Antares Harmony Engine vs Waves Harmony Review

Harmony Engines are plugins that I use to generate harmonies and ideas for harmonies that I would either use directly or ask my vocalist to sing or replicate.

I already love the autotune plugins by both Waves and Antares, as both have a distinct tone to them. Yes, both are pitch correctors, but they have different flavors.

Similarly, their harmony engines are also pretty cool, and while both allow you to create multiple instances of the same audio input and adjust their pitch and formant to create harmonies, the workflows are very different, and they also sound quite distinct.

So, I will be comparing both of these plugins (Waves Harmony and Antares Harmony Engine) side by side and analyzing them in different aspects so you can decide which one is the right investment for you. So, let’s dive right in.

Pricing & Compatibility

I was surprised by the difference in pricing for both the plugins, as at the time of writing this article, Waves is offering the Harmony plugin at a discounted rate of $39 ($199 before discount), while Harmony Engine by Antares is available at $299. You can also subscribe to Autotune Pro by Antares at $24.99/month and get access to the Harmony Engine.

Feature	Waves Harmony	Antares Harmony Engine
Compatibility
– Mac Operating System	macOS 12 (Monterey) or later	macOS 11 or later
– Windows Operating System	Windows 10 (64-bit) or later	Windows 10 or later
Pricing
– Full Price	$199	$299
– Discount Price	$39	Not available
– Subscription Option	$12.5-$24.99/month (with Waves Essential & Ultimate Subscription)	$24.99/month (with Auto-Tune Pro Subscription)

Workflow & Interface

So, both the plugins have a few things in common. Both require you to start with an audio input and set its scale (key and root note).  However, Waves Harmony has more scale presets than Antares Harmony Engine.

The Waves plugin has many scales, including Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Blues, etc. Antares plugin, on the other hand, has only 3-4 scales, and you cannot even add the scale notes manually if you want. Although, from my experience, in more than 90% of the cases, I use major and minor scales only, it would be good to have a manual scale setting, just in case you need it.

Antares Harmony Engine: Harmony Control Section

So, I will be exploring a fundamental difference in this section between the workflows of both the plugins. And that difference is the Harmony Control Section in Antares, where you can choose not only the root note and scale but also the harmony source or intervals in which you want the engine to plugin to create harmonies.

I will walk you through various modes to determine how harmonies are created, offering more flexibility if you want precision or creative control over their harmonization process. Here’s a breakdown of these modes:

• Interval Modes

With options like Fixed Interval and Scale Interval, you can assign a specific harmonic interval to each harmony voice directly within its channel strip. This allows for fine-tuned control over the relationship between the original melody and the generated harmonies.

• Chord Modes

Using Chord Degrees and Chord Names, you can define the type of chord and its voicing characteristics. The plugin automatically adjusts the pitches of the harmony voices to align with the chosen chord structure, making it easier to create musically coherent harmonies.

• MIDI Modes

These modes, including Chord Via MIDI, MIDI Omni, and MIDI Channels, let you use a MIDI controller or MIDI track to play or dictate the pitches of the harmony voices in real-time. This integration enables dynamic performance adjustments and creative experimentation with harmonies as you play.

Chord Via MIDI mode interprets MIDI input as chords and maps the harmony voices to match those chord structures. For instance, if you play a C major triad (C-E-G) on your MIDI controller, the harmony voices will align with those pitches, creating a rich harmonic texture.

In MIDI Omni mode, the plugin listens to all MIDI input channels simultaneously. This is ideal for scenarios where multiple MIDI sources or controllers are being used. It ensures that any MIDI input is instantly recognized, making it great for improvisation and live performance setups.

Similarly, MIDI Channels mode allows you to assign specific MIDI channels to control individual harmony voices. For example, Channel 1 might control the first harmony voice, Channel 2 the second, and so on. This provides granular control, letting you independently manipulate each harmony voice’s pitch, timing, and dynamics.

Overall, Waves Harmony provides more granular control through note mapping and custom scales, making it suitable for precise, scale-locked harmonization. Antares Harmony Engine, on the other hand, offers broader adaptability with MIDI-driven workflows and automatic chord harmonization, appealing to those who prefer on-the-fly creativity.

Waves Harmony Note Mapping & Generation

Waves Harmony’s workflow centers around its Note Mapping feature, which is designed for precise control over harmonies. This feature allows you to map a single incoming sung or MIDI note to multiple notes, generating harmonies that adhere to a defined musical scale or chord structure.

• Chord Presets and Customization

The plugin gives you a bunch of chord preset options that instantly transform a single input note into full chords or harmonies. I like to see it and use it as a pocket arranger who’s always ready to jump in with fresh ideas! Here’s how it works: You can click on the Chord Map title to open a dropdown menu where all the chord and harmony presets are neatly organized.

For the explorators, you can use the little left and right arrows to quickly browse through the maps until you find something that fits your vibe. Chords Presets take a single note and expand it into a full chord, and it is perfect for when you want a lush, rich sound without having to overthink the theory behind it.

Then, there are Harmonies Presets that apply consistent intervals to every incoming note, giving clean and uniform harmonies across the board.

• Lock Musical Scale and Chords

Once a scale or key is set, it can be locked to prevent accidental changes while browsing presets, providing stability during a session.

• Note Generation and Detection

This plugin features a clever note-detection system, with the help of a ‘Generate Notes’ button that analyzes your input signal to generate harmonies. It works by identifying moments when the audio signal surpasses silence or when there’s a clear shift in pitch. The plugin uses Tolerance controls (Time and Cents) to fine-tune its sensitivity, ensuring only intentional pitch changes result in new notes.

These generated notes are monophonic but can be transformed into complex harmonies using the Chord Maps feature. You can toggle note generation on or off, depending on whether you want the plugin to detect pitches from the vocal input or rely solely on MIDI input.

Additionally, a Min Note setting lets you define the lowest pitch the plugin should detect, improving accuracy by ignoring unwanted low frequencies. With its adjustable sensitivity and pitch thresholds, this system balances capturing subtle details and avoiding unwanted glitches.

• Edit button

The Edit button lets you define how incoming notes (from vocals or MIDI) are mapped to one or more output notes to generate harmonies. You can map each detected or MIDI-triggered note to multiple output notes, enabling the creation of custom chords and harmonic intervals.

Operating within the plugin’s defined key and scale, the editor lets you override default settings to design unique harmonic relationships. This tool is perfect for crafting intricate harmonies tailored to your composition. What’s also impressive is that the changes you make in the editor apply instantly, offering real-time feedback and flexibility for both production and performance.

• Using MIDI to Generate Harmonies

It’s obvious, but I still have to mention this. You can insert Waves Harmony as an effect on your vocal track in your DAW, create a new MIDI track, and route its output to Waves Harmony. Even if you are not a piano player and play off-key, Harmony’s scale settings don’t let any notes go off the scale and quantize all notes for pitch, so they are in tune.

Antares Harmony Engine: Voices & Harmonies Editor & Mixer

After you have selected the pitch, interval, scales, and relationship of the harmonies with the root note or the voice, this is the part where you can play around with the tones, textures, and overall sum of harmonies and edit them.

You get a total of 5 voices in this plugin, and for each voice, you can adjust the interval and volume through its volume slider, throat length, and similar parameters. Let me explain all of these one by one.

• Interval Controls

I was quite impressed with the range of intervals the plugin lets you adjust, but the downside is that one may get confused. You do need a strong knowledge of music theory and intervals to adjust or select these manually. For more intuitive producers, I think MIDI mode may be more suitable, as you can play notes on the keyboard and select harmonies by ear.

• Other basic controls: Gain, Pan, Solo/Mute, and Level Meters

For all the voices, you can make simple adjustments and create a decent mix of harmonies by adjusting the balance in terms of volume and stereo image.

• Throat Length Adjustment: The Art of Vocal Timbre

The Throat Length controls let you modify the formant frequencies of each harmony voice, effectively reshaping the “shape” of the virtual vocal tract. When I’m working on harmonies, this is where I really dig in to add unique textures to each voice. Lengthening the throat creates a resonant, almost haunting quality, while shortening it brightens the tone, making it sharper and more focused.

• Vibrato Controls

Vibrato is one of the most expressive tools in a vocalist’s arsenal, and the Vibrato Controls in Harmony Engine gives you complete command over this effect. What I love most is the sheer flexibility: you can set the vibrato rate for a slow, deliberate wobble or a fast, trembling effect.

The onset delay can help you create naturalistic transitions, letting the note settle before introducing vibrato for a more human touch. Moreover, you can also adjust the pitch and amplitude amount for each vibrato, which, to me, sounds/seems just like an LFO mix.

Waves Harmony: Voice Editor, Modulator, & Effects

I will be honest! I like Waves Harmony’s interface way more when it comes to editing the voices and adding effects. So, for each voice you add, the interface shows those voices in a 2-D stereo space, occupying a certain coordinate, in which the X coordinate represents the pan and the Y coordinate represents the volume.

The voice is represented by a circle, each of which you can select and move around in this space. For each circle, you can adjust the pitch (in semitones), formant, fine pitch (in cents), or make it flat (no pitch) by using its ‘Flat’ switch. There are also sliders for effects like Delay, Delay Feedback, and Filter (high pass, low pass, and bandpass). Finally, you can also change the pan and level by the knobs or by dragging these notes around the stereo space in the interface.

Moreover, what’s crazy about this plugin is that you can apply modulators like LFOs, ADSR/envelopes, amplitude modulation, and pitch modulation to each of these voices’ different parameters and create really cool movements.

There are 4 modulators, each of which gives you sequencer and LFO modulation options, 2 ADSRs/envelopes, 1 amplitude modulator, 1 pitch modulator, and 1 spreader effect.

Antares Harmony Engine: Presets

• Global Presets

Harmony Engine does not have much to offer when it comes to global presets, and I would actually like to request the Antares team to add more global presets, which can help newcomers explore all the dense and magical possibilities of this very deep and creative plugin.

• Harmony & Voice Parameter Presets

Harmony Presets lets you save and recall combinations of Harmony Control settings across 15 customizable buttons. These presets can be triggered manually or automated within your DAW, making it easy to program intricate harmonic progressions.

A single preset can store settings for essential elements like the Harmony Source, Key/Root, Scale, Chord, Inversion, Register, Spread, and MIDI Velocity Sensitivity, along with the Interval settings for each harmony voice.

Voice Parameter Presets provide similar convenience but focus on the tonal and dynamic qualities of your harmonies. With six customizable buttons, these presets store settings for Voice Controls, Vibrato Controls, and Choir Controls, essentially everything except for the Interval menus (which are saved in Harmony Presets).

So you can make rapid adjustments like fine-tuning the timbre, tweaking vibrato for natural expressiveness, or adjusting the mix between input and harmony voices.

Waves Harmony Presets

Harmony consists of hundreds of global presets to get you started, but honestly, in my experience, you still have to be well-versed in music theory to be able to use these presets justifiably, or else you could get lost and wonder what’s happening. What these presets can do for you is show different crazy possibilities for this plugin, which you may not discover on your own.

Then, there are also chord and scale presets, which we have already discussed in the above sections.

Comparison Table

Feature	Waves Harmony	Antares Harmony Engine
Pricing	Full Price: $199 Discounted Price: $39 Subscription: $12.50-$24.99/month (Waves Essential/Ultimate)	Full Price: $299 Subscription: $24.99/month (with Auto-Tune Pro Subscription)
Compatibility	macOS 12 (Monterey) or later, Windows 10 (64-bit) or later	macOS 11 or later, Windows 10 or later
Global Presets	Extensive library of presets for quick starts, ideal for exploring possibilities	Limited global presets; relies more on user customization
Harmony Presets	Chord and Scale presets for instant harmonization	15 customizable buttons for Harmony Control settings, supports automation in DAWs
Voice Parameter Presets	Customizable settings for timbre, vibrato, and mix, with modulators for dynamic movement	6 buttons to save and recall Voice Controls, Vibrato, and Choir settings; supports automation
Scale Options	Wide variety, including Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Blues, and more; manual customization supported	Limited to a few scales; lacks manual customization
Note Mapping & Detection	Maps input notes to multiple outputs; generates harmonies based on input or MIDI with adjustable sensitivity	Harmony generation via Fixed/Scale intervals, chord modes, or MIDI input
Chord Modes	Predefined chord presets with customization; allows quick chord expansion	Uses Chord Degrees or Names for alignment; integrates well with MIDI input
MIDI Integration	Supports real-time harmonization via MIDI, keeps notes scale-locked for in-tune results	Advanced MIDI modes (Chord Via MIDI, Omni, Channels) allow detailed control and real-time adjustments
Vibrato Controls	4 modulators (LFO, ADSR, amplitude, pitch modulation) for intricate vibrato and motion	Flexible controls for vibrato rate, onset delay, pitch width, and amplitude variations
Throat Length Adjustment	Formant shifting via simple sliders for each voice	Detailed throat length controls to reshape vocal timbre
Stereo Imaging	Visual editor for panning and levels; stereo space representation with movable voice circles	Individual pan controls for voices (only on stereo tracks)
Customization Depth	High, with parameters for pitch, formant, effects (delay, feedback, filter), and modulation	High, focusing on harmony intervals, vibrato, choir effects, and timbre
Best Use Case	Ideal for producers seeking precise control, custom scales, and deep modulation capabilities	Great for performers and producers needing quick MIDI-driven harmonies and intuitive workflow
Learning Curve	Steeper, as it requires basic knowledge of music theory for effective use	Moderate; intuitive for MIDI users but requires familiarity with harmony concepts

 

Final Thoughts

If you’re a producer who loves digging into precise scales, crafting intricate harmonies, and experimenting with advanced modulation, Waves Harmony offers unparalleled control and creative flexibility. Its note mapping, extensive scale options, and built-in modulation tools make it a powerhouse for detailed, polished productions.

On the other hand, Antares Harmony Engine excels in speed and adaptability, making it perfect for live performances or when you need quick, MIDI-driven harmonization. Its intuitive MIDI modes, real-time harmony adjustments, and powerful vocal texture controls give you a seamless way to add dynamic layers to your music.

Both plugins bring their own unique strengths, and honestly, there’s no wrong choice here. However, the pricing difference is a huge marker to consider here. Now that I have given you all the information, do you think the current $261 pricing difference is justified? Thank you for reading.