If you’re not a naturally gifted singer, you have options when it comes to natural sounding pitch correction in music production. Whether you need surgical editing or want a modern “auto-tune” sound, there are a variety of VSTs with varied capabilities and pricing ranges that should do the job.
Melodyne by Celemony: Melodyne allows for surgical correction with note separations, snapping to a scale, reigning in pitch fluctuations, flattening vibratos, and correcting missed pitches. You can even use it to add harmonies or change formants. The studio version runs ~$700, but you can step up and upgrade over time (and watch for sales!). It also allows you to do polyphonic editing, export to MIDI, and edit multiple tracks at once. The learning curve (and price) is steep, but worth it for the advanced features it offers. Highly recommended for professional music producers and engineers.
MetaTune by Slate Digital: Excellent tuning, with an added feature: you can create up to four groups with different settings. Add an instance to your tracks and select a group number to apply settings to, say, leads, background vocals, etc. Changing one setting changes the tuning for all of the tracks in that group. It has the perfect amount of settings, providing control over the amount and timing of the correction for your ideal performance. When used tastefully, MetaTune can sound very natural.
Tip: Get the All Access bundle, which includes Slate Digital, Solid State Logic, and select Harrison Console plugins via SSL.
xPitch by Nuro Audio: This one is just as amazing as xVoxPro. Like MetaTune, xPitch also offers scale-based tuning and grouping. They have a tuning “engine” that analyzes your audio and builds a custom scale. Robotic tuning is also attainable. They offer special pricing for owners of xVoxPro.
MAutoPitch by Melda Production: FREE. It is easy to use, works well with minimal adjustments, and you can add an instance to every track, like backgrounds, to pull your pitches together.
Graillon by Auburn Sounds: I have no idea how to pronounce this, but what I can tell you is that the plugin is usually under $30, and it’s pretty good. While it will give you that T-Pain/Cher robotic sound, it is capable of subtle tuning as well. Solid piece of software. Check out their other plugins.
TrapTune by Sounddevice Digital: Fun and lightweight for adding quick contemporary effects, or you can dial back the tuning for a more natural sound; it has additional options for adding a secondary voice (like Little Alter Boy), distortion and drive, reverb, stereo effects, and delay.
Others to check out: Antares AutoTune (lighter versions include Access and AutoTune EFX+), Waves Tune (LT), Waves Tune Real-Time, Brainworx Crispy Tuner, and ReaTune (Reaper DAW).
There are many options to choose from, but the ones mentioned above work well for vocal tuning and pitch correction and fit well into any workflow.
