11+ Best Harmonizer VST/AU Plugins; Free & Premium!

Last updated on December 31st, 2023 at 08:00 pm

Harmonies are the best thing ever! I love adding voice after voice since it makes any mix sound that much better and more powerful!

Now, I know that recording harmonies can be really tough to do, but fret not, for I have a solution.

Harmonizer plugins allow you to create harmonies of an audio track in a matter of seconds adjusting the pitch to where you want it to be.

The great thing is that not only can these plugins be used on vocals, but also on guitar solos, and even other instruments.

Best Overall

Harmony Engine

Harmonizer software designed to produce the music your audience deserves.

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Budget Option

MHarmonizerMB

Affordable Harmonizer Plugin that can do almost anything a more expensive one can.

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Most Voices

Octavox

Up to 8 total voices that can be used on drums and other rhythmic sections to create harmonies.

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What is the absolute best Harmonizer plugin?

I genuinely believe that the first spot has to go to the Harmony Engine by Antares since it’s by far the most powerful harmonizer VST on this list, be it for creating vocal harmonies, instrument harmonies, etc. Although I really think that it excels at producing great-sounding vocal harmonies.

Of course, there are other free alternatives out there that I will list next, but if you’re dead set on getting the best harmonizer, then it’s got to be the Harmony Engine.

Now, without further ado, let’s get into the list!

Premium Harmonizer VST/AU Plugins

These are by far the best ones, but they will cost you a bit! However, there will be two free Harmonizer VSTs linked later on in this post, and if you’re new to harmonizers or music production in general, then I’d advise starting with those.

Harmony Engine Evo by Antares ($249)

Most powerful Harmonizer VST on this list.

I assume that you all know Antares by now; they are the creators of the Auto-Tune pitch correction tool that everyone is using nowadays.

Their Harmony Engine allows you to create harmonies for vocal arrangements with incredible ease, allowing anyone, even someone who is absolutely new to music production, to create good-sounding harmonies.

You can create up to 5 different harmonies with just a single vocal file, allowing you to achieve amazing choir-type harmonies in no time.

Now, it is a bit expensive ($249), but you probably won’t find another piece of software that easy to use and that actually works well.

Features

• Four high-quality, formant-corrected harmony voices with independent vocal character, vibrato, and pan settings
• Five channels of the unique CHOIR Vocal Multiplier
• Antares Throat Modeling technology

Get Harmony Engine here: Pluginboutique, Reverb.

MHarmonizerMB by MeldaProduction ($58)

Overall best one considering the price.

MHarmonizerMB is a multiband harmonizer that allows you to use six different bands for creating some interesting harmonies with up to 120 voices, formant adjustment, strumming, the typical ADSR control, width, pitch, and more.

In addition to this, MHarmonizerMB allows you to modulate any parameter with ease, and each modulator can work as LFO, audio level follower, enveloper, randomizer and even pitch detector.

Each of the six bands can be processed individually and split in many ways, including Frequency (Linear-phase or Analog with adjustable slope), Level, Panorama, Mid-Side, Transients, Tonal/Noise or Parallel. It also comes with a built-in frequency analyzer and sonogram.

Some additional features include:

• M/S, single-channel, up to 8 channels surround and up to 64 channels ambisonics processing.
• 4 fully-featured modulators which can control any set of parameters including other modulators.
• Automatic Gain Compensation.
• 64-bit processing and an unlimited sampling rate.

It’s worth noting that all the premium plugins that Melda Production has to offer come with a free 15-day trial. So, feel free to check MHarmonizerMB out before buying it.

Get MHarmonizerMB here: Pluginboutique, Reverb.

Octavox by Eventide ($199)

Up to eight voices that can be used on drums and other rhythmic sections.

Octavox takes any incoming tones—even drums—and outputs up to eight voices based on the chosen key and timing interval.

Based on technology from Eventide’s flagship H8000 hardware effects processor, Octavox will take your melodies and ideas and let you create fantastic melodies, harmonies and even rhythmic sequences.

It comes with over 70 ready-to-use presets that should get you going in no time.

It features an 8-voice diatonic pitch shifter effects processor with panning, delay, detune, and feedback to create beautiful harmonies and sequences.

Get Octavox here: Pluginboutique, Reverb.

Quadravox by Eventide ($99)

Up to 4 voices that can be used on drums and other rhythmic sections.

Quadravox is the smaller and more affordable version of the previous plugin on this list.

It is a composition tool designed to inspire songwriting, stack harmonies, widen instruments, and offers creative innovative rhythmic sequences.

You can take any incoming tones, including drums, and generate up to four voices based on the chosen key and timing interval.

It’s optimized for multiple instances so your tracks can interact with each other by way of beautiful harmonies and groovy sequences.

Each of the four voices can be independently manipulated by level, panning, delay time with feedback, and pitch, including the type of musical interval, and the effects can be sync’d to your DAWs tempo.

Get Quadravox here: Pluginboutique, Reverb.

OVox by Waves ($69)

Vocoder, talkbox, harmonizer, pitch/tune, and vocal arpeggiation.

OVox is a vocal effects processor that can work as a plugin on any DAW or as a standalone app.

With it, you can create rich vocoder, talkbox, harmonizer, pitch/tune, and vocal arpeggiation effects in a super easy and intuitive way.

MIDI control is optional, meaning that you can use OVox without a keyboard or controller.

All you need to do is fire up the app, or load it up in your favorite DAW, and that’s it! You’re good to go.

It comes with hundreds of presets that you can use, or you can start from scratch, up to you.

For extra morphing power, you get nine independent drag-and-drop modulators that can modulate any control within the plugin.

These include four LFO/Sequencer modulators with your choice between 40 LFO shapes and 16-step sequencer patterns.

Find out more about OVox here: Waves Website, Sweetwater.

Eventide H910 ($249)

A great alternative to the Antares Harmony Engine Evo.

Back in the analog era, the H910 Harmonizer was the world’s first digital effects processor to be used in studios, and if you ever heard the music of David Bowie, AC DC and Frank Zappa, then you probably know exactly what it sounds like.

The plugin version features a combination of delay, modulation and pitch shifting, and it can be used as a great creative tool to come up with new ideas as well as to add interesting sounds to your music, to fatten up snare sounds, to spread the guitars, apply some de-tuning to synths, pianos, guitars, etc.

One bonus of the digital version of this harmonizer is that you get two versions of it, or actually an emulation of two units running parallel that allow you to create some nice doubling and other effects.

Core Features

• Modify pitch by musical intervals (diatonic) to harmonize vocals or solo instruments.
• You can easily use MIDI to control pitch and harmonization in real-time.
• Anti-Feedback modulates the pitch around unity for a subtle or wild effect.

Get Eventide H910 here: Pluginboutique, Reverb.

Free Harmonizer VST/AU Plugins

PitchProof by Aegan Music

Simplest to use with a built-in simple detune option.

Pitchproof is a free audio plug-in that can shift the pitch of the input and it works very well on vocals and guitars.

The effect is meant to combine old styles of pitch shifting with the quality you expect from modern plug-ins. The result is this pitch “pedal” simulation that has most of what is great about guitar harmonizer pedals, and still preserves the signal’s integrity.

The Blend control will let you use a fully shifted output, or the dry and wet signals mixed and creating a harmony.

The Pitch menu lets you select pitches like +7 or -7, or harmonies which are intelligent pitch-shift effects.

These harmonizer effects are intended to be played in a certain major or minor scale, which means that if you select a scale and play notes that aren’t in that scale, the effect won’t work as intended.

There is a Detune option available which is good for getting a more natural effect.

Find out more about PitchProof here.

Graillon2 by Auburn Sounds

Best free vocal tuning plugin.

Graillon2 is actually a pitch correction plugin, which essentially means that it works just like Autotune with the main difference being that it’s free.

In addition to this, it features a Bitcrusher section (not available in the free version) as well as a pitch shifter section, which is the one that can be used to create harmonies.

The way you create harmonies with Graillon2 isn’t as straightforward as with the rest of the plugins on this list.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Duplicate the Vocal track that you want to Harmonize.
2. Load Graiilon2 on that duplicated track.
3. Shift the pitch up or down depending on the harmony you want.
4. Adjust the notes it should correct to so that the harmony is in the right key.

If you don’t pitch-correct the harmonized track it’ll end up sounding slightly weird since some of the notes won’t be in the proper scale.

Lastly, you can purchase the pro version of Graillon2 for $25.

Download Graillon2 here.

Duet by Martin Eastwood

Simple Double-tracking harmonizer.

Duet is a double-tracking/harmonizer effect developed to enhance vocals or instruments, such as guitars, by thickening the sound and adding a rich glossy sheen to your audio material.

Duet works by independently pitch-shifting the left and right inputs using a novel synchronous overlap and add technique, allowing pitch to be manipulated in real-time while still maintaining the time duration of the audio.

Duet can accurately create the illusion of multiple voices and add a luscious texture to your music.

It sounds very natural and it’s also super easy to use!

Find out more about Duet here.

MAutoPitch by Melda Production

Extremely powerful pitch correction (Includes ads)

Similar to Graillon2, MAutoPitch is a pitch-correction plugin that is mainly designed to be used on vocals and other monophonic instruments, and it provides all the basic creative features such as formant shifting.

It’s not strictly a harmonizer plugin, far from it in fact, but you have two ways of creating harmonies with it:

The first one is by following the same steps I laid out earlier with Graillon2 (duplicating the track, creating the harmony, etc.).

The second way would be to pitch-shift up or down and then use the Dry/wet knob to blend the two voices.

To make things easier, you can select the scale (Chromatic, major, minor, pentatonic and the key for each of them) and this will help you tune and harmonize the vocals quicker, and you can also use the Formant control to change the timbre of the vocals.

You can get MAutoPitch by downloading their full free plugin bundle which includes a whopping 37 plugins, most of which are fantastic!

Download MAutoPitch here.

PitchedDelay by Ikjb Plugins

Create Harmony using Delay.

Pitched delay allows you to delay a signal and control the pitch of it, and the reason I included it here is that you can enable the Delay but set it to zero, or as close to it as possible since there will be some latency, and adjust the tuning from there.

This will create a harmony of the original signal and you can do it for a total of 5 times/harmonies, and this can be done within or outside the feedback loop.

Additionally, it includes mono, stereo, and ping pong modes which just adds more versatility to it.

One con about this plugin, however, is its interface since it looks a bit dated and there aren’t many visual cues to really let you know how the sound is being affected, so you’ll have to go by ear in most cases.

It offers a couple of different presets (see the image above), but I did run into a couple of problems when trying to use them; Some would create annoying clicking sounds and some others wouldn’t even make a sound (unless I disables the first delay, then the other four would start working), so keep that in mind.

Download PitchedDelay here. (Click on the “Download” tab to the left).

Conclusion

If you don’t want to spend anything on one of these plugins, then absolutely go with PitchProof since it’s the best free one I could find.

However, you will probably need to upgrade pretty soon, and this is where I’d recommend something like the Antares Harmony Engine since it’s extremely powerful.

I hope this information was useful!

Have a wonderful day!

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