10 of the Best Pitch Shifting Plugins for Vocals

Vocals are a primary component of many modern styles of music, from Hip Hop to House, Pop to R&B. Vocals often take centre stage as the most important part of a production, so getting vocals just right is crucial for achieving a professional sound. You may need to make subtle tweaks to the pitch of individual sections, words, or even syllables of your vocal recording. At other times, your project might take a different direction, and so you need to transpose the pitch of the entire vocal take.

Vocal pitch-shifting plugins are also useful when using samples. If your chosen sample is in the wrong key, you can use a pitch-shifting plugin to transpose it accordingly. Or perhaps you just want to stand out from the crowd by applying some creative pitch-shifting techniques to your vocals. Whether you want to tweak or transform the pitch of your vocals, one of the pitch-shifting plugins discussed in this article might be what you’re looking for.

10 of the Best Vocal Pitch Shifting Plugins

Let’s take a look at some of the best pitch-shifting plugins for vocals, considering their features, functionality, and cost. In this article, we’ll only be looking at real-time pitch-shifting plugins.

zplane ELASTIQUE PITCH V2 – €149

First up is our own pitch-shifting plugin, ELASTIQUE PITCH V2, which uses our industry-leading pitch-shifting and time-stretching algorithm, ELASTIQUE. While this plugin is not designed exclusively for vocals, the algorithm has been developed to work consistently on a range of audio sources.

ELASTIQUE PITCH V2 works on both monophonic and polyphonic sound sources, and can transpose transient-rich instruments such as drums, percussion, and guitar, without affecting the attack portion of the signal. It’s also designed with phase coherence in mind, and promises to preserve your audio’s spatial image during processing.

Link the Pitch and Timbre controls for a natural pitch-shifting effect, or unlink them to create an even broader range of unique pitch and formant-shifted sounds. The simple XY control in the centre of the plugin’s interface makes it extremely intuitive to use. On top of that, every parameter within ELASTIQUE PITCH V2 can be automated or MIDI mapped, giving you even more programming and performance flexibility.

ELASTIQUE PITCH V2 also accepts MIDI, allowing you to control the pitch-shifting being applied with either pre-programmed MIDI clips, or a MIDI keyboard or sequencer. Further features include a Freeze function for infinitely stretching your audio, plus an inbuilt delay for creating unique pitch delay effects.

Head to the product page for more information or to download the free demo and hear ELASTIQUE PITCH V2 for yourself.

Soundtoys Little AlterBoy – $99

Soundtoys are renowned for their large catalogue of music production tools that can impart plenty of character onto any audio signal. Their pitch-shifting plugin, Little AlterBoy, is no different. With a built-in tube-style drive circuit, this pitch-shifting plugin isn’t designed to be the most transparent plugin on this list.

With three modes to choose from, including a vocoder-style Robot mode, Little AlterBoy is capable of a wide range of pitch-shifting effects. The plugin is intended for monophonic sound sources, so you do get some interesting artefacts when applying the plugin to polyphonic signals.

You can unlink the Pitch and Formant parameters for independent control, and there’s a Dry/Wet control for instant parallel pitch-shifting effects. Little AlterBoy also accepts MIDI to control the transposition being applied, which is particularly useful for vocoder-style vocals when combined with the Robot effect.

Waves Vocal Bender – $149

Next up is a simple but effective vocal pitch-shifting effect from Waves; Vocal Bender. Like some of the other plugins on this list, you get independent Pitch and Formant control for maximum flexibility. There’s also a Dry/Wet knob for applying parallel pitch-shifting effects.

Vocal Bender’s Flatten mode works similarly to LittleAlterboy’s Robot mode, and applies a robotic pitch-shifting effect to your vocals. The plugin’s unique selling point is its range of inbuilt modulation options that enable you to apply traditional vocal pitch effects with ease. While you can try Vocal Bender on any instrument type, it is configured to work best on vocals, so you may experience mixed results when applying it to other melodic signals.

Zynaptiq PITCHSHIFT – €169 / €299

This next vocal pitch-shifting plugin comes in two variations, PITCHSHIFT and PITCHSHIFT PRO. Both plugins feature a choice of pitch-shifting algorithms, MIDI control, independent pitch and formant control, and a Dry/Wet control. The PRO version adds multi-channel support, three additional pitch-shifting algorithms, and doubles the transposition range from 12 semitones to 24.

Kilohearts Pitch Shifter – Free

We couldn’t write a plugin round-up article without including at least one free vocal pitch-shifting plugin. Kilohearts’ Essentials bundle is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive suites of free audio plugins, and it includes a pitch shifter. The aptly-named Pitch Shifter device uses grain delay to harmonically shift your audio signal by up to two whole octaves.

While not the most comprehensive pitch-shifting plugin on the market, it is free, and the range of settings enables you to achieve a variety of interesting sounds. The Jitter control allows you to add some randomness to your pitch shifting, and you can further tweak the resulting sound using the Grain Size and Correlate controls.

Slate Digital MetaPitch – $199

Next up, Slate Digital’s contribution to this list of the best vocal pitch-shifting plugins; MetaPitch. You get all the features you’d expect from a pitch-shifting plugin at this price point, including independent pitch and formant control, MIDI control, a Robot algorithm, and a Dry/Wet control.

You also get a few extra features, such as an inbuilt Drive circuit, like Little AlterBoy, plus a stereo widening effect and high and low-pass filters. The only thing missing is the ability to shift the pitch of polyphonic sound sources, but you do get a grouped instances feature that allows you to apply the same processing across multiple tracks.

Polyverse Manipulator – $149

If it’s wild and wacky pitch shifting you’re looking for, Manipulator by Polyverse might be the plugin for you. With a total of 10 effects, this is designed to be more of a transformative pitch-shifting tool than a transparent one. Aside from the many pitch and formant-related effects, Manipulator accepts up to four voices of MIDI for polyphonic vocoder-like functionality. There’s also four configurable modulation slots and plenty of modulation sources, including MIDI, a macro-style Meta Knob, a sequencer, and ADSR envelope.

Devious Machines Pitch Monster – $99.99

If you need more MIDI voices, then perhaps Pitch Monster by Devious Machines will fit the bill. Like many of the other vocal pitch-shifting plugins we’ve covered, Pitch Monster gives you three pitch-shifting modes with independent pitch and formant control, plus Dry/Wet control.

You also get Unison and Spread parameters for adding some stereo movement to your signal, plus a built-in filter and polyphonic support. Pitch Monster’s USP is its chord memory feature, whereby up to eight notes can be selected to form a chord. You can then save and instantly recall chords for easy performance later on.

MeldaProduction MAutoPitch – Free

The final pitch-shifting plugin on this list is another freebie, this time from the Prague-based audio software developers, MeldaProduction. MAutoPitch comes with their MFreeFXBundle, and is a simple yet effective automatic pitch-shifting device.

MAutoPitch automatically detects and applies pitch shifting to vocals and other monophonic material, according to the parameters you set. Set your project key and scale, and let the plugin do the rest. While you don’t get a dedicated pitch control, you do get a separate formant control.

Use Your DAW’s Pitch-Shifting

While we’ve covered a range of pitch-shifting plugins in this article, it’s important to remember that most DAWs allow you to apply some level of pitch shifting natively, albeit with slightly less control on offer. Infact, most leading DAWs use our very own pitch-shifting and time-stretching algorithm, ELASTIQUE.

For example, if you use Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Cubase, Reaper, FL Studio, PreSonus Studio One, or Bitwig, you’ve probably used our ELASTIQUE algorithm. If you like the accuracy, transparency, and reliability of your DAW’s algorithm, but need some more in-depth controls, our dedicated pitch-shifting plugin ELASTIQUE PITCH V2 packages the algorithm up into a neat and intuitive plugin interface.