best pitch correction plug for a lead vocal?

[mixerguy]

what is your favorite and best sounding pitch correction plug for a lead vocal?

Serato's Pitch 'n Time?

I'll need to run it on TDM and RTAS protools - and in DP would be handy.

thanks

[mixerguy]

or how about Antares Auto-Tune 5?

[Jorg]

i dont think autotune 5 is out yet. i think soon tho.

I personally love waves tune. Its just so amzing what you can do, how fast you can do it and how it sounds.

[mixerguy]

Originally Posted by Jorg

i dont think autotune 5 is out yet. i think soon tho.

I personally love waves tune. Its just so amzing what you can do, how fast you can do it and how it sounds.

I just checked Antares web site - if I buy Autotune 4 right now, I get a free update to vsn 5 that will be out in about a month.

I could probably make do with the native vsn - for approx $300

any good or bad comments about antares autotune vsn 4?

thanks!

[Jorg]

i think autotune is great in automatic mode.
However if you wanna make it 100% perfect and really wanna dig into the pitch then you need to have a good graphic mode and that blows on the autotune 4.
Maybe 5 will be better.

Melodyne is also great but I always found it a too big Pain in the Butt to use.

[apdv1]

Singing lessons V 1.0...
They take a bit longer but the results are more natural sounding and they work with every singer every time

[mixerguy]

Originally Posted by apdv1

Singing lessons V 1.0...
They take a bit longer but the results are more natural sounding and they work with every singer every time

I totally agree... but it is a client request.

I'm not gonna argue

[tenor39]

Originally Posted by apdv1

Singing lessons V 1.0...
They take a bit longer but the results are more natural sounding and they work with every singer every time

Wait just a minute!... Who said the Emporer has no clothes? I love it.

[Rufuss Sewell]

Originally Posted by apdv1

Singing lessons V 1.0...
They take a bit longer but the results are more natural sounding and they work with every singer every time

It always confuses me when people say things like this. The singer is the customer and I'm providing them a service because they pay me money. I don't know what planet you're living on, but I'm not about to kick someone out and tell them to come back when they learn how to sing.

I suppose if you ran a carwash you would only clean Italian sports cars!!! On my planet I want everyone to leave here sounding good... whether they sound that way in real life or not. That's what I'm paid to do. In the old days maybe that wasn't possible, but now-a-days it is. And that's a good thing because it severely widens my demographic. There use to only be a market for good musicians. Now even horrible musicians can sound good in the studio for a minimal investment... and let's face it, there's a lot more horrible musicians out there than good ones. Thus more opportunities for us struggling studios to make some cash.

[Musiclab]

most of the time I use the digital factory in Logic and tune by ear, I've found sometimes autotune will leaves things sharp sometimes in automatic mode. I've been using melodyne alittle and I think its alot better than autotune, just not as a plug, better as a stand alone app, the bridge is a pain in the ass

[Jamz]

You cannot go wrong with Auto Tune. It's tried and tested. Trick is to use not abuse this tool. I feel the more often you end up with recordings where Auto Tune is used but unnoticed (unless as an effect) the better you're using it. A staple in today's recording...like it or not.

[tenor39]

Originally Posted by Rufuss Sewell

It always confuses me when people say things like this. The singer is the customer and I'm providing them a service because they pay me money. I don't know what planet you're living on, but I'm not about to kick someone out and tell them to come back when they learn how to sing.

I suppose if you ran a carwash you would only clean Italian sports cars!!! On my planet I want everyone to leave here sounding good... whether they sound that way in real life or not. That's what I'm paid to do. In the old days maybe that wasn't possible, but now-a-days it is. And that's a good thing because it severely widens my demographic. There use to only be a market for good musicians. Now even horrible musicians can sound good in the studio for a minimal investment... and let's face it, there's a lot more horrible musicians out there than good ones. Thus more opportunities for us struggling studios to make some cash.

I understand your desire to make a living, but the sports car analogy doesn't work here.

There use to only be a market for good musicians. Now even horrible musicians can sound good in the studio for a minimal investment...

As a musician I find this distressing. "Horrible musicians"? Isn't that a contradiction? Believe me, I've worked with some people that have absolutely no business singing, no matter the genre. I simply ask a philosophical question: at what point do you become the real musician? The singer is just a sound source at that point. I believe this is a major reason why there is so much pure crap out there masquerading as "music". Your mileage may vary.

[Ruudman]

I personally "like" PitchDoctor more than AT4.

I haven't tried Waves Tune, though.


ruudman

[George Necola]

Melodyne 3.1.. ultimate tool for me:D

[Volodia]

Originally Posted by apdv1

work with every singer every time

I don't think so unless you wanna tell the client to comeback in several years .

Tuning is for good singers too . Sometimes it's better to tune a very nice interpretation than to try and do it technically perfect by resinging it . Some interpretations cannot be done twice the same .

Waves Tune is great and very powerful .

Volodia

[doorknocker]

Originally Posted by Rufuss Sewell

The singer is the customer and I'm providing them a service because they pay me money. .

This is very true. I try to record them in the best possible way in a nice atmosphere but the performance is THEIR JOB. It's incredible that we got to a point where as a audio engineer you have to defend yourself for not performing surgery that in most cases makes the result worse (just listen to the radio). I'm not talking about tuning a few notes here and there or shifting the first hit of the kick drum all of which is common and o.k for most AEs I guess.

Originally Posted by Rufuss Sewell

I don't know what planet you're living on, but I'm not about to kick someone out and tell them to come back when they learn how to sing.

This depends on what my function is. If I'm 'only' the engineer then I will record whatever comes my way but as a producer I would most certainly kick someone out as a worst-case scenario.[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Rufuss Sewell

On my planet I want everyone to leave here sounding good... whether they sound that way in real life or not. That's what I'm paid to do. In the old days maybe that wasn't possible, but now-a-days it is.

No it isn't. Define 'good'. You can AT a lame and out-of-tune performance and make it graphically 'in tune' but it will still suck.

If I ran a health club then it'd be my job to provide the gear and make sure it is working/serviced and that the place is clean, safe + friendly but it's absolutely not my job to increase or 'tune' the performance of the guy on the treadmill.

Originally Posted by Rufuss Sewell

...and let's face it, there's a lot more horrible musicians out there than good ones. Thus more opportunities for us struggling studios to make some cash.

Mabe that's the case at your place but this isn't my experience at all. If you have your shit together and provide a professional working enviromnent and charge accordingly then you will attract serious musicians. You will only attract 'horrible' musicians if you under-sell yourself and promise miracles to unexperienced musicians (I'll make you sound great with AT).

[taturana]

have used autotune up to v4, never really liked it. now have been using waves tune.. it seems a lot better, more natural sounding, as for the others i've tried the oberheim (to me a copy of the autotune ) and the roland rack that comes with sonar (didn't like it either)

maybe it's better to get a real singer... but sometimes that's not an option.

[Nicholas Varley]

I got unexpectedly Waves Tune Lite with my Diamond Bundle.

It does what it says on the box, nothing more, and I suppose you can't really argue with that. It is an "effect" that's meant to be totally transparent and inaudible after all....

[Rufuss Sewell]

Doorknocker, let me clarify my pitch correction situation.

With Auto Tune you are correct. It sounds really bad. I don't use it.

On the other Melodyne really can make a bad performance sound great. No two ways about it. I do it all the time. And like most things it's not just Melodyne, but how I use it. It's a skill. I understand that many engineers are not skillful enough to make a horrible vocal sound great with Melodyne.

Don't get me wrong, if a great singer comes in I wouldn't think about pitch correcting them.

But with your standards many of the number 1 hits of the last 10 years would've been kicked out the door. I'm not talking about losers who want to pay $200 for a great album. I'm talking about almost ALL of the big hits from this decade.

It's all about the composition and the end result. I couldn't care less about a musicians physical abilities. In the end, if they can't play it, I usually play it for them. No big deal.

[tenor39]

But with your standards many of the number 1 hits of the last 10 years would've been kicked out the door. I'm not talking about losers who want to pay $200 for a great album. I'm talking about almost ALL of the big hits from this decade.

It's all about the composition and the end result. I couldn't care less about a musicians physical abilities. In the end, if they can't play it, I usually play it for them. No big deal.
__________________

This makes my point, exactly. YOU are really the musician here, not the "performer". If you're doing it for them, why aren't you making the big bucks? Why don't you get the credit? The whole pop music industry is a joke. So, big tits/nice ass + engineer = great song??? This is one of the reasons for the fall of the recording industry as we know it... and mighty was the fall. No wonder I haven't bought a "hit" CD for the last 10 years.

[doorknocker]

Originally Posted by Rufuss Sewell

On the other Melodyne really can make a bad performance sound great..

I think 'great' is a really overused and inflated word. You probably mean that you can correct a performance that has severe pitch problems and you surely can but it's never going to be 'great', at least not in the sense that I would apply this word.

I'm a happy PT user and all for modern technology but listening to the radio just makes me wanna throw up. On one hand it doesn't really matter how much vocal tuning there is being done because most of these songs and performances lack much more than just correct pitch.

But at least in the days before 'vocal tuning' a singer had to halfway know his shit to be given a chance to record whereas in the pop world today it's clearly not a priority.

[apdv1]

Heres another analogy for you then, Lets slap some makeup on a warthog and enter him in Miss Universe works on the outside but scratch the surface...
Sure I want people to sound good but I'm not in the business of giving people delusions of grandeur.

[Lagerfeldt]

Originally Posted by Jorg

i think autotune is great in automatic mode.
However if you wanna make it 100% perfect and really wanna dig into the pitch then you need to have a good graphic mode and that blows on the autotune 4.
Maybe 5 will be better.

Melodyne is also great but I always found it a too big Pain in the Butt to use.

Yup, Melodyne is a pain in the butt. I use Auto-Tune 4 too.

However, I just use it occasionally on select places, and set a scale with a combo of bypass and remove buttons.

[chrispick]

For the originator of this thread --

Do note that, for Auto Tune 4 to work with the latest version of DP (5.1), you can only have the AU version installed, not the MAS version. DP has updated how it deals with MAS and Auto Tune has yet to catch up. The AU version works fine though.

As for this ridiculous argument regarding auto-tuning versus not: The request was for a pitch correction plugin suggestion. Help the guy or don't. Save your dissertations on the decline of modern music for the Moan Zone. Plus, it's not as if technical vocal intonation has ever been a prerequisite for making pop music. That'd be opera -- which you're welcome to peddle to the masses.

[redroom]

My favorite pitch correction plug in is the Tc intonator which I run on a powercore card.If a vocal needs any more than what the intonator can fix then it needs re-doing also the intonator seems to keep the sound very intact.

[tamasdragon]

Autotune is good for little corrections, but it can easily destroy your sound quality. Melodyne is fantastic, but you have to learn how to master it.


Tamas Dragon

[stevep]

I'm not about to kick someone out and tell them to come back when they learn how to sing.

\

I tell them Before they come in i don't use auto tune

[Dickens]

Originally Posted by mixerguy

what is your favorite and best sounding pitch correction plug for a lead vocal?

Serato's Pitch 'n Time?

I'll need to run it on TDM and RTAS protools - and in DP would be handy.

thanks

I've never used this software. Can it be used to correct pitch on vocals?

[taturana]

sort of.... it fools people into believing it does... xcept that it's never in tune. it also makes people sing like goofy if you don't set the speed right... also a great alien from space sound if you enable the antituner vibrato... also if you put in a wrong key or strange scales can add to the weird feeling. great for for f***ing up any blues bends and getting getting that famous vintage 90's "cher"sound ... why on earth would anyone like to do that is a whole different question all together.

[robot gigante]

FWIW the new free Digi Time Shift plugin gives Pitch 'n Time a run for its money imho, especially when it comes to time compression/expansion. Pitch n' Time works ok for correcting the odd bad note by ear but if the performance is way off you'll probably need Autotune or something like it.

I use AT4 though it won't always work right with everything in automatic mode and graphic mode is a real pain and not very intuitive, still seems to be the best option for now for me, being on time constraints I have to use automatic mode most of the time.

Melodyne is soo much better than AT4 if you need to do heavy graphic mode style tweaking though- I wish it had better integration with Pro Tools! Sometimes if there are a couple notes that trigger Autotune wrong off then I'll use Pitch 'n Time to get them in the zone and let Otto do the rest.

I demoed PitchDoctor and it works OK although I'll stick with AT4 for now.