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Harmony Engine

The Harmony Engine generates additional backing voices from your lead vocal. It turns a single vocal into a layered, chordal performance in real time.

Enabling harmony

  1. Turn on Harmony Enable (off by default).
  2. Choose a Harmony Type other than None.
  3. Set the overall Harmony Volume and Harmony Blend.
  4. Choose how voices are generated: Use Voice or Synth.

Tip

Harmony is applied on top of your pitch correction, so the voices follow the corrected lead pitch. Enable the harmony and listen to how it sits with your lead before adjusting the mix.

Harmony types

OpenVoxTuner provides 22 harmony types (None plus 21 harmony options):

  • Intervals — classic harmony intervals, including 3rd below/above, 4th, 5th, and octave.
  • Vocal Stack — a layered "doubled" stack of voices.
  • Power Chord — a fifth-based power chord for rockier textures.
  • Drone — a sustained drone note.
  • Unison — thickening via closely spaced voices.
  • And more.

Each type defines which intervals and voice configuration are generated relative to the lead.

Harmony Type Default
22 options (None + 21 harmony types) 3rd Below + Above

Use Voice mode

Use Voice (default: on) pitch-shifts your live vocal into the harmony voices:

  • Generates 1–4 shifted voices (default 4) from your vocal.
  • Voices are formant-preserved so they sound like real singers rather than "chipmunk" artifacts.
  • Voices are spread across the stereo field with stereo panning.

Harmony Formant Shift

Controls the vocal-tract character of the harmony voices from -5 to +5 semitones (harmony_formant). Shifting this up can make the harmony sound brighter/smaller; shifting it down makes it darker/larger — useful for emulating different singers.

Voice Type awareness

The harmony engine is voice-type aware: it respects the selected Voice Type (Universal, Bass, Baritone, Tenor, Alto, Soprano) so generated voices stay in a plausible register for the chosen voice.

Synth mode

When Use Voice is off, harmony voices are synthesized rather than derived from your vocal:

  • Harmony Tone — choose a tone color such as Choir or Organ.
  • Harmony Tone Color — blend/adjust the tone color (0–1, default 0.5) to taste.

This mode is great when you want a smooth, pad-like backing that doesn't need to match the lead's timbre exactly.

Note

In Synth mode the voices do not follow the lead's formant/timbre — they use the selected synthesized tone instead.

Harmony controls reference

Control Range Default Description
Harmony Enable off / on off Master enable for the engine.
Harmony Type None + 21 types 3rd Below + Above Which harmony to generate.
Harmony Gain 0 – 1 0.75 Overall harmony volume.
Harmony Blend 0 – 1 0.5 Blend between lead and harmony.
Harmony Attack 1 – 300 ms 35 ms Per-voice attack time.
Use Voice off / on on Use (shifted) voice vs. synth for harmony.
Shifted Voices 1 – 4 4 Number of harmony voices.
Harmony Tone Choir / Organ Choir Synthesized tone color (Synth mode).
Harmony Tone Color 0 – 1 0.5 Tone color adjustment (Synth mode).
Harmony Formant Shift -5 – +5 st 0 Vocal-tract character of harmony.
Harmony Follow Lead off / on on Harmony follows the lead pitch.
Harmony Gain Match off / on on Auto RMS level matching of harmony voices.

Tip

Gain Match automatically balances the harmony level against the lead, so you don't have to chase volume levels manually. Follow Lead keeps the harmony glued to the lead's pitch/timing.

Visualizing harmony

When harmony is enabled, the generated voices are shown as traces in the Curve Editor, letting you see exactly where each harmony voice lands relative to your corrected lead curve.

Quick recipes

  • Thick pop chorus — Vocal Stack, Use Voice on, 4 voices, blend ~0.4.
  • Rock power — Power Chord, tight gain, low attack.
  • Ethereal pad — Synth mode with Choir tone and a high tone color.
  • Classic 3rds — 3rd Below + Above, blend ~0.5, natural attack.