celemony_ :: Direct Note Access

Celemony has done it again! At the Frankfurt Musikmesse 2008, we demonstrated in Direct Note Access a technology that makes the impossible possible: Direct Note Access for the first time allows individual notes within polyphonic audio material to be identified and edited. The unique access that Melodyne affords to pitch, timing, note lengths and other parameters of melodic notes will now also be afforded to individual notes within chords.

Seven years have passed since the introduction of Melodyne. For seven long years, the research has continued without let-up in our Munich development laboratory. The goal: to extend the intuitive editing possibilities Melodyne offers for melodic notes in audio recordings to material with polyphonic content. A Utopia, a pious hope, it appeared, as the task was far too complex, and no one was quite ready to believe that any such thing would ever be possible. And yet it’s worked.

Like Melodyne itself, Direct Note Access is a development that will change forever the way we handle audio. In the field of images, it has long been possible with the right software not only to correct the tiniest blemishes but also literally to create new realities: pictures that are utterly believable but show us something that in fact never existed. Direct Note Access will give Melodyne users comparable freedom in the field of audio. With Direct Note Access, Melodyne will allow forms of access to audio material that were unthinkable before – ranging from subtle correction to recomposition.

Polyphonic material with Direct Note Access: The audio material after detection is spread out in the Melodyne Editor in such a way that the user can see the notes of the chord at their respective pitches and edit them individually

Pt. 2: Minor blemishes and the Melodyne effect