Melodyne... Love/Hate Relationship

[DAH]

Originally Posted by KeMiKaL

Melodyne is one of the most amazing programs ever.. but with its limits.

I have this vocal take and when I pitch correct it, it still sounds kind of off but I notice the vibrato in the vocal soars all over the place, so when i eliminate that I get something that sounds like a robot which is not what I'm[we're] after.

Should I make the MC redo it? and tell him to hit a certain tone better so when I eliminate some vibrato we don't have the robot?

I hate autotune and melodyne.

[LimpyLoo]

Originally Posted by DAH

I hate autotune and melodyne.

+1

Comping vox is much more awesomer.

[DEZEA]

Melodyne's pitching algorithm could be so much better, I think your best bet is to have the MC redo it.
Melodyne is a great tool though, with it's limits, but is still out of this world for some features, it has by far the best chord detection algorithm.

[RonGherkins]

Originally Posted by LimpyLoo

+1

Comping vox is much more awesomer.

it's not really an either or scenario imo. I comp then a touch or more pitch correction depending on the source material/genre

That said, I usually use a combination of nectar and wavestune. I'm demo'ing melodyne with the 30 day demo right now and I just can't make it do what I want as fast, and there are parts of it that are more than what I need as well, like the chord thing.

[PopularDemand]

Originally Posted by RonGherkins

I'm demo'ing melodyne with the 30 day demo right now and I just can't make it do what I want as fast, and there are parts of it that are more than what I need as well, like the chord thing.

I would say it goes much more easier when you have a melodyne ninja run you through it in person. That's what i did. It's very easy to make sound bad but once you get the hang of it does some amazing things. I never used it on rappers though, only singers.

They are all just tools and if you use them or not it will not make an un-hit a hit either way. The final product is all that matters. If you choose not to use these tools you better make sure your singer is dead on accurate because anything slightly off will be considered amateur hour when you submit it.

There has always been smoke and mirrors in the record making process. We tuned vocals, comp'd vocal takes, flew chorus', etc. It just took hours (in the case of comping maybe days) then instead of minutes. We fixed whatever we could fix with the available technology of the time. If we had Melodyne, Autotune, Vocalign back then we would have used it.

Here's a quote on this forum from Tony Maserati that speaks on autotune:

Originally Posted by Tony Maserati
I don't think we need to make comments about the aesthetics, regarding the use of autotune. As far as I'm conserned if it's used as a trick or hook, it's no different than a choice of instrument. If it's used to make a bad singer sound better; that's just our business fella's, get used to it. There's smoke and mirror's happening all over the charts in every catagory!

Another:

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

I'm too young to have been there personally, but I also heard engineers tell me about flying vocal choruses around by offsetting tape machines, tightening bass to drums using spot erasing (there was a sound on sound article about blondie where the producer who's name escapes me for the moment - mike someone?!- went into it), tuning vocals using eventides controlled by faders to "ride" the pitch, and so on.

I'd generally maintain that computers don't let you do much new, they just let you do it faster and (often) better.

[bugscoe]

Love.

Have yet to use it for any pitch correction though.

[SkyStudios]

its def the best out there to work with when it comes to pitch, i even tune drums

[Markdefunk]

Reducing the pitch modulation extremely will give you that robot sound. But you'll be amazed how natural sounding you can get even badly out of tune vocals with melodyne if you spend a bit of time with it.
Try using the seperation tool to isolate the parts that sound bad and treat them seperatly so that the high and low points of the modulation are sitting on notes that are in key with the song. Sometimes just increasing or decreasing the modulation slightly will do the job. Also leave the bits that sound good alone. Or say you have a sustained vocal part that is in tune initially and then drifts out, instead of pitch correcting the whole part just cut it where it starts to go out and correct that part. Also dont always use 100% settings on the correction. Experement and use your ears and not what looks right. Using the pitch correction can also flatten the modulation so sometimes it helps to increase the modulation slightly after pitch correcting a part.
I also find it good practice when tracking to record at least 5 takes of each part and then go through it phrase by phrase and pick out the best pieces and join them together using crossfades where necassary. And then melodyne it and that way if you cant get a part to sound natural you have 4 more to choose from. Using this technique also means you can then double track if you like to thicken up the vocals or add harmonys using melodyne.
It's a very powerful piece of software which I would be lost without but it does take a bit of time to get the hang of.
Good luck with your melodyning and dont be afraid to experement