Several other comparable pitch correction programs exist today, each with their own interfaces, features, and abilities. While Auto-Tune has become a catchall term for this technology, it hasn’t monopolized the market entirely. No matter how you personally feel about the use of pitch correction, it has undoubtedly made an impact on modern music production, improved “bad” recordings, and spread its influence over just about every genre, from country to metal. Some of the best programs for pitch correction Most pitch correction programs automatically maintain these transitions, which can later be adjusted for steepness. Conversely, removing these transitions makes the vocals sound synthetic.
Maintaining these transitions when correcting pitches keeps the vocal line natural sounding. It instead quickly ramps up or down the scale to reach the right note. The human voice cannot and does not immediately jump from one note to the next. This refers to how one note leads to another. Controlling the level of vibrato makes a big difference when making pitch-corrected vocals sound more or less natural.
Removing natural vibrato from the vocal recording results in a smoother, robotically precise performance. The more vibrato, the richer and more natural the tone. This can be done on string instruments by vibrating the wrist or finger, or through vocal breath and muscle movement. Vibrato causes a note to rapidly waver in pitch. This is something to consider when artificially correcting pitches. Therefore, shifting a note up or down naturally results in different formants.
The formant will vary for different pitches. In other words, it deals with how wide the throat opens when producing a vocal note. This term refers to the frequencies made by the human voice when forming vowel sounds. Let’s look at some of these parameters and how they affect a note processed through pitch correction software.
Regardless of semantics, these tools within the software give the user control over the tone, pitch, and overall quality of the sound. Some programs use different names for similar functions. In every pitch correction program, you’ll find similar terms and parameters. On the other hand, if one wants a more synthetic sound, keeping less of the harmonic signature would be desired. In order to avoid this artificial result, one wants to maintain as much of the harmonic signature possible while correcting the note. So, when it comes to correcting pitch, other aspects of sound matter, too. If one simply shifts a held vocal note from a D to an E flat, this minor change can yield an unnatural sound. A voice sounds different than a guitar, for instance, because of their different harmonic signatures. These harmonic signatures indicate the source of the audio. Several factors make up the human voice or any monophonic instrument. While the primary purpose of pitch correction technology is to correct pitch, of course, there are different approaches and techniques used to achieve this. In 1998, consumers and producers alike noticed the viability of this technology as both tool and effect with Cher’s hit song, “Believe,” one of the first and most successful releases to implement Auto-Tune. Two decades later, Antares Audio Technologies introduced Auto-Tune, software that automated and refined the pitch correction process. This device was the first of its kind a multi-purpose box that included pitch shifting with an octave (up and down) range. The solution to this problem started emerging in the 1970s, with Eventide’s H910 Harmonizer. Before pitch correction technology, the only way to improve a vocal line was to record the vocals again. While many recording artists could hold their own vocally, even small errors could amount to major time losses.
The primary problem, in this case, was vocal production. Like all technology, pitch correction arose as a solution to a problem. And there’s a lot more to pitch correction than one might think. But how one uses pitch correction depends on one’s goals with a given song and mix. This quest for perfection can risk resulting in robotic, inhuman sounding performances. For several decades now, the technology of pitch correction has minimized human error and allowed musicians and producers to inch closer to perfection. Sometimes, we want the guitarist to perform a perfect bend, or the vocalist to hit the perfect note. We’ve already gone over why we should be open to making mistakes, but this doesn’t satisfy our desires all the time. Whenever a human voice or body is involved in the recording process, mistakes will be made. Human beings are many things, but perfect is not one of them.