Extremely new to this. ..anyone who owns full version of Melodyne or not can can chime in. Worth buying as opposed to living with Melo Essential?

By "full version" do you mean Melodyne Editor?

After getting Essential in the X3 upgrade, I checked it out and was VERY impressed! I'm pretty sure it would probably have been all I really would have needed but, the upgrade special price to Editor was too good for me to pass up. Had to get it! It is pretty amazing!

You need Editor or Assistant at the very least if you want in-depth editing.
 
Essential is cool for tightening up the overall intonation of vocal tracks, but to be able to really tweak, the pitch drift and modulation tools you get with the higher versions are needed. Plus, the polyphonic mode you get with Editor is absolutely sick. I had to LOL the first time I tried it, it's really out of this world...
 
Sven

There's a demo available for using Melodyne Editor in Sonar.
I believe it's good for 30 days.
If you're not convinced it's for you, don't buy the upgrade.
I tried it, and was convinced within a week.

Great will look into it.......and will try not to start Melodyne vs Autotune debate :)