became a cornerstone of the dubstep vocal aesthetic in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Listeners and fellow producers alike recognised the sound instantly: a bright, nasal, almost cartoonish shriek layered over grinding synths and thunderous bass. It sits in the upper-mid register, cutting through dense mixes with a clarity that no amount of low-end weight could muddy. For fans, that vocal texture is as central to the Skrillex experience as the drops themselves.

What makes the technique feel so distinctly 'Skrillex' is the context. The Autotune-processed vocal is never the star in a traditional sense; it is a weapon in an arsenal of distortion, bitcrush, and aggressive sequencing. It adds a layer of chaotic, almost deranged energy that complements the mechanical brutality of the instrumental. In fan discussions, the sound is often described as 'a voice that has seen too much and is screaming about it at 200 BPM.'

In Their Own Story

The studio is dark except for the blue glow of the DAW on the main monitor. Sonny has a vocal sample loaded—a raw, half-whispered phrase recorded in a bathroom three years ago. He drags it into the timeline, slaps Autotune on the channel, and starts turning knobs. Retune speed: fastest. Pitch: up two semitones, then three. He hits play. The voice comes back wrong, beautiful, metallic. He layers it. Distortion. Bitcrush. Another copy, pitched down, buried under the 808. He leans back, headphones on, and the whole thing detonates through the monitors like a small controlled explosion. He smiles. 'Yeah,' he mutters, 'that's the one.'

Reader's Guide

Autotune, made by Antares, is a pitch-correction plugin. In its most basic form, it listens to a vocal (or any monophonic source) and nudges each note toward the nearest pitch in a chosen key, smoothing out flat or sharp moments. That is the 'correction' use case, and most pop and R&B production relies on it quietly in the background.

Skrillex flips the premise. Instead of hiding the tool, he makes it the star. By setting the retune speed to its fastest value, every natural vowel glide is chopped into hard, quantised steps. The vocal loses its humanity and becomes a series of bright, staccate, almost robotic blips. He then pitches the result upward, stacks it with distortion and bitcrushing, and chops it into rhythmic fragments that lock in with the kick and 808 pattern. The sonic problem it solves: in a dense dubstep mix dominated by sub-bass and mid-range grit, a normal vocal gets buried or feels too 'soft.' Autotune gives the vocal a metallic, inhuman edge that cuts through the low end and adds a layer of aggressive, almost deranged energy.

The track that best showcases this is 'Bangarang.' The shrieking, chipmunk-bright vocal hooks are a masterclass in using pitch correction not as a fix but as a texture, a personality, and a hook all at once. Fans still cite it as the moment the technique became inseparable from the Skrillex sound.

Did You Know?

• Skrillex's signature vocal sound is built by pushing Autotune's retune speed to its fastest setting, which eliminates natural pitch glide and creates a rigid, step-quantised, almost mechanical delivery.
• The 'chipmunk' vocal texture associated with dubstep is not a single effect but a chain: Autotune for pitch, followed by upward transposition, distortion, and bitcrushing, often with the result chopped into percussive fr
• In fan and producer communities, the Autotune-processed vocal is frequently described as the 'sonic logo' of Skrillex's production—recognisable within the first second of a track.
• Autotune was originally designed as a subtle pitch-correction tool for radio and studio vocals; its use as an overt, aggressive creative effect in dubstep and electronic music represents a deliberate subversion of its in