The big one is that editor can handle polyphony so that if you play a clunker note within a chord on piano for instance, Melodyne indicates the notes within the chord you played and you are free to alter the pitch/ length etc of any of them. It is really quite incredible. 
 
They have a good range of demo videos too- basic editing, creative editing etc

backwoods
The big one is that editor can handle polyphony so that if you play a clunker note within a chord on piano for instance, Melodyne indicates the notes within the chord you played and you are free to alter the pitch/ length etc of any of them. It is really quite incredible.

And the editor also allows you to change transitions, modulation, drift, attack speed, and amplitude.  Those are really powerful, even on monophonic material.

If you're only interested in monophonic material like vocals (and think about this carefully because the DNA is very cool) you don't really need Editor. Assistant, the "in-between" version is the most comparable to V-Vocal, with tools for formant and transition editing etc., tools you miss in Essential.

Sanderxpander
If you're only interested in monophonic material like vocals (and think about this carefully because the DNA is very cool) you don't really need Editor. Assistant, the "in-between" version is the most comparable to V-Vocal, with tools for formant and transition editing etc., tools you miss in Essential.

But this deal (until Oct 16 in my email) gives you editor for the price of assistant! ;-)


Also - I did the upgrade after initially installing the essentials with SONAR X3, and I wound up uninstalling Melodyne and reinstalling - because it kept getting confused whether it was activated as essentials (with the old serial number) or Editor (with the new serial number). It's fine now.
 
I'd like to share one more thing - in case it comes up for anyone. When I first installed SONAR X3, I was having an issue with some mono plugins (completely unrelated to anything here - plus it was just me being stupid, there was nothing actually wrong) - so I just restored my music partition from the backup I made beforehand - to do a fresh install.
 
I didn't realise that you're supposed to "deactivate" Melodyne before you do this (because you only get 2 activations). I emailed Celemony support to tell them about this - because I didn't want to waste an activation because of this. Anyway - when I reinstalled SONAR, and it reinstalled Melodyne Essentials (I hadn't upgraded yet) - I registered it, but it used the same "activation". In other words - it knew I was coming from the same computer and didn't use up my second activation.
 
I was dubious beforehand - because it didn't even know my PC name (it came through as "unnamed") - but it seems to work fine.
 
So it seems that if you replace a hard disk or re-image your hard disk (without "deactivating" Melodyne first) - the Melodyne activation recognises that you're coming from the same PC and uses your same activation again...
 

Upgraded yesterday, what a great bit of kit.

There's certainly a lot to learn in the Editor version.  After a few disappointing attempts to fix a wrong note, I read the manual.  WOW..
 
I recorded a version of "Horizons" by Steve Hackett (on a solo classical guitar) some time ago, but there was one wrong note.  It sounded okay (right tonality to fit the piece - an A on G string instead of a C on B string) and most people wouldn't notice it, but it drove me mad.
 
I've been meaning to re-record it, but decided to have a play with Melodyne.  Once I had read the manual, and watched some videos - hey presto, it's gone.  C instead of A, in quite a busy passage.  Incredible..
 
I think it will take me a long time to get up to speed on Melodyne, but it is astounding..

Note splitting and alt-dragging took me a while to figure out initially. It's an amazing tool, for sure. I never got used to V-Vocal, having learned Melodyne first. Really happy to have it back and integrated so well!

What are the ethics of correction?
 
I think the answer is "anything goes"?  Personally I have no problem with the idea of doing a little correction if it would be faster than doing another take.  In other words, if the performer "could" do it through another take, I don't see any problem with taking the faster path.  But the more I use Melodyne, the more I realize that the latest generation of performers is probably a whole lot less musically competent than I ever imagined.  I guess nobody would be surprised by that. 
 
But I listened to an interview with Johnny Mathis this week.  He basically got one or two takes with a lot of the stuff he recorded, and there was no Auto-tune.  Yet his timing and intonation were always really good.  And the occasional slight imperfection made it real.  Here's the thing.  I bet his live performances are authentic.  I bet he sounds just as good live as he does on record.  And how many  of today's atudio-correction-junkies can say that?  How do we know if a performer is actually any good?  Does it even matter?
 
I find myself avoiding mass adjustments with Melodyne.  I mostly just fix individual notes.  I'm just wondering about the philosophy others use.  Obviously one can use these tools as effects that are intentionally not realistic-sounding.  That isn't my cup of tea, so really I'm asking this question in the context of correcting for a natural sound.

Modern performers almost have to obsessively pitch correct or be mocked for occasionally sounding off (e.g. Alicia Keys). Obviously genre is a large factor as well.

I tend to go for as natural a sound as possible and you can really do much better with Melodyne than V-Vocal in this respect, in my personal experience and opinion. That said, in dense pop productions, you can use quite heavy correction and most artifacts you notice insoloing will be almost unnoticeable in the mix.

Can you imagine pitch correction in the old Motown stuff?  The female vocals were almost always about 20 cents flat.  It wouldn't be Motown if it were in tune.