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Hello Herb, Before I bought my Melodyne Editor DNA, I went through lesser versions of Melodyne, so my referral to Melodyne Bridge relates to those versions. (Cre8 and Studio) Most audio transposing tools I use (not just Melodyne) offer formant control. While perhaps useable for gentle vocal fixes within a few cents, it makes transposition results far, far worse once serious semitone distances are involved. Having tested in detail what it can offer long ago, I avoid it like ebola. If it works for you for vocal autotuning and subtle harmonies (something I don't do, so I can't comment on ... nice song, congratulations) - wonderful, at least you have a use for it.  Yes...as long as you use anything within it's designed purposes, things work well. I don't think there is a program yet that can transpose vocals half an octave in either direction and have them sound natural. Currently, even the best we have now imparts very noticeable artifacts. Even in the demo video's for melodyne, they rush past those female to male vocal changes with melodyne because to the discerning ear, the artifacts are glaring. The better way to work would be to get a singer who sings in the range needed rather than to try to move some other singer's track that far. Even Band in a box, with it's sampled lines, uses parts recorded in various keys so that the transposition from it's native key to the key you select is only a few semi-tones at most. I have even started the habit of checking the native key of certain parts before I select my song's key, for that very reason so that BiaB doesn't have to transpose at all. And there are times when you can hear artifacts in the music from the key change. That doesn't make Biab or Melodyne or any other program a piece of junk if I'm using it out of it's designed purposes.....it simply means that I need to work to find a better way to accomplish my intended purposes with music. And yes, my intention with Melodyne is to use it manually, not in auto mode, so I can control precisely what it does. And most of the time it's used to tune or edit notes that are 99% there already or the timing, or other things like vibrato, or levels, that are well within it's design characteristics and abilities to edit without audible artifacts. And it does that job exceedingly well.
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 02/22/15 02:08 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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I don't think there is a program yet that can transpose vocals half an octave in either direction and have them sound natural. Hello Guitarhacker, Perhaps you did not listen to the 1:30 sonic comparison I posted earlier in this discussion? Or maybe its 1-bar clips were spliced in too fast succession to tell apart easily what's what. Vocal comparison (14 MB wav). Of its four 4-clip groups (clip order, repeatedly: 1.Untransposed/2.Melodyned/3.Abletoned/4.Heliconed clip) 3 out of 4 groups shows a useable 6 semitone transposition, always the third clip of the group. Which is Ableton's. So technology can do the task (mostly). Just not its Melodyne-labeled variety. And that's just solo vocals, the finicky stuff. In fact, while I type this, I'm transposing (bending) a whole brass section up and down in Ableton 2 whole octaves (total distance: 4 octaves) creating falls and slides that would make an all-star big band proud. :-)
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The clip... to be honest, and yes, I did listen to it several times, I could not figure out what was what on that clip. nothing was consistent. a better way to do that experiment would be to have a noticeable break between the various techniques used.......Even better would have been to have a voice stating... "the following clip is natural" followed by the natural clip....than a short silent break, then playing the exact same clip again with the next effect... and the voice stating... the following clip is melodyne, .... the next clip is Ableton, .... the next clip is Helicon.....
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 02/23/15 01:50 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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I'm a nube on this board, but I've been recording at "Rock County Sound" since I started in the 80's with matched Tascam M32 and M38 using a sync track on channel 8 to control Cakewalk MIDI playback. I have never been sorry that I had another arrow in my quiver. I've used an older Antares, V-vocal, and T.C. Helicon (Still use VL3 in live single performance). To me Melodyne is very intuitive, and very deep. Of course in the last two iterations of Sonar it is so closely integrated that you don't have to do the "recording of the track" thing that was described. You would never lose results without using a sledgehammer on your setup.  Opening up software like this for the first time is like being handed a guitar or a paint brush. Your first efforts are likely to be crap. I'm a guy who at one time had to spend an hour editing five seconds of raw waveform, so don't go by me. Sometimes for a month I don't want to do anything but play my guitar and howl at the moon, so don't go by me. I get the different points of view. This thread expresses them well, but we can't know how well they apply to the OP, and that is the most important thing. My advice would be "don't give up on Melodyne so soon. It can help with the specific issues that you described in your first post." One full day with one full pot of coffee could make you happier with your recordings for years to come. This is a little like discussing cumin. Should we never use it in our recipes? Should we always? Is cardamom waaay better? I prefer to have access to the entire spice rack, but sometimes I think nothing could taste better than fresh peas eaten out of the pod on the front deck of a sailboat, with no land in sight. De gustibus non disputandum est.
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Carolyne, there's lots of YT vids showing exactly how ME works. Here's one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiW6XVFeFgoHere's another one but using Studio One as a DAW. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyeWpfGfDWAThis is very cool because Studio One fully integrates ME into itself and I don't think any other DAW does that. Plus the author of this series of vids is a member here but I've not seem him post lately. There are about 8 or 10 vids in the series and you should watch them all. Studio One is very affordable and they include the basic version of ME in the price and give you a discount for the full version. There are a lot of misconceptions about the use of ME. It's easy for someone who's never used it to make comments about how using pitch correction is faking vocals and they never did that in the old days, yaddayaddayadda. Forget that, it's a very important tool that you should have and understand. Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Yup... there's a lot of horsepower in ME. You really have to take some time to learn the commands and be willing to spend the time to then apply those commands and functions.
It integrates in a very similar manner in any full featured DAW. I use it in Sonar and it works extremely well in there.
The more you learn about it, the better your results become.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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As far as I know, Studio One and Sonar are the only major DAWs that have full ARA integration with Melodyne.
To get the benefit of full ARA integration with Sonar, you should insert it as a "region effect", not in the effects bin.
I use mostly Sonar, but I have played with Studio One, and it is a very good DAW and a great value.
I'm not a fan boy. I'll use whatever comes out that seems better than melodyne to me without a backward glance.
Carolyne, I hope it doesn't seem like we are browbeating you. It's just that as I re-read your earlier comments on this thread, melodyne would be a very on the mark solution to your stated issue.
Last edited by D'POP; 03/23/15 02:05 AM.
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As far as I know, Studio One and Sonar are the only major DAWs that have full ARA integration with Melodyne.
To get the benefit of full ARA integration with Sonar, you should insert it as a "region effect", not in the effects bin. Very cool. I had to go and read up on what this actually meant. Apparently, there's been some nice work being done to make things easier and faster. I doubt that the full ARA integration thing will work for me as I still operate on X1.... but it's nice to see they aren't setting on their proverbial hands while time marches on.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Janice and I were hiking in our local National Forest yesterday and on the way home we listened to Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and this topic came to mind. Just sayin'  Yeah, yeah, I know the answer. If they'd had this technology they would have spent less time in the studio. Still....just sayin'.
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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As far as I know, Studio One and Sonar are the only major DAWs that have full ARA integration with Melodyne. Tracktion versions 5 & 6 has embedded Melodyne with full ARA intergration. Version 6 embeds ElasticPro too.
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Guys, I really tried to get Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday to work with me in my studio. I failed. My goal is to get the voices in my head to come out of speakers. The medication seems to do this, but only for me. So I will do whatever I can, by hook or by crook, to get the sounds I want. If this is cheating, so is a hammer, a wrench, a compressor stompbox, etc. Shameless in Rock County
Last edited by D'POP; 03/28/15 01:52 PM.
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Thanks for the info, Jim.
Have you any opinions about Tracktion itself as a DAW?
I've never used it.
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Guys, I really tried to get Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday to work with me in my studio. I failed. My goal is to get the voices in my head to come out of speakers. The medication seems to do this, but only for me. So I will do whatever I can, by hook or by crook, to get the sounds I want. If this is cheating, so is a hammer, a wrench, a compressor stompbox, etc. Shameless in Rock County Howdy, yup, it would be nice to have them in a studio -- actually it would be nice just to have singers like them around nowadays. I agree with you - my comments were meant to address the sometimes expressed notion that every singer can benefit from the product and should us it.
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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No we are not...but we are huge Billie Holliday fans so thanks for the heads up. We'll check it out this evening. J&B
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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