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However, faster computer systems mean that, 10 years on, real-time pitch-correction with a plug-in is now a viable prospect. While Tune can carry out pitch-correction automatically as well as manually, like the Melodyne plug-in it requires your audio to be ‘tracked’ into the plug-in before this can take place. Indeed, SOS reviewed the original Waves Tune way back in the November 2006 issue. Waves are not new to the business of pitch-correction. And, as I’ll get to in a minute, the plug-in can also be used as a standard post-recording pitch-correction tool. Providing the rest of your system doesn’t create a processing bottleneck somewhere along the line, Tune Real-Time is designed to operate with sufficiently low latency to be fast enough for even the most demanding live-performance situation.
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Well, Antares obviously think so, because they have a version of Auto-Tune called Auto-Tune Live targeted at precisely this role, and Waves have now joined the roll-call with their own take on the genre: Tune Real-Time.
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It’s easy enough to see two sides to the desirability of such a tool in a live setting and I’ll leave you to have that discussion amongst yourselves but, in a world where the computer sits centre stage in so many music-making environments, the user control and flexibility offered by software-only solutions could have obvious benefits in a live context too. However, most are primarily intended for studio use, where they will be applied as post-recording processes.įor live performance there have, of course, been a number of dedicated hardware devices that offer pitch-correction in real time, including the now-discontinued Antares ATR-1 and various TC-Helicon products. Antares’ Auto-Tune first made it possible, and has become so well-known that its name is often used generically to describe all such tools, but there are plenty of other software-based pitch-correction tools out there. Love it or loathe it, automated pitch-correction is here to stay. Is it really possible to carry out studio-quality pitch-correction in real time? Waves think so.
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