After some initial frustration I am totally stoked with this thing and I'm glad I upgraded. 
 
I'm a way better guitar player than I am a keyboard player and to be honest this whole audio to MIDI thing (polyphonic in Editor) has revolutionized my creativity within Sonar. It's not as foolproof as I thought it would be, but as it turns out that's actually a good thing. 
 
What I do is come up with a guitar part, usually fingerpicked. I take care to play it "for Melodyne," i.e. as cleanly and clinically as possible. Straight guitar, no effects or processing at all. Then I let Melodyne's polyphonic algorithm at it. Of course it picks out way more notes than I played (overtones) and misses a couple, but I'm really not worried about that at this stage. I just weed out any of the obviously wrong notes (pulling the curtain down to hide the notes that are obviously overtones etc) and drag it straight across to my MIDI track. I like to start with something like a Native Instruments A-200 or Lounge Lizard to play with the MIDI - it immediately sounds nice. 
 
First thing I do is quantize it and set all velocities to 100 (Melodyne's velocities from a fingerstyle guitar part are going to be all over the place). Then I set about going through the clip on a note by note basis and editing everything by hand. I'll delete some notes, add some notes, tie some, lengthen some. Then when I have the notes down, I'll go back through the clip note by note and work on the velocities to give it some expression. Kind of like how you'd compose a piece in the PRV from scratch, only this time you have a great foundation to work on. I know I could have theoretically composed the whole thing like this in the PRV, but playing it on guitar allowed me to express a level of harmonic and melodic sophistication that I could never have played on keyboard and which would never have come about via the PRV's lack of spontaneity. Using Melodyne like this has enabled me to utilize the best of both worlds....the musical expression I have on guitar and the creative precision I have in the PRV. What I end up with is something that I could never have played on guitar, could never have played on keyboard and could never have come up with in the PRV alone. It's not a time saver, since I'm spending even more time creating and editing parts than I was. But I'm having a lot more fun doing it and I'm way happier with the results than I was when I was just using my keyboard with the PRV. Couldn't recommend it more. 

Interesting Sharke . . . so you're creatively using Melodyne Editor as a compositional tool, from a guitarist point of view.
Sounds like you're recording your guitar somewhat robotically, and then injecting some more natural feeling by editing in PRV. (okay, I have oversimplified your method, but that`s what I`m getting from your explanation)
 
I haven`t done the upgrade to Melodyne Editor yet, but  it looks like it does add some new possibilities like you`ve described here.
I`m all over any compositional tools my DAW can provide, so it`s yet another temptation to buy that Melodyne Editor upgrade.
 
QUOTING YOU: ``but playing it on guitar allowed me to express a level of harmonic and melodic sophistication that I could never have played on keyboard and which would never have come about via the PRV's lack of spontaneity``
 
I was originally thinking it`s kind of a clinical way of getting inspiration, but the above quote from you leads me to agree that from a guitar player point of view this could really work, to come up with some great musical ideas. I hope you explore it further, and get back to us how the end result worked out, maybe even post the result in the SONGS forum.

.

sharke
After some initial frustration I am totally stoked with this thing and I'm glad I upgraded.  I'm a way better guitar player than I am a keyboard player and to be honest this whole audio to MIDI thing (polyphonic in Editor) has revolutionized my creativity within Sonar. It's not as foolproof as I thought it would be, but as it turns out that's actually a good thing.  What I do is come up with a guitar part, usually fingerpicked. I take care to play it "for Melodyne," i.e. as cleanly and clinically as possible. Straight guitar, no effects or processing at all. Then I let Melodyne's polyphonic algorithm at it. Of course it picks out way more notes than I played (overtones) and misses a couple, but I'm really not worried about that at this stage. I just weed out any of the obviously wrong notes (pulling the curtain down to hide the notes that are obviously overtones etc) and drag it straight across to my MIDI track. I like to start with something like a Native Instruments A-200 or Lounge Lizard to play with the MIDI - it immediately sounds nice.  First thing I do is quantize it and set all velocities to 100 (Melodyne's velocities from a fingerstyle guitar part are going to be all over the place). Then I set about going through the clip on a note by note basis and editing everything by hand. I'll delete some notes, add some notes, tie some, lengthen some. Then when I have the notes down, I'll go back through the clip note by note and work on the velocities to give it some expression. Kind of like how you'd compose a piece in the PRV from scratch, only this time you have a great foundation to work on. I know I could have theoretically composed the whole thing like this in the PRV, but playing it on guitar allowed me to express a level of harmonic and melodic sophistication that I could never have played on keyboard and which would never have come about via the PRV's lack of spontaneity. Using Melodyne like this has enabled me to utilize the best of both worlds....the musical expression I have on guitar and the creative precision I have in the PRV. What I end up with is something that I could never have played on guitar, could never have played on keyboard and could never have come up with in the PRV alone. It's not a time saver, since I'm spending even more time creating and editing parts than I was. But I'm having a lot more fun doing it and I'm way happier with the results than I was when I was just using my keyboard with the PRV. Couldn't recommend it more. 

It's an awesome tool hey!
After folks get the notion out of their head that it's a magic hit maker button and get to work, it sure opens up incredible creative possibilities. Glad you're coming to grips with it. Every guitar player should have it. I'm into a bit of guitar to midi controllers and this software could easily replace what I do with the hardware at least after the fact. Woot woot as bapu would say!

If you catch too many overtones you can always try turning down your tone knob?

noynekker
Interesting Sharke . . . so you're creatively using Melodyne Editor as a compositional tool, from a guitarist point of view.
Sounds like you're recording your guitar somewhat robotically, and then injecting some more natural feeling by editing in PRV. (okay, I have oversimplified your method, but that`s what I`m getting from your explanation)
 
I haven`t done the upgrade to Melodyne Editor yet, but  it looks like it does add some new possibilities like you`ve described here.
I`m all over any compositional tools my DAW can provide, so it`s yet another temptation to buy that Melodyne Editor upgrade.
 
QUOTING YOU: ``but playing it on guitar allowed me to express a level of harmonic and melodic sophistication that I could never have played on keyboard and which would never have come about via the PRV's lack of spontaneity``
 
I was originally thinking it`s kind of a clinical way of getting inspiration, but the above quote from you leads me to agree that from a guitar player point of view this could really work, to come up with some great musical ideas. I hope you explore it further, and get back to us how the end result worked out, maybe even post the result in the SONGS forum.

Well I think when you're working with music, inspiration comes from a number of places and not just "from the heart." For instance, even though I feel like I can express what's in my head on guitar pretty well, there are times when I come up with good stuff purely from looking at shapes and patterns on the fretboard. I'm sure keyboard players do the same thing sometimes. And then of course there are ideas you happen upon purely by accident. It's the same when you compose from scratch in the PRV - sometimes you're hearing notes in your head and then transcribing them to the piano roll, other times you might see a visual pattern in the notes which helps you along, and other times you come across great musical ideas simply by adding notes and moving them around at random. The ultimate expression of your musicality happens at the last stage, when your musical judgment decides what to trash and what to keep. 
 
Using Melodyne Editor on guitar parts just provides me with another source. I'm being at my most "naturally" musical on guitar, and this gives me the core idea. Being able to turn that idea into MIDI and play around with it in a piano roll just unleashes another dimension of creativity. I love it!

Sanderxpander
If you catch too many overtones you can always try turning down your tone knob?

That's a good idea, I'll try that out. 

Nice post Sharke, particularly the "play it for Melodyne" comment... As Mike V. said, once folks realize it is not some panacea... the cleanest signal possible in gets you the best results out. I liked the posts a week or so ago where people had used their voice to put down bass lines with it. I have never used the audio to MIDI before that, and that trick is a real time saver to drive a synth for you (especially for those of us who are "keyboard challenged").

thanks sharke for the information! I am currently in the pase of "getting real" after my original plan - just bounce the guitar to midi and any instrument can just play it - got demolished. I know that there is still great potential in there and I am willing to explore it. Good to know that you got it figured out. And if sharke can do it...

  I thought of an interesting use. A while back my niece sent  a piano/vocal recording for me to polish up. She recorded the audio output of her digital piano to audio tracks. She was unfamiliar with the use of midi.
  The piano recording had more hum on it than it did piano. I couldn't clean it up without losing a lot of the high end.
  If melodyne could convert her piano track to midi and than I could assign it to a VST piano I'd have a perfectly clean piano track to work with!
  It's a shame that I've complete blown my studio budget for the foreseeable future or I'd buy the upgrade right now.