Pick the key. Set the feel.
Put DropWave Tune on a vocal track, pick the song's key and scale, and sing or play. It hears the pitch and pulls each note to the nearest note of the key, as fast as Retune speed says. It moves between notes as fast as Note transition says, keeps the voice's character, and leaves breaths and consonants alone.
Latency is 5 to 10 ms, low enough to sing through while you record.
Detect suggests. You decide.
Not sure of the key? Press Detect. It listens to the vocal and suggests the keys that fit best, and the track's tuning as a Reference A when it isn't tuned to 440. Nothing changes until you pick one.
When the vocal never sings the note that tells two keys apart, Detect offers them side by side rather than guessing. Put the beat on Tune's side chain and Detect hears that too, which settles keys the melody alone can't. The beat is only listened to; it never reaches the output.
With no key picked, Tune corrects gently: only notes already close to a semitone are pulled in.
The controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Retune speed | How fast a note is pulled into tune, from 0 to 400 ms. 0 ms is the hard-tuned sound |
| Note transition | How fast it moves to the next note. 0 ms steps at once; longer glides |
| Humanize | Slower on held notes, so their vibrato stays |
| Expression | Leaves slides, scoops and bends alone: notes far from the target stay as sung |
| Natural Vibrato | The singer's vibrato on held notes, shallower or deeper |
| Amount | How much of the way to the note it goes |
| Formant | Keeps the voice's character when its pitch moves |
| Reference A | The tuning the notes are measured against, 430 to 450 Hz |
| Mix | The corrected voice against the dry one |
Four presets set the main five at once: Natural, Pop, Hard tune and Hard tune (keep vibrato).
MIDI notes and the keyboard
Hold MIDI notes and they become the target notes for as long as they're held. Along the bottom, a keyboard from C2 to C6 shows the notes Tune may pull to and lights the one it's pulling to now. Click a key to block or allow that note in every octave.
Voice
Set Voice to the range the singer sings in. A narrower range is surer, and needs less latency.
| Voice | Listens for | Latency |
|---|---|---|
| Soprano | 160–1100 Hz | 5 ms |
| Alto | 120–800 Hz | 6 ms |
| Tenor | 90–600 Hz | 6 ms |
| Low | 60–400 Hz | 10 ms |
| Wide | 60–1100 Hz | 10 ms |
Compare
Compare plays the voice as it came in, in time, so you hear exactly what Tune is doing to it.
Specs
| Formats | AU, VST3 and CLAP |
|---|---|
| Runs on | A Mac with Apple silicon |
| Install | DropWave → Install DropWave Tune…, in the DropWave app |
| Input | One vocal, plus an optional side chain for Detect |
| Scales | Major, minor, chromatic, harmonic and melodic minor, major and minor pentatonic, blues, Dorian, Mixolydian, or notes you pick |
| Latency | 5 to 10 ms, by Voice. Your DAW compensates for it |
| Status | Dev Beta, since DropWave 3.4.4 |