Skip to main content
MusicRadar MusicRadar The No.1 website for musicians
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
  • Artist news
  • Guitars
  • Guitar Pedals
  • Synths
  • Keyboards & Pianos
  • Controllers
  • Guitar Amps
  • Drums
  • Software & Apps
  • More
    • Recording
    • DJ Gear
    • Acoustic Guitars
    • Bass Guitars
    • Tech
    • Tutorials
    • Reviews
    • Buying Guides
    • About Us
More
  • Radiohead theory
  • Steely Dan's drum machine
  • Deep Purple in the dungeon
  • Prince's drummers
  • 95k+ free music samples
Don't miss these
Plugins
Plugins To mark Plugin Week, here’s our pick of the most out-there sound design plugins you should grab now
Plugins Future owns
Plugins Our resident platinum award-winning mixer and producer shares 10 of his go-to plugins
Sonic Charge Synplant 2
Software & Apps "This really is the ultimate sound design tool": 6 of the most creative plugin synths for sound design
Plugins
Plugins Our go-to plugins for adding flavour to our sounds
synths
Tech 5 innovative synth plugins daring to do things differently
minimal audio plugin
Tech Minimal Audio drops Formant, a free formant-shifting plugin for creative vocal production
Plugins
Plugins How to get famous sounds and effects using only Logic’s stock plugins
API
Plugins Our pick of the very best VCA compressor software emulation plugins for any music project
Pluginweek logo
Plugins Plugin Week 2025: Exhibitor A-Z
iZotope FXEQ
Gear & Gadgets iZotopeʼs colourful new FXEQ multi-effects plugin lets you “paint” with saturation, reverb, and delay
plugins
Tech "It's a stupendously powerful tool": 10 of the best sampler plugins in 2025
GForce Software Oddity3
Synths How to master virtually any software synth
plugins
Tech The ultimate soft synth showdown: Serum 2, Pigments 6, Phase Plant, Vital and Massive X: But which is best?
bon iver
Music Production Tutorials "It’s simple enough to create the perfect hard-tuned and harmonised effects within our DAW, providing you have the right software": How to harness hard-tuned vocals
Native Instruments Raum
Music Production Tutorials How to use reverb to build impressive-sounding filters, reverses, risers and pads
  1. Tech
  2. Software & Apps

10 of the best creative pitchshifting plugins

News
By Computer Music ( Computer Music ) published 13 August 2015

Bend the musical scale to your will with these tools

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

Welcome

Welcome

Pitch is one of the key fundamental aspects underlying all music. Intrinsically intertwined with melody and harmony, play somebody a well-known tune using anything that can produce a few tones, be it a child's music box, a sine wave generator, or a grand piano, and they will have no problem identifying it. That's the power of pitch, and when you marry up great tunes with compelling rhythms, you have pretty much all you need to make awesome music.

Modern software gives you the tools you need to transform music in a way that would leave a 17th-century composer gawping like a fish on a space station. Want to harmonise a melody with nothing more than a few clicks? Done. Need to knock a few dodgy notes in a recorded melody into tune? We've got you covered.

Pitchshifting tools come in all shapes and sizes. Click through the gallery to check out our top 10 creative pitchshifting plugins, there could be something in there for you.

Page 1 of 11
Page 1 of 11
1. Antares Auto-Tune 8

1. Antares Auto-Tune 8

The eighth full version of perhaps the most famous plugin of all time. While it’s built around features designed for invisible pitch-correction of monophonic audio, its flexibility means it’s packed with creative possibilities too for those who are prepared to let loose with it.

Antares website

Page 2 of 11
Page 2 of 11
2. QuikQuak Pitchwheel

2. QuikQuak Pitchwheel

Cheap and very cheerful, this bonkers plugin sits confidently at the ‘creative’ end of the pitch manipulation spectrum. Its inertia-animated Pitch and formant-shifting Timbre wheels open it up to everything from gentle correction to the most adventurous of experimentation.

4.5 out of 5

Read the QuikQuak Pitchwheel review

Page 3 of 11
Page 3 of 11
3. Celemony Melodyne

3. Celemony Melodyne

This is, by some margin, the most powerful pitch manipulation software on the market, and beyond its obvious uses for correctional work, its astounding polyphonic editing presents endless creative opportunities, from “rewriting” audio material on a note-by-note basis, to extracting elements and/or MIDI parts from full mixes.

4.5 out of 5

Read the Celemony Melodyne review

Page 4 of 11
Page 4 of 11
4. DMG Audio PitchFunk

4. DMG Audio PitchFunk

Pitchshifting is just one element of this mind-boggling sound mangler, which also features filtering, delay, granular processing and more, not to mention three LFOs and an envelope follower for getting it moving. More an in-depth sound design tool than a workaday pitchshifter, PitchFunk is wild, inspiring and enormous fun.

4 out of 5

Read the DMG Audio PitchFunk review

Page 5 of 11
Page 5 of 11
5. Waves SoundShifter

5. Waves SoundShifter

Waves’ versatile time and pitch correction plugin gives easy control over both, and also enables automation of those two properties in Graphic mode. As you’d expect, the quality and transparency of results are impressive, making SoundShifter a powerful and fairly priced option.

Waves website

Page 6 of 11
Page 6 of 11
6. Audio Damage Discord 3

6. Audio Damage Discord 3

Much more than ‘just’ a pitchshifting plugin thanks to its delays, filters and LFOs, but not one to turn to for quick corrective tasks, Discord 3 offers three repitching algorithms – Vintage, Clean and Granular - for a wide range of sounds and styles. At this price, no adventurous producer can afford to be without it.

Audio Damage website

Page 7 of 11
Page 7 of 11
7. zplane Elastique Pitch 2

7. zplane Elastique Pitch 2

As you’d expect from the company behind the pitchshifting built into so many DAWs, zplane’s own offering sounds phenomenal. Featuring an X/Y control pad, up to 12 semitones of Pitch and Timbre adjustment, dry/wet mix and a delay module, it’s easy to use, too.

4.5 out of 5

Read the zplane Elastique Pitch 2 review

Page 8 of 11
Page 8 of 11
8. Zynaptiq Pitchmap

8. Zynaptiq Pitchmap

Spectacular in its ability to repitch full polyphonic mixes or individual elements within them, Pitchmap is a tricky one to categorise. Featuring keyboard- based scale selection and MIDI control, it doesn’t sound quite as natural as Melodyne, but the fact that it does its thing entirely in real time makes it a fascinating and highly creative alternative.

3.5 out of 5

Read the Zynaptiq Pitchmap review

Page 9 of 11
Page 9 of 11
9. Aegean Music Pitchproof

9. Aegean Music Pitchproof

Pitchproof’s old-school sound and approach certainly keep things simple, with a menu of fixed shifting intervals and scale-specific harmonies, plus Detune control and a dry/wet mix knob for harmonising the input signal rather than simply repitching it. Obviously, since it’s completely free, you’d be mad not to get it!

Aegean Music website

Page 10 of 11
Page 10 of 11
10. Eventide H3000 Factory

10. Eventide H3000 Factory

Despite lacking many of the original H3000 algorithms, this plugin version of Eventide’s legendary hardware sounds incredible and features a very usable virtual patch cable system for modification of its 450+ presets. If you have any interest at all in classic studio gear, the H3000 Factory demands your attention.

4 out of 5

Read the Eventide H3000 Factory review

For much more on the subject of pitchshifting, pick up Computer Music 220, which is available in both digital and print formats now.

Page 11 of 11
Page 11 of 11
Computer Music
Computer Music
Social Links Navigation

Computer Music magazine is the world’s best selling publication dedicated solely to making great music with your Mac or PC computer. Each issue it brings its lucky readers the best in cutting-edge tutorials, need-to-know, expert software reviews and even all the tools you actually need to make great music today, courtesy of our legendary CM Plugin Suite.

Get over 70 FREE plugin instruments and effects… image
Get over 70 FREE plugin instruments and effects…
…with the latest issue of Computer Music magazine
More Info
Read more
Plugins
To mark Plugin Week, here’s our pick of the most out-there sound design plugins you should grab now
 
 
Plugins Future owns
Our resident platinum award-winning mixer and producer shares 10 of his go-to plugins
 
 
Sonic Charge Synplant 2
"This really is the ultimate sound design tool": 6 of the most creative plugin synths for sound design
 
 
Plugins
Our go-to plugins for adding flavour to our sounds
 
 
synths
5 innovative synth plugins daring to do things differently
 
 
minimal audio plugin
Minimal Audio drops Formant, a free formant-shifting plugin for creative vocal production
 
 
Latest in Software & Apps
Mk.pre
Audio Hertz's Mk.pre emulates the Tascam Portastudio preamp that colours Mk.gee's sought-after guitar tone
 
 
verses gt
“I’ve never fully gelled with Logic and Pro Tools – they kind of feel like Microsoft Excel to me”: Jacques Greene and Nosaj Thing on the making of their new collaborative project, Verses GT
 
 
minimal audio plugin
Minimal Audio drops Formant, a free formant-shifting plugin for creative vocal production
 
 
iZotope Ozone 12
iZotope Ozone 12 adds new machine learning modules and a more musician-friendly AI assistant
 
 
Ableton Move
You can now access the full version of Ableton’s Drift synth in Note and Move
 
 
vintage software
“Some of this stuff is harder to get hold of than rare analogue synths”: Why we’re in the midst of a vintage software revival
 
 
Latest in News
Jon Batiste
Jon Batiste answers the internet’s piano queries and agrees with one potentially controversial musical statement
 
 
Flava D in the studio
Flava D on why drum & bass is the toughest genre to produce
 
 
SCM All Stars logo
“I’m so grateful that our music can be a vehicle for their spirits to fly”: Students at Flea’s music school pay tribute to Chili Peppers
 
 
Musician Dave Grohl, founding member of Nirvana and The Foo Fighters
“Ladies and gentlemen, will you please welcome Ilan Rubin”: Dave Grohl introduces new drummer at Foos secret gig
 
 
Brian May
“I missed a couple of things": Brian May critiques his Last Night of the Proms performance
 
 
Ed Sheeran attends the European Premiere of F1 ® The Movie at Cineworld, Leicester Square on June 23, 2025
“It would be ‘Stop’ and then ‘Eject’”: Ed Sheeran reveals that plans for posthumous album are in his will
 
 

MusicRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...