The End of V-Vocal?

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.
 
 

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 . :)

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.

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...

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

RexRed
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. :)

You can run V-Vocal on X3 if you have an older copy of Sonar. With X3 you have the added bonus of RegionFX with it. Cheers.

Whoever owns V-vocal, If V-vocal has been "discontinued" then it should be an easy product for the Sonar people to purchase lock stock and barrel for pennies.
 
Blix I would search the Cakewalk forums. Before I posted this thread I did a search for V-vocal to see if anyone else liked it as I do and I noticed other people having problems with it and a certain DLL that if replaced may help fix your problem. I don't know because mine just worked when I installed X3 over X2.
 
If mine did not work I would definitely try that DLL fix and if that did not work I would uninstall everything and maybe just install X2 and X3 and see if that works.  
 
Cake Alex V-vocal is not dead in my X3 :) I use it more than any other plugin. 
 

Development on V-Vocal stopped years ago. It is not to late to start looking for an acceptable alternative.

RexRed
So then Alex it comes back to what I said, "politics"...
 
The Sonar developers are using Melodyne because they probably could not get V-vocal... Not necessarily because V-vocal is an inferior product.

So you were there in the room at the time? :)
The fact is the plugin was one of the few plugins badged as "Roland", the other was "R-Mix" which has also disappeared. I can't even get that to work with X3E much as I try.
 
Anyway your opinion of course should not be looked down upon, but the rest of the industry disagrees and millions of copies of this "fad" have been bought by "amateurs" worldwide now, and is being used on album after album. The TV series Glee built an entire industry around it.
 
 

RexRed
....  the problem is that there is no "acceptable alternative" ....

The last time I heard that phrase is when the federal reserve wanted trillions for a bailout... Or was it Scotty in Star Trek...
 
I don't see too many (if any) complaints about Melodyne in these forums nowadays, so any issue "corrupting" projects I suspect has completely disappeared, at least with X3E and the latest Melodyne update.

It does not really matter to me what others use to tune their music with, millions of people use Auto Tune too. I have V-vocal up and running and when I tune my vocals they still sound alive rather than DOA and sounding like they have been hit by a bus.
 
As long as I don't open Melodyne my wave form display will not disappear in V-vocal. Another Melodyne bug...
 
My wave form display has NEVER once "disappeared" in Cakewalk's V-vocal 'til I started trying out Melodyne again.
 
I open and use Melodyne then I open V-Vocal and my waveform in V-vocal is "gone".
 
If I close Melodyne and reopen my project, my waveform in V-vocal is back.
Instead of saying what everyone else is using perhaps you should try actually using these programs on daily basis then you might sing a different tune...
 

Assumptions again. I've been using computers before DOS was even popular. Look up ZX80, and Commodore Pet... I was also in professional recording studios from the 80's not that it makes me more qualified to talk about voice altering software but if that works for you on the smartypants scale then fine..

I have never heard of melodyne corrupting projects to be honest but of course you should back up. If you have steps to repro then give them. Then again I'm confused 'like' corrupting projects is not corrupting projects.

When using melodyne I clone the track first and work on the cloned track. Then I bounce it down to another track and archive off the old tracks. I would probably do the same with vvocal. My saving process sounds pretty similar to yours.

There is an auto update feature with melodyne, perhaps check you are running the latest. If it is regularly locking up for you I'd be looking for a solution to fix this elsewhere as it is certainly NOT normal behaviour from my experience. Perhaps change your methodology like splitting up regionFX clips into smaller pieces.

In terms of this 'fad' go and have a look at the top 100 albums being sold of new material. I suspect 90%+ use it. I personally know 3 professional producers you may of heard of who use it religiously. If you heard the albums you would never know (unless it was being used as an effect). Even Bowie uses it.

> "Millions of them (professionals) also agree that Melodyne is "buggy""

Did you speak to them then or is this just another assumption? Sources?

You also seem to assume I don't use Melodyne regularly. Are you bugging my studio?

I should have mentioned that i upgraded to editor almost immediately.  If memory serves me correctly, however, the biggest difference is the ability to do polyphonic work.  
 
Melodyne corrects as subtly as you like, and more transparently than vvocal (because of the phasing issues).  Although melodyne is less flexible in several ways, it's designed the way it is to corrrect in thee most realistic and transparent way possible.  This it does well.  The one area that vvocal beats it is in it's ability to draw straight lines and do crazy, radical changes.   both do timing adjustments equally well.   vvocal "could been a contender" if it's phasing issue was resolved.  also it was a constant source of instability on my system(s).

Okay CakeAlex I was using master tracks for a Commodore 64.
 
And syncing FSK (A homemade box a friend and I made the circuit board ourselves) to a Fostex 80 and recording my Commodore 64 tracks to it. I also had a TSR 80 Radio Shack computer that I mostly used for games. I have a couple hundred tunes with many tracks and I did them all in my own studio including playing and editing all but a couple tracks. I also have fifteen thousand Twitter followers, twenty thousand Tagged followers, five thousand Google plus followers and a thousand five hundred intimate Facebook followers.etc.
 
Google the words melodyne buggy and you will find 159,000 results
Google the words  melodyne freezes and you will find 977,000 results
Google the words melodyne crashes can you will find 98,200 results  
 
Then Google the word Melodyne and you will only get 422,000 results, not millions...
Google the word "v-vocal" and you get 122,000 results
 
Google the word autotune and you will get 6,420,000 results
 
Does that mean autotune is a better program than both V-vocal and Melodyne?
And I have never had "autotune" crash on me either. 
 
getting the drift here? 
 
Oh and there is this...
Melodyne Crashes - how I envy you other guys who say it works fine...
http://forum.cakewalk.com...rks-fine-m2428190.aspx
 
Considering I have spent over a thousand hours in v-vocal it does kinda make me an expert on the program and how it works.
 
It also gives me the golden ear to tell when another tune program is not cutting the mustard.
 
And NOW you know a producer who DOESN'T use melodyne...
 
I am not saying melodyne is useless nor am i saying it will never be fixed. But as of the other night it is still just a buggy as it was when I first tried it. And I am not happy with the way its tune works nor the clunky interface that is near impossible to use. And you say use it on smaller clips, well that is another SERIOUS drawback of melodyne. V-vocal also has a clip size limit. But I can usually fit an entire track full of lead vocals in it thought i prefer to break a lead vocal track in half or thirds. And by the time I am finished editing the V-vocal session is usually not so corrupted that I lose hours worth of work. There is also an advantage of seeing more of your vocal in one V-vocal session so you can see relative volumes of vocal words and phrases.
 
I am not just saying this to hear myself type, I have lost work in melodyne so often that it is not worthwhile using the program when V-vocal does a better job at TUNING and is actually MORE stable. 
 
I also checked after the crash, the other night to see if it was updated and it is. I also don't have to buy the, err, "pro version" of V-vocal... To get the full functionality of v-vocal.And there are things v-vocal does that melodyne does not, not even the pro version. That kinda concludes it... 
 
Take my advice for what it is worth. I am all set myself with a working version of V-vocal, (in fact while I have been here writing this I was taking breaks from this forum and edited three very long vocal tracks effortlessly and without a single glitch in V-vocal)  and if Cakewalk programmers are reading this, please take this post as being presented with the best of intentions. THANKS

The reality is this: V-Vocal has its merits, but is a Roland product based on proprietary Roland technology. It has not been updated in years, and apparently, never will be. It (and other third party plugins) constitute the majority of Sonar support issues. In short, sooner or later V-Vocal will become unuseable, whereas Melodyne will continue to be developed, improved, and patched to be compatible with future operating systems.

I still use V-Vocal, although admittedly less and less as I learn how to use Melodyne Editor. I suspect when I've finished the Melodyne Editor learning curve, I won't be using V-Vocal...although I didn't feel the same way about the basic Melodyne version.

Feel free to keep using VV as long as you can, but be aware that it is hitting end-of-life and Roland does not seem interested in pursuing it.