Auto-Tune is one of the most widely used plug-ins in music production. This tutorial shows you the power within this amazing audio processor.

In the 22 years since it’s inception (1997), Auto-Tune has been the industry standard for tuning vocals, and for good reason. From my own personal experience, it’s still my go-to tuning software, as it can keep up with my own workflow, and does exactly what I need it to do. There are many other tuning softwares available, but none have the proven to me better. In the past 20 years, I’ve never had a single negative comment, or even anyone notice that I’ve used a tuning software, which is exactly as it should be. There are many people out there wanting to lay blame on the tools for their work sounding robotic, or unnatural. I may take some heat for saying so, but this doesn’t have to be the case if you learn how to use your tools properly; pay attention to what the settings do. If something doesn’t sound right, keep tweaking until it does. It’s as simple as that. Now I must say though, there is a limit to how much tuning or editing you CAN do to a less than perfect performance. A common saying in the industry comes to mind - “You can’t polish a turd”. I could probably write an entire book on tuning vocals, but the intent here is to give you an inside look at the most commonly used parameters and how to use Auto-Tune in a more effective way….

The Correction Modes In Auto-Tune

The Auto-Key automatic key detection plug-in detects the song key of any audio file and effortlessly sends those parameters to all instances of Auto-Tune in a DAW with a single button click. It significantly improves music production workflow for producers, songwriters and audio engineers. A must-have plug-in. Alternatively, Antares Auto-Tune allows users to insert the revamped Auto-Key plugin into a suitable in-key chordal track. The program automatically detects the scale and key of the audio, and transmits accurate results to the running instances. Overall, the revamped Auto Trader feature is easy to use, and offers several benefits. The developers of the iconic Auto-Tune and many other innovative DSP-based audio hardware and software products that provide musicians, producers and enginee. Antares Auto Tune Live Rutracker 1 Auto-Key is a brand new plug-in, included with your Auto-Tune Pro purchase, which automatically detects the key and scale of your music and sends that information to one or more instances of Auto-Tune Pro.

There are two correction modes and ways to use Auto-Tune. There’s Auto Mode, also know as “lazy mode”, and Graphical Mode, also known as “Auto-Tune”. Auto Mode basically runs in real-time, and analyzes the audio as it passes through. It then determines what to do to the audio, as it passes through. Adjusting your settings can help it to do a better job of tuning, but nothing replaces your own ears on what needs to be tuned, and what does not. The only time I personally use Auto Mode is when I have several songs that need to be mixed in a very short amount of time, and there simply is not enough time, or budget, to properly tune the tracks. Graphic Mode is a bit more involved, but yields MUCH better results! Graphic Mode basically works like this: You capture (track pitch) the performance once into the plug-in, so it can be analyzed, displayed and edited. (Same for most other professional tuning software) Then, you choose which notes are to be tuned, and how, and which are to be left alone. This is far superior to every single bit of audio being automatically adjusted. By the way, if what you are trying to achieve with Auto-Tune is the T-Pain, or CHER effect, use Auto Mode with a very fast Retune Speed, and you can skip the rest of this article.

Auto-Tune can use as a plugin hosted on DAW during the studio recording, or it can work as a standalone device during live performances. Versions of Antares Auto-Tune. After its launch in 1997 till now, Auto-Tune kept updating its features.

Auto Mode

Auto Mode is the default mode when opening Auto-Tune. It is designed to automatically analyze audio as it passes through, and tune up or down to the nearest note everything that passes through. With that being said, there are some very important things to pay attention to, as they will help you get much better results. Paying attention to a few of these settings following, you can minimize Auto-Tune attempting to tune things that should not be, such as vibrato and notes that are intentionally slurred from one note to another.

Input Type: This basic setting help Auto-Tune focus on specific frequency ranges and types based upon the type of content you are trying to tune. Always start here!

Soprano -For high or female voices
Alto/Tenor -For normal voices
Low Male -For Barry White
Instrument -For violins, violas, and other types of monophonic instruments
Bass Inst -For lower pitched instruments, and yes, it is quite common to tune a bass guitar.

Scale: Setting the scale to the actual key of your song will most certainly help minimize errors in automatically tuning. Chromatic is the default scale, and probably most popular, but setting the proper key of your song will narrow down the choices of tuning from eleven notes down to the seven within a given key. For example, you have a song in the key of “C”, which has no sharps or flats. A singer sings a little bit sharp on a trying to sing a “C”. If the note sang is closer to “C#”, Auto-Tune will try to tune the note up to “C#”, resulting in an improperly tuned note. When setting the scale to C Major in this same scenario, the singer would have to sing past “C#” for it to create and error and try to correct to a “D”. This is another great starting point for Auto Mode usage. As you can see from the picture to the right, there are many other scales to choose from, and yes, Auto-Tune is used world wide, and there are many other scales available to those around the world using alternate tuning and scales.

Retune Speed: This is one of the most important settings to pay attention to, as it sets how fast Auto-Tune will tune a note, similar to a glide or fade time from non-tuned to fully tuned processing. Setting a very fast time will remove any variations in pitch, but can yield some very unnatural results. But then again, this is a big part of creating the T-Pain/Cher effect. If this is what you are looking for, absolutely start here with a very fast time!

Humanize: This allows sustained notes to have a slower Retune speed than the shorter duration notes. Typically you would start a setting of 0 while setting the Retune speed, making sure all notes that need tuning are being tuned, then adjusting the Humanize will help with sustained notes from not sounding overly tuned, while still being fast enough to tune shorter duration notes.

Natural Vibrato: This is independent of your pitch settings and is used solely to tame natural vibrato of a performance. Leaving it at it’s default setting of 0, will not affect the original vibrato, but adjusting will minimize the amount of vibrato allowed. Once again, this is independent of pitch controls.

Targeting Ignores Vibrato: Turning this on can help with what Auto tuning tries to tune and what it ignores. If you have a track with a lot of vibrato, try turning this on and see if it helps. This is something that would typically be used with a lead type of vocal, allowing the natural vibrato to be ignored. Backing vocals typically shouldn’t have as much vibrato, therefore, minimizing vibrato is preferred.

Target Notes Via MIDI: This is quite fun to play with, along with fast Retune speeds. When engaging, Auto-Tune does nothing until a MIDI note is present from a keyboard or MIDI track, then it tunes to the MIDI notes present. You can then play in a melody from a MIDI device, and the track will be tuned to what you play.

Graphic Mode

Graphic Mode is the mode you will use the most often when quality is the primary concern. The advantage: Graphic mode allows you to specify which notes are to be tuned, and which are not, along with independent settings for each note to be tuned, instead of the global settings to be used for every note passing through in Auto Mode. Ready to get started?

Netvue app. Correction Mode to Graph: Pretty self-explanatory, slide or click the correction mode from Auto to Graph.

Options

Click on the options button next to correction mode to get here:

Enter buffer seconds: The default here is