Is Melodyne Assistant a good replacement for V-Vocal?

I have Melodyne Editor and to me it is a valuable tool.  I had a client in the studio a while back....tracks were already recorded and we were just listening back to some of the songs of the album.  We got to a certain passage in the song and he said..."Stop...play that back".  Sure enough...he has hit a major chord on guitar instead of a minor chord.
 
I was able to pull the passage of the guitar track into melodyne and make the chord from a major into a minor by just dragging one note a half of a step.  I had one VERY impressed client...!

I have Melodyne Assistant on one machine and Editor on another.  Assistant was a night and day improvement over V-Vocal for ease of use, lack of artifacts, tools, improved sound, auto-handling of formants, etc.  It is much easier to visualize what you are doing and make delicate edits.  The free video tutorials are fantastic.
 
One thing: in the top right corner of Melodyne you can right click a square and choose the time grid display and the snap properties.  I highly recommend NO SNAP, and that is not obvious if you don't know.  With NO SNAP, double-clicking a blob/note with the pitch tool will still snap it to the right spot, but you have the option to slide the blob freely.  Sometimes you want to slide the note to a different pitch and then double-click, or you may want to slide the note slightly off-center of the pitch because of the way the pitch slopes (rises or falls).  You will see what I mean when you get there, but this is a feature that is not necessarily going to jump out at you.
 
I have had some Melodyne crashes, but I had a ton of V-Vocal crashes.
 
 
EDIT UPDATE:  I have Editor on a second machine and I don't want to give an opinion too quickly since I am very experienced on Assistant but still new with the polyphonic version; however, the polyphonic version was not the miracle I hoped.  When I used it with an electric guitar part, I got so many false positives and random blobs, that it was a complete mess.  I am still not sure how it would work with a choir where one person sings the same part several times.  So, bottom line is, I would be happy forever with Assistant, but I may love Editor later.

I just paid 300, as per their site (upgrade from Essential).
The other may have been a promotion. Shame I missed that.

I've used both at great lengths, Sven. My opinion is....I've never had a single problem with V-Vocal and dance around in it in seconds when needed. I guess I'm one of the few that can speak highly of it. I use Melodyne for other things due to its power...but to be honest, I don't notice much of a difference on vocals. V-Vocal is a blast to use in small sections. I like to keep vocals as pure as possible and push for singers (as well as myself) to re-sing parts over using these tools to fix them.
 
However, when something is not quite right, I've never had a problem with V-Vocal. I've done all sorts of things with it and it never lets me down as long as I use it in small sections. I'm producing a guy right now that has only been singing for about 2 years give or take. His vocal ability is great and he's one of the best song writers I've ever heard. But, his voice isn't quite ready for prime time so I've had to fix a few things up here and there. One of his issues is consistent vibrato. V-Vocal makes this so easy and natural, I don't know why Cake would remove it. Why not still give it to people that want to use it, know what I mean?
 
That said, Melodyne is pretty intense if you have the full DNA version. It takes a bit of getting used to at first due to all the options and power it has, but it's the best at what it does. To answer your question though....both V-Vocal and Melodynbe have never let me down. I worked for years without Melodyne, so though it's incredibly powerful, I've lived without it before....I could stay exclusively with V-Vocal and be just as happy for the majority of the things I'd use it on. Hope this helps.
 
-Danny

Editor upgrade on special back in June was only $99 from Assistant.
 
The polyphony is awesome under the right circumstances. I have hundreds of horns loops that are now completely open to my re-interpretation. Can completely change so much and still maintain the sound.

Danny Danzi
I've used both at great lengths, Sven. My opinion is....I've never had a single problem with V-Vocal and dance around in it in seconds when needed. I guess I'm one of the few that can speak highly of it. I use Melodyne for other things due to its power...but to be honest, I don't notice much of a difference on vocals. V-Vocal is a blast to use in small sections. I like to keep vocals as pure as possible and push for singers (as well as myself) to re-sing parts over using these tools to fix them. However, when something is not quite right, I've never had a problem with V-Vocal. I've done all sorts of things with it and it never lets me down as long as I use it in small sections. I'm producing a guy right now that has only been singing for about 2 years give or take. His vocal ability is great and he's one of the best song writers I've ever heard. But, his voice isn't quite ready for prime time so I've had to fix a few things up here and there. One of his issues is consistent vibrato. V-Vocal makes this so easy and natural, I don't know why Cake would remove it. Why not still give it to people that want to use it, know what I mean? That said, Melodyne is pretty intense if you have the full DNA version. It takes a bit of getting used to at first due to all the options and power it has, but it's the best at what it does. To answer your question though....both V-Vocal and Melodynbe have never let me down. I worked for years without Melodyne, so though it's incredibly powerful, I've lived without it before....I could stay exclusively with V-Vocal and be just as happy for the majority of the things I'd use it on. Hope this helps. -Danny

Well the most obvious reason they removed it (along with R-Mix) is that it's Roland technology and with the acquisition by Gibson.
Also, perhaps I could've tweaked better but with V-Vocal I sometimes got phasing issues (someone called it metallic esses) that I've never gotten with Melodyne. Altogether Melodyne seems to produce fewer artifacts.

Interface, I guess it's what you're used to. I never learned to like V-Vocal's interface, having started on Melodyne in another studio. I was still glad I got such a great "free" tool with Sonar but I'm even happier having upgraded my Melodyne now!

Unless I'm mistaken you can still access it from X3 too as long as you don't uninstall X2. At least, it showed up as "region fx" for me last time I looked, though I suppose the SHIFT+V shortcut is probably gone.

Bristol_Jonesey
The UI - to me - is SO loigcal, intuitive and I love the look of it.

+1. The V-Vocal interface is very powerful and it's very much part of my workflow. I also love the fact that zoom, scroll and undo etc. have the same hotkeys as in the rest of SONAR. But I do maintain that, to me, Melodyne Essential does seem to introduce less artifacts and preserve the tone of shifted notes better than V-Vocal.
 
Besides, V-Vocal is basically abandonware so I figure this is as good a time to jump onto the Melodyne vehicle as any!