Anyone have this version (upgrade from Essential is $99)?
 
Essential just doesn't have the features I need in a pitch/timing correction tool. Editor is a bit steep for me and I don't see that much need for Polyphonic capability. Is Melodyne Assistant what I want?
 
Sven
 
 
N.B. will it be uncomplicated for me to run the Assistant demo in X3, what with the ARA thing n'all?
 
Edit: Looks like there is no Assistant trial version, only Editor

I have Melodyne Editor and to me it is a valuable tool.  I had a client in the studio a while back....tracks were already recorded and we were just listening back to some of the songs of the album.  We got to a certain passage in the song and he said..."Stop...play that back".  Sure enough...he has hit a major chord on guitar instead of a minor chord.
 
I was able to pull the passage of the guitar track into melodyne and make the chord from a major into a minor by just dragging one note a half of a step.  I had one VERY impressed client...!

Yes, Editor is nice for sure. However, it's three times the price of Assistant (talking upgrade prices)! I'm wondering if Assistant will cover my monophonic needs!

I have Melodyne Assistant on one machine and Editor on another.  Assistant was a night and day improvement over V-Vocal for ease of use, lack of artifacts, tools, improved sound, auto-handling of formants, etc.  It is much easier to visualize what you are doing and make delicate edits.  The free video tutorials are fantastic.
 
One thing: in the top right corner of Melodyne you can right click a square and choose the time grid display and the snap properties.  I highly recommend NO SNAP, and that is not obvious if you don't know.  With NO SNAP, double-clicking a blob/note with the pitch tool will still snap it to the right spot, but you have the option to slide the blob freely.  Sometimes you want to slide the note to a different pitch and then double-click, or you may want to slide the note slightly off-center of the pitch because of the way the pitch slopes (rises or falls).  You will see what I mean when you get there, but this is a feature that is not necessarily going to jump out at you.
 
I have had some Melodyne crashes, but I had a ton of V-Vocal crashes.
 
 
EDIT UPDATE:  I have Editor on a second machine and I don't want to give an opinion too quickly since I am very experienced on Assistant but still new with the polyphonic version; however, the polyphonic version was not the miracle I hoped.  When I used it with an electric guitar part, I got so many false positives and random blobs, that it was a complete mess.  I am still not sure how it would work with a choir where one person sings the same part several times.  So, bottom line is, I would be happy forever with Assistant, but I may love Editor later.

Be sure to mess with the threshold/sensitivity slider - there's another post somewhere here with a screen capture.   I find that it really helps with this, sort of like reducing the number of transients in AudioSnap.
 

Before you buy anything, let me check about upgrade paths to Melodyne Editor. I could be mistaken but I heard it was $149.

Konrad...was your guitar part done with distortion on?  I can see where it would give you false readings if your guitar was using distortion.  Also...a choir part where someone is singing the same part....melodyne works off frequencies...so I can see where it would not work in that scenario either. 
 
But as I stated earlier in this thread....it worked great with an electric guitar part where the guy hit a major chord where it was supposed to be a minor chord.  Was very easy to fix with melodyne editor.

I just paid 300, as per their site (upgrade from Essential).
The other may have been a promotion. Shame I missed that.

I paid $129 to go from Assistant to Editor.
 
Ted, The guitar was recorded through a Line 6 pod but with a super celan amp sim...not reall distortion.  I tried the slider and it helped a lot, but I still had to do a lot of manual work and analysis to get a good picture and a usable MIDI file.  There seemed to be a lot of overtones that caused extraneous blobs, and he was bending mutliple strings at once.  The axe was a Strat with single coil pickups.
 
Reason for all this: the guy played great creative licks that I wanted to use in an improved version of the track but he was not available.  His timing was a little loose, there were some errors, and he put rhythm on lead on the same track which limited by editing options.  For all these reasons plus single coil noise, I was analyzing the part and recreating it myself.  Had it not been kind of complicated, I would not have needed Melodyne to figure it out.
 
I won't judge Editor based on this one experience, but I was disappointed since I bought it specifically for this song.  ($129 upgrade is cheaper than calling in a top player to redo it--plus if I do it, I have all my OCD control.)

I've used both at great lengths, Sven. My opinion is....I've never had a single problem with V-Vocal and dance around in it in seconds when needed. I guess I'm one of the few that can speak highly of it. I use Melodyne for other things due to its power...but to be honest, I don't notice much of a difference on vocals. V-Vocal is a blast to use in small sections. I like to keep vocals as pure as possible and push for singers (as well as myself) to re-sing parts over using these tools to fix them.
 
However, when something is not quite right, I've never had a problem with V-Vocal. I've done all sorts of things with it and it never lets me down as long as I use it in small sections. I'm producing a guy right now that has only been singing for about 2 years give or take. His vocal ability is great and he's one of the best song writers I've ever heard. But, his voice isn't quite ready for prime time so I've had to fix a few things up here and there. One of his issues is consistent vibrato. V-Vocal makes this so easy and natural, I don't know why Cake would remove it. Why not still give it to people that want to use it, know what I mean?
 
That said, Melodyne is pretty intense if you have the full DNA version. It takes a bit of getting used to at first due to all the options and power it has, but it's the best at what it does. To answer your question though....both V-Vocal and Melodynbe have never let me down. I worked for years without Melodyne, so though it's incredibly powerful, I've lived without it before....I could stay exclusively with V-Vocal and be just as happy for the majority of the things I'd use it on. Hope this helps.
 
-Danny