
If you’ve spent any time recording vocals in Logic, it’s likely you’ve already come across this workhorse, which was also included in Logic Pro 9. Pitch Correction is a stock plugin that comes pre-installed with Logic Pro X. Interested in more free music software to up your production game? Check out our list of the 11 must-have free music production software downloads. (If you don’t want to sing yourself, you can try hard-tuning different vocal one-shots from a sample plugin like Arcade for some pretty crazy effects.) So without further ado, here are five Auto-Tune alternatives that you can download right now, at no cost. Some DAWs have built-in vocal tuning software modules, and there are even free plugins that can get you close to that classic Auto-Tune sound. Luckily, Auto-Tune isn’t the only tuning plugin on the market.

Unless the sound of wonderfully artificial, hard-tuned vocal processing is integral to your sound, you may not be willing to spend that much money for it.

Today, Auto-Tune developer Antares offers three different tiers of Auto-Tune with varying features, starting at $99 for the basic version, Auto-Tune Access, and going all the way up to $399 for the industry-standard Auto-Tune Pro. And that premium reputation comes with a premium price tag. Like Xerox or Kleenex, Auto-Tune is a trademarked product that became so influential its name is now used as a stand-in for an entire sector of the music production market.

To musicians just starting out who want to tap into that sound, however, Auto-Tune is not super accessible. From the highest levels of rap music to hyperpop and beyond, Auto-Tune is now more popular with artists than ever before. (Death of Auto-Tune)”? - but we all know who won that battle.

Heading into the 2010s, there was some significant cultural backlash to how prominent Auto-Tune was in pop music - remember JAY-Z’s 2009 song “ D.O.A. The classic Auto-Tune sound we all know and love was further popularized by artists like T-Pain in the 2000s. Auto-Tune gave us the warbling, digital vocal sound that was pioneered by Cher’s “ Believe” in the late 1990s. While Auto-Tune can be used to polish up small pitch inconsistencies in vocal takes, it’s also used as a noticeable effect. Auto-Tune is one of the rare music production tools to cross over and become a household name, thanks to how commonly it’s heard in today’s music.
