Vocal Tuning, sometimes called “Autotune” or” pitch correction”, is a process designed to help a vocalist align their voice pitch to a song. Not unlike a guitar tuner which helps to correctly identify a string’s pitch to tune a guitar, this process identifies and actually alters the voice pitch to correct for variances. The vocal tuning process occurs after the audio has been recorded, and can be used to adjust a number of characteristics that help make a voice sound natural to a listener’s ear. Extreme pitch correction may be, and often is, used as an effect. You might recognize the effect as a very processed, unnatural, sometimes robotic sound made famous in Cher, T Pain and many other pop songs.
The software and techniques we typically employ at Allusion Studios for “tuning” are very non-invasive, enabling the vocals to sound natural while preserving all of the original performance nuances but with proper pitch. Almost unanimously, a blind comparison listening test playing both non-corrected and corrected pitch back to back, the pitch corrected version would be selected by the listener as better even though they were not sure why. In general, many would say vocal tuning tightens the sound giving it more clarity, punch and emotion.