Creating vocal harmonies with Melodyne

[Hope209]

Anyone able to do this semi-convincingly? What I did was imported a vocal part onto two different tracks and in the first few bars dragged all the notes on one track up a third. This caused weird phaseyness- it sounds a little like the vocals were being sung underwater. I heard Melodyne could create fairly realistic harmonies and was wondering if there's something else I could do or what....Thanks!

[bobx]

maybe this answer is a little too simple but what's wrong with just getting in there and tracking them?

[2012]

Use the program to help you find harmonies you may not have imagined.

Then sing them.

[Hope209]

I was trying to remix a song that was finished over the summer

[mardyk]

I've used melodyne to create harmonies on a couple of occasions. They might sound weird and phasey on their own, but in the fray they sound totally realistic.

[Hope209]

This is what Im getting duplicating a track then moving all the notes up a third.

www.cherryhillrecording.com/mp3/Here.mp3

[manning1]

hope.
ive never used melodyne.
powertracks that i use has a tc helicon feature built in.
for this purpose.
some people have got very good results from it.
but it takes a bit of learning to use it properly.
the most recommended route is to have the harmonies key off a midi track.
thus ensureing proper tuning of the harmonies.
the tc feature will let you get female harmonies from male voc for example.
also the harmonies are based on music style that you enter.
you might want to try the powertracks demo sometime and see if it gets the results you want. ive heard some neat stuff done with it.
but its time consuming to get correct.

[lowfreq33]

I've found Melodyne useful for stacking extra harmonies alongside real ones, but only if they're a little buried. Up front I can hear it working a little too much. I'd shy away from it being the only harmony on the track.

[zilver]

Originally Posted by Hope209

This is what Im getting duplicating a track then moving all the notes up a third.

www.cherryhillrecording.com/mp3/Here.mp3

That's what they call in Dutch a "lint-harmony". If you move all the harmony notes up the same interval it's not fitting in the scale anymore and therefor sounds strange. Also the singer is out of tune and you have copied that exactly.

Maybe try to first pitch the original a bit and then slide the harmony notes a bit time-wise and pitch-wise.
Then it would probably fit in a mix.

Good Luck, Hans

[Hope209]

Originally Posted by zilver

That's what they call in Dutch a "lint-harmony". If you move all the harmony notes up the same interval it's not fitting in the scale anymore and therefor sounds strange. Also the singer is out of tune and you have copied that exactly.

Maybe try to first pitch the original a bit and then slide the harmony notes a bit time-wise and pitch-wise.
Then it would probably fit in a mix.

Good Luck, Hans

I selected all of the original vocals and double-clicked the pitch tool to bring them directly onto the pitch, but should have tightened them up further. I'm also not too good at detecting keys by ear. What I do is open the vocal into melodyne, recognize the sharps or flats and then determine the key. Or noodle around with the entire song and a guitar

My music theory isn't very good and I don't quite know what you mean about not fitting into the scale. So if the song is in A major and the note I'm trying to harmonize is an A, I really should be moving it to a C#. And what I did on the clip above was simply drag everything up a third, so I would have moved it to C natural instead.....right?

[darkwater]

Yeah, you can't just have it pitched up a major third for every note. The major third for your tonic will sound horrible over your second or ninth because it's not the interval you want for that particular note. What you are looking for is a diatonic harmonizer. One that is intelligent enough to know what key you're in and how to appropriately harmonize the note played. Tricky business. You can do small bits and pieces with Melodyne, but unless you can play the pitch you want with a keyboard to make sure the choice is musical, ......JUST GET A SINGER!!!

[camerondye]

The 3rd in AMajor is C#. C is the minor 3rd. The notes in A Major are:

A B C# D E F# G# A

A major scale goes whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. A whole step is 2 notes up, a half step is 1 note up.


The C Major scale is the easiest scale to remember because there are no sharps or flats.

C D E F G A B C


The A minor scale uses the same notes as the C Major scale. The minor scale goes whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step. If you find out the relative minor scales, then you will be a little bit further along in theory.

A B C D E F G A


If any of this sounds interesting or is sinking in, I would buy a starter book on theory or look on the internet for some free direction. If all this sounds very boring and boring, find out just enough to use Melodyne and quit learning it like I did because if you don't use it all the time it goes by by.


The thing I like doing in Melodyne is choosing a different melody besides just a 3rd up. Move the melody up a 3rd and then start fooling with the melody. The other way to get good harmonies is to use the other vocal take to make the harmonies. Even though it's the same song, if you recorded 2 different takes, use the other take and it will sound better like he/she resang the harmony. Also try offsetting the harmony from the original so it doesn't sound robotic. Start throwing chorus, reverb, delay on the harmony to displace it some from the original. Hell, try cutting the Melodyne harmony into each different word and place each one individually. Stretch/Skew them for fun. Don't forget all the bonuses that recording Digitally has given us, throw the rule book out the window and go balls out. Melodyne is a great tool, but you still have to use your imagination to put your stamp on the project. I'm tired and I'm not sure this post will sound as good tomorrow, so if you don't like it...imagine that I was drunk and give me a pat on the back like I screwed the fat chick at the office and we never talk about it again.
Cameron

[Rufuss Sewell]

Ack... making harmonies is something that takes education, an ear and lots of practice. You shouldn't expect a computer program to do that for you. I use Melodyne to make harmonies and they sound great. But I usually have the vocalist take several takes so that I'm not using the lead vocal for the harmonies. That makes a huge difference. But if you have to you can make it work. It's all about the writing. Just throwing it up a third is going to sound pretty generic, even if you're using the proper major and minor intervals. With melodyne, you can do anything. Experiment. If you don't like the way a note sounds, put it somewhere else until it sounds right.

[jax72]

Originally Posted by Hope209

Anyone able to do this semi-convincingly? What I did was imported a vocal part onto two different tracks and in the first few bars dragged all the notes on one track up a third. This caused weird phaseyness- it sounds a little like the vocals were being sung underwater. I heard Melodyne could create fairly realistic harmonies and was wondering if there's something else I could do or what....Thanks!

Look into the menu, and you'll find that there are commands to slightly modify pitch and sound of the tracks, in order to avoid that phasy sound.
I'm not in front of my PC now, so can't help you more...
...
good luck, Andrea

[pan60]

music theory or a program