Auto-Tune is pitch correction software that allows you to tune or correct the vocalist’s voice to achieve perfection. For instance, Auto-Tune helps you to correct the note where a singer sang an E instead of an F.
Auto-Tune removes vocal inconsistencies, polishing small pitches in music and enhancing effects. Its reputation and influence have left a significant trademark in the music production market; hence, it often comes with a premium price tag.
One problem with Auto-Tune is that you can’t correct vocals without being noticed because the software works in real time. Thus, you’ll need a different software application if you want to change your vocals without being noticed.
Auto-Tune is also a premium plugin, meaning it has no free version. You need a free or freemium (available in free and premium versions) plugin if you’re hesitant about plugin subscriptions.
Auto-Tune is good if you want to hear the sound that you want. However, you may need a plugin that works offline if you want to correct the vocals after the recording because Auto-Tune doesn’t work offline.
So, which alternatives can perform better auto-tuning functions like Auto-Tune, overcome Auto-Tune’s shortcomings, and come at a lower price or for free?
This guide presents the ten best Auto-Tune alternatives you can download and enjoy, similar to the Auto-Tune Pro experience.
Best Auto-Tune Alternatives
1. Auburn Sounds Graillon 2
Are you searching for a free Auto-Tune alternative? Auburn Graillon 2 is the right plugin for you.
Thanks to the vocal modulation plugin, it offers real-time pitch shifting and pitch correction and lets you alter your voice to match specific preferences. You can also experience various harmonic voices, bit crushing, and octaves.
Graillon 2’s free version allows you to access Pitch Correction and Pitch Shift modules useful in musical production. This plugin is a vocal live game changer that ushers your DAW into a world of limitless possibilities thanks to its carefully designed features.
Another Graillon 2 feature that makes it stand out from the crowd is that it accepts MIDI input allowing you to set vocal performance in tandem with the pitch of specific MIDI notes. The result is a better performance.
Graillon’s pitch shifter is equipped with two controls; a smooth knob that allows you to control the level of a spectral envelope that you can preserve in the pitched signal. The static pitch shift helps you move the entire signal up and down, enhancing voice optimization.
The pitch correction module has five rotary controls, a piano, and a keyboard for choosing pitch-correction algorithm notes. These rotary controls include:
- Inertia
- Snap range
- Smooth
- Reference
- Correction Amount
The controls allow you to use robotic sounds to create pitch-shifted vocal effects in a more transparent and natural pitch-correction process.
Graillon is available in 32-bit and 64-bit free versions, but you can upgrade to the premium version for $29 and access more features.
Pros
- Accepts MIDI input
- Freemium (available in free and premium versions)
- Sleek and easy-to-navigate interface
- Compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux
Cons
- Confusing user manual
2. Waves Tune Real-Time
Waves Tune Real-Time is an Auto-Tune alternative offering automatic real-time vocal pitch correction. Waves added this pitch correction plugin to its tool collection to produce non-noticeable latencies and exemplary sonic results that Auto-Tune users experience.
Say goodbye to guesswork by tracking what you hear with the Waves Tune Real-Time plugin.
So, what does Waves Tune Real-Time do, and what makes it an even better pitch corrector and alternative to Auto-Tune? As its name suggests, Waves Tune Real-Time has a unique application to most existing software application plugins.
The plugin works in real-time, meaning you correct the vocal pitches with a live performance. The other features that make Waves Real-Time a top-notch plugin include:
- Automatic real-time pitch correction for vocals
- Optimized live and studio applications
- Short latency
- Creative quantization of pitch effects
- You can control vibrations while maintaining natural movements
- It offers MIDI or programmable pitch control
- You can use it with Sound Grid or MultiRack for live consoles
Wave Real-Time uses speed and notes transition control to cover a variety of range effects.
In collaboration with tolerance settings, these two controls allow you to determine whether you want natural-sounding correction and subtle or hard-tuned creative effects to achieve a better experience than the Auto-Tune Pro X experience.
Wave Real-Time uses pitch detection and correction to ensure that tuned vocals retain the natural timbre offering incredible sound quality similar to Auto-Tune Pro. Use this plugin to optimize your range performance to preferable vibrato tracking.
Waves Real-Time offers a safety net for vocals as you can designate incorrect notes and prevent pitches from correcting such notes. This element ensures you retain top-notch vocals throughout the sound editing.
Producers use this feature to enhance correction for off pitches. The plugin also delivers great sound results, thanks to the customizable options and excellent algorithms.
Users love Wave Real-Time because the customizable features allow them to retune and transition speed, tolerance, mix percentage, and create custom vibrato.
Wave Real-Time boasts a square display on the top-right side to show current notes like Auto-Tune. The display allows users to change, retune, and note transition speed efficiently. Furthermore, the interface has a convenient range and scale picker.
The regular price for Wave Real-Time starts from $199.99, although the prices can drop to $35.99, making it cheaper than Auto-Tune Pro’s $399. The price on Waves’ official website at the time of writing this review was $49.99, signifying a 75% discount.
Pros
- Enjoy real-time and transparent pitch correction
- Negligible latency
- Good control set that enhances the fine-tuning outcome
Cons
- Fine control tunes are sometimes daunting, but you can manage
3. Slate Digital MetaTune
Slate Digital released its plugin, MetaTune, in 2022 and claimed it’s one of the most complete plugins in the market. MetaTune is an excellent Auto-Tune alternative, thanks to its modern interface, that allows users to tune vocals easily and precisely.
This plugin is intuitive and simple to use, with exceptional sound performance. You will achieve close to Auto-Tune results with this plugin. However, Slate Digital MetaTune operates on different parameters from Auto-Tune.
Slate Digital MetaTune offers ample sound quality and other unique features, such as an ultra-instinctive doubler, quality presets, and negative retune speed that allows you to play with more precision. With Slate Digital MetaTune, you’ll say goodbye to expensive, automatic, and buggy tuners.
Slate Digital boldly claims its developers studied top automatic tuners to advance high-tech features such as negative speed and note stabilizers. Use MetaTune to achieve a high-tuning effect with zero note fluttering.
MetaTune has a friendly interface saving you the trouble of watching several YouTube tutorials to help you get started. The clean interface keeps you going within seconds even when you’re unfamiliar with chords and scales, thanks to the HeatMaps that helps to identify where your notes land and relevant adjustments.
The tool is available for a $149 annual subscription, making it more affordable than premium Auto-Tune Pro’s $399.
Pros
- Enjoy top-notch quality sound results
- The plugin has more advanced features such as negative retune speed and doubler
- Easy to use
- It has a modern interface
Cons
- Note stabilizer has latency issues that you can overcome with external application
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4. Antares Auto-Tune Real-time Advanced
Universal Audio’s Antares Auto-Tune Real-time Advanced is one of the best Auto-Tune alternatives famous for its legendary creative and vocal-enhancing applications. It closely resembles Auto-Tune Pro.
Antares Auto-Tune has a powerful workflow and sonic enhancements. These enhancements make it an ultimate low-latency tuning plugin for Arrow and Apollo interfaces.
The plugin optimizes the interfaces for instant on-stage live vocal tracking and in the studio. Do more with Antares Auto-Tune, including the following:
- Use Auto-Tune pitch-correction with UA Audio Interface to track real-time performance
- Correct your vocals and other solo instruments during mix down transparently
- Craft the popular Auto-Tune vocal effects essential for spicing hip-hop, modern pop, and electromagnetic music
- Harmonize and fine-tune Auto-Tune’s advanced Vibrato, Humanize, and Flex-Tune functions
- Use the plugin’s MIDI input to control target pitches and various Auto-Tune parameters
The prices for Antares Auto-Tune Real-time Advanced start from $174.99 per year.
Pros
- Better audio quality
- CPU friendly
- Simple to use
Cons
- Lack precisions
- It has a few adjustable parameters
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5. Izotope Nectar 3
iZotope Nectar 3 is a sophisticated vocal mixing plugin Auto-Tune alternative boasting great features. The manufacturer invested superior craftsmanship in creating a powerful, intelligent, and assistive vocal mixing plug that performs de-messing with precision in seconds.
iZotope Nectar 3 Features include:
- A vocal assistant that leverages AI to polish vocals
- Adjustable sliders that allow you to fine-tune your sound
- Intuitive control
- Compression EQ, set reverbs, limiters, distortion
- Automatic De-esser for cleaning the sibilance
The Nectar 3 plugin has an auto-tune that works almost similarly to Auto-Tune Pro. Nectar 3 also overcomes its flaws to offer a quality pitch corrector making it an integral plugin tool in the professional music field.
One of the advantages of the Nectar 3 plugin is that it consumes a lower CPU than the Auto-Tune plugin. The plugin also has a sober interface that makes it easier to use. Use this plugin to play with the source format for high-quality and intact audio results.
Nectar 3’s newest vocal tool eliminates guesswork from your vocal mixing and tracks waves in real time. Subscriptions begin at $129.
Pros
- Allows you to enjoy an intuitive and sober interface
- High-quality audio
- The plugin is CPU-friendly
Cons
- The lower versions of the plugin lack advanced parameters
6. Melda MAutoPitch
Melda MAutoPitch is a free Auto-Tune alternative with powerful application tools that rival household names and plugins in the market. It has everything you want to experience in the best application.
MAutoPitch lets you make real-time pitch corrections flawlessly with minimum retuning speed making the pitches sound robotic. This application lacks advanced customization options, but the available features can afford to make good robotic vocals.
The tool has various features that allow you to set your preferable percentage correctness:
- Detunes control
- Speed control
- Depth control
- Width control
Width control is one of MAutoPitch’s outstanding features because it allows you to extend your vocals to match Auto-Tune plugin levels, making them sound bigger. Set your affected frequency range to balance auto-tuned-ness to preferred levels.
MAutoPitch has a simple and easy-to-understand interface nestled in a bunch of options. The plugin is also based on vocal performances, but it can also be used on vocal samples, giving them more character, sparkle, and life.
This free plugin gives you another reason to try if you want to forego the cost of procuring premium Auto-Tune Pro.
Pros
- Good pitch detection
- Free
Cons
- High-end range (You can manage with it)
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7. Voloco Plugin (Free)
Resonant Cavity’s Voloco Plugin is another top alternative. The manufacturer released the plugin in VST3 and AU versions for Mac and PC.
Voloco has been designed for music producers that leverage auto-tune tools to enhance their production. It provides a classic “T-Pain” effect with almost robotic pitch-perfect notes tailored to meet the needs of trap rappers, hip hop, and singers in quest of robotic sounds.
Voloco’s latest version has six presets or pitch-correction modes; hard, natural, big chorus, super Vocoder, Night Chorus, and Alien Warlord. You might settle for “Hard” as your default, but remember to use “Night Chorus'” unique Imogen Heap-esque.
Voloco’s control parameters are under the hood to prevent users from editing existing pitch-correction modes. The presets have been designed to handle pitch correction speed and intensity distinctively.
Voloco Plugin has a simpler interface than the Auto-Tune plugin, making it more user-friendly. Users have increasingly expressed their love for the interface’s simplicity and how they use it to achieve great vocals in musical productions.
Another special feature that makes Voloco a better Auto-Tune alternative is the mobile-friendly application that allows users to download the app to their mobile devices. The mobile version interface has an excellent performance like the desktop version.
The Voloco plugin is free, giving you all reasons to download it to your PC or smart device and start using it. The application software is your best companion if you subscribe to Auto-Tune Pro X, which starts from $14.58 per month.
Pros
- Simplest interface
- Cool presets for harmonization
Cons
- Hard tuning only (a payable version with more features coming soon)
8. FL Studio NewTone
FL Studio NewTone is used for correcting song pitches. The plugin digs into the detail of your song by gaining access to each note that the audio recording contains.
You will be surprised at the transparent experience that NewTone delivers from its first use. It exceeds the electronic DAW to deliver almost natural sounds like Auto-Tune. However, the trick is to learn how to use the software application well to achieve vocals that sound neither robotic nor electronic.
These are some of the features that make NewTone a better alternative to Auto-Tune:
- Reducing and boosting vibrato
- Splitting and gluing notes
- Centering notes
- Changing note transition time
NewTone also beats Auto-Tune with its simple and organized interface delivering a user-friendly experience even for beginners. The interface presents the notes and the vibrato pleasantly and clearly.
The top-right of the plugin has three wheels to enable users to set the vibrato (Variation), note, and transition time (TRANS) and center the notes strategically. Users can understand the toolbar and change the pitch of the note easily.
FL Studio NewTone, inclusive of a DAW, starts from $99 with no extra costs. The plugin’s smart algorithms, cutting-edge features, and user-friendly experience mean you get an amazing package at the cheapest price.
Pros
- Available in mobile version
- Powerful audio editor
- Several virtual tools and effects
- Includes a video editor
Cons
- Tricky recording process (It becomes easy once you learn how to use it)
9. Soundtoys Little AlterBoy
Soundtoys Little AlterBoy is an Auto-Tune alternative if you are more interested in shifting your format and pitch, as it is not meant for real-time pitch correction. The dramatic voice alteration tool uses a simple plugin to generate various vocal transformations.
Selecting the Quantize mode is the secret to using Soundtoys Little AlterBoy as an autotune. The mode allows you to correct individual notes to the nearest precise tune.
The downside of this plugin is that you can’t choose a specific target scale note when using Soundtoys Little AlterBoy, meaning the software can lead you to unwanted notes. However, this lack of precision doesn’t hinder the plugin’s performance in generating quality sounds.
Are you searching for popular pitch-quantized hard-tune results? Soundtoys Little AlterBoy takes your music production experience to a crescendo.
You have a package of features that takes your production a notch higher. Moreover, you can use MIDI or DAW to control the vocal melody and achieve Vocoder-like effects.
The plugin offers powerful tools for establishing new directions and driving new ideas. Little AlterBoy is an ideal Auto-Tune alternative if you’re searching for a robotic rendering.
It’s advisable to tune the vocals manually to minimize the risk of tuning errors. Soundtoys Little AlterBoy is an excellent tool to experiment with your voice. Buy the plugin for $99.
Pros
- Easy to use
- Useful for auto-tuning and with any instrument
- It has a range of presets
- Change the singer’s gender
Cons
- It has 11 presets, making it overwhelming
10. Steinberg Cubase
Steinberg’s Cubase is another Auto-Tune alternative that allows you to edit pitch, correct intonation, and timing of notes to take your monophonic vocals in a preferred direction.
The good thing about Cubase is that you can undo any modification to your audio materials. This plugin is transparent and preserves the natural sound of vocals like Auto-Tune.
Cubase allows you to boost and reduce vibrato, change tolerance, alter note transition time, and split and glue notes, similar to Auto-Tune Pro X. You will thank the manufacturer for the feature that allows you to modify the drift of a note.
Cubase boasts optimized features that enhance the monophonic recording of vocals. Saxophone also works with VariAudio.
Users prefer Cubase when they want vocals to sound natural but resort to an auto-correction plugin to achieve robotic vocals.
It has a comfortable, organized, and easy-to-understand interface that makes it friendly for even beginners. It contains clear lines describing individual notes, transitions, and glides.
Cubase has four packages: Free Trial, Cubase Elements 12, Cubase Artist 12, and Cubase Pro 12. The paid packages start from €99.99.
Pros
- Numerous features
- Easy to use for beginners
- Organizes tracks into sections
Cons
- Lacks audio cleaning feature
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Wrapping It Up: What is the Best Auto-Tune Alternative?
The best Auto-Tune alternative is Waves Tune Real-Time because of its settings, audio quality, speed, and transition. It offers an excellent user experience because it incorporates most Auto-Tune features and even goes further with its real-time tracking.
The application software has notable features, including high detection quality, a user-friendly interface, more quality parameters, modulability, and affordability.
However, it doesn’t mean the rest of the plugins aren’t a match for Auto-Tune, but they offer slightly different features from what most users search for in Auto-Tune. Choose a plugin that meets your user needs and budget.
