Celemony in the Media

What the press says about Melodyne and Capstan

 


“No glitching or warbles, ever!”


Capstan review in Sound On Sound

 

In their August issue, UK-based magazine Sound On Sound feature a detailed 4-page review of Capstan, our professional restoration software. For them, “it is a very impressive tool and well worth exploring!”

 

After a comprehensive explanation of the wow-and-flutter phenomenon and its technological background, author Hugh Robjohns takes Capstan for a test drive with some real-life examples: “I was very pleased indeed with the improvement Capstan brought to my Chopin piano material.”

 

Hugh claims that Capstan’s supposedly high price is “fully justified by its complexity, ingenuity and sheer effectiveness, especially in the context of the scale of the relatively specialist audio restoration market.” He also points to the alternative rental option which he calls “a very attractive, … affordable and practical solution for one-off projects.”

 

In the summary, the magazine states that Capstan “works astonishingly well, is easy to use and to fine-tune, and enjoys a very well-designed user interface ... Best of all, the process is entirely artifact-free: no glitching or warbles, ever!”

 

The entire review can be downloaded in PDF format from the Sound On Sound page (fee required). Sound examples can be downloaded free of charge from here.

 





May 2012

  • “Celemony have superseded themselves with the new tools that integrate seamlessly into the latest version. The new creative possibilities are overwhelming, for commercial post-processing as well as for highly experimental projects.”
  • “The practical and artistic possibilities are so broad that there is almost no production situation in which Melodyne could not help. For sure, nothing will be able to replace talent, creativity and a lot of exercise in the future. But Celemony makes ​​this simple truth more colorful.”
  • Read the article (German)

 





March 14, 2012

  • “Melodyne is a powerful tool that can do many remarkable things, and version 2.0 adds a bunch of elegant timing, scale and tuning features.”
  • “The importance of the DNA capability cannot be understated. … This feature opens up new avenues of possibility for musicians, engineers and producers. It simply extends the boundaries of composition.”
  • “No matter which version you choose, you’ll be getting a tool that has changed the lives and workflows of many in the creative industries of music and sound design. In recognition of this, the Celemony team received a Technical Grammy for ‘contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field,’ at the 2012 Grammy Awards. The best way to discover what all of this adoration is all about is to introduce Melodyne into your studio.”
  • Read the article

 





issue 03/2012

  • “A popular tool for fixing audio recordings – flaws of intonation or timing can be ironed out in no time. Additionally the software lets you creatively shape a recording.”
  • “ARA (Audio Random Access) is not a completely new interface format, instead it superimposes VST, RTAS or AU and expands them with additional communication channels. The result is a significantly more convenient handling.”
  • “Further appealing capabilities of ARA are lying in converting audio material to MIDI via drag-and-drop and the direct control via key commands.”
  • “With its update to Version 2, Melodyne editor again steps ahead. … Even in realms that Melodyne has already been established in (e.g. intuitive timing manipulation), the software capabilities for musical post-production have been further extended significantly.”
  • Download article (German, fee required)

 





issue 107, Feb 2012

  • MusicTech Choice Award
  • “Increasingly, Melodyne feels less like a correction system but more of a creative tool in its own right. Whereas other tools simply improve an original performance Melodyne offers transformative results that changes how you see recorded information as a part of your DAW’s workflow.”
  • “Melodyne editor 2.0 is still the most flexible way to edit and refine an audio recording, boasting a host of unrivalled features that deliver true polyphonic access.”
  • “Melodyne currently beats any other correction system – either pitch- or timing-based – hands down!”
  • Read the article

 





issue 03-2012

  • “Melodyne editor 2.0 is a great further development of this very successful audio editor. The new features make it especially interesting for the experimentally assessed musicians and theorists – just a compulsory purchase. But also the time-handle and attack-speed tools should also inspire and excite other musicians and producers. Increased convenience and a streamlined interface make the update additionally interesting, which results in giving just an incredibly huge recommendation.”
  • “While other manufacturers have now integrated similar functions into their DAWs, these won’t come anywhere close to Melodyne’s functionality and ease of use.”
  • “The Time Handles are very interesting for beat producers as well, creating weird IDM beats has never been easier.”

 





Aug 17, 2011

  • “An end to wow and flutter”
  • Kai Schwirzke talked to Mathis Nitschke and Peter Neubäcker about Capstan.
  • “Beethoven’s Ninth, directed by Furtwängler is sacred ground for fans of classical music. As the strings rise up from piano to forte the incident happens: the recording grinds. The recording suffers from wow and flutter as the professionals would say. This masterpiece is rendered unusable. Despite all the miracles modern digital restoration technology can make, there has not been any cure of wow and flutter yet. Until Peter Neubäcker of Celemony Software looked at these phenomena – and developed Capstan.”

 





April 2011

  • “The power of the Melodyne code makes one forget about the limits of working with audio!”
  • “Celemony must be commended here – this is the best pitch-change auditioning we've ever heard. Melodyne picks the ideal point to loop a sound and it does so in a way that sounds natural. In the case of a vocal, the vowel is maintained as if it were being spoken by a real person, or in the case of an instrument, the instrument plays as if an actual player was playing it. Forget old school machine-like loop points, this is something entirely different. And when you start to audition individual notes ripped out of chords by DNA technology it all becomes rather futuristic.”
  • Read the article

 




12/2010

  • Interview with Peter Neubäcker
  • “It’s 10 years since the groundbreaking Melodyne audio-processing software was launched. To celebrate, its inventor Peter Neubäcker invited us into his research lab to talk about possible future developments.”
  • Read the interview

 





Nov 2010

  • Craig Anderton reviews Melodyne editor
  • “Full disclosure: When I contacted the company for a copy to review, I was upfront and said I really wasn't that interested, because I rarely use pitch correction. ... I also had doubts about whether DNA could actually work, so I reviewed this more out of a sense of duty to the readers than personal interest. Well, I stand corrected. Melodyne was easy to use, and gave zero problems.”
  • “The classical guitar DNA experience was very impressive, and when modifying vocals, the sound quality was far more natural than I expected; with relatively minor edits, you cannot tell edits were made.”
  • “When you couple all those capabilities with a clean interface and excellent documentation, and solid online support, you have a winner.”
  • Read the article

 





May 2010

  • An extensive interview with Peter Neubäcker about the history and the future of Celemony and Melodyne: “Celemony wants to shape the recognition and the playback of music even more musically. The approach should move away from the signal level to a level of musicality.”

 




issue 85, March 2010

  • “A technical triumph”
  • Excellence and Innovation Award
  • “Melodyne remains an unrivalled technical and creative achievement, and with the introduction of DNA, a tool that is streets ahead of the tempo- and pitch-elastic tools now common to most DAWs, ... Melodyne editor will remain the de facto choice for anyone needing to go beyond the audio editing capabilities of their DAWs.”
  • Download the article (fee required)

 




April 2010

  • “Melodyne editor kicks the doors wide open to a new generation of creative tools. Melodyne has always been and still is a powerful 'Fix it' kit, and through the addition of DNA technology it also becomes a creative toy.”

 




  Mar. 26, 2010

  • “A sensation in music electronics that happens very rarely these days.”
  • “Even complex guitar recordings, the sound of a brass section or a woodwind ensemble were deciphered amazingly precisely by the DNA software.”
  • Read the article (German)

 




Mar 10, 2010

  • “While Antares Auto-Tune has inspired plenty of musical garbage, as well as comedy gold (such as YouTube sensation Auto-Tune the News), Celemony Melodyne first came to us as a sort of Auto-Tune on growth hormones. It offered not only pitch correction, but also the editing of note length and timing within an audio file. It was a big step forward, and now, after more than a year of hype, Melodyne editor with Direct Note Access (DNA) takes the next step.”
  • “it's a deep program with many uses. Its value may not be immediately apparent to some, while to many others it's all but priceless. You probably know where you fall on that that scale, but regardless, Melodyne editor is definitely a pacesetter in the world of audio manipulation.”
  • Read the article

 




issue 6/10, March 2010

  • “A fascinating tool which is unparalleled in its genre. You might even want to discuss what is more remarkable: the ease of use and creative flow of work with audio which has been regarded as impossible until recently, or the technology of analysis itself.”
  • Download the article (German, fee required)

 




issue 139, March 2010

  • “With its polyphonic algorithm you can create new variations of your loops and audio recordings on your hard disk in no time. A unique, revolutionary tool with a variety of applications that comes for a very reasonable price.”
  • Read the article (German)
  • Interview with Peter Neubäcker (German)

 




    Feb 17, 2010

  • “Remixers will have a world of new options for working with stems of songs if they're available, and greater flexibility to remix without stems.”
  • “DNA's stated purpose is to open up each individual note within a chord so that you can edit its placement, note length and pitch, giving you the ability to construct virtually any chord you want out of the original. In my tests, Melodyne editor did this just about perfectly.”
  • “If you have access to a song's stems, or you have a track where chords or even vocal harmonies are played back by themselves in the mix, it's easy to take control over the notes in those chords and make them do your bidding.”
  • “DNA is a huge advantage and creative oasis for remixers and DJs looking to manipulate music in new ways.”
  • “This is another fantastic tool for remixers and DJs, but don’t expect this to work across the board. With very dense mixes or when vocals are present, the results are less – or not at all – useful.”
  • Read the article

 




Feb 17, 2010

  • “What would audio editing be without computers? Even pitch and length of notes can be edited after recording – of monophonic instruments. Until now. A program released recently does not stop at chords: Melodyne DNA.”
  • “Amazing, how well this works.”
  • Read the article (German)

 




1/2010

  • 7-page cover story
  • “Alternatives? You've got to be kidding!”
  • “... what Celemony's Direct Note Access can already do is simply breathtaking, and represents a major turning point in the development of studio technology. What's more, Celemony could probably have named their price with a product as hot as this, so it's brilliant that they've kept the new technology in the same price range as the old. But it's not just DNA's power/pricing ratio that makes me slightly giddy, it's the potential wider ramifications too. How much might a tool like this change the music-creation process itself, and indeed the development of new styles of music?
    ... breathe into the bag Mike ... Nice and slow now...!”

 




Dec. 2009

  • “Melodyne editor is a revolution. The ability to dive into polyphonic recordings and alter the pitch, timing, formant and volume of individual notes could force us to re-evaluate the way we record entirely. Being able to fix parts, create new sections from old and mess about with existing parts will soon get you saying, ‘Don't worry… I'll just Melodyne it’.”
  • Gold Award
  • Read the article

 




11/2009

  • “DNA is superbly useful for chord manipulation and melody changes.”

 




11/2009

  • “The need for costly and tiring re-recording processes now is history. Second and third voices, even entire chord changes can be altered by a simple click of the mouse. Even if the program is operated by musically untrained personnel.”
  • “Furthermore, Melodyne's Formant correction combined with Note shifting allows for individual special effects when it comes to manipulating voices or noises.”