My Love Affair with Melodyne

[NeilEbanks]

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, 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 - 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.

[mazz]

I've only used it in it's simplest operation so I appreciate your tips and tricks here. I feel that it is more intuitive for the way I think than AutoTune, which I haven't upgraded or even opened in years.

Thanks!!

Mazz

[CrimsnSyrn]

I have heard great things about Melodyne.

Thank you for sharing your great tips. I was looking online and see that there are different versions of Melodyne: Editor, Assistant, Essential, Studio. Which version do you have?

Thank you in advance for your answer.

Best,

Juliet

[thekman]

Nice! I'm glad you posted this.
I just started using a lite version of some kind and I really dig it.

The using only parts of the "blobs" advice is killer. I think it will actually save me a little time. Instead of resinging parts I can use these small adjustments....and get quicker doing that too!

Thanks!

[NeilEbanks]

Happy to share!

Juliet, I actually have Cre8! It can be used as a plug-in or stand-alone. 8 tracks.

[CrimsnSyrn]

Thanks, Neil!

I'm going to look in to it! Thanks again for all the great tips!

Best,

Juliet

[Kolstad]

It IS cool. I have 3 more days to decide an upgrade to Studio + the editor plug-in, for 149Euro. It's a bargain I know, but money sits tight, and music projects haven't exactly generated a big truckload of bucks, so far!

[cardell]

Thanks for posting this Neil.

First of all, I want to say that I love Melodyne. Its seamless integration into Studio One (by Presonus) is a thing of beauty.

However, there's one aspect of these [vocal] tunning programs that bothers me.

The problem is: they can't recognize blue notes. And, neither can most operators (producers) for the most part.

In Stevie Wonder's brilliant vocal on Superstition, he goes somewhat sharp (intentionally) on the minor third...blue notes!
Eg. the words wall & fall in the first verse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE

Now, I hate to think what Auto-Tune or Melodyne (in auto mode) would have done to this vocal back in the day.

Beyond that, there are a number of modern R'n'B singers who sing deliberately sharp for stylistic reasons. Listen to how Beyonce tends to sharpen the endings of many of her phrases (deliberate pitch drifting).

I'm definitely no Stevie Wonder, but I have worked as a session singer since the days before Auto-tune and Melodyne. I did a session vocal for someone recently with a bluesy feel that (in my opinion) warrented some of these blue notes. When I later heard the mix, is was glaringly obvious to me that my entire performance had been tuned (possibly as a matter of course) with one of these programs presumably in auto-mode.

I was disappointed that my interpretation of their song had been indiscriminately "brought into line", but I would never mentioned it them because the vocal performance now belonged to them. That is, they can do what they want with my vocal now.

Stuart

[Mark Kaufman]

Thanks for posting this Neil.

First of all, I want to say that I love Melodyne. Its seamless integration into Studio One (by Presonus) is a thing of beauty.

However, there's one aspect of these [vocal] tunning programs that bothers me.

The problem is: they can't recognize blue notes. And, neither can most operators (producers) for the most part.

In Stevie Wonder's brilliant vocal on Superstition, he goes somewhat sharp (intentionally) on the minor third...blue notes!
Eg. the words wall & fall in the first verse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE

Now, I hate to think what Auto-Tune or Melodyne (in auto mode) would have done to this vocal back in the day.

Beyond that, there are a number of modern R'n'B singers who sing deliberately sharp for stylistic reasons. Listen to how Beyonce tends to sharpen the endings of many of her phrases (deliberate pitch drifting).

I'm definitely no Stevie Wonder, but I have worked as a session singer since the days before Auto-tune and Melodyne. I did a session vocal for someone recently with a bluesy feel that (in my opinion) warrented some of these blue notes. When I later heard the mix, is was glaringly obvious to me that my entire performance had been tuned (possibly as a matter of course) with one of these programs presumably in auto-mode.

I was disappointed that my interpretation of their song had been indiscriminately "brought into line", but I would never mentioned it them because the vocal performance now belonged to them. That is, they can do what they want with my vocal now.

Stuart

Keeping the blue notes is what I love about Melodyne and VariAudio--the blob method allows us to make the call for individual notes. But you are absolutely correct--it's only as good as the ears of the Blob Changer. (Blobulator? Blobbist? Blobber? Vice President of Blob Manipulation?)

[cameron]

I don't have Melodyne in my Studio One yet, but S1's transpose and tune functions are pretty powerful on their own. I find you can really save a lot of time and often get better results transposing the lead vocal to create the harmony BGV parts. By themselves, the higher parts can definitely sound like chipmunks, but in the mix you don't hear it if you keep their volume at reasonable levels.

I look forward to S1 V2 with it's Melodyne integration though. That will probably be my next major upgrade. At the $99 upgrade price it seems to be very much a bargain.

Cam