Melodyne 3 statement

[C.Lambrechts]

After all the criticism I've had over the last couple of years concerning Celemony's Melodyne I felt like it's only right that I make this little statement about Melodyne 3.


Melodyne 3 is a killer application which since version 3 makes any other tuning program out there, including autotune, look like a toy.

My main problem with melodyne has always been the fact that it degrades the sound too much to be called a professional audio application. Version 3 has imvho for 99 % solved that problem.

It is now a big league high quality pro audio application.

And fwiw ... it does A LOT more then tune.

check it out : http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=m3_info0

[ajcamlet]

By that- i guess my understanding is you do not use auto tune, and use Melodyne for all of your pitch correction?

[borism]

i agree

[Trebor Flow]

Trebor

[Fruition2k]

If Melodyne operates anything like the online demo I watched in the past month
its possible purchase. The harmony function was rather interesting too, but I've always been leary of any artificial harmony generating box.

Tried Auto Tune many times and every version sounded so unnatural I dragged
in the trash can after a few days.
Probably in the right hands I'm sure its a nesscessity but never liked the sound, given that I spend more time getting better vocal takes.

Melodynes user interface looks easier to use, I'd like to hear more about its uses from those who are comfortable with it.

[DAWgEAR]

I own Uno but have not tried 3 yet. Uno sounds great to me.

How about the sample accuracy issue?

[anon]

I love Melodyne 3.

[audioalchemy]

i just started trying out the uno essential that comes bundled with the digi stuff and it's great. another vote for it here. i've used otto for years, and never really got the results i wanted but this is way fab. love the UI. it's awesome.

tell me this though. at least in the bundled version when you move pitch up or down by more than a 4th or so, i get some really nasty artifacts that I never got with otto. i know this is for minor fixes, but it just concerns me. is this under a little more control in the full version.

thanks,
AudioAlchemy

[George Necola]

first look of melodyne looks great

will get the full pack soon.. will keep you informed

[C.Lambrechts]

Originally Posted by ajcamlet

By that- i guess my understanding is you do not use auto tune, and use Melodyne for all of your pitch correction?

Since last sunday I've decided for now that melodyne will handle my pitch correction.

fwiw ... a little test with the melodyne bridge I did was stream 16 backing vocals tracks into Melodyne.

Then in Melodyne : select all + correct pitch - which fwiw needs to be done track by track (wondering if one can do that by selecting all tracks at once)

Back in ProTools, record all 16 tracks pitch corrected.

Now ... that whole operation took me like 20 minutes and frankly what took so long was me figuring out how to set it up. The actual pitch correction is a matter of seconds for melodyne.


So ... as a result, you get 16 pitch corrected tracks of backing vocals which , to get a similar result I would have had to use Autotune in graphical mode on all 16 tracks and that would have probably took me 4 hours or so. I bet I can do the same in melodyne in 10 minutes once I get the hang of the program.

We'll see ... autotune stays around just in case and maybe for specific things I have yet to find out I'll use autotune but I predict it will be very - VERY little.

[ajcamlet]

thats good to hear. i'm not a fan of Otto, but am able to get the results from it that i need. whereas with the version of Melo that i tried, the sound from it was just unnacceptable.

[C.Lambrechts]

Originally Posted by ajcamlet

thats good to hear. i'm not a fan of Otto, but am able to get the results from it that i need. whereas with the version of Melo that i tried, the sound from it was just unnacceptable.

That indeed was my main problem with all the previous versions of Melodyne as well. I originally bought version 1.0 and was completely disgust when I finally used it and threw it away. Up till 2.6 on regular intervals I would try it out again and although one could notice improvement, 2.6 was still unacceptable soundwise for me. (original file compared to the processed one that is).

Version 3 has solved those issues within an acceptable range. If you go 'golden ear' listening on high quality monitors then yes, you can hear a difference but it's very subtle now. Even when processed. Any other program, autotune etc that does this kind of processing will change the sound of the original file to some extend. It's wether the changed sound is acceptable or not. And now with M3 it is imvho.

[Trebor Flow]

Chris, if your like me (obsesed with audio quality you can use the seperation tool to create different regions that can then be left completely unprocessed (plain) and when when a segment is pitch corrected (switched to processed) then when you export the file the only place it won't phase null is the segment which is prcessed.

There is a menu where you can access this:

view > show algorhythm parameters - you see radio buttons for plain and processed.

Then using the segmentation tool you can "pick out" the word so to speak to process and leave the rest "plain" that way your file is only touched on those syllables.

It is more long winded this way, but boy, the results are stunning. The vocal can be just PERFECT if you want.

I only correct words that stand out when listening to the whole track playing and try to leave as much pitch varation as possible (as you know out of tune is sometimes part of the performance) then when I hear an offending word I go into Melodyne 3 segment out the word switch that bit to processed and then re-import. It's just a dream come true for a singer - You can be presented in the most natural yet polished way - I love it.

Trebor

[cramseur]

Version 3 has solved those issues within an acceptable range. If you go 'golden ear' listening on high quality monitors then yes, you can hear a difference but it's very subtle now. Even when processed. Any other program, autotune etc that does this kind of processing will change the sound of the original file to some extend. It's wether the changed sound is acceptable or not. And now with M3 it is imvho.

Any clips?

...They'll tell the tale better than anything else. 1 clip original, same clip Melo 3'd.
I'd rather YOUR clips than demos from Celemony.

Thanks!

Craig
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"...and the radio is run by such a bunch of fools
tryin' to anesthetise the way that you feel"
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[manning1]

ive found correcting for badly sung notes/pitch correcting down/up to cents one has to pay attention to detail. and this is true i think for most software.
i take one bad note at a time in what i use and pitch correct it. this way i dont get artifacts.
ive been doing a song recently with some other musicians ,...just in the bed tracks/laying out arrangement/ideas phase. so this has a ton of production work to do yet.
at the end of the song i wanted a female opera diva effect. but i dont have access to a female opera singer !!...so one of the talented guys sang in falsetto and sent me the track. which i then experimented on with some editing tricks and very slight subtle pitch shift ideas out of interest.
listen to the outtro of the song "build a man up" at www.motagator.com/bmanning (page down the page)...
and listen for the fade out ending with the opera type female effect i was going for. this was created from a male singing falsetto with a touch of editing trickery.

where i find artifacts sometime might be introduced is in this scenario.
lets say one has a whole male vocal track one might wish to shift up a third or a fifth for the whole 3 minute vocal track to create a harmony. this is where the possibility of artifacts are introduced. particularly if the vocal is constantly shifting in note variety.which is why there is an option in what i use
to follow a midi track. thus one creates a midi track of the vocal harmony line as i understand it...and the software uses the midi line (obviously because its in tune)...to create the vocal harmony line...and produce the vocal harmony line according to a user selectable style. eg...turning a male vocal into a female vocal sort of thing. ive only just started experimenting with this recently. lots of fun.

[C.Lambrechts]

Thanks for the tip Trebor ... will definitely check that out.

[sedohr]

Originally Posted by C.Lambrechts

That indeed was my main problem with all the previous versions of Melodyne as well. I originally bought version 1.0 and was completely disgust when I finally used it and threw it away. Up till 2.6 on regular intervals I would try it out again and although one could notice improvement, 2.6 was still unacceptable soundwise for me. (original file compared to the processed one that is).

Version 3 has solved those issues within an acceptable range.

This is great to hear. I´m going for the trois! I have been using 2.6 and have not been happy about the sound. But very happy about the interface. So now the sound issue has been fixed...

Kalli

[merlin17]

The polyphonic shift in ML3 is fantastic, too.
I had originally recorded an acoustic guitar with a capo on the 5th. fret, but the intonation was bad up there.
So I recorded it without capo (a fourth lower) and afterwards pitched it up in ML that fourth - sounds absolutely fantastic!
(Ok, I added a fifth lower, too, which made it f*cking amazing. )

Peter

[TonyBelmont]

I'm feeling another High Profile Audio/ GS special coming on.... If enough people want this, maybe we'll do another special deal like the Waves/SSL thing.

[M2E]

I tried this program as well but when trying to adjust the pitch up two to three notes...I could hear the artifact badly and the sound went to dirt. I'm not a pro at it but by watching the demo at Namm and seeing them do it on there site I figured it can't be that hard. Tried it...I pass...I don't know how they did it at Namm so well. Do you have to setup the program different or something?
What is your settings? What is the best settings?

M2E

[Lagerfeldt]

Apart from the bad sound quality, I have a big issue with the extremely bad and counter-intuitive user interface. Unless they fix that, no amount of sound quality improvement will win me over again (still have it collecting dust on a shelf).

I use Auto-Tune, set it manually and apply it where needed (if at all). Easy, works, and while it affects sound quality it doesn't destroy it like Melodyne does (or did).

[scruffydog]

I used have melodyne from the start...when it was not good.
I complained to them...they were patient.
Now version three is getting really very good indeed.

I disagree that the interface is bad...

Although the whole process is time consuming it has become about as helpful as it can...once a session is imported I know it will just be a matter of 'what do I really need to do' for it can be endless in terms of what one can do.

If you find it complicated you are doing it wrong...you need to go watch someone who knows how it works.

I have used it for years and at first I was like you and said ''what is this??''
But now I would feel very happy to say they have made the grade.
My stability is not 100% but then I use it on what is basically an office pc as it is the fastest machine I have.
I import files back and forth from my studio and edit against a backing track.

The only other thing that agrivates me is the headroom...which is far lower than on my Logic setup and as a result I have to mix the vocals down a few db to work in melodyne.
If I don't pull the voulumes down in MD's mixer it will be way distorted on playback.

I just wish I never needed it at all...but this program is the sort of thing I wanted to have available and it is good to know I can do just about anything I can imagine in terms of editing ... and then some.
Clever guys!

[C.Lambrechts]

on topic please. This is not a sales poll thread .....

Been testing some more.

Little glitches I found :

- M3 claims to be sample accurate when using rewire and the spot to PT functionality but it isn't. It's close but it is NOT sample accurate.

- When using the melodyne bridge , the latency does not seem constant but rather 'floating'. What I think it does is when heavy tuning has to be applied it takes longer to 'stream' back to PT then when no processing is required.

Also, the latency involved streaming back is buffer size dependent ... but that is to be expected I would think.

Still looking into how to use it in the best way.


Any opinions on melodyne bridge vs rewire ? Trebor ?