Cheap Autotune Plugin

Autotune and pitch correction has a variety of uses, from fixing subtle imperfections in a vocalist's performance to extreme effects such as the famous sound

1. Cheap Autotune Plug-ins
2. Cheap Autotune Plugin Mac
3. Cheap Autotune Plugin

We would like to show you a description here but the site won't allow us. Finally, an easy way to get a Yamaha DX7 for free Well, not really, but close enough. Dexed is a highly versatile multi-platform, multi-format plugin synthesizer that is closely modelled on the iconic Yamaha DX7. This plugin is a patch editor of the DX7, but also has it's own in-built sound engine so it can be used to play real DX7 patches as well, and believe me, this thing. Cheaper or free auto-tune plug ins? When you buy products through links across our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more 📝 Reply OPTIONS. 8th July 2006 #1. Cheaper or free auto-tune plug ins? I've found the Antares auto tune to be a usefull tool for myself. Not so much to correct pitch but to. 1) Antares Auto-Tune Pro (Paid) Auto-Tune is the original pitch correction software.It's so popular that its name is synonymous and is more of a colloquial term. Antares gives you a couple of options to pick from depending on your needs — Pro, Artist, Access, or EFX+. Our 1st autotune VST plugin is from the country of the sun. G200kg, a Japan-based plugin manufacturer made the 1st version of this plugin in 2010. As this is one of the oldest Autotune software plugins, obviously it passed by many quality checks. If you are finding a deep pitch correction plugin for free you should definitely try KeroVee.

popularized by T-Pain and utilized by Daft Punk, Black Eyed Peas, Cher, and many more.
Furthermore, you can even record organic instruments and give them a natural, flowing, and gliding sound!
As a result, there are tons of possible uses to consider with an autotune VST.
However, many of the popular autotune plugins will burn hundreds of dollars out of your wallet, and with the wealth of available autotune and pitch tuning plugins, finding the right one for your specific needs can be overwhelming.
So to help you out, we've compiled a list of seven completely free autotune VST's that still have incredible functionality!

Cheap Autotune Plug-ins

To get started, let's briefly go over what to consider when searching for these crucial plugins.

Things To Consider When Searching for a Free Autotune VST

There are a few points to go over before deciding on which autotune and pitch-correction plugins are the right ones for you.
Most importantly, what do you need these tools for?
If you produce a genre outside of EDM that might call for more organic sounds, you'll want an autotune plugin that's designed for smoother and more subtle pitch-correction.
This way, you're simply making minor corrections that likely won't be heard by your audience and will still sound natural.
Thus, to keep the organic feel of your sound, you should search for a pitch correction plugin with a transparent audio engine that won't color your sound too much, so that it guarantees a seamless, smooth, and untouched sound for your acoustic needs.
On the other hand, if you produce hip-hop, trap, or certain electronic genres, you'll have to consider an autotune plugin that allows you to draw in the notes you want the singer or instrument to hit.
Additionally, you might need effects that allow you to further customize the voice, such as formant control, MIDI input, and others. That way, you can jump up and down in volume and pitch as you please!
So, there are a lot of things to consider before choosing which plugin is right for you.
Now that you have a better idea of what to look out for, let's jump right into the 7 best and completely free autotune plugins available in 2018!

1. MAuto Pitch

MeldaProduction, a renowned audio plugin company used and promoted by Deadmau5, was kind enough to create a completely free and fully functioning autotune plugin!
This plugin give you options such as depth, detune, and speed, which are standard on most pitch correctors.
Depth controls how much effect the VST has on the entire sound. Detune will push the pitch of the sound up or down by cents for sharp fine-tuning purposes.
The speed knob will control how fast MAutoPitch will respond to out-of-tune notes. If you're looking for a smoother sound, using a low speed value will ensure that transitions between notes aren't jumpy and fake-sounding.
Otherwise, if you want something closer to the T-Pain effect, you'll want to turn the speed up very high so that it skips quickly from one note to the next.
What's great about this plugin is that, like a lot of Melda's works, there are a wealth of bonus features that come along with it!
For example, MAutoPitch includes an effects rack. With this, you can control how heavy the effects work on the sound with the dry-wet knob, spread the stereo image with the width function, and even shift the formants.

Shifting formants will make your sound deeper and more 'masculine' sounding or higher and more 'feminine' sounding, but you need to be careful with this. If you alter the formant way too much you might also alter its pitch.
This is achieved trying to imitate how the human vocal tract works and even the shape of the singer's mouth while singing, through complex filters. Formant shifting will also have a huge influence on vowel sounds and certain consonants, and if you are interested in this topic, we really recommend you reading this article. This subject is too complex and outside of the scope of this article.
A visual detector displays what notes are being detected by the plugin, and a scale function enables you to select what scale of music you're on. This way, MAutoPitch only shifts pitch to the perfect notes according to the key your track is in!
Also included is a limiter, which helps keep your sound below the 0 db threshold so it doesn't clip.
The wealth of features available on MAutoPitch, along with the high functionality and easy interface, makes this free VST something you'll want in your autotuning arsenal.
Download it here.

2. GSnap

One of the original free pitch correction plugins, Graham Yeadon's GSnap, still is among the elite.
That's partially because of its unique ability to adjust notes according to MIDI that you can feed into it!
For example, if you want to correct a vocalist's notes, you can play their part on a piano, feed the MIDI notes from the piano into the plugin, and GSnap will use those notes as a guide to where it will correct.
Not many other plugins can do this, and it's an incredibly powerful and advantageous tool to use!
An easy visual interface on the left of the VST shows exactly how GSnap is fixing the sounds.
The original sound is in red, and the adjusted notes are highlighted in green. This is perfect for figuring out exactly how to fine-tune the sound and to know what's going on. Twelve fully adjustable knobs allow for precise editing of the effect.
Furthermore, this plugin enables you to add vibrato and adjust the speed of it! This is something not seen in other plugins like MAuto Pitch, for example.
Vibrato is an up-and-down pitch and volume effect that essentially makes the singer sound a lot more organic and talented, and it works across multiple genres when used correctly.
Also included in the detection section is a gate, which is a unique way of controlling how much GSnap has an effect on the sound. It can be adjusted so that GSnap only has an effect on the loud or quiet parts, if needed.
As GSnap is well-known among experienced producers for its versatility, MIDI feed options, and easy interface, it's easy to see why this free plugin is worth a grab!
Get it here.

3. Graillon 2

No list of autotune plugins, free or otherwise, would be complete without the recently released free version of Auburn Sounds' Graillon 2!
From first glance, you'll notice a beautiful vintage-looking interface with large fonts and a standout color scheme that makes it easy to navigate. An easy central waveform display shows where the current note of your sound is, as well as exactly where Graillon 2 is correcting it.
Behind the eye-catching and functional design is a well-programmed plugin that can perform both heavy autotune and fine pitch correction functions flawlessly!
For easy and quick use, simply adding it as an insert on your desired channel and turning on the correction will suffice in most cases. To adjust, use the critical 'inertia' knob as a 'speed' knob mentioned previously. It reduces pitch correction jumps by helping notes 'stick'.
You should be careful with this function, however, as some notes may 'stick' for too long, hence altering the melody altogether.
If you're looking for a robotic sound, adjust the 'smooth' knob in the correction module, which controls how slow or fast your sound will jump from one note to the other.
Yet another feature available on Graillon 2 is the 'bitcrusher' area on the left side. Even more, it can make a voice 'growl' as well as reinforce the bass portion of monophonic pitched sounds, a function unique to Graillon 2.
With proper adjustment of the quantize and reduction knobs, you can get sounds that are highly distorted, 'bitcrushed', or a robotic growl sound by reducing the reduction knob.
Graillon 2 can also double as a pitch-shifting plugin with a pitch wheel on the bottom left. There's also an option to keep the formants of the track along with it, which changes the singer's perceived vocal tract shape and the shape of the singer's mouth while singing. If you're looking for a smoother effect, it's often best to change both the pitch and the formants at the same rate.
Also included are convenient knobs such as dry/wet for overall effect adjustment, a low cut filter, and an adjustable output gain meter.
As Graillon 2 is a proverbial swiss army knife in the autotune realm, capable of most features, with an included bitcrusher, growl sound capabilities, and with a beautiful interface, there aren't many negatives to this one.
If you need flawless all-around functionality with a few bonus features thrown in, Graillon 2 is your best bet.
Get it here.

4. KeroVee

The Japan-based, g200kg company created KeroVee back in 2010, and it's still used for deep pitch correction adjustment today.
What KeroVee lacks in extreme robotic effects, it makes up for with ultra-precise pitch adjustment capabilities that are far better than most free autotune plugins!
Similar to GSnap, there's an easy scaled interface on the left side so you can see exactly what KeroVee is doing and respond accordingly.
Just to the right of this block, you can click which notes of the scale you want KeroVee to adjust to. Selected notes will have a green block next to them, while deselected notes will be black.
Also similar to GSnap, you can route MIDI notes to KeroVee for the plugin to use as a guide. This is a crucial function that lets you tell KeroVee exactly what notes the singer should be on, with a large set of knobs to customize further.
Unique to KeroVee is a 'nuance' parameter that allows you to keep or ignore subtle pitch changes, such as natural vibrato from the singer.
Typical on most autotune plugins, you get a 'TuneSpeed' knob which controls how fast the VST will fix the incoming audio.
The calib function controls the overall pitch of the sound, and on the bottom are important functions such as pitch and formant shifting, fine tuning for precision work, and panning and volume knobs.
If you're looking for an autotune plugin that is tailor-made specifically for fine adjustment of vocals, rather than a harsh and noticeable effect, KeroVee will be a good place to start.
The free download can be found here.

5. X42 Auto-Tune

X42 Auto-Tune is a simple autotuner based on the zita-at1 by Fons Adriaensen. It's much better if you use it as a light tonal fixer over a full-on robotic autotuner.
It works by resampling the material fed into it and then looping the signal. It does not have any formant correction capabilities.
As a result, its uses don't come from transposing a track, but from subtle adjustments to vocals.
Even though the X42 has a specific set of sounds it can perform on, when you use it correctly, it does a goob job!
As with the GSnap and KeroVee, it can be fed MIDI from which it adjusts the vocal notes to. Otherwise, you can input a fixed set of notes from any musical key for the program to respond to.
Although it shares similarities with other plugins, there are some unique features the X42 has that others don't.
The 'Bias' parameter lets the vocals to stay on their current note for a longer period of time instead of moving quickly to one of your selected notes, regardless of if they're in tune or not. It allows for more off-tune and natural singing sounds.
Furthermore, it includes a unique 'offset' parameter which adjusts how far the vocalist can venture from the predesigned notes.
Like the bias parameter, this will let you to keep some of the vocalist's minor mistakes for a more organic sounding performance, if need be.
What this plugin lacks in formant features, sparkly design, and variability in sound adjustment, it makes up for with unique parameters and fine MIDI control of missed notes.
Try it out here.

6. Autotalent

Don't be fooled by the simple interface!
Autotalent by Oli Larkin is a well designed, fully functioning autotune and pitch correction VST.
You can use it for light pitch correction and full-on robotic autotune, and it even contains chiptune effects!
It includes all of your typical parameters needed in an autotune plugin. It allows smoothing, subtle pitch shifting to scaled notes, and a full formant editing function.
With Autotalent, you set notes on the piano scale to '-1' for notes you want to exclude, and '0' if you do want the singer or instrument on that note.
Autotalent, unlike any other free autotune VST, offers an extensive LFO and vibrato section. Use this section to add vibrato, skill, and confidence into a vocalist's performance.
The LFO can also be used to add a unique chiptune effect to the vocal or instrument! Chiptune describes a sound that appears to have come from early gaming consoles.
So despite a relatively lacking interface, Autotalent offers a wealth of both robotic and smooth autotune options, as well as unique LFO section. If you're looking for this type of versatility and want to try the plugin-specific LFO module, give Autotalent a try.
Listen to a demo of the plugin in action here.
Download it here.

7. AAS Autotune

Last, but certainly not least, we're going to include an interface-less plugin, the AAS Autotune by Arguru.
Obviously, without any user interface, you're only going to have one specific set of parameters working at one time!
Use AAS Autotune to get the classic and harsh 'T-Pain' effect on vocals.
It's a robotic and fast-moving sound that's only useful in certain situations, but it works well when it's needed, such as hip-hop songs that use purposefully autotuned vocals as an effect.
It's ultra simple, but incredibly useful!
You can directly download it here.

Conclusion

Because of the overwhelming amount of music that includes some sort of vocal or tuned instruments, autotune and pitch correction plugins are an absolute necessity!
Hopefully we've been able to help you figure out what you want from this class of free plugins.
You should be thinking about whether you want the heavy, unnatural, and robotic sound, or a light and seamless touch that the listener's won't hear, most often used to put small touch-ups on a vocal performance.

Shifting formants will make your sound deeper and more 'masculine' sounding or higher and more 'feminine' sounding, but you need to be careful with this. If you alter the formant way too much you might also alter its pitch.
This is achieved trying to imitate how the human vocal tract works and even the shape of the singer's mouth while singing, through complex filters. Formant shifting will also have a huge influence on vowel sounds and certain consonants, and if you are interested in this topic, we really recommend you reading this article. This subject is too complex and outside of the scope of this article.
A visual detector displays what notes are being detected by the plugin, and a scale function enables you to select what scale of music you're on. This way, MAutoPitch only shifts pitch to the perfect notes according to the key your track is in!
Also included is a limiter, which helps keep your sound below the 0 db threshold so it doesn't clip.
The wealth of features available on MAutoPitch, along with the high functionality and easy interface, makes this free VST something you'll want in your autotuning arsenal.
Download it here.

2. GSnap

One of the original free pitch correction plugins, Graham Yeadon's GSnap, still is among the elite.
That's partially because of its unique ability to adjust notes according to MIDI that you can feed into it!
For example, if you want to correct a vocalist's notes, you can play their part on a piano, feed the MIDI notes from the piano into the plugin, and GSnap will use those notes as a guide to where it will correct.
Not many other plugins can do this, and it's an incredibly powerful and advantageous tool to use!
An easy visual interface on the left of the VST shows exactly how GSnap is fixing the sounds.
The original sound is in red, and the adjusted notes are highlighted in green. This is perfect for figuring out exactly how to fine-tune the sound and to know what's going on. Twelve fully adjustable knobs allow for precise editing of the effect.
Furthermore, this plugin enables you to add vibrato and adjust the speed of it! This is something not seen in other plugins like MAuto Pitch, for example.
Vibrato is an up-and-down pitch and volume effect that essentially makes the singer sound a lot more organic and talented, and it works across multiple genres when used correctly.
Also included in the detection section is a gate, which is a unique way of controlling how much GSnap has an effect on the sound. It can be adjusted so that GSnap only has an effect on the loud or quiet parts, if needed.
As GSnap is well-known among experienced producers for its versatility, MIDI feed options, and easy interface, it's easy to see why this free plugin is worth a grab!
Get it here.

3. Graillon 2

No list of autotune plugins, free or otherwise, would be complete without the recently released free version of Auburn Sounds' Graillon 2!
From first glance, you'll notice a beautiful vintage-looking interface with large fonts and a standout color scheme that makes it easy to navigate. An easy central waveform display shows where the current note of your sound is, as well as exactly where Graillon 2 is correcting it.
Behind the eye-catching and functional design is a well-programmed plugin that can perform both heavy autotune and fine pitch correction functions flawlessly!
For easy and quick use, simply adding it as an insert on your desired channel and turning on the correction will suffice in most cases. To adjust, use the critical 'inertia' knob as a 'speed' knob mentioned previously. It reduces pitch correction jumps by helping notes 'stick'.
You should be careful with this function, however, as some notes may 'stick' for too long, hence altering the melody altogether.
If you're looking for a robotic sound, adjust the 'smooth' knob in the correction module, which controls how slow or fast your sound will jump from one note to the other.
Yet another feature available on Graillon 2 is the 'bitcrusher' area on the left side. Even more, it can make a voice 'growl' as well as reinforce the bass portion of monophonic pitched sounds, a function unique to Graillon 2.
With proper adjustment of the quantize and reduction knobs, you can get sounds that are highly distorted, 'bitcrushed', or a robotic growl sound by reducing the reduction knob.
Graillon 2 can also double as a pitch-shifting plugin with a pitch wheel on the bottom left. There's also an option to keep the formants of the track along with it, which changes the singer's perceived vocal tract shape and the shape of the singer's mouth while singing. If you're looking for a smoother effect, it's often best to change both the pitch and the formants at the same rate.
Also included are convenient knobs such as dry/wet for overall effect adjustment, a low cut filter, and an adjustable output gain meter.
As Graillon 2 is a proverbial swiss army knife in the autotune realm, capable of most features, with an included bitcrusher, growl sound capabilities, and with a beautiful interface, there aren't many negatives to this one.
If you need flawless all-around functionality with a few bonus features thrown in, Graillon 2 is your best bet.
Get it here.

4. KeroVee

The Japan-based, g200kg company created KeroVee back in 2010, and it's still used for deep pitch correction adjustment today.
What KeroVee lacks in extreme robotic effects, it makes up for with ultra-precise pitch adjustment capabilities that are far better than most free autotune plugins!
Similar to GSnap, there's an easy scaled interface on the left side so you can see exactly what KeroVee is doing and respond accordingly.
Just to the right of this block, you can click which notes of the scale you want KeroVee to adjust to. Selected notes will have a green block next to them, while deselected notes will be black.
Also similar to GSnap, you can route MIDI notes to KeroVee for the plugin to use as a guide. This is a crucial function that lets you tell KeroVee exactly what notes the singer should be on, with a large set of knobs to customize further.
Unique to KeroVee is a 'nuance' parameter that allows you to keep or ignore subtle pitch changes, such as natural vibrato from the singer.
Typical on most autotune plugins, you get a 'TuneSpeed' knob which controls how fast the VST will fix the incoming audio.
The calib function controls the overall pitch of the sound, and on the bottom are important functions such as pitch and formant shifting, fine tuning for precision work, and panning and volume knobs.
If you're looking for an autotune plugin that is tailor-made specifically for fine adjustment of vocals, rather than a harsh and noticeable effect, KeroVee will be a good place to start.
The free download can be found here.

5. X42 Auto-Tune

X42 Auto-Tune is a simple autotuner based on the zita-at1 by Fons Adriaensen. It's much better if you use it as a light tonal fixer over a full-on robotic autotuner.
It works by resampling the material fed into it and then looping the signal. It does not have any formant correction capabilities.
As a result, its uses don't come from transposing a track, but from subtle adjustments to vocals.
Even though the X42 has a specific set of sounds it can perform on, when you use it correctly, it does a goob job!
As with the GSnap and KeroVee, it can be fed MIDI from which it adjusts the vocal notes to. Otherwise, you can input a fixed set of notes from any musical key for the program to respond to.
Although it shares similarities with other plugins, there are some unique features the X42 has that others don't.
The 'Bias' parameter lets the vocals to stay on their current note for a longer period of time instead of moving quickly to one of your selected notes, regardless of if they're in tune or not. It allows for more off-tune and natural singing sounds.
Furthermore, it includes a unique 'offset' parameter which adjusts how far the vocalist can venture from the predesigned notes.
Like the bias parameter, this will let you to keep some of the vocalist's minor mistakes for a more organic sounding performance, if need be.
What this plugin lacks in formant features, sparkly design, and variability in sound adjustment, it makes up for with unique parameters and fine MIDI control of missed notes.
Try it out here.

6. Autotalent

Don't be fooled by the simple interface!
Autotalent by Oli Larkin is a well designed, fully functioning autotune and pitch correction VST.
You can use it for light pitch correction and full-on robotic autotune, and it even contains chiptune effects!
It includes all of your typical parameters needed in an autotune plugin. It allows smoothing, subtle pitch shifting to scaled notes, and a full formant editing function.
With Autotalent, you set notes on the piano scale to '-1' for notes you want to exclude, and '0' if you do want the singer or instrument on that note.
Autotalent, unlike any other free autotune VST, offers an extensive LFO and vibrato section. Use this section to add vibrato, skill, and confidence into a vocalist's performance.
The LFO can also be used to add a unique chiptune effect to the vocal or instrument! Chiptune describes a sound that appears to have come from early gaming consoles.
So despite a relatively lacking interface, Autotalent offers a wealth of both robotic and smooth autotune options, as well as unique LFO section. If you're looking for this type of versatility and want to try the plugin-specific LFO module, give Autotalent a try.
Listen to a demo of the plugin in action here.
Download it here.

7. AAS Autotune

Last, but certainly not least, we're going to include an interface-less plugin, the AAS Autotune by Arguru.
Obviously, without any user interface, you're only going to have one specific set of parameters working at one time!
Use AAS Autotune to get the classic and harsh 'T-Pain' effect on vocals.
It's a robotic and fast-moving sound that's only useful in certain situations, but it works well when it's needed, such as hip-hop songs that use purposefully autotuned vocals as an effect.
It's ultra simple, but incredibly useful!
You can directly download it here.

Conclusion

Because of the overwhelming amount of music that includes some sort of vocal or tuned instruments, autotune and pitch correction plugins are an absolute necessity!
Hopefully we've been able to help you figure out what you want from this class of free plugins.
You should be thinking about whether you want the heavy, unnatural, and robotic sound, or a light and seamless touch that the listener's won't hear, most often used to put small touch-ups on a vocal performance.
Furthermore, we've gone through all of the advantages and disadvantages to the 7 free plugins we listed above as it pertains to those needs.
All of them have special features unique to the situations they're used in, and there should be many in this list that fit your autotune needs!
Have you used any of these plugins before?
Did we miss a free autotune plugin that you love to use?
Let us know in the comment section below!

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.

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. Family feud ppt template.

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

​

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.

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.

​

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.

​

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.

VocalSynth may be the country cousin to the serious pitch manipulators, but it has capability with a high fun factor.

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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.

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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.

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iZotope VocalSynth represents the cream of the mid-priced plug-ins. Midi music creator. 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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