Well, manipulating the pitch and timing of vocals while still managing to create a natural-sounding result requires complex digital signal processing, and Antares have continued to refine and improve the core technology that underlies Auto-Tune - to the point where if you have projects based upon Evo v6 or earlier, Auto-Tune 8 will not open them. You might, then, be wondering exactly what else there is left to do in terms of basic pitch-correction. Add in various MIDI-related features and we have a pretty sophisticated tool set. Since the Evo release in essence Auto-Tune 6, reviewed in March For a number of iterations, Auto-Tune has also offered the ability to adjust formants, and has featured basic throat modelling that allows you to shift the gender character of the voice, as well as global pitch transposition and the ability to adjust timing in some fairly surgical ways. Auto-Tune derives its name from its ability to automatically correct the pitch of monophonic audio such as vocals.
Autotune Free TutorialĪuto-Tune is, however, still an industry standard, and the new version 8 includes a number of new features. Almost every top-end DAW includes its own pitch-correction tools and, as summarised in the Alternatives box, there are a number of very creditable third-party options also. Of course, just as Hoover have plenty of competition when it comes to sucking up dust from your floor, Auto-Tune is now far from the only game in town when it comes to pitch-correction.
The classic example is the Hoover vacuum cleaner, but in the world of music technology, the same thing has happened with Auto-Tune.
Some items of technology have acquired such an iconic status that the product name has become a verb. How does the new version shape up against the competition?