If you encounter any problems in your daily work with Melodyne, or if the program even crashes regularly, we'll be glad to help. Our support team has found that many problems can already be resolved by considering some basic requirements and settings. For example, have you got...

• the most recent Melodyne version?
• a compatible DAW and OS?
• a sufficient amount of free system memory?
• a proper audio interface?
• the correct audio buffer size?
• the suitable number of processing threads (or RTAS processors, respectively)?

If this doesn't help solve your issue, please write to our e-mail support. You can contribute to a fast solution yourself by including certain info:

• a bug report. --> How do I draft a bug report?
• a crash log. --> Where do I find crash logs?

Please be aware that this forum is meant to be a user-to-user forum. If you urgently need tech support from Celemony, please drop us an e-mail.

Have I got the most recent Melodyne version?
Make sure you have installed the most recent version of your Melodyne edition.
To do this, use the Check for Updates function in Melodyne's Preferences (Melodyne editor, assistant and essential) or Help menu (Melodyne studio).

Have I got a compatible DAW and OS?
We have tested Melodyne with numerous DAWs and operating systems. Please read this page to see whether your DAW and OS are compatible with Melodyne or whether a system update may be required.

Have I got a sufficient amount of free system memory?
On 32-bit operating systems, applications only have a limited amount of system memory available. Even if your computer comes with more RAM, a DAW can only make use of approximately 2 GB of RAM which it must share with all plug-ins used in the project! This limitation still exists in a 64-bit OS (e.g. Mac OS X 10.6 or Windows 7/64), as long as you run your DAW in 32-bit mode. Only if you run both operating system and DAW in 64-bit, you will have full access to any system memory larger than 2 GB. For more details, see this interview with Celemony's software architect Carsten Gehle.

Here is some technical background info in order to explain why some DAWs may behave instable, particularly when hosting any memory-hungry plug-ins, e.g. sample players — or Melodyne. Generally speaking, the more notes you transfer to Melodyne, the more system memory Melodyne will need. The total length of the passages transferred is therefore not as crucial as their musical content: a numerousness of fast and short notes will require more RAM than a few sustaining notes.

To find out if your song already touches the 2 GB limit, you can look up the memory requirements in the utilities Activity Monitor (Mac) or TaskManager (Windows), respectively. Keep an eye on the RAM load that is listed there for your DAW (i.e. not on the total amount of RAM). If the DAW process makes towards 2 GB, you may expect stability issues.

As a remedy, you can reduce the RAM load by working with a copy of your song and:

• transfer only those passages to Melodyne that you really wish to edit
• save tracks that have plug-ins (Melodyne or sampler plug-ins) involved to a new track by utilizing your DAW's bouncing/rendering/mixdown function, and remove them from the channel's inserts

Furthermore, some DAWs will have a growing RAM usage simply because you are using them over hours. Therefore it's a good idea to save, quit, and restart your DAW from time to time. This might noticeably increase the available amount of RAM.

See also our FAQ > Melodyne and my computer > Can Melodyne open files of any size or is this determined by the amount of available RAM?

Have I got a proper audio interface and driver?
All Melodyne products require one of the professional audio driver formats ASIO (Windows), Core Audio (Mac) or, under Pro Tools, a direct integration of proprietary audio interfaces. We recommend that you use high-quality hardware that supports one of these driver formats.

If you are on a Windows system and your soundcard does not come with an ASIO driver, you could try ASIO4ALL as a temporary workaround. But please be aware that a software solution like this does not turn your internal soundcard into a professional audio interface for music production. If possible, use some ASIO-compatible audio hardware. Also, we do not recommend DirectX or MME as your driver formats under Windows.

Under Mac OS X, you may well use the internal audio output of your Apple computer for audio playback. However, depending on your DAW, recording via the internal audio input is only possible with a workaround (by configuring a corresponding Aggregate Device in the Audio MIDI Setup utility).

What is the correct audio buffer size?
For Melodyne editor, assistant and essential we recommend that you set the buffer size of your audio interface to 1,024 samples. This way, Melodyne will have sufficient headroom for its CPU usage, and you will avoid any unwanted issues during playback.

If you are working with Melodyne studio and the MelodyneBridge, we recommend a buffer size of 256 samples; for ReWire operation, 512 samples are an optimal setting.

Should you need to set smaller buffer size values, e.g. when doing the headphone mix directly in your computer and not via an external channel strip or mixer, bypass all Melodyne instances while tracking. Switch Melodyne back on when you start editing your new tracks.

What is the correct setting of processing threads (or RTAS processors, respectively)?
In some DAWs, you can optionally set the maximum number of processing threads (in Pro Tools this is called RTAS processors or Host Processors; Processing Threads in Logic; CPU Cores in Studio One). If your DAW regularly comes up with error messages, try reducing the number of threads.

How do I draft a bug report?
If Melodyne causes any problems, what would greatly assist us would be a precise and comprehending description of the issue. In the best of cases we will be able to reproduce your issue on our systems and track down the underlying problem.

The following pieces of information are relevant:

1. Problem description
Summary: Please describe the malfunction as concisely as possible.
Step by step: Is there a particular order of actions that led up to the error or that still leads up to it when you reproduce the issue?
Reproducibility: Can you reproduce the issue or did it happen only once?

2. Details of your configuration
Which kind of computer and operating system do you use? Which Melodyne edition and version is this (see the Melodyne preferences or the About menu), which DAW and version, which audio interface? What are your audio driver settings (e.g. buffer size)? How much RAM have you got?

3. Attachments
If possible, attach example files or songs with which we can reproduce the issue. You may want to use a file hosting service like yousendit.com. Screen shots or a screen capturing video could also be helpful (and often make a faster explanation than a long text description). And if Melodyne did crash, please attach a crash log.

Here is an example of a meaningful bug report:

Where do I find crash logs?
If Melodyne crashes, a crash log is automatically generated that contains information about where in the program a possible conflict with other applications or your operating system took place. This crash log may be useful for bug tracking, but it does not replace a good problem description. So please make sure that you also draft a bug report.

Crash logs are particularly useful to us, when a DAW has crashed on a Mac or when the stand-alone variant of Melodyne has crashed on a Mac or a Windows PC. It doesn't help us though when a DAW has crashed under Windows.

Each crash generates a unique crash log, so please find the "right" one that matches your bug report. You can identify the correct file by the date and time of the crash, so you may want to jot down this info when a crash occurs.

You can find the crash logs at the following directories:

Mac OS X
User/<your name>/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/

Whenever Melodyne stand-alone crashes, look for a file named Melodyne editor_XX_YY.crash, where XX stands for the date of the crash and YY stands for the name of your Mac.

When Melodyne crashes while being used as a plug-in, it won't create its own crash log, but your host sequencer most likely will crash along with Melodyne. This will give you a crash log named something like Pro Tools HD_xx.crash (or whatever host you are using), which can again be found in the CrashReporter directory mentioned above.

Windows
Whenever the DAW crashes under Windows, you don't need to look for the log file, since it won't give us any useful information. If Melodyne stand-alone crashes, it will write a log file with the name GNMiniDump.dmp. These log files are stored in the following directory:

Vista/Win 7 (German or English):
C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Local\Temp\Celemony

Win XP, English:
C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Local Settings\Temp\Celemony

Win XP, German:
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\<UserName>\Lokale Einstellungen\Temp\Celemony