Which line of the vocal is out of tune?

Why the whole take can look fine

An average over a whole vocal hides the problem. A take can be 2 cents flat on average with one line 40 cents flat in the middle of it. Tuning has to be read phrase by phrase and, for held notes, note by note.

Where singers go off

• Ends of phrases drift flat as the breath runs out.
• High notes go sharp when pushed and flat when under-supported.
• Long held notes expose errors that a quick passing note hides.
• Leaps land short: an upward jump arrives flat, a downward one sharp.

Start listening in those places.

Checking by ear

Solo the vocal against one sustained instrument that plays the chord, such as a piano or a pad, and loop the line. A note that is out sounds rough against the chord and settles when the singer slides onto pitch. A tuner shows the same thing in numbers.

Fixing it

Correct only the notes that need it. A vocal pulled exactly onto pitch on every note loses the slides and the vibrato that make it sound sung. If a take has dozens of notes out, record it again: that is faster and sounds better than correcting all of them.

In Zammoth

The engineer measures intonation per phrase and, on a single-voice recording, per note, and lists the worst first:

Tune Notes, in the clip's menu, then corrects them. It finds every note more than 15 cents off, splits the clip at the note boundaries, shifts each note by its own measured error and fades the joins, as one undo step. It declines material with more than one voice sounding, and a take with more than 48 off notes, where it tells you a re-take is the better fix. See the manual on Tune Notes.