Boy ), Celemony ( Melodyne ), etc . as softwarebased plugins and live sound consoles are now starting to include some range of pitch correction within the core mixing interface ( Allen & Heath dLive ). So the first tip is that when you hear ‘ Auto-Tune ’ being mentioned , note that it can refer to a specific audio application from Antares or may be a generic reference to a number of pitch correction tools from numerous companies .
Now that we ’ ve clarified why pitch correction may require a bit of a different skillset and approach than what live sound engineers are used to ( an actual ‘ right ’ answer when it comes to being in tune vs . a more subjective ‘ sounds good to me ’ with amplitude and timbre ), let ’ s dig into the sorts of things we need to know in order to best utilize the tool .
THE KEY TO SUCCESS : For those of us who have dug into really effective uses of delay effects , the idea of a tap tempo and syncing the delay to the tempo of the song is likely a familiar concept . Guitarists have had tap tempo functions on their pedals for a while now in order to align the delays to the song rather than clashing and tripping up the rhythm section . A core concept for pitch correction lines up well to this idea — but in relation to the key of the song being performed . Let ’ s use a basic song form to illustrate the idea of the key of a song : C /// C /// F /// F /// C /// C /// G / F / C ///
If we gave this progression to the praise band and asked them what key the song was in , they ’ d likely answer it is in the key of C . We could then ask them to play the same song and transpose it to the key of G . It would look like this : G /// G /// C /// C /// G /// G /// D / C / G ///
The ‘ shape ’ or form of the relationships between the notes or chords stay the same , but the starting ‘ home base ’ is now G instead of C . The entire song is up a perfect fifth interval from C to G , but the song is still the same song . Taking this concept back over to tap tempo , the song played at 120 beats per minute is still the same song when played at 140 beats per minute , it is just faster . The song played in the key of G is the same as the song played in the key of C , it is just higher *.
Why is this important to know for the sound engineer ? We ’ ve never really cared much before about what key the various songs are in , right ? With pitch correction software , one of the most important settings to get right is the