Why auto-tune is fine, actually

The most common thing new users ask us: "Is auto-tune cheating?"

Short answer: no. Longer answer: every song you have emotionally connected to in the last 25 years uses pitch correction, and you didn't notice because the good ones are invisible.

A quick history

• 1997: Antares releases Auto-Tune as a studio plugin. It was designed to fix imperfect takes, not create an effect.
• 1998: Cher's "Believe" deliberately pushes the correction strength to its maximum setting, creating the robotic warble we now associate with the name.
• 2000s-2010s: The subtle, transparent version becomes standard on essentially every major-label pop, country, R&B, and rap vocal.
• Now: It's an instrument. Used subtly on ballads, extremely on hyperpop, and as a creative color on everything in between.

Two modes

Pitch correction comes in two flavors, and it's useful to know both:

Gentle (transparent)

Pulls your voice toward the right note only if you drift more than a certain amount. Preserves natural vibrato, breaths, and personality. This is what's on the last 1,000 hit songs you've heard. You'd never notice.

Hard (audible)

Snaps every note instantly to the scale. This is the T-Pain / Travis Scott / Kanye sound. It sounds robotic on purpose.

What StackSing does

Our default setting is hard snap with target notes. Every template has a pre-written melody and harmonies — when you record, we correct your pitch to those exact target notes, not just the nearest scale note.

This matters because for a choir video to sound good, every part has to sit in exactly the right spot in the chord. A 3rd that's a little sharp ruins the whole stack. Hard snap fixes that instantly.

You can record sloppily and still sound tight.

The takeaway

If you can hum the melody and your voice is roughly in the right region, StackSing can make you sound like a singer. That's not cheating. That's software doing what software is for.

Every professional vocal in your library is auto-tuned. You're just joining the club.