Quite rightly we should start with the inventors of the technology and the classic pitch correction tool of Auto-Tune. Weirdly Antares have made it really difficult to buy because there are now 7 versions and trying to work out which version is best for you is a bit of a minefield. Should you get Auto-Tune Pro X, or is Auto-Tune Artist good enough? Should I subscribe to Auto-Tune Unlimited or is the entry level Auto-Tune Access all I’ll ever need? Honestly, unless you are intending to design vocal performances, and model formants then the $99 Access version is the one to go for.

The great thing about Auto-Tune access is that it gives you a simple interface that it is going to let you pull wayward vocals into line with the right amount of subtlety or an outrageous amount of force. You can select scales and chordal structures, dial in the speed and add some humanization to effect. It’s more than enough to correct pitches within your projects. The Antares website desperately wants you to subscribe to Producer or Unlimited levels or buy into the Artist version but that is many hundreds of dollars more. Access is fine.

However, what if you do want to splash out and have all the tools? Auto-Tune Pro X is the most advanced version of Auto-Tune. The Unlimited version simply contains Pro X and a load of other plugins and extras. Everything is at high detail, with graphical editing and a high-quality auto-mode. You can now see the pitches within the waveforms and adjust them perfectly. If you are using Logic Pro or PreSonus Studio One then it supports ARA2 technology which runs Auto-Tune directly on an audio track rather than as a plugin.

The quality of the pitch correction is the standard by which all others are measured. For easy of use Auto-tune Access is the best on the market. It’s a shame they’ve made the rest of the product range so complicated.

Street Prices:
• Auto-Tune Access $99
• Auto-Tune Pro X $459
• Auto-Tune Unlimited $25 per month

antarestech.com

Melodyne comes at pitch correction in a completely different way. It has the ability to somehow work with a sense of musical and emotional intelligence. The algorithms Celemony have developed grasp the feel of the music to enable it to achieve quite extraordinary acoustic faithfulness. And this is not necessarily all about the vocals, it can just as well be about solo instruments and polyphonic instruments, too.

It’s quite fascinating to watch Melodyne work. You give it a piece of audio and it graphically pulls notes out into an editor for manipulation. It’s impressive on a solo melody but it’s like sorcery when it does the same thing to polyphonic instruments. With Melodyne, you can now edit a single note in a strummed chord. It sort of makes anything possible and has earned it the headline of “Photoshop for sounds.”

Melodyne recognizes digital audio as music as opposed to simply data to process. So, when you edit notes the character is retained, the emotional elements are dealt with sympathetically and then the musicality becomes part of the process. You can move and tweak notes for sure, but then you can add vibrancy, increase expression, deepen the emotion, widen the dynamics and alter the structure. Melodyne speaks the language of music.

The graphical interface appears at first glance to be a bit dated. But these blobs of data with pitch lines give you all the information you need about the character of that note. These are not waveforms; these are notes. Vibrato, sibilance and movement aren’t lost as you change things, it adapts to the new position or you can redesign it. Overtones can be accessed alongside giving you full control over the tone and feel of the sound.

Melodyne invented the ARA protocol along with PreSonus that Auto-Tune now supports. It allows you to use Melodyne purely on the parts of the track you want to edit. It also now lets you see and edit multiple tracks simultaneously.

What it doesn’t do is real-time live performance processing. Melodyne is an off-line process. It does the work in post-production. It offers the producer a fantastic range of possibilities after all the musicians have gone home to tweak, reshape or even rewrite the music. And not just of the vocals, but of every instrument.

Street Prices:
• Melodyne 5 Essential (Monophonic pitch and scale correction) $99
• Melodyne 5 Assistant (Monophonic pitch editing, formant control, vibrato) $249
• Melodyne 5 Editor (Polyphonic pitch editing, single track) $399
• Melodyne 5 Studio (Polyphonic pitch editing, multi-track and overtone editing) $699

celemony.com

Waves produce a huge range of plug-ins and so it should come as no surprise they have some vocal processing up their sleeve. Waves Tune is a plug-in offering both an auto and a graphical mode, designed to make the whole process easy and precise. You can simply turn on the scaling mode and it will happily quantize notes to your chosen level of harshness. Or you can precisely edit individual notes in a graphical mode.

It looks a bit dated and is largely unchanged after many years but the natural sound of the vocal corrections is well-regarded and it doesn’t bog you down in a lot of intense options. There’s a “light” version which is more of a fire-and-forget type plug-in — just turn it on and have great vocals.

The only snag is the plug-in does introduce quite a bit of latency and so can only be used in post-production. However, there is a much more recent Real-Time version that sacrifices all the editing possibilities for blisteringly fast real-time processing.

If you’re on a budget, then Waves Tune is definitely worth checking out. Although the retail price is $249 it’s been on sale at $29 for a long time now. The LT (light) and Real-Time versions are also $29, which is a complete bargain.

Street Prices:
• Waves Tune Real-Time $29
• Waves Tune LT $29
• Waves Tune $29 (normally $249)

waves.com

Although fully supporting plug-ins such as Auto-Tune and Melodyne, Steinberg decided to integrate its own pitch correction software directly into their Cubase DAW. VariAudio offers a Melodyne style interface that can work directly on monophonic vocal recordings. Simply open the audio clip in the sample editor and edit pitch and intonation information just like you would use any other tool.

It integrates with the Chord Track to ensure your vocals track together in harmonies and choral arrangements.

If you want something a bit more automatic and real-time, then Cubase also has a PitchCorrect plug-in which works like Auto-Tune or Wave Tune Real-Time. Simply load it onto your vocal track and let PitchCorrect do the rest.

VariAudio and PitchCorrect are not available separately; they appear only in Cubase DAW products. PitchCorrect can be found in all versions of Cubase, whereas VariAudio is only available in the Pro version.

Street Prices:
• Cubase Elements (PitchCorrect only) $99
• Cubase Artist (PitchCorrect only) $329
• Cubase Pro (PitchCorrect and VariAudio) $579

steinberg.net

If you don’t have the budget for Auto-Tune then maybe Auburn Sounds has something you could try. Graillon 2 is one of the best free Auto-Tune style plugins available. It’s weird and creative with lots of features for destroying and transforming vocals, but it’s also very good at correcting warward pitches.

It uses a simple piano keyboard interface with useful tweaks like Inertia, Smoothness and Amount to retain the life and human elements of the audio track. But then you can go to town on messing it all up in very interesting ways.

Street Prices:
• Graillon 2 – $free

AuburnSounds.com