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Until last night I had not even installed the Melodyne Essentials RTAS that came bundled with PT Le. But my daughter had to use it at her internship and she commented that it might be useful on a couple of tweaks on a CD she is going to help me mix.

So I get it installed and tighten up the intonation on a trumpet part, and I'm impressed. I wasn't making large changes, but it was very transparent and worked well. So I decided to give it the acid test: a version of me singing Tear Stained Eye that has never been heard in public. Kind of embarrassing to see the pitch analysis, but it didn't tell me anything that my ears didn't. Well, I tweaked a verse of it in about an hour - learning the interface as I went. Very impressive. A big improvement. Some artifacts (more on that below) but they are less annoying than the uncertain pitch.

Anyway, I can see how once you start using this it can get addictive. Its clearly a serious tool - with the potential to be overused.

So anyway, I thought I'd open up a thread on Melodyne
1. Any tips on minimizing artifacts - when to use it - when not to use it.
2. Any comments on the various packages? Essentials does a lot of what I expect out of a pitch correction plug. Alice was telling me how the "Studio" package has some tools for mitigating artifacts. I'll have to talk to her later today. Have you used the features in the more expensive packages?
3. Any comments on other pitch corrections packages? I used some demo units years ago and they put me off of pitch correction to the point where I had not bothered to install Melodyne for a year.

Comments

BobRogers Sun, 06/20/2010 - 18:30

Yeah, I have the Essentials RTAS which works as a pluin with PT. It's a different type of work flow. You transfer a track or part of a track into Melodyne and then edit within Melodyne while the sound flows thought the other PT plugs and the PT mix. I have not tried to switch back to editing within PT.

According to the literature, the Assistant has more features for working with mono material. The Editor will do the polyphonic DNA stuff. (As will the top of the line Studio. I have not really figured out the extra features in the studio.) They claim the DNA can do things like pick out badly tuned notes on a piano, individual notes/voices in a choir or wind ensemble. I can mostly see it being useful on mono tracks, but i'll have to see what the real street prices are for the upgrades. The Essential does an awful lot. I'm hoping someone chimes in with some comparisons between the packages.