Ya it's still in the right click menu. That's why I didn't even know they removed it. I always install bare bones 8.5 just for these reasons.
Thanks Jonesey for your post, I was totally unaware there was the middle version. I'm a 100% middle version guy! Middle versions are where it's at bang for the buck wise.
So folks it's only $150 us dollars to upgrade to Assistant with what would seem to be a lot more pro features than Essentials. Only big thing missing is the editing of Chords, something I wouldn't be doing anyhow.
Check out the features list here:
http://www.celemony.com/en/melodyne/functions Our free licence to Essentials ( thanks Cake) saves you $100 off the list price so there's real value there for us Sonar users. Especially as I only paid $100 for Sonar Professional anyhow..