Autotune vs Melodyne

**bigtree** · 10-31-2011, 12:46 PM

I've been considering buying a pitch correction tool for a few years. What are the pro and cons with the current versions available? Which one is more transparent?

Autotune seems to create an artificial sound to the correction (at least to my min demo testing). I like it for the obvious effect but as far as it being transparent, I can instantly hear it. Using a $10,000 vocal chain and then plugging that in seems kind of insane. What do you guys do here? Am I not understanding how to make it transparent? I admit not putting enough time into it before the demo run out.

Does Melodyne work better? Can you tell its running , does it effect the sibilance ?

Also,
Can you get the infamous antares Autotune effect with Melodyne if you want it?

**Davedog** · 10-31-2011, 01:20 PM

I just put Melodyne Editor in the machine. I dont like autotune nor have I ever liked the antares effect thingy. I havent spent a lot of time on the Melodyne yet but when I ran a vocal track through it the other day as a test, the only way I knew it was on was to recall a duped track of the vocal. When it started phasing a bit I knew it was doing its job. I didnt notice any change in sibilance or in frequency response from the original and I didnt notice anything artificial about it. But thats not much to go on with a test. From what I hear from trusted sites, this is the program to have if you dont like the others. In November they are releasing something they call ARA...Audio Random Access. Supposedly it does away with the analysis step and allows you to simply use the tuner as a plug-in. Its already on the PreSonus DAW.....

**bigtree** · 10-31-2011, 01:34 PM

Good news Dave.

I didn't realize Melodyne wasn't a plug-in though. How do you do a correction to a track? Do you process it on its own and then import it into Pro Tools?

**Davedog** · 10-31-2011, 01:57 PM

Chris, in Pro Tools its a plug-in BUT you have to import the track for it to be analyized and then you fix it as much as you want. Then I believe you export the repaired areas or whole track back to your session. I think Bob is using this a bunch maybe he'll chime in. Its really easy and when all the other DAWs get on board for the ARA it'll really be a snap. I bought mine because I got 'essential' with my PT9 free so my upgrade was pretty cheap to Editor and when the new release comes in mid November to Editor II it'll be free.

**BobRogers** · 10-31-2011, 03:25 PM

I've been using Melodyne a lot. (Church singers singing through headphones for the first time.) It's much better than any other pitch correction software I'd tried. Yes, you can get artifacts if it is trying to fix someone who is sliding around trying to find pitch, but it does an amazing job most of the time. Very transparent - both on changing pitch and duration of notes. With a good singer you can just import the vocal, hit correct pitch, put the pitch correction to 85%, put the drift correction to 85%, and call it a day. You won't know you used it other than the harmonies are suddenly much tighter. It takes a bit of practice to do a great job on difficult notes - things like breaking the consonants and vowels of syllables can make a difference. (Don't change the pitch of the consonant - but fix the vowel.) The manual is good and the online tutorials are excellent.

As Dave says, in PT you can use it as a plugin. You transfer the passages you want to fix into Melodyne. Once in Melodyne the notes override the notes in your PT track (which stay in place unaffected). So you don't reimport them back into PT.

ARA would be a really nice feature. Melodyne is not seamlessly integrated as a plugin. Unlike other some other plugins you are clearly hopping back and forth between two distinct programs. Simple things - ctrl-z does not trigger undo when in Melodyne. I think that every crash I've had over the past year has come from trying to hop back and forth between PT and Melodyne. It has happened often enough that I have a rule always to save before going into Melodyne. It happens seldom enough that I eventually forget the rule and end up regretting it.

**RemyRAD** · 10-31-2011, 10:02 PM

I've always loved hearing their demonstrations at the AES. Truly remarkable but I can't say remarkable sounding because it doesn't make its own sound. It's one of the few pieces of software that really got my interest. I believe I have some kind of elementary version of that in my ProTools 7 series? They built a great deal of musicality into this software and beyond. I mean that sound of choking a chicken of auto-tune is still pretty cool when you want that. I actually used auto-tune version 3 once to fix an operatic soloist's single note that wasn't quite on the pitch. I was hesitant but rather amazed that there were no audible artifacts because he was at least close. So really I guess it just has to do with how many turkeys you'd normally have to work with?

Gobble gobble
Mx. Remy Ann David

**JohnTodd** · 11-01-2011, 03:23 AM

Not to hijack the thread - but Waves tune sounds better to me than Autotune. Less mechanical. Perfect for vocalist who are close to correct anyway. Sort of a light-duty goto plugin for light duty correction.

And Waves tune has "blobs" you can move around. It has to scan first and then it can correct or you can manually correct. Seemless VST.

**bigtree** · 11-01-2011, 04:24 PM

Thanks for the advice and opinions. Melodyne looks very cool. I found this video, but I wish it sounded a bit better, however, very impressive. The time stretching is incredible and bending.