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Be a robot, a demon, swap genders, become famous with a celebrity voice-changer, or even transform into a musical superstar with autotune. We have a huge library packed with voice effects to turn simple gaming moments with teammates or in proximity chat into hilarious memories. Jun 11, 2021 Autotune is the perfect example of a signal processing method that can be used in overdrive as an effect or used properly in a transparent way to improve a performance. More artists than you'd realize use this tool undetectably, while others make it very obvious.

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Autotune is the perfect example of a signal processing method that can be used in overdrive as an effect or used properly in a transparent way to improve a performance. More artists than you'd realize use this tool undetectably, while others make it very obvious.

Take artists like Cher or T-Pain, or even Lil Wayne when rapping, who nearly sound like robots during their songs. It's my opinion that the 2010 decade will be considered a 'dark age' of music, partially due to this effect that many artists will come to regret in the future.

Then you consider all of the artists you think aren't using it. Let me tell you, they all are, but their mixing engineers are doing such a fantastic job with it you wouldn't know. The main contributing factor to an 'invisible' autotune is a great vocal performance.

In order to push the effect into overdrive you have to purposefully have a bad performance to a certain degree, which is why it works so naturally well for rap artists in terms of singing to the correct pitch.

There are three levels of autotune, as far as I see it:

1. Purposefully too much - like Cher, T-Pain, and Lil Wayne
2. Too much needed - modern Pop and Country music
3. The perfect amount - every other genre that you don't notice it in

The only difference between the second and third stage is how good of a vocalist the artist is. Most pop artists are selected based on their overall marketability (looks, ability to perform, above average vocal talent) as opposed to being chosen based on a supreme skill in singing.

I'm going to show you how to achieve all three stages, from sounding like a robot, to sounding like a synthesizer, to undetectable perfection.

What is Autotune?

Autotune is an audio signal processor tool originally used to correct off-key pitches in vocal performances (or any other instrument). It's also used as a sound effect applies pitch correction so aggressively that it sounds unnatural and synthetic.

The term Autotune has become synonymous with pitch correction, but it's actually a trademarked word and tool created by Antares Audio Technologies. Many DAW plugins exist that all have their own names and are referred to as such, but the effect is now commonly and simply called 'autotune.'

While disguising off-key pitches by slightly adjusting them to lock on key was the initial intention, Cher changed pop music for every with her 1998 single Believe. It uses the effect over-dramatically and inspired musicians like T-Pain to make it their signature sound.

How to Autotune

In this section I'll be telling you exactly how to use autotune, but I'll do it from the perspective of polishing an already great vocal performance. The key to having a transparent and musical use of this plugin is to create as best of a vocal track as possible.

This usually means singing the same section of a song dozens of times and creating a 'best of' composite track. Only after the absolute best performance has been pieced together from many takes should you fix the final errors with pitch correction software.

Note: Any vocal recording or instrument you want to use pitch correction on must be a mono track. Stereo tracks don't work out. It also needs to be free of reverb, delay, and other audio effects.

1) Apply the Plugin to the Track & Familiarize Yourself With It

I have to assume you know how to use your digital audio workstation software and how to add a plugin to a track in the multitrack. What I can't assume is which plugin you'll be using. In this case I'll be showing you the Logic Pro Pitch Correction plugin. They all work the same but look different.

Though I'll show you Logic Pro's default plugin, I'm going to use terminology that's more likely to appear in all of the plugins. You'll be able to figure out what's what, since I give several names for each parameter you can adjust.

If you aren't familiar with the settings at all, please scroll down to the next main section of the article called Autotune Settings. I define each setting and also provide some suggested starting points for the three levels of pitch correction mentioned above.

2) Select the Key, Scale, & Input Type

You'll typically have two choices. You can manually select a key (like G Minor) and a scale (Melodic minor scale), or you can punch it in manually on the provided keyboard. Sometimes, instead of a key they'll ask you for the root note of your scale, which would be G if using G Minor or G Major.

If you choose a key and scale from the list, you'll still want to adjust which notes are available as targets for tuning on the keyboard. Sometimes vocals doen't use all of the notes in a scale and you don't want them available, especially if a performance is extra 'not good.'

Alternatively, if you're going for the goofy robot rap vocal sound then choose the chromatic scale, which means all possible notes are available as pitch correction targets.

3) Choose Your Retune Speed

Now that you've defined the allowable notes for the effect, it's time to make it actually work. We're now going to focus on the retune knob or slider. A slower speed, like 400 ms to half of a second, will be completely undetectable but entirely too slow to even do anything in most cases.

Loop the vocals in solo mode (so you can only hear the singer) and start the retune at the slowest amount allowed. Slowly increase it and you'll begin to see the meter show which note is being detected and how sharp or flat it is in cents. That amount is how much pitch correction needs to be applied.

The retune speed defines how quickly it applies that amount of pitch correction. So if you need to slide a note up by 50 cents, that can occur instantaneously at zero milliseconds, or over 100 ms, as examples. You'll have to choose the right amount that provides the sound you want.

For electronic music, you may want it to be slightly noticeable. For the robot effect set it to zero. For a transparent use of the effect, you'll have to toy with it, but it'll be a slower setting than faster. It's impossible to tell you what the right amount is. You have to use your ears!

4) Decide How Perfect You Want the Vocals to Be

Regardless how quickly you're 'snapping' to the correct pitch, you have more choices to make about how impeccable and perfect you want the vocals to be. No human can hold a perfect note. Even the best will waver by a few cents. If you remove that wavering, it will sound unreal.

If you want to add the human element back into the vocal track, use the Flex Tune option if it's available. Logic Pro's Pitch Correction has no such option. It allows the vocals to be off-pitch by the amount you define, basically telling the processor to not change the pitch if it's 'close enough.' A small amount of this can bring your track back down to reality.

Now focus on the Humanize knob if you have it or something similar. It tells the plugin to hold to a specific note if the vocals start to waver too far, rather than correcting to a different, unintended note. Think of it like a release on a compressor. Use this when your singer holds onto notes for a long time at the end of phrases.

Natural Vibrato is another option that's not always available. It detects when the vocalist is using purposeful vibrato and allows you to increase or decrease the intensity of it. In my opinion, I wouldn't bother using this. This is a choice that needs to be made while recording the vocals.

5) Unsolo the Vocals & Tweak in Context of the Full Mix

This is your last step. You want to unsolo your vocals so you hear the backing tracks, too. Now listen to your work in the context of the full mix. From here, the only thing you'll likely want to tweak is the retune speed.

For electronic-based music like dubstep or EDM, you may even want a slight robotic sound. For classical, jazz, rock, or pop, which are more organic sounding genres, you'll want it to be less noticeable, so you'd choose a slower retune speed.

From here, your vocal's pitches may sound great, but you may still have other issues with the tracks. Check out our article on how to mix vocals to get a walkthrough that will revolutionize your quality. You'll want to apply those principals on every vocal track, every time.

Autotune Settings

Now I want to do two things. I want to define what each of the settings on your plugin does, and I want to provide some starting settings where possible that match each of the three styles of pitch correction I mentioned before.

Pitch Correction Options

Each pitch correction plugin with have various parameters (knobs) you can adjust. For the most part you'll be confronted with five options:

• Key, Scale, & Input Type
• Retune Speed (Response Time)
• Flex Tune (Smoothness)
• Humanize (Release Time)
• Natural Vibrato (Vibrato Adjustment)

These are what they're called on the official Autotune plugin and are (typically) what you'll find on the other ones, even if they're renamed to a degree.

Key, Scale, & Input Type - Without telling the software which key and type of scale you're using, it won't know which pitches to adjust towards. You can choose these from a selectable list (like major scale, harmonic minor scale, etc.) or punch it in yourself on the available keyboard layout.

The input type will vary in complexity from simply offering the two choices of Normal (higher vocal registers) or Low (Bass and Baritone). Some will actually let you choose from terms like Soprano, Tenor, Alto, etc. This just helps the software expect certain octaves so it can process faster and more accurately.

Retune Speed (Response Time) - This is measured in milliseconds and will let you go to zero, meaning instantaneous (how you get the robot sound). This speed controls how quickly a bad note is retuned to the correct one. If you set it too fast it will sound obvious and come with glitches as well.

Most of the time you will want subtlety, so you'll use a slower value so that the listener doesn't detect the changes. This is how you'll achieve a natural sound, while the faster times will begin to sound 'too good,' and if the performance is bad enough it will sound unnatural.

Flex Tune (Smoothness) - This kind of option isn't always available. Think of this option as adding smoothness to a processed track that required a faster retune speed due to how off pitch the vocalist was. It tries to smooth out the transitions and make them sound more gentle and less detectable.

You may think this would fight against the retuning but it's more like adding an allowable margin of error. It basically lets you decide that if a note is close enough to the correct pitch, to leave it alone and not process it. It helps you maintain the human element to the track rather than making it unnaturally perfect.

Humanize (Release Time) - I like to think of this as a release time (similar to what you find on a compressor). It tells the pitch correction to hold fast during long notes. If your vocalist doesn't hold out long, sustained notes at the end of phrases you may not need this.

What it's for is to correct unintentional vibrato during long notes. When the singer's voice wavers by accident, it won't be 'pitch perfect' like purposeful vibrato is. If the note wavers too far it'll snap to a different note. This option keeps that from happening.

Natural Vibrato (Vibrato Adjustment) - You won't always find this option either. It's kind of the opposite of the Humanize option above in that it can introduce vibrato that is otherwise missing. It takes talent to sing vibrato and to do it correctly. If your singer can't do it but the song calls for it, this option can add it in at varying amounts. It can also reduce the intensity of the natural vibrato.

Autotune Settings for Singing

Above I mentioned the three levels of pitch correction, which are basically 'complete overkill,' 'too much is needed,' and 'perfect and unnoticeable.' Here are some starting points to you can use, but please note that you'll have to adjust them to taste for each and every vocal track. What's needed will change each time!

For a purposefully over-dramatic use of the effect like Cher or T-Pain, set the retune speed and flex tune speeds to zero. This will snap the notes instantaneously to the pitches they should be at. Set the humanize knob to the maximum and reduce natural vibrato as much as you can.

This will cause the vocals to sound like a synthesizer. You can make it even more dramatic by purposefully singing off pitch when recording. You should be close but nowhere near perfect in order to make the plugin really put in the work to re-pitch each note.

For the current expectation for pop and country music, try setting the retune speed around 5 ms to 15 ms, with barely any flex tune. A little bit is good to keep the track sounding realistic. What you'll end up with is a pitch-perfect track but one that doesn't 'snap' quickly to the notes so it still sounds like a human performance.

For natural, realistic sounding autotune, you'll want a slower retune speed (set it to where you barely hear it and then back it off a bit more) and maybe 10% flex tune to allow some wavering. That's it. Leave the other settings alone.

Pro-Tip: You can add pitch correction to only parts of a performance if you don't want to use it much but certain parts definitely need fixing. Add the plugin to an automation track with a very slow retune speed, then on the parts you want to fix, crank up the retune speed so it actually acts on the vocals quickly enough to correct the pitch.

The Differences Between Autotune Plugins

I mentioned there being a lot of pitch correction plugins, which may have left with the questions of which is the best and what are the differences. They all do the exact same job, though some have more options, while one has an unbelievable amount of extra choices.

Free Autotune

Heres a list of some of the most popular pitch correction plugin choices:

• Celemony Melodyne
• Antares Auto-Tune (various versions)
• Wave Tune (various versions)
• Zynaptiq Pitchmap
• Melda MAutoPitch
• Synchro Arts Revoice Pro
• Izotope Nectar
• Logic Pro Pitch Correction
• Steinberg PitchCorrect
• Cakewalk/Roland V-Vocal
• Mu Technologies Mu Voice

There's a lot more, but those are your most popular choices in no particular order other than Antares Auto-Tune being the most popular. Celemony Melodyne is another great but costly choice that provides some unbelievable choices, especially with the visual user interface. Look at this thing:

Autotune Cost

The differences here are that the paid versions will have more choices, and as you move into the 'Pro' versions of each one they'll introduce more options for you. Many users will find they don't need the most advanced choices, especially when not adding pitch correction in real time.

Pro-Tip: Melodyne is very transparent. You can correct the pitches and tweak the cents very close to perfect and bounce the track. From there you can then apply Autotune to the 'almost perfect' track and end up with a godly vocal performance that sounds very natural.

That's How to Use Autotune!

The process is very simple. The challenge is understanding what each setting does, because the short names can't possibly be self-explanatory due to the complexity of the software. Once you understand what the knobs do, the rest is a piece of cake.

With our walkthrough and explanations above, you should have know how to use autotune as well as any professional. Finding the correct settings is as simple as slowly turning the knobs and using your ears. It's truly a revolutionary plugin, not only in its power but in its simplicity.

Getting a good set of roll/pitch tuning parameters for your aircraft isessential for stable, accurate flight. To help with this it is highlyrecommended that you use the AUTOTUNE system described below.

What AUTOTUNE does¶

The AUTOTUNE mode is a flight mode that flies in the same way as FBWA,but uses changes in flight attitude input by the pilot to learn the keyvalues for roll and pitch tuning. So the pilot uses their transmittermode switch to switch to AUTOTUNE mode and then flies the plane for afew minutes. While flying the pilot needs to input as many sharpattitude changes as possible so that the autotune code can learn how theaircraft responds.

Setting up for AUTOTUNE¶

To setup your aircraft for AUTOTUNE you need to select AUTOTUNE mode asone of the flight modes selectable with the flight mode switch on yourtransmitter.

You also should choose a tuning level by setting the AUTOTUNE_LEVELparameter in the advanced parameter screen of your ground station. TheAUTOTUNE_LEVEL parameter controls how aggressive you want the tune tobe. The default is level 6, which produces a medium tune, suitable forbeginner to intermediate pilots. If you are a more experienced pilotthen you could choose level 7, which will result in a bit sharper tune(faster attitude changes). Levels above 7 are not recommended until youhave done an initial tune with a lower level. Levels above 8 should onlybe used by very experienced pilots.

Autotune tunes the FF (feedforward), P, I, and D terms at each AUTOTUNE_LEVEL, which determines the maximum/target slew rates used for the tuning process ( PTCH2SRV_RMAX_UP, PTCH2SRV_RMAX_DN, RLL2SRV_RMAX) and the gain from desired attitude angle to demanded angular rate ( PTCH2SRV_TCONST and RLL2SRV_TCONST).

It is important to set a level appropriate for the rates that the aircraft can physically achieve.This is because excessive target rates will prevent the autotune from adjusting the gains.In particular, the level 6 roll rates can be too large for slow aircraft with large wing spans,like gliders. These often have a maximum roll rate of 30 - 40 degrees per second and should uselevel 2 or 3. See AUTOTUNE_LEVEL settings for the rates.

You also need to make sure that all of the basic settings for yourairframe are correct. In particular, ensure that all surface reversalsare correct and that you have a reasonable value set for the minimumairspeed. Autotune won’t do anything until you are above the minimumairspeed you have set in the ARSPD_FBW_MIN parameter. If you don’thave an airspeed sensor then that value is still used, along with anairspeed estimate from other sensors. Also make sure you have done RCcalibration, as AUTOTUNE will only work if you have full controlmovements with your transmitter sticks.

In addition, ArduPilot will automatically scale the tuning gains versus airspeed, either measured or estimated (if no airspeed sensor is used), to compensate for the control surface effectiveness vs speed. The nominal center speed for this is SCALING_SPEED and should be set to the approximate speed that will be used for tuning, ie the typical cruising speed. Once tuning is done with this speed set, do not change it since it directly scales the gains and will corrupt the tune.

Other things to check:

• if you have an airspeed sensor fitted then make sure it is workingand you have calibrated it. See the section on airspeed calibration.
• check your center of gravity, making sure it is correct according tothe manual for your aircraft. In general it is safer to be a bit morenose heavy than tail heavy.
• check your surface trims. It is recommended to use the SERVO_AUTO_TRIM option after reading the documentation for that option.
• make sure your failsafe settings are setup correctly. Try turning offyour transmitter with your plane on the ground (and propeller removedor made safe) and check how the plane reacts
• setup a rally point for a safe place to RTL if needed other than home
• make sure that the PTCH_RATE_SMAX and RLL_RATE_SMAX parameters are appropriately set for your servos speeds. See Limit Cycle Detection. If these are set too low, then the tune will be impacted.

Flying in AUTOTUNE¶

Once you are all setup you can start flying in AUTOTUNE mode. You caneither takeoff in AUTOTUNE mode, or takeoff in another mode and switchto AUTOTUNE once you have gained altitude.

When you engage AUTOTUNE mode a few things will happen:

• the autotune system will immediately setup some values foryour roll and pitch maximumrates and angle error to demanded rate gain. These values depend on the AUTOTUNE_LEVEL
• the autotune system will monitor your demanded roll and pitch rates(as determined by your transmitter stick movements). When thedemanded roll or pitch rate exceeds 80% of the maximum rate (not 80% stick deflection, one must move stick quickly towards full throw) theautotune system will use the response of the aircraft to learn rollor pitch tuning values.
• every 10 seconds the autotune system will save the parameters you had10 seconds ago. This means that if autotune causes your aircraft tobecome unstable you have 10 seconds to switch to another mode andrecover. When you switch out of AUTOTUNE mode the last savedparameters are restored. Note that the SMAX params may hide an over-tuned condition, suchthat oscillations may appear as just “twitchy” behavior.
• If you are starting with the default parameters for roll and pitchyou may find the plane is quite sluggish when you first enterAUTOTUNE. You will find that as the tune progresses this will getbetter. Make sure your flight area has plenty of room for long slowturns.

The key to a successful Autotune is to input rapid roll or pitchmovements with the transmitter sticks. You should only do one of eitherroll or pitch at a time, and you should move the stick rapidly to themaximum deflection.

So in the roll direction you should first command a hard right turn withthe aileron stick, then shortly afterwards push the aileron stick hardthe other way to command a hard left turn. Note that you do not need towait for the plane to bank over all the way after each stick movement.After about 2 seconds of stick movement in one direction you can reversethe stick quickly.The plane will steer hard right, then hard left as youmove the aileron stick. With each sudden reversal it will improve thetuning values by about 5%. So you need at least 20 full stick movementsto learn a reasonable tuning value.

For pitch tuning you need to use the pitch transmitter stick to take theaircraft on a roller-coaster ride. Pull back hard on the stick to pitchup, then shortly afterwards push down to pitch down. Continue doing thisfor at least 20 iterations.

If your initial tuning values were too low then you should notice theaircraft becomes progressively more responsive as you fly in AUTOTUNEmode.

Note

If the aircraft ever becomes unstable enough that you think it is dangerous to keep flying then you should change out of AUTOTUNE mode. That will restore the parameters you had from 10 seconds ago.

• Stop increasing the AUTOTUNE_LEVEL on successive autotune sessions when the desired feel and responsiveness is obtained, oscillations occur, or it becomes “twitchy” in an axis.

Don’t stop too early¶

It is recommended that you do at least 20 rapid roll movements and atleast 20 rapid pitch movements, preferably far more. Some people stoptoo early end up up with poor values that result in their aircraft notcoping well with wind, or not holding altitude well. Keep flying inAUTOTUNE mode well past the point where you think the plane is flyingwell.

Autotune Level 0¶

This is a special level that does not change the rates or time constant (ie like RLL2SRV_RMAX or PTCH2SRV_TCONST) but tunes FF/P/I/D for the current values of those parameters. This may be useful when pitch is unstable at a lower AUTOTUNE_LEVEL level than roll, for example. You can set the ROLL axis values at more agressive values than the pitch axis and proceed with a tune to re-optimize the FF/P/I/D values for that configuration.

Completing the tune¶

Once you have learned reasonable roll and pitch tuning parameters withautotune you should complete the tune by manually tuning some other keyparameters.

The parameters that are needed for most airframes are:

NAVL1_PERIOD: This defaults to 25, which is a very conservative valuedesigned to cope with badly tuned airframes. It controls how sharply theaircraft will turn in automatic modes (such as AUTO, RTL and LOITER).Most aircraft should use a significantly lower value. Once you havecompleted a successful autotune of roll and pitch values you should dropNAVL1_PERIOD to 18 if you have not tuned it yet. To tune beyond thatlevel you should fly a rectangular mission in AUTO mode and adjustNAVL1_PERIOD down by 1 at a time until the aircraft turns at a rate youare happy with, and does not “wag its tail” in flight.

PTCH2SRV_RLL: This parameter controls how much elevator to add in turnsto keep the nose level. Many aircraft require a small change to thisparameter from the default of 1.0. To see if you need to tune this valueyou should hold a tight circle in FBWA mode by holding the aileron stickhard over while not giving any elevator input. If the plane gainsaltitude then you should lower PTCH2SRV_RLL by a small amount (trylowering to 0.95 initially). If the plane loses altitude while circlingthen try raising PTCH2SRV_RLL by a small amount (try 1.05 initially).If you need to go above 1.3 or below 0.8 then there is probably aproblem with your setup (such as incorrect center of gravity, poorthrust line, poor airspeed calibration, too soft a tune on the pitchloop, or bad compass errors). You should try and fix the setup.

There are many other parameters which can improve the performance ofyour aircraft, but these are the ones that most people need. Please readthe normal manual tuning documentation for more information.

AUTOTUNE Logging¶

The progress of the autotune is recorded in the dataflash log. If youare trying to debug autotune or are posting about autotune on the forumsthen please include the dataflash log.

Here is a typical log file from an autotune session:

The ATRP message has a “Type” field that shows what type of autotune isbeing recorded. A Type value of 0 is for roll tuning, and a value of 1is for pitch tuning. When graphing ATRP results you should choose datawith a Type of either 0 or 1 (not both).

The ATRP.Demanded field is the demanded rate of attitude change (rollrate or pitch rate) in degrees per second. The ATRP.Achieved field iswhat the aircraft actually achieved in attitude change rate. As you cansee in the above graph, at the start of the autotune the demanded valueswere much higher than the achieved, because the tuning gains were toolow. As the tune progressed the demanded and achieved started toconverge. The blue line in the above graph is the ATRP.P value, which isthe P gain for the controller. You can see it rose from 0.8 up to a highof 2.2, then dropped back slightly to around 1.85.

You will also notice that the graph has gaps in it. This is for periodswhere the pilot was not demanding a high rate of attitude change. Theautotune system only works while the pilot is demanding a rapid attitudechange (above 80% of the maximum rate).

Manual tuning versus AUTOTUNE¶

For the very best performance with Plane you can perform a manualtune, perhaps starting with the values from Autotune. The Autotunesystem is designed as a conservative system to get reasonable values formost aircraft, it is not a “perfect tuner”, and manual tuning can resultin better performance if you put the time and effort in. But it requires usingand analyzing log file results.

It is still recommended that everyone start out with AUTOTUNE however.Correctly tuning an aircraft is not easy, and AUTOTUNE does better thanthe vast majority of users can do. So start with an AUTOTUNE and thenexplore the manual tuning guide starting from what AUTOTUNE produces ifyou want to push things further.

Manually increasing the D gain can improve the accuracy of the roll andpitch response and make the plane less affected by gusts and turbulence.The optimum value for D gain for a high performance tune can be found byincreasing the gain in small increments until the aircraft starts tooscillate. The gain should then be halved from the value that caused itto oscillate. The oscillations that are generated using this method canbe large, so do not perform this step unless you are prepared to takemanual control. It is recommended that D gain tuning is performed atlower throttle settings and airspeeds.

If you adjust the I gain manually, then this also changes the value forP that is required to maintain the correct response, so adjusting the Igain is only recommended for advanced users.

AUTOTUNE_LEVEL settings¶