Vocal Correction

How many singers in the music industry can maintain perfect pitch through a whole recording session? Odds are, most probably can’t. Because of this issue, something had to be created to solve that this issue. That is why vocal correction software was created.

Vocal correction is used in most modern music. From the biggest Pop stars, to the new coming Indie artist, almost everyone’s vocals have to be fixed. To fix the vocals, a mixing engineer needs a plugin to do the corrections. Two big vocal correction plugins are Autotune and Melodyne. Each do the same thing, just in different ways.

Autotune is the most known vocal correction plugin. Most believe this plugin to be the easiest. It has many different options on time correction and manipulation. Also, it has pitch correction to fix flat and/or sharp notes while singing. This is definitely an easy to use plugin for anything vocal. This is widely used by anyone from amateurs to professionals. Autotune gives the user an option of what kind of vocal or instrument (not a wide selection) to alter. It gives an easy way to correct pitch by allowing the user to select the key of the song instead of fixing spots individually. The option is still open to fix things with more detail, but this is for advanced users. It is a great plugin with an easy to handle layout. This is a great vocal correction plugin to start with for novice mixing engineers.

Even though Melodyne is not widely heard, people in the music industry definitely know what it is and how to use it. Melodyne is a little more detailed than Autotune. Melodyne plays the music into the plugin and then it analyzes the sound file. When vocals are analyzed, the plug in places each part of words and phrases on their pitch selection. From here, the user can manipulate the sound file just about any way possible. From vibrato to timing, Melodyne edits it all. It is a visible platform and everything is organized. All the editing is easy to do; just choose the tool preferred, click, and drag in the direction desired. Melodyne is not a hard plugin to learn how to use, but it can be confusing for the new mixers out in the industry.

There are many great software and plugins to edit vocals. Two of the best and wide known is Melodyne and Autotune. Even though they may work in similarities, one could feel better to use to the user than another. It all depends on the user. Which one would you choose?

Pro Tools Software

Making music can be intimidating to most people, but they still want to do it. Of course someone can learn to do or play something musical, but to record and mix the music is a whole other ball game. A great program to use is Pro Tools. It is very clean software and everything is organized. This is the first place someone should start if recording and mixing by his or her selves.

When recording, the set up of the session is easy. When the program is started it asks the user about the session he or she wants to start. This includes the time code, bit depth, I/O Settings, and the Audio File Type. New tracks were always easy to start and name with the shortcut command-shift-n. The action prompts the user to choose how many tracks, what type of tracks, and how many outputs. Different tracks, such as aux tracks, are used for different reasons. The Aux track is used more for allowing artist to hear his or her self or to allow a different perspective of listening in the studio. The Audio tracks are mostly to record on. These tracks hold the music and play back the music. MIDI tracks are used if a midi keyboard is connected to the computer and can be recorded in live time. Recording is easy with a full sized keyboard. Just hit the number 3 on the numerical pad of the keyboard.

If  mixing on Pro Tools from a Pro Tools recorded session, all of the session settings will be pre set. There are many shortcuts to make mixing easier too such as, copy (Cmd – C), paste (Cmd – V), trim, separate, consolidate, duplicate, mute (Cmd – M), etc. Different tracks are used a little differently in mixing. The Aux track is used more for effects or filters. This would be Time-based effects, such as reverb or delay. Audio tracks are used to playback the recorded material. Dynamic effects can be placed directly on these tracks, such as compressors or equalizers.

            Recording and mixing owns own music can be difficult. If one sits down and takes the time to learn about a program, it makes things a lot easier. Just from the amount of shortcuts and ease of setup, Pro Tools is very suitable software to use.