Melodyne Video

[dreamsongs]

Originally Posted by camerondye

I was only explaining Jayro's question of the difference between Pitch Drift tool and Modulation tool in those 2 posts.

Dreamsongs, when you say artifacts, what are you describing??? Pops, clicks, squirrly in the voice...do your best so I can understand what artifacts you are getting. You could also upload an example of it doing it.
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Yes, all of the above...

But it could be that I'm not pitch correcting properly. I usually set the amount of pitch correction on the part highlighted and click. I do that manually with every blob that needs correction.

How do you correct a blob that's off the note ?

[camerondye]

Now I understand what you are doing, you are using the auto correction on each single note. That is not what I consider manually correcting and I didn't understand. Give me a little bit to explain the process and I will repost in a little bit, I have to go do something right now and will post when I get back.
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[dreamsongs]

Originally Posted by camerondye

Now I understand what you are doing, you are using the auto correction on each single note. That is not what I consider manually correcting and I didn't understand. Give me a little bit to explain the process and I will repost in a little bit, I have to go do something right now and will post when I get back.
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[camerondye]

Ok, I just went back and threw up a vocal in Melodyne and starting working on it to get an idea of my workflow. This might take a couple of posts because I want to be thorough. Remember, even though I'm explaining this...you are going to have to take the time and practice. That might suck to hear, but you wanted better results than Autotune.

First off I'm going to explain the loop function just in case you don't know it exists. There is a little box in the top left hand corner that has an "L" in it. In that section going across you can set the loop in and out points to loop one section of a time to concentrate on a line or half of a line at a time. Use them because it will be easier to concentrate on a section at a time.

Second, I will explain the Tool Kit above the Red Square with the "L" in it. There are 6 sections in it each with a symbol inside. **The 1st (pointer) is a tool that actually does a little of everything and is a little harder to use at first...don't use it if you are new. **The second (oval with an arrow pointing up & down) is the Edit Pitch. That tool moves a blob up and down without changing the pitch line inside. If you click on the Edit Pitch and drag down you will get to the Modulation tool. This tool is for lessening the vibrato. If you drag the Edit Pitch to the 3rd section you get the Pitch Drift tool. I explained this in an earlier post, but it basically tries to get a blob centered without changing the shape too much. **The third (a line across with lines going up and down) is the Formant tool. If you raise the pitch of a note too much it starts trying to sound like a chipmunk, use the formant tool to lessen the effect. Also use it too get rid of the Darth Vader tone when you pitch down a lot. **The fourth (just a pointed oval) is the Amplitude Tool. If you want a note louder or softer, this changes the volume...pretty easy. **The fifth (circle with arrows on both sides) is the move notes tool. If the timing of a note is off, this can help you move it to the right place. **The sixth (line with an arrow on both sides) is the note separation tool and it can cut a blob and make 2 separated blobs.

First off, I like to put the loop points so I hear about half a line worth of stuff. As long as you start playing inside the loop, it will loop. If you start the cursor outside of the looped area, it won't go back to the loop on its own so start the cursor inside the looped area. Now listen to the looped area and look for problem areas. Now start using the tools above to correct.

The way I'm going to do this is take a couple blobs at a time, post pictures and mp3's and tell specifically what I did to get the changes. I have tried to think of the best way possible and they all suck except taking a little a a time and doing the best job I can.
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[NoEgo]

Originally Posted by Jayro_Rockola

Hey man, Thanks for your pro bono edification. Although I don't really grasp the subtleties of the modulation/pitch drift tool yet, I have found that I have a new found desire to just **** with it 'till I get it right.

(I still don't understand the difference between "modulation" and "pitch drift" though")

Modulation ...he said it....is for vibrato.....when a singer or single instrument goes up and down..or down and up...most times repeatedly in succession..if you know what vibrato is, if not look up the definition..(not trying to be rude honest, it just makes sense what he is saying) if you want to tame that or make that from a straight held note then you use the modlulation editor. Think of Pavoratti when he held a note he was a master at vibrato....updownupdownupdown....in high speed....or any major opera singer....

Pitch drift on the other hand is the act of say...think....my favorite pitch drifter Neil Young..if you have ever heard "Comes a Time"..think of the beginning of the chorus.....

oo this old world keeps spinning rou
oh nd....these are drastic but non the less pitch drifts..like note slides intentionally or not.......if you wanted to lessen them or greater them then you would use the pitch drift control..Sometimes when the vocals drifts like that they don't land like Neil did...yet it would be a shame to just align the note and have it sung straight cause it is the vocalist's style and it does add to the material...

Just thought I would pipe in.....

[camerondye]

Here is what I did on this line of the vocal, there are 14 blobs and I will name them as such and go one to describe what I am doing to each one. The breath before the first blob I used the amplitude tool on to lower it's volume, but I'm not counting it as a blob. When I say double click with the Edit Pitch button, that means choose the Edit Pitch tool and double click on the blob to center the blob to where Melodyne thinks it belongs. The Pitch drift and Modulation are just selected and then drag on the blob to correct. Separation tool, just select and double click where on the blob you want to cut. Also, you can right click anywhere on the screen to bring up the tool bar that way. I did short clips so I'm leaving them as 24 bit 44.1 wav files.



Blob 1: Basically all I did was double click the Edit Pitch tool to center the blob better, use the alt key while moving it up and down and it will move cents instead of half steps.

Blob 2: Pitch Drift tool to bring the parts down to center, then the modulation tool so it didn't waver up and down as much

Blob 3: Double click Edit Pitch tool to bring towards center then a little modulation tool

Blob 4: Used a little Pitch Drift then centered the pitch line closer to center with the alt key

Blob 5: Used a little pitch drift then double clicked Edit Pitch to center

Blob 6: I used the separation tool to cut the note in half, I double clicked Edit Pitch on the first half to center it. On the second half, I centered it using the double click on the Edit PItch then used the Pitch Drift to center the pitch and then the modulation tool to bring in the wavering a little more. The next thing is something I haven't brought up yet...Click on the Edit Pitch tool and hover the mouse over the end of blob 6. It becomes an X shape. Drag the X shape down and Blob 6 will slide in to Blob 7 a little bit slower. Whenever you hear a robotic kind of sound, the X tool will help usually.

Blob 7: Double clicked the Edit Pitch tool and drug a little Pitch Drift to center a little

Blob 8: Double click on the Edit Pitch tool and it's good

As a side note, the word Rusty is going to be tough because it already sounds a little robotic before melodyne ever touched it

Blob 9: Double click on the Edit Pitch button and use a little Pitch drift to center

Blob 10: Double click on the Edit Pitch button

Blob 11: Double click on the Edit PItch to center, Pitch Drift and a little Modulation to center. Now it's sharp, Alt Drag the Edit Pitch button to center it

Blog 12: A little Pitch Drift and a Edit Pitch double click, almost not necessary though

Blog 13: Double click with the Edit Pitch Button

Blog 14: It is the problem note of the whole passage, too much vibrato and the pitch goes flat at the end of the blob. I first try the PItch Drift tool but it isn't working how I want so I Undo it. I then use the Separation tool to cut the blob where it goes south. I double click with the Edit Pitch button on the first half to center it. I then double click the second half to center it. There is a little piece of dirt at the end which I double clicked the edit button and raied to C. I then used the Modulation tool on all 3 parts so it wasn't as eratic. I then use the formant tool on the last 2 pieces to give it a little deeper sounding.



I'm going to post this one and see the comments before I do another one, I'm too close to see the confusions of how I explain it just yet. Hope some of this is helping. The attachments are the 2 audio files and a picture of the before and after. I am going for more exaggerated results but the earlier post is right, sometimes being off is what they want and you'll be messing it up. Always know your client and do what is best for them.
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[camerondye]

If anything is hard to understand, post so I can explain it better. Also, if somebody has a question about something else Melodyne, please post it.
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[Jayro_Rockola]

Originally Posted by camerondye

If anything is hard to understand, post so I can explain it better. Also, if somebody has a question about something else Melodyne, please post it.
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Thanks man, I think I finally get it.

I always think of the Pitch Drift tool as being like a rotator

This image really helped me wrap my brain around the whole pitch drift thang.

Thanks guys!

[dreamsongs]

Thanks for taking the time...

I'm beginning to think that maybe it's the plug-in version that gives me those problems.

Because I pretty much have been doing everything you posted but when I play it back I hear pops, clicks etc.

When you double-click on a blob it corrects it 100%. I try to get close but not too perfect to keep it real. But from your files it sounded pretty clean with no artifacts so I don't know...

I may need to hear from someone that has the plug-in to see if they encounter the same problem...

[camerondye]

When you double click on a blob with the Edit Pitch button it centers the blob 100%, it doesn't really correct the pitch 100%. Basically it takes what it considers the center of that blobs pitch and centers it. Its not like when you double click with the modulation tool where it flats the note completely.

The plugin comes with Studio, I will install it and try similar things on the same passage. How old is your computer also, I just got a new computer in January and Melodyne has been running much better for me.

It is a serious CPU hog.

Also download the original file of mine and see if you are getting artifacts on your version when you try and correct.

I will check back in and post the plugin version of the vocal passage
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[chickencoop]

Just wanted to put out a warning because I mentioned that I got the ASK video cheap on peebay.
I got sold a pirated copy of the ASK video/quicktime tutorial by an ebay seller named jessyoncue
I notice the seller is selling more copies, so be advised that I got a burned DVD of this.

[camerondye]

That sucks, people are so irresponsible. That's one brave dude doing that on ebay, he will get turned in and they'll find him.
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[chickencoop]

Originally Posted by camerondye

That sucks, people are so irresponsible. That's one brave dude doing that on ebay, he will get turned in and they'll find him.
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thanks cam. i have inquired about what i can do about this and ebay has been pretty unhelpful in their response.
meanwhile that seller (actually a "she" apparently), has another copy of this up and a huge jacked collection of reason refills about to end.
caveat emptor.

[camerondye]

Ask Video would love to hear about it, they're canadian so I don't know what they can do in the states but you can try if you want. Make sure to leave bad feedback on ebay, try and stop payment, turn it in to paypal. Ask Video might take the time to contact the proper people in the states if you contact them, who knows. I would watch it because you don't know if somebody is going to want it back and you might get the shaft. Hell maybe Ask Video would give you a real copy for turning it in though. That is a junk situation, sorry...
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[chickencoop]

Originally Posted by camerondye

Ask Video would love to hear about it, they're canadian so I don't know what they can do in the states but you can try if you want. Make sure to leave bad feedback on ebay, try and stop payment, turn it in to paypal. Ask Video might take the time to contact the proper people in the states if you contact them, who knows. I would watch it because you don't know if somebody is going to want it back and you might get the shaft. Hell maybe Ask Video would give you a real copy for turning it in though. That is a junk situation, sorry...
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well, i've gotten several unhelpful responses from ebay customer support (they seem to be getting less and less helpful). i would actually hate to spoil my 100% feedback rating on something i paid $24 for. i sent jessyoncue a strongly worded pm (oooh), and would rather that she just refund me then to get into some feedback war, but i will if i have to.
i thought i was saving $10 bucks by buying used-- i could have gotten a new legit copy for $35 plus shipping! i started a paypal dispute.
i feel really bad for whomever wins this auction from the same seller.
The ULTIMATE Reason ReFill Collection 70G 4 No Reserve! - eBay (item 110228577651 end time Mar-01-08 20:24:51 PST)
i guess, it's just compounding the piracy though and any money that the seller gets out it will hopefully be a short-term gain with a significant price to pay to follow.

[camerondye]

Learning the workflow of the plugin took a tiny bit of work, but it is generally close to the same. I think the studio version might (I'm not positve yet so don't kiill me) be able to do a tiny bit more correction before robosizing of the vocal. It has to have some differences so it can run as a plugin. I think I still had great results with it, but had a little bit more trouble with the word "of" on this one than the studio version.

I attached the rendered version of what I did today with the plugin if you want to hear it. I'm not sure if I did exactly the same thing as the first upload, but I think its close enough that I know the plugin does a great job. I think the only reason to really upgrade to a bigger version would be to line up multiple parts easier, make harmonies easier and the such. I think I will go and try and make a harmony part with plugin.

Here is the thing to remember on the plugin that I haven't talked about yet. Say you go through and correct a vocal and one word is having issues being robosized or adds artifacts or whatever. Choose that blob, choose "Edit" at the top, drop down to "Edit Pitch", then choose "Reset all Pitch Related Changes to Original". Then rework that word again. You can also choose just to Reset certain aspects, not just reset all pitch related changes.

What's cool about this is you could go through and use the auto detection like you have been doing, reset the blobs that you aren't happy with, and then manually correct those to get the most out of the plugin.

I very well may be messed in the head thinking the plugin is a little less powerful so don't freak out by any means. The plugin is awesome and I'm going to start using it in certain situations where I don't want to shut down my DAW, restart my computer, turn on Melodyne, correct, restart the computer, restart my DAW, import the new file.

I like to restart just to make sure I have all my computer resources when correcting vocals, it helped on my old computer and I still do it on my newer computer because of the fear. My dad hasn't shown up yet and made me use Melodyne with a deadly Cougar sitting right behind me yet. Shake n Bake...
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[camerondye]

I first had a copy of Uno and making harmonies on it was hit and miss because you couldn't hear the original at the same time as the generated harmony. The plugin is actually easier than Uno to make harmonies.

I made a copy of the pitch corrected original vocal to another track. Thinking about it now I should of probably used the original before pitch correcting, but I'm still going to post this for now at least. I looped the part in my DAW and moved the whole section up a 4th in the plugin and decided I wanted to make a different pattern and try and make things more interesting. So I just started shoving notes in different places until I found a musical pattern I liked.

I then chose, under Edit, to choose random pitch and time. This chooses random spots to move the notes so they differ from the original files so it sounds less robotic. It still wasn't enough so I delayed the whole harmony 13 milliseconds I think. On some of the blobs I changed the amplitude of the note because they were poking through a little too much.

The first file I attached was the harmony vocal unedited. It sounds a bit robotic still but I decided to add some eq and reverb to see what I could do with it still. I think I will go back and try the harmony with the non-pitch corrected part to see if it sounds even better. The second file is with the lows stripped to 300hz, I think I took some out at 3.2Khz, and took out some highs on a UAD 1073 plugin. I then made an Aux Reverb and ran a little of the original and more of the harmony. The second file is the rendered version of the Original, the EQ'd Harmony, and the Aux Reverb.

From doing this, I've found that the plugin is as easy or easier as Studio to make harmonies with. If your singer is having trouble making harmonies, you could do this and then have him sing to the harmony, then pitch correct the harmony...I saw this idea in another post here on gearslutz. I am glad I get a copy of the Plugin with Studio, it is an awesome tool.

Hopefully some of this stuff is helping people use Melodyne better, it's definitely helping me learn how to use it better anyway. Good luck...
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[Robcamp]

Great stuff Cam, thanks a bunch for taking the time!

[Mr.HOLMES]

I have bought melodyne years ago.
And I just can say it is not a magic bullet at all.

If someone is singing so bad that I have to spend hours and hours of editing in melodyne I just can make the refernce to the singer to get some training in singing.

And yes the handbook of melodyne is bad....
So I bought an expensive correcting tool kit and have to buy a tutorial Video as well before I can use it 100% ????

I prefer to let the singer sing several takes and to comp these.

And if there is a little mistake in it?? Who cares??

Good performing in front of the microphone is the best melodyne you can get without spending money and important time with Videos which are explaining me how I can get the most out of it.

Melodyne is still affecting the sound and you can hear it.

[camerondye]

That sucks you didn't like it, but I'm trying to keep this focused helping the people who own and want to use it better and faster. It is definitely better to have them sing perfect, but it's almost never the case that they do.
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[camerondye]

I'm gonna stop for right now unless you have a specific question about something. I am subscribed to this thread so I will get an email if anybody posts anything.
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[mikebeck]

Sorry to make you come back to check for responses, but I just wanted to thank you for taking the time and effort to make such a thorough explanation of how you use Melodyne. Very very helpful. I only use it once in a great while, and it's hard to be fluent with it with such occasional use.

[Jayro_Rockola]

Originally Posted by mikebeck

Sorry to make you come back to check for responses, but I just wanted to thank you for taking the time and effort to make such a thorough explanation of how you use Melodyne. Very very helpful. I only use it once in a great while, and it's hard to be fluent with it with such occasional use.

+1 I must say, I appreciate your vigilance in edifying the Melodyne users here. A few times I thought that you migh be a secret Celemony mole sent here to spread the gospel!

I too make all of my vocalists do multiple takes and prefer to comp using good notes than use pitch editing, but sometimes you find yourself up against a brick wall. There will often be a few notes here and there that your singer can simply not hit sufficently. Melodyne can save an otherwise great performance from being just not quite there.


Thanks again for the great thread!

[camerondye]

No problem at all, the video really helped me understand the program a lot better so I figured I'd share a little. I would still recommend the video, but for those who can't...I will make a solid effort to explain better.
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[JB872]

Hi Camerondye

I was wondering if you could explain how you go about the vocal note detection/correction stage, which has to be done before moving on to pitching notes.

From my experience so far, Melodyne doesn't usually get the note detection part right as the video claims and I'll have to map out the melody on acoustic so I can properly visually correct the notes. This usually turns out to be the most time consuming aspect of the program and makes me not want to use it.

EDIT: I'd also like to know if there's a way to pitch correct the bass guitar without affecting the timing. The pitch corrected melodyne track's transients rarely line up with the original. Isn't one of Melodyne's selling features the fact that you can change pitch without affecting timing?

And is there a way of controlling the transport within Melodyne while using the Melodyne Bridge plugin? To start and stop the song, I have to switch back and forth between Melodyne and Sonar. There's gotta be an easier way of doing this.

Any advice?

[kittonian]

I've been talking with Mike at ASK Video about possibly including the Melodyne DVD OR the ProTools Level 3 DVD for free when a customer purchases certain gear from us. Would this be something that you all would see as a nice benefit when buying a high-end piece of gear?

[camerondye]

Hey JB872, I just got home from band practice and I'm exhausted and can't wrap my head around your questions just yet...I will try tomorrow to understand what you are asking and address it. Can you upload the file by any chance that is giving you so many issues, I would like to check it out because I haven't had these issues in Melodyne yet.
Thanks,
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