I use both tools, albeit in an ignorant way.
Waves Tune real-time plugin, I prefer for wholesale pitch and scale correction. Nice that there’s no analysing process to wait for. Nice visualisation can see what it’s doing - showing the scale on a keyboard graphic etc. And especially the midi-input feature: I can record the vocal melody into a midi track then use it to control the vocal audio. I only use it for composing or demo’s. Not final production, unless I want the robot/auto-tune sound.
Cubase’s Variaudio, I like for manually editing individual notes’ pitches. I understand it has the advantage of connection with the chord track and scale - but I’ve not actually had much success with that. The segmentation is often wrong, and is time consuming to correct - the tools are awkward. I don’t like that you have wait while Variaudio analyses a whole file, when i just want to do surgery on one part. I guess I could bounce first. And having lots of variaudio data seems to put a drag on the whole project, and it’s laborious to remove/print once you’re done with it.
Waves Tune REAL-TIME at $29 is a good price. I’m seeing it at $59. And list price is $200.
Take care not to confuse the three different Waves Tune plugins. Compare the features here…
Waves Tune LT, at $29 is not real-time, and does not have the midi-input feature.
The demos are definitely worth checking out.