A client of mine has decided to have some pitch correction done on some of his songs he recorded with me a few years ago.  I have done some of them already with V-Vocal and it seemed to work OK...but there are places where it sounds like it's running through a phase shifter.

I have read that several of you have Melodyne and say it's very transparent.  Well...I just bought the Melodyne Editor.  Haven't got the download info so I don't have it yet.  But I'd like to ask...does Melodyne work similarly to V-Vocal where you can just split the track into a small clip and add the plugin?  I downloaded the manual and it says something about "recording" the part into Melodyne in real time.

Just curious as to how you guys use Melodyne.

Yep, you can do it that way...

1. Split clip.
2. Add Melodyne to clip fx bin.
3. Click Transfer button in Melodyne.
4. Start playback in SONAR to transfer the clip and stop when clip is done.
5. Switch to Pitch tool in Melodyne.
6. Drag 'blobs' (notes) up and down to change pitch.
7. Either leave Melodyne active or bounce the clip.

Those are the basic steps.

Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
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Thanks garrigus...!  I was hoping it would work that way.  I'm anxious to get it and try it out.

Melodyne is a lot of fun. I think you'll like it. 


Scott

--
Scott R. Garrigus - http://garrigus.com
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar and Sony Sound Forge Power book series: http://garrigus.com/?PowerBooks
* Author of the Cakewalk Sonar ProAudioTutor video tutorial series: http://garrigus.com/?ProAudioTutor
* Publisher of the DigiFreq free music technology newsletter: http://digifreq.com/?DigiFreq
* Publisher of the NewTechReview free consumer technology newsletter: http://newtechreview.com/?NewTechReview

I use Melodyne Editor (ME) in 3 main ways.

They all start this way:  Add ME to the FX bin of the audio track. Click the transfer/capture button in ME and hit playback in Sonar. 

1. let it run to the end of the audio. I capture the entire track. ...then use the automatic pitch and drift to let ME do it automatically.... not the best way to do it.

2. let it run to the end of the audio. Now use the manual controls working through the song one phrase at a time.... once you get the hand of this it does not take log to do a track. 

3. If you hear something not right in one place.... place the time line marker in Sonar just before the event that needs fixing.... set capture and play through it and stop it. Since it a very small section, the calculation and display is very quick. Make correction manually. 

I will also highlight the track or clip and do a "process audio> apply effect" to ME. It's "destructive" but I didn't want the old version out of tune so I don't bother to keep it. 

My latest song in the songs forum ( Footsteps in the hall) had ME run on the lead vocal using both 2 & 3 above with "process audio> apply effect" used on both. 

If you are looking a clean artifact free correction ME is the one to use.  I only use the features I need.... I  know that ME can do so much more than I use it for. I also used it to fix fiddle and mando track on the same song. In poly mode I used it to remove a note from a chord to change the chord color. 

Handy tool. 


Oh yeah.... some advice. Take it one step at a time and SAVE YOUR PROJECT after every major step.  After the capture, before you begin the edit.... let it calculate and finish... then SAVE..... after editing the verse.... pause and SAVE..... and move through the song in that manner....SAVE often.  

It doesn't crash or glitch very often but it will do it every now and then (on my system...which is a pretty rock solid system).... and ME is the only plug that does this. So when pitch correcting, I simply save often. It actually did glitch on the song mentioned..... I thought I lost the project, but I had saved it and simply reloaded it from the cakewalk directory.... it did not show in the "quick load" list.  I lost 10 minutes of work..... not a big deal....and it may not do that with you.... but SAVING on a regular basis is just good practice regardless. 

No pencil tool in melodyne which is a huge limitation for me. It saves my but on those big dips on bad singers. Vvocals pencil tool is amazing

I heard that the lower levels of Melodyne are not better than V-Vocal and that you have to upgrade to get a better response? Is this true?

No matter what you use, split the clip beginning after inhales. Pitch correction software doesn't like to work with unpitched sounds.

Thanks Craig...that's a good tip to remember.  I got to play with Melodyne a little tonight...but I've got a lot to learn yet.  I can tell from watching a few youtube videos on it that it's a very powerful piece of equipment, but I can't do much more than basic pitch changes so far.

Well as you liked that tip, here's one more

I just recorded a vocal and one of the notes sounded "off," so I reached for V-Vocal. When I looked at the track, the note was PERFECTLY on pitch. WTF?

I listened to the other tracks, and they were pitched properly so it wasn't a question of the vocal being out of tune relative to the other tracks.

So...I used correction to "uncorrect" the note. Making it slightly sharp sounded perfect.

The more you work with pitch correction and can "see" the pitch of notes, the more you see that the most effective vocal phrases are seldom perfectly in pitch. For an analogy, think of how B. B. King bends strings - he never seems to go from flatted 7th to tonic, but stops just short, a tiny bit flat.
 
It's those sharp/flat variations that add tension; I think one reason why people don't like pitch correction isn't so much the robotic timbre, but the loss of those instinctive "judgement calls."