Recording - May 2011 - 28

It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years since Celemony first shook up the recording industry with the introduction of Melodyne. The groundbreaking app’s capabilities to manipulate audio note-by-note, the MIDI-style editing display, and the sound quality of the pitch shifting... all contributed to Melodyne’s elevation to the top of the heap in pitch-processing tools. Of course, over the years, other plug-ins and DAWs began to incorporate similar features and capabilities, but then Celemony upped the ante once again with DNA—Direct Note Access— which allowed individual pitch editing in polyphonic audio files, re-asserting Melodyne’s place as the industry leader in the world of high-end audio tweaking. But what’s it like using this kind of editing power in the real world? Let’s take a look at Melodyne in action, and see how a few of its advanced processing features perform in some typical studio situations, and then perhaps give it a bit of a torture test to see how far it can be pushed... and where possible, I’ll provide audio webclips on Recording’s website for you to hear what I’m talking about. (You’ll find them in our Resource Library, under Magazine Extras > Audio And Music.) Which Melodyne? First off, a little background—currently Melodyne comes in two main flavors and two budget versions, ranging in price from $699 down to $99. • Melodyne Studio bundle includes a multitrack standalone app with some additional advanced editing functions, along with the Melodyne Editor app/plug-in (see below); • Melodyne Editor is a single-track stand-alone app and plug-in which includes the DNA feature along with Melodyne’s usual monophonic editing tools; • Melodyne Assistant is like Editor without DNA; and • Melodyne Essential omits a few features to offer an entry-level version. For this article, I used Melodyne Editor for both traditional (monophonic pitch editing) applications—pitch corrections, melody changes, harmony creation—and for some polyphonic edits with the DNA feature. I also tried something that Melodyne doesn’t claim to be able to do, just to see how far away we might be from what many people are hoping might be the next big jump in editing capability.
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RECORDING MAY 2011

Auto-Tune vs. Melodyne One of the most familiar, and the most basic, uses for modern pitch tools is simple pitch-correction—taking a vocal or instrument line that was sung/played a little out of tune here and there and fixing the bad notes and clams, thereby salvaging what would (hopefully) be an otherwise great performance. Of course, the go-to tool for this has historically been Antares’ Auto-Tune (or one of its many progeny). That is, when it’s not used (over-used?) to produce a certain vocal effect that people either seem to love or hate, first heard on Cher’s “Believe”. Elsewhere in this issue you’ll find a review of the latest version of Auto-Tune, and a

Recording - May 2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - May 2011