8

118 Chapter 10 Pitch
Excluding Notes From Correction
Use of the small bypass buttons (byp) above the green (black) and below the blue
(white) keys excludes notes from correction. This is useful for blue notes. Blue notes are
notes that slide between pitches, making the major and minor status of the keys
difficult to identify. As you may know, one of the major differences between C minor
and C major is the Eb (E flat) and Bb (B flat), instead of the E and B. Blues singers glide
between these notes, creating an uncertainty or tension between the scales. Use of the
bypass switches allows you to exclude particular keys from changes, leaving them as
they were.
If you enable the Bypass All button, the input signal is passed through unprocessed
and uncorrected. This is useful for spot corrections to pitch through use of automation.
Bypass All is optimized for seamless bypass switching in all situations.
∏ Tip: You’ll often find that it’s best to only correct notes with the most harmonic gravity.
As an example, choose the “sus 4” Scale, and set the Root note to match the project
key. This will limit correction to the root note, the fourth and the fifth of the key scale.
Switch all other notes to Bypass, and only the most important and sensitive notes will
be corrected, while all other singing remains untouched.
Setting the Reference Tuning
The File > Project Settings > Tuning settings determine the tuning reference for all
software instruments. If you engage Use Global Tuning in the Pitch Correction window,
the project’s Tuning settings will be used for the pitch correction process. If this
parameter is switched off, you can use the Ref. Pitch field to freely set the desired
reference tuning.
As an example: The intonation of a vocal line is often slightly sharp or flat throughout
an entire song. Use the Reference Pitch parameter to address this issue at the input of
the pitch detection process. Set the Reference Pitch to reflect the constant pitch
deviation in cent values. This allows the pitch correction to perform more accurately.
Note: Tunings that differ from software instrument tuning can be interesting, when you
want to individually correct the notes of singers in a choir. If all voices were individually
and perfectly corrected to the same pitch, the choir effect would be partially lost. You
can avoid this by (de)tuning the pitch corrections individually.
Setting the Response of Pitch Changes
Use the Response parameter to determine how quickly the voice reaches the destination
(corrected) pitch. Singers use portamenti and other gliding techniques. If you choose a
Response value that’s too high, seamless portamenti turn into semitone-stepped
glissandi, but the intonation will be perfect. If the Response value is too slow, the pitch
of the output signal won’t change quickly enough. The response of pitch changes is
indicated in milliseconds. The optimum setting for this parameter depends on the
singing style, tempo, vibrato, and quality of the original performance.