Pitch shifting without artifacts

Pitch shifting fails when it is asked to do too much at once. This guide covers the settings and habits that keep a shifted voice believable.

Small steps beat big jumps

A semitone or two of shift stays invisible to the ear. Beyond four or five semitones, formants drift and the voice becomes a caricature — chipmunk up front, monster down low.

Formants are the key

Formants — the resonant peaks of your vocal tract — must stay near natural even when pitch moves. Tools that shift formants along with pitch sound processed; tools that correct them separately sound like a different person, not a different robot.

Frequently asked questions