I'm all for the use pitch correction. My feeling is that I should post the best version of the song that I can.

Heck, I've even tried to write pitch correction software. laugh

I've used ReaTune, Waves Tune and Melodyne. I've even tried GSnap. Except for it having a much too small GUI, I like the sound of Waves Tune the most, but I'm trying to learn how to be less heavy-handed with Melodyne. RePitch by SynchroArts is supposed to have more transparent pitch correction, but I'm not yet convinced it's that much better than Melodyne.

Like rayc, I've often recorded my vocal, and then had a look at it with the pitch correction software to see where I've gone wrong. I'll also use the pitch corrected vocal as a guide track.

Now, the more delicate issue: telling someone they're out of tune.

One of the great things about this board is how welcoming it can be, especially to people of all levels of skill. Bringing up something like pitch correction requires a level to tact that I often lack. Obviously, it's best done via PM, rather than via post.

I did suggest to someone a couple months ago that their song would be a good candidate for showing what pitch correction software could do. He sent me his vocal stems, and I ended up doing a remix of the song. But not everyone is necessarily going to be so gracious.

I suspect that most people know they have pitch issues, but don't know about the tools to correct it. I do all my editing in a DAW, and have never tried to do pitch correction in BiaB. And pitch correction software can be intimidating to use.

I hate suggesting to people that they spend money that they might not have, or on something that might not fit their tool chain. It would also be great to suggest an option that works well with whatever they've got, be it a DAW, BiaB, RealBand, Audactity. It looks like the top free pitch correction plugins are:

  • Graillon 2
  • MAutoPitch
  • GSnap

There's a larger list available here.

-- David Cuny
My virtual singer development blog

Vocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?