Pitch Correction

Pitch correction moves more than tuning; it touches glides, vibrato and formants.

Related

Auto-TunePitchVoice

The problem

Pitch correction is not just aligning every note to equal temperament. It also moves glides, vibrato and formants, and past a point the voice loses its spoken naturalness.

How it works

The tool estimates the fundamental, then shifts it with time stretching and resampling. Hard tuning jumps at note boundaries and produces the familiar stair-step effect; soft tuning glides on a curve and keeps some portamento. If formants do not move with pitch, the result sounds like a chipmunk or a giant; modern tools separate pitch from formant and let vibrato depth and rate survive.

Settings and judgement

Fix long notes and obvious errors first, then passing notes. Keep ten to twenty cents of natural deviation; zero is stiff. Use curves on glides, never steps. When a duet shares a reference pitch, leave some detune or a comb filter appears. Judge by whether the correction is audible, not by whether the display reads zero.

What to listen for

Whether long notes flatten out, whether glides become semitone steps, whether formants follow the pitch, and whether a duet develops a hollow chorus effect.

Common misconceptions

That correction always sounds bad. Light correction is nearly inaudible; what sounds bad is frozen formants and zero deviation. Correction is not only for voices either; solo winds receive it just as often.

Sources

• Zölzer, Udo，DAFX — Digital Audio Effects（Wiley）— 音高移位与共振峰处理章节核对，未引用
• Sound On Sound, pitch correction explained — 硬调与软调听感描述核对，未引用

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