Top producer defends autotuning in X Factor row

Top producer defends autotuning in X Factor row
Top producer defends autotuning in X Factor row

An award-winning record producer has defended The X Factor over claims the show used technology to make some contestants' voices sound better. Furious viewers filled internet forums with complaints about the use of 'autotuning' during the programme. Some even threatened to boycott the show in protest at the alleged use of the studio technology used to correct pitch and off-key mistakes. But Donal Hodgson, who won a Grammy for his work with Sting, said using it was perfectly acceptable as long as it was not a total 'fabrication'. Hodgson said: "The issue would be if the X Factor was using it on people that really couldn't sing and making something that was a fabrication. I didn't see the show, but I imagine if you have a lot of young people who have never sung live on stage before then they will sing out of tune. "They won't be used to monitors and hearing their own voices coming back to them so they would be more likely to sing out of tune. Of course, if the X Factor fabricated the whole thing it would be self-defeating and they would end up with someone who couldn't sing." Most of the allegations surrounded teenage contestant Gamu Nhengu, who sang a version of the Katrina And The Waves hit Walking On Sunshine. After hearing her effort, judge Simon Cowell told the 18-year-old, from Clackmannanshire, Scotland, she was 'really talented' before she was unanimously voted through to the next round. But some viewers went online to accuse the producers of using autotune. On the show's website, robhayes wrote: "Absolutely disgusting use of... autotune... does X Factor really think we are idiots? I see the idea of making the show more entertaining, but this is taking the mick... really..."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.