From there, you can use the Smooth function to control the retune speed (which controls how fast the pitch corrects itself faster settings = robotic voice). The full, paid version obviously has more features, but the ‘freemium’ Graillon 2 provides pitch shifting and correction-the two most important elements of autotune.Īll you have to do is load the plugin and turn on the Enable Correction knob. Graillon is the most popular free autotune plugin. Luckily there are some decent free alternatives for real-time pitch correction out there. That being said, it’s an expensive plugin, especially if you’re just starting out or just want to experiment with its sound a little bit. If you want the most authentic autotune sound, it’s a good idea to stick with Antares. Travis Scott, Future, Playboi Carti, and many use it as the main effect to shape their vocals. Today, the autotune sound is all over the place in modern rap. At a super short retune speed, the pitch correction becomes unnatural sounding, but it’s a desired effect which has inspired a whole style of vocal production and become a hallmark of modern genres like trap.Īfter Cher in the late 2000s, T-Pain popularized the effect even further, with other prominent artists like Lil Wayne and Kanye West catching on. The 1998 song “Believe” by Cher gets the credit for showcasing the “0 retune speed” robotic effect. For beginning users, we’ll take a look at some popular options for a free autotune plugin.įrom its very introduction, engineers and producers started experimenting with the technology. Autotune is a colloquial term now, frequently understood by artists as a catch-all for heavily processed modern vocals. The purpose was to correct off-key pitches in real-time for perfectly tuned vocals or instruments. Antares Audio Technologies introduced their proprietary Auto-Tune software in 1997.

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