I have been told "officially" that V-Vocal is done and Melodyne has replaced it.
 
I just wanted the powers that be to know I cannot make my music with Melodyne as it is. The way V-vocal stretches audio I could not imagine not having that feature.
 
I have read reviews online about how Melodyne tunes vocals better than v-vocal. Melodyne does NOT tune better than V-vocal.
 
Melodyne strips the life out of my vocals when I try and tune with it even on a modest setting. On some vocals Melodyne does okay but then I still have to bounce the clip to track and open it in V-vocal so why bother? I know all the tricks in V-vocal to making the pitch on my vocals perfect and Melodyne cannot even approach this level of quality with such ease. 
 
I expect that one day if Melodyne is developed it will one day come up to the level of V-vocal but I think it will take 5 years before that happens, if ever.
 
I don't know the politics of why that V-vocal has not been developed in so long and why it was replaced by an (i have to say it.) inferior product. 
 
I suspect that people at Cakewalk development have just not spent much time in V-vocal (editing), if they had spent time editing in V-vocal, as I have perhaps easily over a thousand hours in the program, they would never have even for a moment considered not including it in Sonar X3 and all subsequent versions of Cakewalk.
 
I don't mean this as an insult, I absolutely LOVE Cakewalk Sonar X3 as I have been using Cakewalk since Cakewalk for DOS.
 
I will not be switching over to Melodyne in the near future and I think it is a real pity that by now V-vocal has not been developed to include the smart tools and smart grid areas of Sonar.
 
Melodyne does some cool things that V-vocal does not but V-Vocal is still a superior product. The things that Melodyne has over V-vocal I may never use but on a rare occasion but the things that V-vocal has over melodyne I use incessantly.
 
It would have been nice if Cakewalk's transient markers had been added to V-vocal and also Cakewalks quantize features.
 
I hate to say it but someone has really dropped the ball on V-vocal and now you are tethered to (I assume) a third party company Melodyne that has a less user friendly product with a clunky buggy interface. Yes V-vocal is buggy too but it still totally stands the test of time.
 
I tried Melodyne when it was a stand alone plugin and it was terrible then and it is still terrible now even with it more closely integrated into Cakewalk. It is ALSO buggier than V-vocal, I was waiting for Melodyne to corrupt my entire Cakewalk project file... 
 
My music would totally suffer without V-vocal, V-vocal preserves my music's fidelity while offering powerful, accurate and a quick full range of easy to use editing tools.
 
V-vocal still gets my vote hands down. Whoever says it does not I would like to know why. They don't know what they are talking about, they are amateur editors. Melodyne is a fad at this point to me and nothing more. V-vocal is the real deal people. I don't say that with a lot of development Melodyne cannot come up to the level of V-Vocal but I don't have the time to wait when I already have a product that gives me the finished tracks that I need. 
 
I would suggest Cakewalk developers reconsider NOT dumping V-vocal so fast. Bring V-vocal back and develop it, add Melodyne's extra features to V-vocal not the other way around. V-Vocal is a rock solid (a little buggy) foundation for wave editing.
 
 

If you leave X1 or X2 installed, V-Vocal will continue to be available to you in X3, as far as I know.
 
Bob Bone
 

I find melodyne much better than v-vocal. But I think bob is right, you can still use v-vocal in x3. I would maybe also suggest that calling everyone that doesn't subscribe to your belief 'amateur editors that don't know what they are talking about' is probably not going to fuel your requested discussion . :)

Yes i left X2 on my machine and that is how I use V-vocal. I would throw myself in front of a bus without it. :)

On the whole, Melodyne is better.  However, there are certain instances where melodyne cannot do what VVocal can.  Maybe someone can help me- I used to be able to use vvocal with X3 but now it crashes sonar if i try to create a vvocal clip.  I DO have X2 installed (probably X1 too).   Should I reinstall?  Any other reason?  My system is super stable right now- the ONLY thing that crashes it is trying to use vvocal.

And if you don't think melodyne is amazing, you haven't learned to use it yet.  watch the videos and ask us here on the forum.  we'll help you discover it's sick, sick, sickness.
 

The politics? Well Cakewalk was owned by Roland and now Cakewalk is owned by Gibson. So go talk to Roland and ask them to sell the product separately as Cakewalk no longer owns it. Whilst you are at it get them to fix all the bugs (very good at crashing projects).

Personally I think V-Vocal sucks and Melodyne trashes all over it, especially the editor version, but that's just my own opinion . However the fact that Melodyne is pretty much an industry standard, and V-Vocal isn't says a lot (must be a lot of amateurs out there ). Plus V-Vocal appears to be discontinued. Game set and match really.
 
The thing about Melodyne is it is quick to learn, but it does take skill and patience to master, here is a tutorial I strongly recommend (Celemony does free ones as well):
http://www.groove3.com/str/melodyne-explained.html
 
You may want to consider upgrading to the editor version as well.
 
From a keen "amateur" using professional software :)
 
Cheers...

I have used melodyne, I have spent quite a few hours learning the ins and outs of Melodyne. Perhaps you have not used V-vocal... :)
 
The other night I took nearly an entire vocal and slid the slider to various spots in Melodyne and AB'd it with a V-vocal track tuned.
 
The melodyne track had no life in it at all it was to say the least "horrible".
 
V-vocal is NEVER perfect in tuning tracks but it is easy to go back and "sculpt" the pitch and fix the rough edges. Where in melodyne I did not know where to begin to bring the life back into my track.
 
V-vocal's pitch button "retains the life in the track" where I only need to go in and fix a few obvious problems.
 
Even if Melodyne's pitch worked better it would still not manually stretch waves in such an effortless manner as V-vocal does.  
 

Alex, Melodyne is an industry fad... There is nothing "standard" about something that does not do at all what it's competitor does...
 
 
 
 
 

I am not posting to debate one versus the other, and my earlier post was just to indicate how one would retain access to V-Vocal.
 
I think the bottom line is, V-Vocal is no longer distributed with Sonar, and that's that.  If someone wants to continue to use V-Vocal, they can do so, by retaining a version of Sonar that contains it.
 
If V-Vocal is going to be used, it has to be used where it works, as support is not available for it, with any regard to it working in any particular release of Sonar.
 
My suggestion would be that if you wish to rely on it, that you perhaps try to see it it will work in X3, but it if does not, then I would say try to open and work with that particular project back on whatever version of Sonar you have where V-Vocal seems to work.
 
Melodyne is what comes with Sonar now, and if you wish to invest time in it, by all means do so, and be aware of videos and other teaching methods for its use.
 
Those seem to be the choices, enjoy, 
 
Bob Bone