Mix Tools
PITCHVECTOR
Real-time pitch correction with a latency policy derived rather than chosen.
- Formats
- VST3 · AU · Standalone
- Operating system
- macOS · Universal
- Version
- v1.0.0
What it does
The budget is physics. We spend it where you can hear it.
A pitch shifter's lookahead is not a design preference. A PSOLA grain centred at an output position must be written into the overlap-add accumulator before the read pointer reaches it, and its content must already exist in the input by then. Both conditions together force two pitch periods of lookahead — 36 ms at 55 Hz. No arrangement of the algorithm avoids it; a design that appears to is either relocating the delay or using grains shorter than a period.
PITCHVECTOR spends that budget explicitly, in three modes, and reports it honestly to the host — where it stays constant. Latency never changes with Retune Speed, Mix, Correction Amount, key, scale, or any other automatable parameter, because hosts negotiate delay compensation once and cache it.
Audio entering the engine is delayed by exactly the lookahead. The analyser reads the newest samples while the shifter reads the delayed ones, so the pitch estimate describes the centre of the window containing the sample being corrected rather than lagging behind it.
Key features
Three modes, three budgets
LowLatency: 512 samples (10.7 ms at 48 kHz), PSOLA only, full quality above ~190 Hz — for live tracking and cue mixes. Normal: 1024 samples (21.3 ms), hybrid shifter, ~94 Hz — the mixing default. HQ: 2048 samples (42.7 ms), phase vocoder plus PSOLA, ~47 Hz — for print and offline.
Latency is constant within a mode
It changes only on prepareToPlay, a mode change, or an oversampling change. Parameters that “want” different lookahead are implemented at fixed lookahead with an internal worst-case buffer instead.
Formant control independent of pitch
Formant Shift, Throat Length and Formant Lock, so a shifted note keeps — or deliberately loses — the voice that sang it.
Vibrato you can keep, replace or reshape
Vibrato Depth and Rate, Natural Vibrato, and Vibrato Preserve — so correction does not have to flatten the performance's own movement.
Breath and sibilance protection
Explicit parameters, because the parts of a vocal that carry no pitch are exactly the parts a tuner damages.
MIDI note targeting
Read the target from incoming notes instead of a scale, which is exact and skips the detector's uncertainty entirely.
The interface
Audio
Audio demos for PITCHVECTOR are not published yet.
We would rather show you nothing than show you a demo that was not recorded through this plugin.
Measured
LatencyTests · every mode, oversampling factor and sample rate in {44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192} kHz
- Lookahead — LowLatency
- 512 samples · 10.7 ms at 48 kHz
- Lookahead — Normal
- 1024 samples · 21.3 ms
- Lookahead — HQ
- 2048 samples · 42.7 ms
- Full-quality frequency floor — LowLatency / Normal / HQ
- ~190 / ~94 / ~47 Hz
- Measured group delay vs reported latency
- equal, at every mode, factor and rate
- Locks anywhere in the engine
- none
- Allocation on the audio thread
- none — asserted in debug builds
Figures are produced by this plugin’s own test suite and benchmark, on the hardware and sample rate named above. They are not estimates.
Controls
Correction
- Character
- The overall correction voice.
- Correction Amount
- How completely the note is moved to target.
- Retune Speed
- How fast it gets there.
- Flex Tune
- How much deviation is left alone.
- Humanize
- Restores variation the correction would otherwise remove.
- Tolerance
- How far from target still counts as the note.
Musical
- Key / Scale
- The target set.
- Transpose
- Shift the whole target set.
- Reference A
- Concert pitch reference.
Voice
- Formant Shift / Throat Length / Formant Lock
- Formant control independent of pitch.
- Vibrato Depth / Rate / Natural Vibrato / Vibrato Preserve
- Add, shape or keep the performance's own movement.
- Transition Smoothness
- How the correction moves between notes.
Detection and output
- Tracking Sensitivity / Confidence Threshold
- How readily the detector commits to a note.
- Note Gate
- Below this, nothing is corrected.
- Breath Protection / Sibilance Protection
- Leave unpitched material alone.
- Quality Mode / Oversampling
- Latency-affecting, and therefore not automatable.
- Input / Output / Mix / Stereo Link / MIDI Mode
- Levels and routing.
Technical details
- Formats
- VST3 · AU · Standalone
- Operating system
- macOS 10.13 or later
- Architecture
- Universal — Apple Silicon and Intel
- Plugin code
- Pvc1
- Version
- 1.0.0
- Sample rates
- 44.1 · 48 · 88.2 · 96 · 176.4 · 192 kHz
- Latency
- 10.7 ms, 21.3 ms or 42.7 ms at 48 kHz depending on mode. Constant within a mode.
- Factory presets
- 12
Grouped by context: Production (Rap, Trap, EDM), Band (Rock, Metal), Spoken (Podcast, Voiceover), Ensemble (Choir, Harmony) and Voice (Character).
Also in these bundles
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Get PITCHVECTOR as part of SIGNATURE TOOLS — 7 plugins worth £365 for £199.
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