

Some DAWs have built-in vocal tuning software modules, and there are even free plugins that can get you close to that classic Auto-Tune sound. Luckily, Auto-Tune isn’t the only tuning plugin on the market. Unless the sound of wonderfully artificial, hard-tuned vocal processing is integral to your sound, you may not be willing to spend that much money for it. Today, Auto-Tune developer Antares offers three different tiers of Auto-Tune with varying features, starting at $99 for the basic version, Auto-Tune Access, and going all the way up to $399 for the industry-standard Auto-Tune Pro.

And that premium reputation comes with a premium price tag. Like Xerox or Kleenex, Auto-Tune is a trademarked product that became so influential its name is now used as a stand-in for an entire sector of the music production market. To musicians just starting out who want to tap into that sound, however, Auto-Tune is not super accessible. From the highest levels of rap music to hyperpop and beyond, Auto-Tune is now more popular with artists than ever before. (Death of Auto-Tune)”? - but we all know who won that battle. Heading into the 2010s, there was some significant cultural backlash to how prominent Auto-Tune was in pop music - remember JAY-Z’s 2009 song “ D.O.A. The classic Auto-Tune sound we all know and love was further popularized by artists like T-Pain in the 2000s. Auto-Tune gave us the warbling, digital vocal sound that was pioneered by Cher’s “ Believe” in the late 1990s. While Auto-Tune can be used to polish up small pitch inconsistencies in vocal takes, it’s also used as a noticeable effect. The Amount rotary determines is almost like a wet/dry for the entire plugin’s processing.Auto-Tune is one of the rare music production tools to cross over and become a household name, thanks to how commonly it’s heard in today’s music. When it comes to your output section you have a lot of options. Simply select the notes that you don’t want your signal to be tuned to.Īlthough this seems like it should work well, I noticed that the signal is still being tuned to these notes and others, as if nothing has been changed. Lastly, the keyboard function is an alternative to setting your root and key. This may affect your melody, so be mindful of how you use this function. The inertia rotary determines the strength of a particular note, meaning that if the signal is tuned to that note, it may be held there for longer than usual.

Reference changes the root frequency of A above middle C – changing this isn’t recommended if you’re using standard Western tunings. The snap range is essentially the accuracy of the tuning and ranges from 8 semitones which is the most generalized, to 0.1 semitones which are the most precise. In the correction section, you can select which notes you want to include in the tuning

If you have a mix you’ve been working on, send it to us here for a free mastered sample of it: Additionally, we’ll listen to some realtime examples of the effects (in the video embedded above). In addition to discussing the functionality of each plugin, we’ll cover some useful techniques that you can use with each. Unlike some of our other free plugins lists, this list will be in order from good to best – so be sure to still around for the full video. Free vocal tuning plugins are a bit harder to find, but these 5 still cover the bases and are more than adequate for professional applications. With that in mind, we made a list of the top 5 free vocal tuning plugins. Whether used for corrective tuning, to generate unnatural and unique harmonies, to shift a vocal formant at a key point in a song, or simply to evoke a sense of modern production, engineers will need to become squinted with the effect. There’s no doubt that the effect is here to stay. Autotune has been established as a popular and creative effect.
