How to Use NewTone in FL Studio to Tune Your Vocals (Step by Step)

You recorded a take you love, but a few notes are a little flat, a long note drifts at the end, or the hook just doesn't sit on the beat the way you hear it in your head. If you make music in FL Studio, there's a good chance you already own the tool to fix that: NewTone.

NewTone is FL Studio's built-in pitch correction editor. Instead of tuning everything automatically while the track plays, it shows every note of your vocal as a block that you can move, straighten or reshape. In this guide you'll learn how to get your vocal into NewTone, how the main controls work, how to go natural or go for that obvious tuned sound, and how to get the result back into your project.

Do you have NewTone?

Check this first. According to Image-Line's edition comparison, NewTone comes with the Signature Bundle and the All Plugins Edition. Fruity Edition and Producer Edition don't include it. The same goes for Pitcher, FL Studio's real-time pitch correction plugin.

On Fruity or Producer? You can still tune your vocals with a free plugin. Our guide to free autotune shows what your DAW already has and two free options that work in FL Studio.

NewTone or Pitcher: which one do you need?

Both tune vocals, but they work differently:

• Pitcher is a plugin you put on a mixer track. It corrects your vocal live while the song plays. Fast, and handy for that hard tuned sound on a whole verse.
• NewTone is an editor. You open a recorded take, see every note and decide per note what happens. More work, but way more control. Image-Line's NewTone manual describes it as an editor for pitch correction and time manipulation, and points to Pitcher for live pitch changes.

Rule of thumb: want a natural vocal where you only fix the notes that are off? Use NewTone. Want an effect that runs over everything? Pitcher is quicker. You can also combine them: NewTone to fix the few notes that go wrong, then a real-time tuner on top for the character.

Step 1: find the key of your beat

NewTone can snap notes to the nearest semitone, but it gets much better when you let it snap to the scale of your song. The manual describes a Snap to scale option together with a Scale selector: once you start moving notes, they only land on notes from that scale.

So you need to know the key. Don't know it? Drop your beat into our free Beat Lab and you'll see the BPM and key right in your browser. Write it down before you open NewTone.

Step 2: get your vocal into NewTone

Pick one take to work on. If you comped your verse out of several takes, it's easiest to render or export that comp to one audio file first, so you tune one clean file instead of ten little clips.

There are two ways in:

1. From your project. Open the channel settings of your vocal sample, right-click in the sample view and choose Edit in pitch corrector. According to the FL Studio manual, that opens NewTone with that sample.
2. From a file. Open NewTone and use Load sample in its file menu to pick your WAV.

NewTone then analyzes the audio. You get a grid like a piano roll: every detected note shows up as a block, with an orange line through it that shows the pitch you actually sang from moment to moment. The volume of your vocal appears as a waveform in the background, so you can see where each word is.

Step 3: check how NewTone sliced your notes

Before you touch any pitch, play the take and watch the blocks. Sometimes NewTone glues two syllables into one block, or chops one long note into pieces. If you start tuning on bad slices, things get weird fast.

• Two words in one block? Use the Cut tool to slice the block where the second word starts.
• One note split in two? Join the pieces back together. The manual describes holding a modifier key while you click two slices with the Cut tool; check the hint bar in FL Studio for the exact key in your version.

Take a minute for this. Good slices make every next step easier.

Step 4: use the global controls

At the top of NewTone there are three controls that work on every note you have selected. The NewTone manual describes them like this:

• Center: global pitch correction. Pulls all notes toward the nearest pitch.
• Variation: corrects pitch variation, so vibrato and small pitch wobbles.
• Transition: how fast the pitch moves from one note to the next.

Select all notes and try this:

For a natural vocal

1. Turn up Center until notes that were clearly off sound right. Stop as soon as it starts to sound stiff.
2. Leave Variation fairly low. That small movement inside a note is what makes a voice sound human.
3. Keep Transition slow enough that your slides between notes still sound like you.

For an obvious tuned sound

1. Push Center all the way, so every note sits right on pitch.
2. Turn Variation way up to flatten out the wobbles.
3. Make Transition fast, so the pitch jumps from note to note instead of sliding. That jump is what gives you that robotic, stepped melody.

There's no magic number. Every voice and every take is different, so trust your ears and compare with the original often.

Step 5: fix single notes by hand

This is where NewTone beats a real-time tuner. You can work on just the notes that need it:

• Snap a note to pitch: right-click a note and it snaps to the nearest semitone, according to the manual.
• Move a note: drag it up or down. With Snap to scale on and the right key from step 1 selected, it can only land on notes that fit your song.
• Move it freely: the manual says you can hold Alt while dragging the pitch handle to move a note without snapping. Handy for a note that should sit just a hair higher.
• Go deeper: double-click a note for the advanced edit view. Per note you get controls like Pitch variation, Ramp-in and Ramp-out (how the note starts and ends) and Formant.

Be careful with Formant. It changes how big or small the voice sounds, its character. A tiny bit can help when you move a note far, but too much and your voice starts to sound like someone else.

Step 6: get the tuned vocal back into your project

Happy with it? According to the manual, you have a few options:

• Send to Playlist as audio clip: puts your tuned vocal in the Playlist as a new audio clip.
• Drag selection: drag the audio straight from NewTone into the Playlist or Channel rack.
• Save sample as: save a new file. Pick WAV, which is lossless. The manual advises against lossy formats like MP3 for files you want to keep working with.

Line the new clip up with the original, mute or delete the untuned version, and route the tuned clip to your vocal mixer track. Keep the original take somewhere in your project folder, just in case.

Where NewTone fits in your vocal chain

Do your pitch correction before the rest of your chain. EQ, compression, saturation, reverb and delay all work better on a vocal that's already in tune. And the other way around: if you tune a vocal that already has reverb on it, the tail gets dragged along and that sounds off.

The order that works for most rap and melodic vocals: tune first in NewTone, then clean up with EQ, control with compression, tame harsh S sounds with a de-esser, and only then add space with reverb and delay. Want that whole chain on one page? Grab the free vocal chain cheat sheet for FL Studio and Logic Pro.

Don't feel like building the chain from scratch? The Frenna Type Vocal Preset Bundle has an FL Studio version that only uses stock plugins from FL Studio Signature, the same edition that includes NewTone. It's inspired by the vocal mix style of Dutch artist Frenna: melodic, tuned and mixed up front. For English-speaking listeners, that's in the same lane as the melodic, R&B-leaning side of Drake's records. It's a style reference and a starting point you adjust to your own voice, not a copy of anyone's vocal chain, and it isn't made, approved or endorsed by either artist.

Common mistakes

• Tuning a bad take. NewTone can fix a note that's a bit off, not a whole take that's rushed or out of breath. Sometimes recording it again is faster.
• Turning everything up to the max when you wanted a natural sound. Your vocal goes flat and lifeless.
• Using the wrong scale. If Snap to scale is set to the wrong key, every note you move lands in the wrong place. Double-check the key in Beat Lab.
• Tuning ad-libs and breaths. Shouts, whispers and breaths don't need to be on pitch. Leave them alone.
• Working in MP3. Always tune and save in WAV.

FAQ

Is NewTone included in FL Studio Producer Edition?

No. According to Image-Line, NewTone is part of the Signature Bundle and the All Plugins Edition. On Producer or Fruity you can use a free tuning plugin instead.

Does NewTone work in real time?

NewTone is an editor: you open a recorded take, edit it and send it back. For live pitch correction on a mixer track, FL Studio has Pitcher.

Can NewTone do the hard autotune sound?

You can get close by pushing Center and Variation up and making Transition fast. For a tuned effect on a whole song, a real-time tuner like Pitcher is often quicker.

Should I tune before or after my vocal preset?

Before. Tune your raw take first, then put your preset or chain on the tuned clip.

Do I need to know music theory to use NewTone?

Not really. If you know the key of your beat and use Snap to scale, NewTone keeps your notes in the right place. Your ears do the rest.

Looking for more free help, like a BPM finder, master checker or audio converter? Check out all our free music tools.