How to Use Auto-Tune in Logic Pro

Sources: Logic Pro User Guide for Mac (version 12.3, support.apple.com) and antarestech.com. Menu names are from the current Logic Pro. In Logic Pro 10.7 and earlier, Pitch Correction has no Neural Pitch Detection or Tolerance control.

This guide is about Logic Pro only, step by step: the stock Pitch Correction plugin, Flex Pitch, and Antares AutoTune inside Logic. Apple now calls it simply Logic Pro, without the “X”, and the steps below are written for current versions. For what Auto-Tune is and what every Antares setting does in any DAW, see our Auto-Tune guide.

How to use autotune in Logic Pro with Pitch Correction

Pitch Correction is Logic’s own automatic tuner. It works like Auto-Tune’s Auto mode: it follows the vocal as it plays and pulls each note toward the nearest note of the scale. It handles single-note material only, so use it on a lead vocal, a double or one harmony at a time, not on chords or a choir.

1. Insert the plugin

Select the vocal track, click an empty Audio FX slot on the channel strip and choose Pitch > Pitch Correction. Put it in the first slot, before compression and EQ, so it reads the raw pitch. Each vocal track gets its own instance.

2. Leave Neural Pitch Detection on

Apple recommends leaving Neural Pitch Detection on, because it handles pitch tracking by itself. If you turn it off, set Pitch Range manually: Normal for almost everything, Low only for material below about 100 Hz. These settings don’t change the sound, only how the plugin tracks pitch.

3. Set the root note and scale

Choose the song’s key in the Root Note and Scale/Chord menus. The default is Chromatic, which pulls toward any semitone, so a flat note can land on the wrong neighbour. With the right key, notes outside the scale are greyed out on the keyboard and the plugin won’t tune to them.

The keyboard has two modes. In Edit Scale, clicking a key removes that note from the scale, so pitches near it go to the next available note. In Bypass Notes, clicking a key leaves that note uncorrected. To fix only one or two bad notes, bypass every other note. Editing the keys by hand switches the scale to User Scale, and there is one user scale per project.

4. Set Response (Logic’s retune speed)

Response sets how quickly the voice reaches the corrected pitch. Low values snap fast and give perfect intonation, but glides between notes turn into semitone steps. That’s the hard-tuned effect. If Response is too high, the pitch doesn’t change quickly enough to correct anything.

For the effect, start at the bottom. For natural tuning, raise it until the singer’s slides come back and stop as soon as the off notes still land. Apple gives no number, because the right value depends on the singing style, tempo, vibrato and how accurate the take is.

5. Set Tolerance

Tolerance sets a zone around each note where no correction happens. Low values give stricter, faster correction. Higher values let vibrato and expressive pitch movement through before anything is corrected. It’s the closest thing in Logic to Auto-Tune’s Flex-Tune.

6. Watch the Correction display

The display shows how much the pitch is being changed as the track plays, and its marker shows the average correction over a longer stretch. If the marker sits far from center, the whole take leans sharp or flat. That’s worth telling the singer during the session, before you rely on the plugin.

7. Global Tuning, Reference and Detune

Leave Global Tuning on and Pitch Correction uses the project’s tuning (File > Project Settings > Tuning). Turn it off only when a part was recorded against a different reference, then set Reference in cents. Detune shifts the output after correction. A few cents of Detune on one of two unison vocals stops a perfectly tuned double from sounding too clean.

Use Bypass All to compare the corrected and original vocal.

Starting points, not rules. Set the key first, then adjust by ear with the beat playing.

Recording through Pitch Correction

For the hard effect, the singer should hear it while recording, because it changes how they sing. To keep monitoring delay down, turn on Low Latency Monitoring Mode in Logic Pro > Settings > Audio > General, or add its button to the control bar. While it’s on, Logic can bypass plugins that add latency and turns off sends on the track you’re recording, so the sound may change a little. Record the vocal dry and keep the plugin on the track. That way you can change the tuning later.

Pitch Correction has no graph for drawing notes by hand. For that, Logic has Flex Pitch.

Flex Pitch: manual pitch correction in Logic Pro

Flex Pitch analyses the audio and shows each sung note as a bar, like MIDI in the Piano Roll. You can change the pitch, timing, length, vibrato, gain and formant of every note. It’s the tool for correction nobody should hear, and for fixing the three or four notes Pitch Correction gets wrong.

Turn on Flex Pitch

1. In the Tracks area, press Cmd-F (or Edit > Show Flex Pitch/Time).
2. Click the Track Flex button in the vocal track’s header and choose Flex Pitch from the Flex Mode menu.
3. Double-click the region to open the Audio Track Editor, where you edit pitch.

Logic splits the take into notes automatically. If it splits a note in the wrong place, cut it with the Scissors tool or join two notes with Cmd-J.

Drag a note up or down to change its pitch, sideways to move it, and drag its edges to resize it.

Edit a note with hotspots

Select a note and six hotspots appear around it. Drag them vertically:

1. Upper left: pitch drift at the start of the note.
2. Upper middle: vibrato.
3. Upper right: pitch drift at the end of the note.
4. Lower left: gain.
5. Lower middle: fine pitch.
6. Lower right: formant shift.

In the Audio Track Editor, the Vibrato and Volume tools do the same job by dragging on the note itself.

Tune several notes at once

Select the notes and drag the Pitch Correction slider in the Audio Track Editor to the right for more correction, or to the left for less. To correct to a key instead of the chromatic scale, choose it in the Scale Quantize menus. For one note, Control-click it and choose Set to Perfect Pitch.

Go easy on whole-take correction. Pulling every note to dead center makes a vocal sound stiff. We usually fix the notes that stand out and leave the rest as sung.

If Flex Pitch shows every note on C0, Apple’s fix is to update Logic Pro and re-analyse the region (Edit > Analyze Audio for Flex Editing in the Audio Track Editor).

How to use Antares Auto-Tune in Logic Pro

1. Install AutoTune from your Antares account. Logic scans new Audio Units the next time it opens. If the plugin doesn’t appear, check it in Logic Pro > Settings > Plug-in Manager.
2. On the vocal track, click the first Audio FX slot and choose Audio Units > Antares > your AutoTune edition.
3. Set the vocal range, key and scale, then Retune Speed, Flex-Tune and Humanize. Our Auto-Tune settings guide has starting values by style.
4. For tracking, use AutoTune’s low-latency setting together with Logic’s Low Latency Monitoring Mode.
5. For Graph Mode in AutoTune Pro 11, you can load the ARA version, a separate entry under Audio Units > Antares, so the plugin reads the region directly instead of having to hear it play first. Antares’ help page for Logic lists the current requirements.

Logic Pitch Correction vs Antares AutoTune

For tuning a take so nobody notices, Pitch Correction plus Flex Pitch covers a lot of work, at no extra cost. AutoTune adds Humanize, Flex-Tune, Classic mode for the AutoTune 5 sound that most people mean when they say “auto tune”, and Graph Mode in Pro 11. It also runs in every major DAW, while Logic is Apple only. If your sessions move between DAWs, or you want that exact hard-tuned character, AutoTune is worth buying. If you’re choosing between manual editors, see Melodyne vs Auto-Tune.

Tuning by hand takes time and an ear for which notes to leave alone. Our manual vocal editing costs $57 per song for up to 4 vocal tracks, back in 2–3 days. Or send the whole session: mixing and mastering starts at $133 per song, with basic tuning included and 6 revision rounds.