Auto-Tune (Pitch Correction)

Real-time tuning back to a scale, where the speed decides whether it corrects or becomes an effect.

Tool profile

Kind

plugin

Vendor

Antares

Form

插件

Platforms

macOS · Windows

Price

买断

Jobs

混音 · 现场演出 · 编曲

Verified

2026-10-30

Related

PitchPopular singing and the microphoneVoice

What it lets you finish

• Bring a well-sung vocal take to release quality without recording it again.
• Correct pitch in real time on stage, so the monitors carry the tuned voice.
• Use a very fast retune as a deliberate vocal effect inside the arrangement.
• Nudge the pitch contour of a rap or spoken phrase without touching its timing.
• Shift formants alone to make a voice thicker or thinner without changing pitch.
• Drive target pitches from MIDI for harmonies or a robotic follow.

How it works

The plugin detects the incoming fundamental, compares it with the chosen scale, calculates the error, and pitch-shifts the signal back to target. Retune speed sets how quickly it arrives: slow settings keep vibrato and glides, fast settings erase them. Formant control preserves the vocal tract character after shifting, and a humanise control makes the arrival less uniform. The scale can be set by hand or analysed from the material by a companion tool. It assumes a monophonic input. The detection window is short, so a fast turn can read as two notes and may need a drawn pitch curve.

Limits and traps

• It handles one voice only. Choirs, chords and material with strong backing confuse detection and produce odd glides.
• Wide vibrato and breathy passages are easy to misread, so process in sections rather than speeding up the whole take.
• A wrong scale pulls passing tones and ornaments off course; modulate sections need their own scale.
• Extreme shifts change the balance of sibilance and breath, so the de-esser pass has to be redone afterwards.
• Real-time mode adds latency, and live monitoring must count it in or the singer feels dragged.
• Authorisation depends on an iLok account and activation, so migrate it before changing machines or collaborating.

Alternatives and pairings

Melodyne suits detailed note-by-note work and polyphonic material. Waves Tune Real-Time leans toward live use. Graillon has a free tier for trying the approach. Auto-Tune usually runs before de-essing and compression: fix pitch, then manage dynamics and sibilance. If timing needs changing, this is the wrong tool; use one that edits notes.

First three things to learn

Learn scale against retune speed, then what formant control does, then how to split a take at modulations. Read the site's pages on pitch, popular voice and the voice alongside it.

Sources

• Antares 官方产品页的实时修音、共振峰与音阶说明，依公开资料核对，未抄原文
• 音高检测与共振峰补偿的常见做法，依人声制作通识核对，未抄文本

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.