Tuning Vocals

Tuning corrects pitch and timing; overdone, it removes vibrato first and humanity second.

Related

PitchVibratoAuto-Tune

The problem

Tuning is not meant to nail every note to a grid. It puts pitch and timing back where they belong. A voice moves continuously; vibrato, portamento and the slide into a consonant are part of the expression. Correct too hard and vibrato goes first, then emotion, and finally every syllable weighs the same.

How it works

Pitch correction compares each note with a target and decides how far to move it. Timing correction aligns syllable onsets. Vibrato is a modulation of roughly five to seven cycles per second. If the correction window is shorter than one vibrato cycle, the algorithm reads each peak and trough as a separate error and flattens the whole thing. Portamento behaves the same way: the faster the correction, the more it turns into steps. Generated vocals often arrive with a tidier pitch curve, which makes them easier to iron into a straight line.

Practice

Fix timing before pitch; the reverse order means doing the work twice. Slow the correction to thirty or fifty milliseconds so slides survive. Allow ten to twenty cents of natural drift on long notes instead of forcing zero. Process a take in three passes, light on the verse, medium on the chorus, lightest on the last line. For a generated vocal, export its pitch curve as MIDI first and choose the notes to fix rather than treating the whole take. Compare with the dry signal after every change, watching sibilance, breath and consonants.

What to listen for

On the long notes of Du bist die Ruh, listen to the width of the vibrato. In the fast syllables of Mandoline, listen for tuning chopped into steps. In the declamation of Come Away, Death, listen for accents moved off their syllables. Good tuning is heard in what survives, not in how straight the pitch graph looks.

Sources

• 音高与时间修正的处理方式，依数字音频工作站说明核对，未抄原文
• Pitch and timing correction practice, checked against published tool documentation, no text copied

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.