I have a client that feels she must have Melodyne pitch correction for her project she is doing at my studio. We are not an "in the box" studio. We use Radar 24's as our recording medium and use Yamaha O2R96's as our consoles. Is there a Melodyne product, and or interface that will allow me to incorporate Melodyne pitch correction into my studio? A stand alone unit? We don't use plug ins..We use analog pre's,EQ's, compressors, etc....Old school.....
Please advise.
Thank You

Scott T.

I have a similar issue. I sent you a PM, but just in case that doesn't get through:

For me, I export the entire vocal track as a .wav file, edit the pitch in the standalone app, and then return the file back to the multitrack recorder. I make sure I export the file as a stem, with leading silence before the vocal comes in... That way I don't have to try to line up the file in the same place as where I took it. I'm not familiar with the Radar24 capabilities. Your mileage may vary.

I have some issues with that workflow, though. Here's the thread for that discussion:
http://www.celemony.com/userforum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9432

Thanks for the info Dr2. Which version of Melodyne do you use. Is essential enough, or should I get the next one up? I read your earlier post about listening to your exported wave file "out of context" with the track. Any pointers on how you are dealing with this issue?
Thank you.
SJT

I have the "Essential" package. I think for most vocalists who can get close to the right pitch, it would be enough. I guess it depends on your client and what she is expecting you to do. If she is so far off the mark that she "must have" this type of correction, then it's tough to say.

Some of this won't mean too much to you unless you've tried the demo.. so I'd suggest doing that. There's nothing quite like hands-on with this product. Be aware, though... the demo is the "Editor" level package that includes all functions. I got used to the dedicated tools in the demo and was rather disappointed to be without them in the product I bought.

* I'm able to modify pitch and "pitch drift" in the Essential version, but not able to modify the vibrato ( called "Pitch Modulation"). I would have called this one of the essential tools for pitch correction, but apparently Celemony does not agree.
You also don't have the amplitude tool (volume), but I expect that has been suitably resolved by compressing during tracking . I can see it quite important in more advanced functions, but not so much for vocal processing.

* I'm also able to move the notes forward/backward in time, and move the note transitions around, but Essential doesn't give you control over the "speed" of the transition. The default transition speed seems to be natural sounding, however. Even when I chopped a word in half and dropped the note by a third... it still sounded natural. I haven't felt the need for this control with the 3 vocal tracks I've tested it with. Again, you'll have to play with the demo a bit to see what I mean here.

I would suspect that it might be more of a benefit if I was trying to line up some background vocal parts.

re: "I read your earlier post about listening to your exported wave file "out of context" with the track. Any pointers on how you are dealing with this issue?"

It appears that none of the 3 levels of the standalone software resolve this, so it's not a matter of which one to buy. Here are the ways I've attempted to deal with it.

* Idea 1: While playing the rest of the mix (minus vocals) on my multitrack, I've stepped through the vocal parts using the right arrow key in Melodyne. If there are lots of short notes, this is so choppy it's hard to listen to.
So in that scenario, I use the arrows to get close to "in sync", then I can press the space bar to let them "play" together. It's very dis-jointed sounding, as I'm always at least a quarter-second off it seems. But it can let me know when a part doesn't fit pitch-wise.

* Idea 2: Park the multitrack at a point just before the section I want to play. Set the timeline in Melodyne to show "seconds", and select the same spot on the computer running Melodyne. Press play on both at the same time. You can imagine it's just about as dis-jointed sounding as the previous idea.

* #3. Get the client to come back in and play his keyboard part while I play the vocal part in Melodyne and verify that the parts are sung in the right key. This was a bit frustrating for both of us, as I would have to explain which part of the song I was in, and ask him to play from "x". But the up-side is that he was there to verify the edits anyway. So I might as well give him something to do.

As you can see, these 3 ideas can help you with basic pitch issues, but without an accurate sync, you have no idea if the timing is right. In fact, the timing has always felt wrong until I copied the file back to the multitrack and got real synchronization.

* #4. In the other thread I referred to, a user named creater came up with a workaround that allows you to hear timing issues as well. It's about the best workaround yet, but it does create a lot more work.

For instance:
Let's say you want to modify a lead vocal and 3 BGV's. I make a rough mix of the song minus vocals - Kick and Snare are extra hot for timing purposes, and also the lead melodic instrument up a bit (keys/guitar) to verify pitch.

Make a mono version of that rough mix... then copy that file and the lead vocal track into Melodyne using creater's trick. Aligning the 2 tracks can take some time... Once I have the lead vocal fixed, I fly that back to the multitrack and do another rough mix. This time with the lead vocal in it.
Now load that rough mix and the first BGV track into Melodyne and process that one. Now you have enough information to get the timing right on the first of the background vocals.

Repeat for every BGV part. (Grab some junk food boys, it's going to be a long night)

Bottom line: Yes, you can work with this client. If she's used to lots of vocal fixing on the computer, she'll probably not have too much sticker shock when you take an extra hour per song to fix her vocals.

I'm pretty sure that the Celemony designers didn't mean for the workflow to be this arduous. Making this code run as a standalone was a brilliant idea, just not followed through with practical use testing.

So I'll make my plea again.
Dear Celemony:
Please, just output MIDI machine control in this application when used as a standalone. Maybe even make it so it only outputs MMC when I press the space bar, but if I double-click, it runs by itself? You cannot do timing modifications without a reference, and this is the easiest/best way to accomplish it.

-unless of course MMC isn't the standard anymore. Is there a better way to sync up the majority of hardware these days?

Yes, I realize Melodyne started as a plug-in. But obviously someone realized the need to make it available as a standalone for those of us without DAWs or for un-supported software. Just finish the equation, please. It's so close..

Thanks for the info. I cam e up with similar "fixes" to listen to roughs with the vocal and then fly it back to multitrack. To be honest, I think I am just going to go back to my good ol rack mounted Antares and call it good. If Melodyne stand alone ever synchs, it willl be way more usable in a recording situation such as mine. We'll see what the client thinks about that, but my Antares hasn't failed me yet. SJT