The pitch of the vocalist prior to Auto-Tune processing must be close enough to a note in the scale of the key of the song for Auto-Tune to work its best. In other words, the singer has to be at least near the right note for it to sound pleasing to the ears. Aug 08, 2005 Auto tune without knowing key of song? So if the key changes, you can change your remove selection or key in time with the track. I like to hear and see auto mode bfore I do any tweaking, sometimes auto works fine, sometimes it all sounds like. Get INSTANT ACCESS to the world's best private pro audio Classifieds for only USD. Jan 08, 2017 So you're looking for the best Auto-Tune VST plugin, but can't find one that suits your needs. In this article, we'll show you great solutions. Here Are The Best Auto-Tune VST Plugins Music Technology Has To Offer. Written by Scott Shpak on January 8, 2017. How to determine the key of my song for use of auto tune Sorry if this is a beginners question but I'm wondering when using Antares auto tune there's that section for you set the key of it. So a quick question how can I check or know the key of my beat, like what do I look at to help determine what it is. Mar 21, 2016 Select your vocal track, then open the Track editor(the scissors icon), and select either the complete track or a region i the track. In the Info panel you will now see the 'Limit to Key', Pitch correction, or flex (for follow tempo and pitch) elements to adjust the pitch of the track.
For a more detailed comparison, take a look at the Overview tab on the Waves Tune page, where you’ll find a chart comparing three different pitch correction plugins: Waves Tune, Waves Tune Real-Time, and Waves Tune LT (a ‘light’ version of Waves Tune). Separate the Notes Using Tolerance Settings. Should you decide to edit note-by-note, separating each note is critical to your success. Nov 06, 2018 Generally, using a graphical mode from Auto-Tune, Waves Tune, Melodyne, etc. Is the best way to do this. Or simply using an automatic mode and automating the Bypass works as well, unless some serious shifting is required. Mode B is more fun. Within the world of being effect-y, there are a couple of ways to go.
This article is going to be about Auto-Tune. Go grab your pitchforks … I’ll wait.
For many of you, this is going to be a great article about the creative and practical uses of Auto-Tune in modern music. For another significant portion of you, this will be a great opportunity to make not-so-clever jokes like “the best technique with Auto-Tune is hiring a better singer!”
Love it or hate it, Auto-Tune is a thing. And there are things about this thing worth knowing. So here are a few modern techniques for Auto-Tune.
The Two Categories of Use
In my mind Auto-Tune (or pitch correction in general) is used in one of two modes:
Mode A: A tool for locking in a few stray notes that missed the mark in spite of an otherwise rockin’ performance.
Mode B: An effect used to create a tone, much like a phaser or flanger or reverb or distortion.
Mode A is pretty straightforward — if a dirty note slides on by, hit it with just enough tuning to lock it back in. Generally, using a graphical mode from Auto-Tune, Waves Tune, Melodyne, etc. is the best way to do this. Or simply using an automatic mode and automating the Bypass works as well, unless some serious shifting is required.
Mode B is more fun. Within the world of being effect-y, there are a couple of ways to go. Auto-Tune can be used as a post effect — that is applying it after the initial recording, or the vocalist can sing into the plugin and manipulate it. I’m a fan of the latter. A very good vocalist can control their pitch and delivery enough to play off of how the tuning mechanism reacts and get a number of fun effects from it. Controlled slides and ‘distunes’ (I’m making that a word) can make the happy accident of tuning distortion into a creative tool.
Auto Tone
In today’s music, I often think of Auto-Tune as a tonal device (hence my horrible pun). Most of the time I’m trying to get a bit (or a lot) of sparkly, phase-y distortion. This creation of synthesized harmonics makes a voice sound a bit synth-y, or robotic depending on the approach. For the most part, people just tend to slap Auto-Tune on there and find a retune speed they like and roll with it. I’m a bit more neurotic and like a more refined approach. I’m pretty decisive about whether I’m abusing Melodyne, modern Auto-Tune or the classic ol’ school Auto-Tune. They all have different tones and sometimes one is more fitting than the others.
Melodyne generally has the most transparent tone. It can thin the low-mid of a vocal a little, but sometimes that can actually be a good thing. When abused, it has a specific color but it’s a very evenly distributed harmonic thing that happens — hard to put into words but it feels very “consistent”.
The current version of Auto-Tune is also pretty transparent but does do the quintessential Auto-Tune sound. The classic Auto-Tune, version 5.1 most notably, is really the one that we think of when we think T-Pain — because the formant shifting is the least accurate.
Then there’s the question of how much abuse I want. Just a touch of glitter, or full-on Robotron.
If I want just a touch, one really easy technique is to use two instances of Auto-Tune, both set to very slow retune speeds. The reprocessing of the tuned vocal generates harmonics on top of harmonics allowing for a subtle yet ever-present flavor. Because I’m using slow tuning speeds it also means that the tuning effect is fairly homogenous.
Melodyne Into Auto-Tune
However, sometimes I want a much more printed effect that still stays on the vocal in a consistent way. I find that by coupling Melodyne with Auto-Tune I can get a very even, yet very effected sound.
A great example of this is the vocal tracking for “Comentale” by Ozuna and Akon.
The chain for both vocals was Melodyne first in graphical mode just getting the notes a bit closer to center, and then Auto-Tune with a pretty fast retune speed to create the effected tone. The only place the Auto-Tune really ever varies tonally is when Akon does his faster note runs. When he does this I prefer to let the Auto-Tune glitch up a little because I like the texture it creates. Kon is very smart about where he places these glitches in his delivery — which I’m going to touch on again in a moment. As a side note, both Ozuna and Akon sang into Auto-Tune Pro during the recording in order to make the sound very deliberate — with Ozuna set to the regular mode and Akon set to the “classic” mode. The whole process is a lot more calculated than simply slapping Auto-Tune on there.
That said, sometimes you can just slap Auto-Tune on there.
Automating Auto-Tune
Sometimes I don’t want Auto-Tune to act evenly on everything. As I mentioned before, Akon is very particular about how he blends his voice with Auto-Tune. He will go out of his way to glitch it on purpose in order to create captivating moments. When he does this I take that as a cue to automate the settings on Auto-Tune to emphasize the effect.
Basically, I’m just picking up what he’s putting down. A lot of people associate Kon with heavy Auto-Tune, but when I think of his style I really think of someone with a masterful delivery above all else. He shapes his vocal tone and personality very carefully. For an artist who does this, I actually don’t like the Auto-Tune to be overly heavy. My default here is “classic” Auto-Tune (that 5.1 algorithm sound) with a retune speed of 12ms (maybe less for a more serious song, maybe more for a more club-oriented song). Admittedly this is pretty fast because I do want that distinct tone. But it’s not the T-Pain 0 millisecond sound. On certain runs or moments, I’ll automate the retune speed either very fast to bring out the glitches, or slow it down to keep things a little more subtle.
Manual Formant Shifting
Formant shifting is an underutilized effect. When we speak, our vowel sounds are determined by the shape of our mouths. These harmonic signatures, determined by mouth shape, are called formants. In order to preserve the sound of a voice during pitch correction, the formants have to be adjusted accordingly.
Pitch correction software generally does this automatically — but sometimes it’s not 100% spot-on. So most pitch software will allow us to manually adjust formants when needed to compensate. Higher formants refer to brassier tones like “a”, “ah” and “e” sounds, while lower formants refer to rounder tones like “oo”, “oh”, and “uh”. Sometimes it’s fun to abuse this formant shifting to create a variety of textures. We can do this on background vocals to make them sound less like the lead and more like different voices. Or, we can do this on a lead to make it sound like a singing chipmunk or Frankenstein’s monster.
Getting Creative
What’s the fun in writing an article if we can’t be a little creative? Here’s some next level stuff that my weirdo brain likes to get into.
The first thing that tickles my fancy is the relationship between pitch correction and reverb. You may notice that if you’ve ever printed or committed Auto-Tune it will not null against the original track. That means that the same track printed through Auto-Tune is not technically the same thing as the track with active Auto-Tune on it.
Ok … so what?
Well, the discrepancy between the two comes down to phase rotation. The micro-timing of the track changes, which changes the phase of the signal. Phase is an extremely important aspect of determining spatiality. Because I often use outboard reverb I found that if I print the reverb back in, and subsequently commit my Auto-Tune settings after the reverb print, the vocal will actually feel a bit more forward and disconnected from the reverb and have a stronger front to back image. Weird little quirk.
We can also do a doubler effect by making three instances of our source track and pitch correcting a left pan version up a few cents higher, and the right pan version a few cents lower, keeping the main version right in the center. This works very similarly to a classic doubler but because there’s movement in the pitch we get a bit of a phaser quality as well as an image that actually expands and contracts a bit. It’s a bit more movement-driven, which can be good or bad depending on what we want.
Lastly, I really like delays into Auto-Tune. We can get the glitchiest sound in the world and it sounds very futuristic and cool as a delay. Great for something we want to have a hint of sci-fi sound to it.
Conclusion
Auto-Tune is part of our musical landscape. Personally, I prefer to look for ways to expand the use of the tool rather than try to fight the cultural wave.
How do you find yourself using Auto-Tune? Have any of your experiments gone right?
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Prior to the digital age, life in the studio was all about moderating the effects of human touch.
Compressors evened out the dynamics of the bass player while a side chain feed kept them matched with the drummer. The drummer had a metronome feed playing to maintain tempo.
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Singers, well, you could keep their dynamics in control, but when they sang flat, about all you could do was tell them to smile as they sang and aim above the problem notes.
Smiling has the mysterious effect of raising singers' pitch. Aiming high is probably wishful thinking on everyone's part, but sometimes it works.
The Advent of Auto-Tune
You wouldn't think earthquakes have a lot to do with singing in pitch and they don't, really.
However, it was seismi c research that provided the background for Dr. Andy Hildebrand, the creator of Auto-Tune and its parent company Antares.
He left that field and returned to his early love of music, bringing knowledge that created seismic interpretation workstations and applied it to issues arising in the early days of digital music.
Hildebrand's expertise with digital signal processing led to a series of audio plug-ins, including 1997's Auto-Tune, which could correct the pitch of a voice or any single-note instrument with surprisingly natural results.
Audio engineers now had a weapon against the occasional bum note. Rather than scrapping an entire take, Auto-Tune offered a repair tool that quickly caught on.
Auto-Tune as an Effect
It was only a year later in 1998 that use of Auto-Tune as an effect rather than repair tool happened.
Called the 'Cher Effect' after the singer's hit, 'Believe,' artificial and abrupt pitch changes came into vogue. Later, real-time pitch correction hardware brought both effects and repairs to the stage.
In the studio, Auto-Tune proved another weapon to 'fix it in the mix.'
Issues with Auto-Tune started soon after, with lines drawn between the purist and users camps. Many felt that using pitch correction was an artistic cheat, a way to bypass craft.
The arguments resemble the resistance synthesizers received in the 1970s and 80s that led Queen to note that none were used on their albums.
The other side of the argument pointed out that tools such as compressors and limiters and effects such as audio exciters had already been modifying the sound and behavior of voices throughout the history of recording. Though the anti-Auto-Tune camp seems vocal and large, rarely does a session go by without some use of pitch correction. It's nearly impossible to detect when used judiciously, nowhere near as obvious as when used for effect.
Auto-Tune is no longer the only player in the pitch correction game either. Celemony's Melodyne software substantially improves on Auto-Tune's interface and brought the full power of pitch correction to a plug-in ahead of the tool's originator, which still leads the pack when it comes to response and set-and-forget capability.
'Generic' Auto-Tune
The Antares version of the effect has achieved 'Kleenex' status. Its brand name is now synonymous with the generic effect it originated. It joins 'Pro Tools' from the audio world and 'Photoshop' from digital imaging in this manner.
Unlike some digital music signal processors, pitch correction hasn't generated a huge number of knock-offs. Melodyne is a serious contender, due to its far more intuitive interface. GSnap is an open source alternative that produces similar results. While iZotope's VocalSynth includes pitch correction features, it's more of a full vocal processor rather than a dedicated pitch correction app.
The 4 Best Auto-Tune VST Plugins
Now, lets get into the top 4 autotune plugins. Each one offers unique features and I assure you that one of these plugins have exactly what you are looking for
Antares Auto-Tune Vocal Studio
The originator is now a full-featured and functional vocal processor that still masters the innovative pitch correction duties it brought to the market, but adds a wide range of additional features and effects to help nail down the perfect vocal take.
Auto-Tune 7 forms the core of the Vocal Studio package, still tackling the pitch and time correction duties it always has. Since its earliest days, automatic and graphical modes handle the various chores for the main Auto-Tune module.
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While still presenting a learning curve for the new user, the Auto-Tune 7 interface remains familiar enough for experienced users. Since it's the best-selling pitch correction software going -- and by a huge margin -- there are a lot of existing Auto-Tune users. Even if you're new to the plug-in, chances are you know someone who's used it.
The rest of the Vocal Studio package focuses on vocal manipulations such as automatic doubling, harmony generation, tube amp warmth and vocal timbre adjustment. The range and nature of these adjustments takes vocal processing into some new territory.
The MUTATOR Voice Designer lets you manipulate voices from subtle to extreme, permitting organic or alien manipulations but with results that still sound like voices, though perhaps not of this world. The ARTICULATOR Talk Box produces effects such as the guitar talk box of Peter Frampton and Joe Walsh, but also Alan Parsons-ish vocoder sounds, combining the features of sung or spoken voice with an instrument's output.
While the Auto-Tune Vocal Studio remains pricey, it remains at the top of a niche market of audio processing.
Melodyne 4 Studio
If Auto-Tune has a serious competitor in the pitch correction universe, it's Celemony's Melodyne. The interface, layout and operation of Melodyne is inherently more musical than the Antares take, so newcomers to pitch correction will likely find Melodyne easier to work with.
The Melodyne 'blob' is an easy to grasp analog of a sung note. It's far more intuitive than a waveform to understand. With the focus on graphical interface, Melodyne makes sense more quickly and easily than Auto-Tune. The latter's switching between automatic and graphical modes creates a comparative disconnect between functions.
Even long-time users of Auto-Tune will find moving to Melodyne natural, as there's enough in common that, once a user gets their bearings, familiar functions remain available.
Many Melodyne functions perform on polyphony too. Correcting a track with a multi-voice choir or chording instrument can work too. It's not a perfect function, but it's uncanny how often Melodyne senses chords clearly enough to allow changing of a single element.
What Melodyne doesn't do is the advanced vocal pyrotechnics offered by Auto-Tune. The Celemony product is all about pitch and time correction and it accomplished these with grace and ease.
Those looking for an affordable entry into digital pitch correction can turn to Melodyne 4 Essential. It's a plug-in that handles the pitch and time corrections of its big brother, but with fewer advanced features and without the full-featured price tag.
iZotope VocalSynth
Though pitch correction isn't the focus of this iZotope plug-in, it resembles the full Auto-Tune Studio package. At a fraction of the cost of the big boys in this class, VocalSynth doesn't offer the depth of control experienced with either Auto-Tune or Melodyne, yet it still manages to provide a reasonable job of pitch correction.
There's no graphical representation such as Melodyne's or Auto-Tune's graphical mode. That makes fine-tuning performances a little beyond the reach of VocalSynth, but for reasonable performances, it's not a major limitation. Think of the iZotope product as a first-aid kit rather than an emergency department.
The four voice synthesis modules are where the fun resides with VocalSynth. Talkbox, Compuvox, Polyvox and Vocoder modules emulate many of the vocal effects you've heard on hits from a wide range of artists. This is also just the most overt extra in the VocalSynth package.
A variety of additional modules let you tune up or tear up your vocal tracks. Add harmony, filter vocals, create radio and phone effects. These modules can either optimize your track or take it to new and exciting places.
Best Way To Track With Auto Tuners
VocalSynth may be the country cousin to the serious pitch manipulators, but it has capability with a high fun factor.
GVST GSnap
Don't let the download page fool you, GSnap is a VST plug-in that works with any DAW platform that supports VST, not simply Windows-based DAWs. Both 32 and 64-bit support is included. Completely free, it does come with limits. While there is more graphic information than iZotope offers, it doesn't offer direct edits.
While not as flexible as pro pitch correction, it's a low-cost alternative for users who can't swing the big time prices. It's difficult to use GSnap subtly. That's not an issue for those seeking pitch correction effects, such as Cher or T-Pain. Backup vocals are also a good candidate.
This is the entry level of pitch correction, and because of that, it's included here. The effect is so ubiquitous that anyone working in the field needs to know how it works. GSnap represents the place to start.
Best Way To Track With Auto Tuner
Wrapping It Up
Love it or hate it, pitch correction is here to stay, both as tool and effect. These four plug-ins aren't the only ones out there, but they represent the spectrum of pitch correction treatment. Auto-Tune is the originator. Melodyne is the refinement. It works just as well as the Antares product in nearly every way with an interface that easy to grasp.
iZotope VocalSynth represents the cream of the mid-priced plug-ins. It's capable and creative, even if it's not as flexible on pitch correction as the top-line apps. GSnap represents pitch correction for everyman. You can't knock the price of freeware.
The debate will likely rage over the ethics of pitch correction in popular music. While you wait for the dust to settle, give one of these packages a try.
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