Tuning a vocal has always come at a cost: the tighter the pitch correction, the more a singer’s natural vibrato is flattened out – and with it, the personality and character of the performance.
This means producers and engineers have previously been forced to balance accuracy against realism, sacrificing a little of the magic in any take to keep the pitch locked in. With the release of AutoTune® Advanced, equipped with the new patent-pending DVA™ vibrato detection and preservation engine, Antares® is making that trade-off a thing of the past: Perfectly Tuned. Still Human.
Available now, Advanced is the flagship product in the AutoTune lineup. At its heart is a ground-up rebuild of the Auto-Mode pitch algorithm that represents the largest leap forward since its introduction, delivering the smoothest, clearest and most accurate tuning Antares has ever developed. Underneath that is an all-new engine foundation tailor-made to remain reliably stable in demanding, CPU-heavy sessions. Those familiar with AutoTune will recognize controls like Retune Speed, Flex Tune and Humanize, so existing users can get up to speed in no time.
What really sets Advanced apart from its predecessors is DVA, a brand new vibrato detection and preservation engine designed to preserve the natural vibrato that gives vocal performances their unique character. DVA intelligently recognises a singer’s intended vibrato, leaving it untouched no matter how aggressively the pitch correction is being applied, meaning that the organic rise and fall of a vocal take remains intact even at the tightest settings.
DVA doesn’t only preserve natural vibrato, though – the technology also gives the user complete control over the vibrato in a vocal recording, making it possible to cut it, boost it, or generate artificial vibrato using sine, saw, square and triangle shapes. Advanced’s Creative Vibrato FX is also equipped with a handy visualiser to track the vibrato-shaping in real-time.
Advanced also features a new three-mode selector for balancing latency against quality, depending on the application. The new Live mode is designed for ultra-fast real-time monitoring, so a singer can hear their vocals while tracking without throwing their performance off. High Quality mode is built for final mixes and bounces, while Low Latency mode is more suitable for general studio work.
"I'm a huge fan of AutoTune Advanced," says producer Jess Jackson. "The biggest improvements are behind the scenes: the new algorithm detects pitch smoother, with lower artifacts and improved sound. The new live mode gives under 1ms of latency, and artists love performing live with it. The Formant Designer has been a game-changer. It's the best AutoTune release to date."
What’s more, AutoTune Advanced offers users more creative control than ever before, with an overhauled Formant Designer for finely-tuned timbral shaping, a redesigned workflow for custom scales, a new 78-note Visual Keyboard for adjusting per-note behaviour and MIDI Perform for hands-on, real-time control over tuning parameters and Vibrato FX.
As with previous versions, both Classic and Modern modes are available to give users a choice between the classic hard-tuned vocal sound (now enhanced with DVA) and transparent, natural-sounding correction.
Advanced comes with a curated collection of presets designed by GRAMMY® Award-winning producers, engineers and chart-topping artists, including Julian Marley, Ann Mincieli, Jess Jackson, David "Yungin" Kim and more. "I've been using AutoTune for over 15 years, so I know it inside and out," says Kim.
"Advanced feels like a real upgrade. Live mode is crazy fast and keeps the artist locked into the performance. The formant designer gives me more ways to shape a vocal without losing the person behind it, and the modern UI gives an old friend a much needed fresh look."
“Since 1997, the complaint about pitch correction has been the same: it takes the singer out of the singing," adds Jeff Wright, CEO of Antares Audio Technologies. "That's the problem DVA was built to solve. It can tell the difference between a pitch error and a decision the vocalist made, and it leaves the decision alone."
AutoTune Advanced is the flagship product for Auto-Mode, offering a streamlined experience built around real-time correction, but AutoTune Pro 11 is where producers will find Graph Mode, manual note-by-note editing, harmony generation and more.
AutoTune Advanced runs on macOS 13 or higher and Windows 10 and 11 in AAX, AU and VST3 formats. A perpetual licence is $450 USD or $17.50 a month as part of an AutoTune Unlimited subscription. A free trial is available now.
Visit the AutoTune Advanced product page to find out more.
