JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum My Love Affair with Melodyne!

When I first met Mel, I had a good feeling about her. She wasn’t like all the others. She was different. She could do things for me that nobody had ever done before. We had an instant connection. After a couple years together, I have fallen head over heels for her, and grow fonder of her everyday. This one’s for you Mellie, baby.

But seriously, folks, I wanted to share a few tricks I’ve discovered with Melodyne because there was some conversation about it a while back, and it continues to amaze me all you can do with this program. Pitch correction, timing adjustment, harmony and ad-lib creator, compressor, click removal, plosive corrector, vibrato creator, vibrato remover, multiple personality creator…

As far as pitch correction goes, there are so many ways to approach it in Melodyne. Let me stop here and say, though the “Auto” Pitch correct function cuts down a lot of time, don’t use it unless you want your listener to know the vocal was tuned. That said…

Note Separation - One of my favorite things to do is slice up the notes (aka blobs) with the note-separation tool. A lot of singers will come into the note a half note or full note below the intended note and then go up into to the note on the 2/16 beat (or wherever). Know what I’m saying? This is pretty normal, but using the “pitch drift” tool on the whole note kills that dipped entrance and sounds unnatural. So, I cut it ½ way up the ramp, and only use the drift tool on the latter part of the note. Pretty basic example, but slicing notes gives you a lot of options.

Pitch Modulation – I avoided the Pitch Mod tool for a long time, unless I wanted to make myself sound like TPayne or Lil Wayne, but I’ve recently discovered what an awesome tool it is for fixing performance errors – not just pitch errors. The trick is to use it only on tiny spliced sections of a note blob – not the whole note. Try it on anything weird that you missed in recording, and that you don’t want to bring the vocalist back in for.

Amplification Tool – not only can you use it to automate volume levels, as a manual compressor, but it’s also great for removing or camouflaging undesirable audio. For example, when I encounter a plosive “P” or “T” scenario, I slice just the very tip of the blob, and bring down the amplitude. Of course, you can automate a fade in ProTools for a similar effect, but Mel does it a lot cleaner, without completely removing the “p” or “t” sound.

The Formant Tool - But probably the most fun of the Melodyne tools is the “Formant” adjuster, which allows you to have multiple personalities. With the formant tool, I’ve made myself sound like a little kid, a big (I’m not big, btw) hefty rap artist, and an old Country singer. You can’t go overboard with it, but with slight manipulation, you can get real creative.

Mel is a very useful tool. Not to be likened to autotune. If you are a singer and putting out recorded music you should always use Melodyne if you are not a strong singer. Even strong sngers can benefit from a little pitch tweaking here and there. I personally never use it for anything else other than slight pitch tweaking. If the take isn't right I just do it again.

Melodyne is a great tool....I use it very sparingly for tuning the odd note and the other functions mentioned are very useful and time saving. That said it has become very misused and I hate the current trend of using it as an effect......Cher has a lot to answer for......nowadays just about all pop singers sound the same...like the offspring of a Dalek on helium and Robbie the Robot. It is so difficult to tell whether the current crop of nasally singers can actually sing at all because all semblance of a performance is obliterated by the heavy use of Melodyne....I suspect most of them are pretty iffy singers and Melodyne is used simply to mask a bad performance...

JFI Cubase 5 and 6 has its own inbuilt autotune tool which is comparable to and some say better than Melodyne.

The most important aspect of a vocal take is not pitch, but feeling. I want some passion and conviction in a vocal. In the past, I've often chosen to use a pitchy take instead of a perfectly pitched one because it had more passion in the delivery. Now, I can go for the passion every time and fix the odd notes.

I use the Melodyne-like VariAudio in Cubase 5. It rocks.

I agree about not using the automatic function (much like Antares' Autotune)...if you just blindly pitch-correct the whole shebang, it will always sound wrong, and many instances will have a bit of that T-Pain/Cher/Robot sound. Ick. No, you have to take the time to critically listen to each note, and only adjust what needs adjusting...when you get good at it, it takes about ten minutes a track, tops. It makes a world of difference, and I no longer care about the people who gripe about how people used to know how to sing properly. Yeah, well I wish I could pitch correct Eric Burdon's passionate but horribly flat chorus on "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", or the Beatles' stoned harmonies on "What Goes On".

Yeah Neil. Big fan of Melodyne. I've been using it daily for a few years. I actually think it's easier to use than the Auto-Tune (Grid-Mode) ---not to be mistaken with Auto-Mode, and Waves Tune, which is easier than Grid-Mode. DNA has obviously made the new version of Melodyne way more powerful than any software ever, enabling a person to do crazy stuff like solo the trumpet from a mono sound file from the 80's, to allow you to totally change one missed note in the middle of 6 strings playing on a guitar, to just about anything you could need to do. DNA is the devil. Anyway, yeah I always use Melodyne if I want the vocal to be perfect, but without it having any effect. I'm sure you've noticed that Melodyne doesn't in fact lack artifacts totally...it just doesn't have the auto-tune warbly sound. Melodyne's artifacts come as distortion. You hear little things in the high end that make the vocal not sound quite as good. Most people don't notice, but it is audible, and more audible depending on how far melodyne has to move the pitch. My only problem with Melodyne other than the very slight artifacts, is the Transfer, and once it's in melodyne, you can't hear what was there before on your track, because it's in the melodyne plugin. So If I use melodyne I always have to render it to another track.

Sometimes I use auto-tune, if it was a really good singer. I just set the retune between 35 -60 somewhere, and make sure they key is correct. Then I process each section individually. In real time auto-tune doesn't work perfect. I usually just use the real time version to audition.

If they had pitch correction back in the 60's and 70's the engineers would have used it. It's easy to say that people use it now because they can't sing. I tune everybody. I don't care who it is. Even the best singers in the world are tuned now because we have the capability. You think Adele isn't tuned? She is. Why settle for less than sounding the best you can? The music industry is an awfully competitive place to have notes that are slightly out of tune, when other are perfect. It's just the way it is nowadays. If it's on the radio, and you hear it, it has been tuned

Hey Stevens. Yes, I've heard of the powers of this devil DNA, but have not yet acquired it. I'm a little scared that I'll never leave my studio if I get my hands on that one.

About the transfer issue, what I do to hear the original track is just drag the plugin to an empty neighboring track and mute it. It's a fast way to hear the original. Then when you hear what you need to, you just drag it back.

It works in bypass to hear what was there before. Which is fine I suppose, I just don't like it that whats on the screen is different than what is playing on the plugin. So if you choose to not use what do you did in melodyne, you have to re-transfer. I'm just used to seeing what's recorded in the waveform window. Sometimes I just use the Melodyne standalone version, just to avoid transfer

Hi Guys:

Here's an opportunity for you to educate your fellow JPFrs about the black art of "Pitch Correction" on vocals. Most of us who attempt to sing don't know "diddly" about this capability. (Several have suggested that I find something else to do with my time besides attempting to sing... LOL!)

Let me begin with a few questions:

1. Are all pitch correction software packages "plug-ins?" (In essence, the person doing the recording and vocalizing must own another expensive software package and then buy the pitch correction software as a plug-in that works with the original recording software.)

2. Can pitch correction software be used on live performances or must the person doing the recording and subsequent pitch correction use a vocal track only?

3. What are the approximate out of pocket costs for an individual setting up a private studio? (A cost breakdown would be nice.)

4. Besides learning how to use the recording software (Ableton Live, Cakewalk, Sonar or a dozen or so available others) how much time does it take to become proficient with Auto-tune, Melodyne or other pitch correction packages?

5. Pitch correction software is commonly used these days by a number of recording "artists" but are there still singers who refuse to use pitch correction? (A name or two would be nice.)

Admittedly, I know just enough about pitch correction to be considered dangerous. Please don't hesitate to aim me in the right direction. My primary objective is songwriting. Singing my own vocals is simply a means to attempt to conserve hard earned money. I'm primarily interested in getting the "gist" of the song across in my live demos. (No tracks) I have no aspirations of being an artist or singer... but if I can improve my recordings and vocals to make them more "pitchable" (rather than paying for an expensive studio demo) then it behooves me to learn all I can in order to make an intelligent decision.

Thanks for your willingness to be of assistance... and for bringing this topic up.

Quick rundown..

1. Are all pitch correction software packages "plug-ins?" (In essence, the person doing the recording and vocalizing must own another expensive software package and then buy the pitch correction software as a plug-in that works with the original recording software.)

No, you can get pitch correction stomp boxes (TC Helicon and others) to plug your mic into. They are even cheaper.

2. Can pitch correction software be used on live performances or must the person doing the recording and subsequent pitch correction use a vocal track only?

Yes, the stomp box'es allows that.

3. What are the approximate out of pocket costs for an individual setting up a private studio? (A cost breakdown would be nice.)

That's a big and different question. If you just want to record simple demos yourself, you should be able to get a decent set-up on ebay for between 500-1000$.

4. Besides learning how to use the recording software (Ableton Live, Cakewalk, Sonar or a dozen or so available others) how much time does it take to become proficient with Auto-tune, Melodyne or other pitch correction packages?

It's pretty easy to learn, relative to how well versed you are with software. If you start from scratch, it might take quite some time. It took me one full year with weekly practice to learn how to make decent recordings of my music in a DAW. Now 5 years later, I am still stuck there, progressing bit by bit, aiming to make good contemporary competitive recordings.

5. Pitch correction software is commonly used these days by a number of recording "artists" but are there still singers who refuse to use pitch correction? (A name or two would be nice.)

Allthough Nashville are among the worst "offenders", singers Martina McBride and Lee Ann Womack comes to mind as some who does not like it (among many others). Be aware that a plug-in like "Autotune" is also used for sound. It gives a vocal a certain sheen to it, just to have the plug-in on (not so with Melodyne), even if it's not doing anything. That sheen has become part of a contemporary "sound" that is recquired to sound contemporary. The fans expect it.

Check out the TC Helicon stomps http://www.tc-helicon.com/

Mornin' Magne:

Thanks for your response. Hopefully, some of the others will also provide feedback. As you probably already know, I'm familiar with most of this but wanted to get first hand feedback for the benefit of all the "newbies" to recording here at JPF.

Ya gotta wonder what else looms large in technology in the near future. Pretty soon, with the right software, your vocals can end up sounding like "Ol Blue Eyes"... Frank Sinatra... LOL!

Thanks again,

Pitch correction plugins are beginning to be incorporated into a lot of recording softwares. In my case, with Cubase, VariAudio is part of the package. VariAudio works like Melodyne.

Here's how it works for me: I can record my vocal track (or even a bass line or guitar solo), and then I double-click on it and BOOM a new window appears...in this new window, the track has been analyzed, and you can see where each note is in regard to perfect pitch---you can nudge them into perfect pitch with your mouse, or you can select and straighten out a wobbly vibrato. OR...you can leave some, so it still sounds natural, but not "bad".

That's what I like about it...if I had a great, emotive performance with a couple clunkers and flat notes, I don't have to re-sing or overdub...I can just fix the odd parts.

So far, the cheap or free plug-ins like G-Snap are not very good at doing the job. Five years from now? It will likely be incorporated as a standard part the package in all the major recording software brands.

Last year I had a country music single on the radio with this effect on it. We wanted to do it Live. I knew about the Antares ATR-1 and but we went with the Antares AVP-1 Vocal Processor because it was easier to get a hold of, we needed 2 and I already had one siting in my closet that I never used. The only problem with it was, it had to be bypassed either at the monitor board or FOH when we got to the verses. It sounded good though, and the Antares rack mount units are what alot of people still use live for pitch correction. Unless they are playing with additional tracks, in which case, a computer with auto-tune will do. Unfortunately, setting the AVP-1 for chromatic with a low retune doesn't always catch the notes you need it to. So it kinda has to be set for the key for each song. You can use presets, but the chances are the engineer it way too busy doing a bunch of other junk to worry bout your tuning box, so we just used it for the choruses of that one song, set on stun. I tried one of those Helicon stomp boxes halfway through a tour, and it worked fine, for hard tune, and you could stomp through presets, which was cool. For un-detectable pitch correction, it didn't fare as well. The Helicon Intonator box was probably even better than ATR-1 when they came out in the early 2000's, but they were too expensive. I'm guessing that's what the stomp boxes are based on. I liked the stomp box, but it didn't sound the same as the Antares ones. Kinda like two different guitar amps or something. They both do the job, they just sound different doing it.

Hey Dave, I wanted to add a couple answers of my own to your questions.

Live pitch correction is not really all that necessary. Unless you are using it for an effect. You already know that 75% of the audience is drunk, or getting there anyway. They're probably not going to notice. In the case you do sing really...really...bad, then maybe it's not a good idea to be up singing in front of people.

Depending on what you need and want to do and your knowledge base, you can get a lot of work done with very little. If computers aren't your thing, or recording stuff seems hard (instead of a challenge) then maybe leave it up to others. If you have a problem with your own singing, you could always email it to somebody be tuned. If done right, it should be undetectable. There are a couple guys that do this for nearly every project in Nashville, and that's all they do all day. As far as getting a studio set-up for people on here, it could be done with a $50 recording program, an sm58, and a portable recording interface. This is far from ideal, but that could be gotten for $300 or so. I couldn't even venture to guess how much I've spent on recording gear, mics, pre's, guitars, converters, controllers, monitors, headphones, you name it, i've bought it. Do I need all that stuff? Yes. Does everybody? No. Do you get better sound the more money you spend? In most cases, yes, granted the person using the equipment knows what they are doing.

On the tuning artists thing. Sometimes something has to be tuned, and there is no way around it. Say the singer is on a bus somewhere in Iowa, and isn't available to fly back immediately, and there are problem notes getting in the way of having a finished mix. The artist is against auto-tune. Do you A. wait for the artist to get back in a couple weeks, hold up the mixing process causing the album to possibly be pushed back, forgo deadlines, and incur $3000 for engineer/"A room" to do a recall. Or B. Tune the notes? Well, the answer should seem simple. Singers can have a problem with auto-tune all day, but most of them have tuning on them somewhere, whether they know it or not. It's unavoidable. These artist that speak out against auto-tune are against it because they believe if puts inferior singers on a level playing field with them. Which it really doesn't do. If done correctly, you can't detect whether it's been tuned or not. So, the singer with the better sounding voice is considered the "better singer". We have auto-tune to thank for not having to listen to a bunch of out of tune people on the radio all day. People could complain about a bunch of cute singers that can't sing all day...but on the opposite end of the spectrum, when you do have to listen to it, you should be glad it's been tuned, instead of not. Nobody wants to hear anybody singing out of tune these days. I'm used to it now. But I still like my 70's-90's records that had singers that were a little out of pitch. I notice they are not singing perfect on those alot more than I used to. Current records make you more sensitive to the dynamics, mistakes, and tuning of older records.

On question 4 and the part at the end. Recording/Production/Engineering isn't what everybody specializes in. Alot of people write songs and they try to write better songs than other to compete. Others compete by writing good songs with really good production. Which is better? Probably neither. These days there are alot of people that do production/engineering/songwriting. I happen to be one of those people. I learned how to do all these things myself. I have, however, been doing them all for about 15 years or so. So when asked, can I make a demo for this? My answer is yes. Can I make it sound like stuff you hear on the radio, my answer is also yes, and maybe cooler than that stuff. But it took me a really, really, really long time to learn how to do it, and be able to do it effectively. I started by doing it out of necessity, then I got good at doing it. The more you do stuff, hopefully, the better you get. There no answer to the question as to how long that might take. Maybe never. But in your case, if you do use a recording program, and you do wish your vocals sounded more in tune, you can use auto-tune and set it sparingly to make your voice more in pitch. It doesn't however change the way your voice sounds. If you have a cool voice - auto-tune can make that even better. If you don't, then you still have a not so cool voice, that's in better pitch. I learn something new every day. I don't try to, it just happens. I use the new things I learn every day to try to make my music better in some way, whether it's writing, recording, or production. Sometimes it's something I read on the internet, or an engineer tels me something, or I try something I haven't before. Granted, I eat, sleep, breathe the creative process. It's all I do, and most of what I am interested in. I believe any talented person - Talented = person who spends way too much time doing something, can learn how to do anything they want or need to do. Other than stuff only special people can do. - Special = a person that does stuff most people can't, like Yngwie, Barry Bonds, Aretha Franklin etc... Luckily, with my distinction, most songwriters fall under the "Talented" category, as do engineers, or producers.

I apologize for the long paragraphs. Sometimes, you just start typing and you can't stop...I wish that happened for every song I wrote

My thanks to all of you for taking the time to provide additional details (and thus a learning experience) for your fellow JPFrs. So much for us to learn... and so little time.

We are fortunate to have so many talented and responsive individuals here.

Regards,

Hey Magne,
I wasn't aware of that "sheen" you speak of, that is only found in Autotune, and not Melodyne. Probably worth adding it to my repertoire to stay as current as possible. Thanks for that tidbit!

Stevens119, that was an awesome post. I agree with everything you said, and I think we've both read a few threads over at GS that could have used a good informative post like yours before the trolls took over and everything went sideways...

neil, "sheen" is my choice to describe the effect. The meaning is relative. Some call it undesireable artifacts :-) but truth of the matter is that Autotune adds a certain sound, that has become a contemporary "idiom" in pop production. It's not really about liking/disliking it. It's about getting the job done.

The extent of use of Autotune in country is also documented in Dave Martin's book "Mixing the hits of country" http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Hits-Country-Music-Guides/dp/1423438507

Also thanks to stevens119 for an informative post. You usually get what you pay for with gear, but the pitch correction is getting cheaper and cheaper, so now you get better quality for less money. The other day I saw they now are implementing it in the kids microphones they sell in the toy stores. So now kids can also get to sing in "tune" while singing karaoke..

Great reference. I have never heard of that book. I'm gonna check that out. Seems pretty expensive for a paperback though. I guess the cost is in the fact that it comes bundled with multi-track sessions.



Wow. You're gotta be kidding me...and I thought the iphone apps were crazy. Well, like I said, nobody wants to hear out-of-tune singing any more. I guess that includes kids too. Still kinda bizarre, and unnecessary. My guess is this is "coming soon" for profesional microphone. I can see the press release now - "Neumann releases new U87, with built in pitch correction" "price, $300 more than standard" "same classic sound"



Yeah, things are definitely getting cheaper. You can now buy a Neve 1073 styled pre-amp for $300. It's not the same, but it's really close to the same sound. Close enough for most people, including engineers. They make em in China with cheaper parts, but it's the same design. I do still think some studio gear is harder to make for cheap, for example, the 1176 compressor. Hard to beat a real one of those. There are pretty big differences sound-wise between an old Neumann U67 and a current tube mic ranging from $200-$1500. Granted, a good vintage U67 now cost about $8000, so it's kind of an unfair comparison. But they are technically the same kinda microphone. The real deal is, it's hard to care so much about sound quality, when you know it will sound worse when people hear it (Mp3). How much better does an incredible mic sound than a cheaper one once people have it on their iphones? Not much, and nobody knows what you recorded it on anyway. Listeners and Fans don't care at all what was used in the recording process, they don't know, and it really doesn't matter to them. Tuning - blah blah, microphone - blah blah blah, software - blah blah blah blah. All they care about it whether they like the song the singer is singing. That's what it's all about. The job as a producer, engineer, or songwriter is to make sure that fan likes what they hear. If everybody does their job to their best ability, then hopefully that magic happens in the heart of that fan, and everybody keeps their jobs for the next record to be made. Hopefully that fan buys the next record that comes out, and the next one after that



GS = Gearslutz?

Yeah, Gearslutz is all about what should I buy? Do you think this mic is good, what about these speakers, is this preamp worth the money type discussions now. Some years ago it was more about discussion, and now it seems like a review site.

The interesting thing is that on another thread around here I was mentioned as being someone who would be really good at putting Melodyne DNA to amazing use. Oddly enough, I still haven't purchased it. I may do so at some point, though I don't know when.

I really haven't found that I need that tool. However, it's really that - a tool. Have I used a similar tool? Yup for all kinds of reasons and I don't need to justify it. I'll use it if I deem it necessary to be used. I've done session work as a vocalist where I know it was spot on, and even then they'll still tune it for the mix. The funny thing is, when you're spot on, the tuning really doesn't change much of anything. But they do it anyway. Weird reality.

I find it humorous that people here will admit to using AutoTune, WavesTune, or Melodyne [insert favorite pitch corrector here] to fix notes "here and there" and then slag others for using it as well. That's pure irony or something.

I wonder what people would say about the Beatles if they knew the reality behind how so many of their songs were created. Same goes for U2, or the Stones. In the case of the Beatles, there's a lot of times where they figured out how to play a part really slow, then slowed down the tape to record it, then sped the tape back up to normal speed. Thus making it appear that they could play things much better than they really could. Are they any less of musicians because they made use of the tool of tape speed? No. Are they any less because they would do multiple takes and then edit the best ones in? No.

The end result of recording is: Does it sound good and do people like it?

As for live performance of music the end result is: Is it entertaining?

If you can answer yes to either or both of those questions - you'll have a career in music.

One thing writers and performers forget about the recording is - it has to fit the vibe of the song; with the live aspect - it has to entertain.

Well said, Jody:

How it sounds! I could not have said it better. That's really all that matters. Will everyone like it? No! Will someone like it? Yes. The trick is to find sufficient numbers of those who like what you create. Thanks for your always appropriate input and before I forget, Happy Thanksgiving.

It's definitely just a tool, and can be put to all kinds of creative use..

For example, you can hard tune a vocal tracks, and change a few notes, then save it as midi, and put a softsynth on. That way you have a varied track to accompany the melody, or just do it to record an instrumental track of your song quickly, without having to rerecord. Time saver, right there!

Check out Ronan's Recording site for a really cool way to use Autotune with absolutely ZERO artifacts. ZERO! http://ronansrecordingshow.com/2010/03/vocal-recording-tips-and-an-autotune-trick-that-is-not-lame/

I have no problem with using tools to improve things....yes we all use these things to tweak a performance including various vocal effects and of course the tuning programs like Autotune/Melodyne et al....where I have a problem is with folk who hide behind those effects....cause they cannot put in a decent performance and NEED these things to mask their poor vocals..... live or otherwise....
With reference to the point about the old bands and the old out of tune recordings......well they are not bad considering the primitive means used to record and these guys could perform live using only basic equipment......the same cannot be said about most of the current crop of pop stars....most of them cannot sing PERIOD or put in a good live performance without all the bells and whistles used in a studio.....sadly a lot lip sync along to a CD.....simply because they would be shown up as tone deaf trying to sing live.