Melodyne Uno

[Marketta Filipovich]

Ifyou think about how Melodyne operated pre-ARA integration it's an insert effect which you then had to 'record' the audio into by playing it all the way through with Melodyne in record mode. Obvously this was quite long winded and ARA is a massive time saver but essentailly under the hood the same process is still happening.

Your Meoldyned Audio is not in Cakewalk. Like you say Melodyne has "phantom copy " that it is working with and Cakewalk is just telling Melodyne to play along with the DAW. Therefore you can't expect Cakewalk's recording functions to control anything within Melodyne. They are two separate things.

Yes, you track, comp and add Melodyne and if part of the Melodyne track is not right after all of that, be it a single sibilance, syllable, word phrase or line, you repeat the process for that purpose.

I cut my teeth recording with tape and syncing it to a computer based sequencer with a SMPTE timecode box , you had one or two tracks to record your vocals and if you wanted to do a new part you had to record over what was already there and hope you did a better job. Autotune and the like had not been invented and if you wanted compression or reverb or delay you had to spend hundreds per unit for the hardware.

I remember buying Autotune and it wouldn't run on my studio PC as it was a 486 and a Pentium was needed, another costly upgrade. We have it pretty easy these days, sometimes things don't quite work how we think but there are often reasons for it.

Yes it's a bit of a workaround but ARA is an open standard used my multiple DAWs so I don't think Cakewalk can make it do what you want it to regardless of if they decided it was a good idea or not as it's the plugin that's dealing with the audio not Cakewalk.

I think it would be useful to have Melodyned tracks behave the way you suggest, but because Melodyne can be somewhat fiddly in various ways (although its implementation has improved since ARA2 arrived) I do think it's advisable to render in situations like yours. What I do, which Cakewalk makes easy, is copy the Melodyne clips to another track, archive that track, and send it to a folder (named "arc") where I send many, many archived tracks over the course of a project. Then, if I want to adjust the melodyne, it is usually fairly straightforward to retrieve that clip and work with it on the main track again. Melodyne (and other ARA effects) are generally just very complicated and best approached with a degree of caution.

This is addressed for the next release. Its not a bug as such but was a missing case. Melodyne or any ARA plugin pre reads the audio and streams it as needed.

I've now added special handling for ARA plugins to mute their output during override recording and comping.

I consider Melodyne as a mixing tool used after all vocal performances are tracked. I do all vocal comps and render them to one cohesive take before processing the vocals with EQ/Comp etc. etc. before I even consider Melodyne.

For me it comes down to time and practicality and workflow. Those must always take precedent over using Melodyne as one would use WavesTune in real time pitch correction that would remain in RAM memory until it's rendered or discarded.

Melodyne for me has always been treated as a correctional tool and It terrifies me to imagine running it on every single vocal take and harmony during the tracking phase. Trying to impose a functionality onto any plugin that cannot save me time/stress or adds to the song something that cannot be done with anything else is a risky situation so I always archive all original unedited tracks and hide them to the background for those moments something goes horribly wrong.

When an album is due and the pressures from all facets of the band and their backers are plotting to kill you if the production is sloppy, all due to distractions, you learn what tools do the best that they are designed to do, and how to do it the fastest, least stressful and will repeat those commands reliably every single time.

This is addressed for the next release. Its not a bug as such but was a missing case. Melodyne or any ARA plugin pre reads the audio and streams it as needed.

I've now added special handling for ARA plugins to mute their output during override recording and comping.

PSA: This is likely a user error here - I've been having way more trouble with timing in Melodyne than normal lately. I finally just noticed that my time grid in melodyne is out of sync with the grid in my Pro Tools session.

I'm definitely not an expert in melodyne but I've now learned that when there's no tempo listed in the window (next to where my screenshots above show A Minor), then doing any pocketing or timing edits that need a grid are extremely difficult :)

I have no clue if this is related to the faster-than-realtime import of audio from this script, or some other user error on my part. In testing, when I "transfered" the audio manually in melodyne, the grid syncs right up. So an easy fix if anyone else runs in to this after using Andrew's script is to manually transfer a small portion of the track in for melodyne to sync up to the session's tempo.

Thanks for that, that's very weird. Personally I never use Melodyne's grid so I never noticed this. It must have something to do with eh faster than real time transfer, but I'm not sure it could be anything to do with the script, just a Melodyne thing. And good workaround too!

Melodyne hotkeys depends of keyboard layout - if you switch to other layout, you can hit a key (q for example) even if Focus is on Melodyne, after pressing Q Cubase will react (this happened only if not english keyboard layout activated. Russian ex.)

I just found this post but wanted to add my own experience with this to the conversation. Loss of data here too quite randomly but possibly either from a change of project name (save as) or track versions.

Track Visibility (Tracks will dissappear in melodyne side bar then become uneditable)

Track Versions (this can cause corrupt data after saves or confuse melodyne)

Save as (renaming the project under a different name - even adding 1 character)

Just a short update - I have compiled all the threads about this data loss issue (scattered across the forum in multiple posts!) into one PM that Martin J has now forwarded to the ARA testing/development team directly at Steinberg. Fingers crossed we get this looked at urgently for the next update. Many thanks to Martin for this and for everyone posting about their own troubles.

I've been doing more and more projects that call for fairly intensive pitch editing, so I decided to take upgrade from Melodyne editor to Melodyne studio. I love the idea of multi-track pitch correction and the visual representation that Melodyne offers seems ideal. But after spending the evening working in ARA, I came in the next morning, opened my session and was greeted with this error: "The document loaded was corrupted and has been repaired automatically...." All my work was gone.

My real need, is to quickly latch onto a pitch correction solution that is rock solid and offers an intuitive and flexible workflow. I'm on a deadline and the client is becoming a little restless. I'm guessing you all can understand

Barring any quick fix to my ARA issue, I'm wondering if any kind soul here might recommend a workflow using Melodyne (or any pitch correction software) that would allow me to quickly and intuitively pitch correct vocals and instruments in a way that is fluid and flexible. If I had the time to try out all the potential workflows (non-ARA, stand-alone, bouncing, etc.) I would, but I'm producing under a time crunch, so would really appreciate any guidance from those who do this every day!

- for single vocals lines like a lead I'll bounce a comp from multiple take regions, import that to Melodyne, do the work, and then bip (bounce-in-place) that. If I need to adjust something after that I can just re-import the raw audio into Melodyne, do the fix, and put that in position on the main bipped vocal track.

- backing tends to be in groups as well, so I'll have Melodyne on, say, the first lot of backing for the chorus, do the work on those (and yes, Studio is great for seeing the timing of all the parts), bip all those, move on to the next bit. Saving all the time, obviously.. but bouncing the fixed parts all the time.

My advice is don't use ARA. Play the file into Melodyne the old fashioned way. That always works. ARA is sketchy at best. I've lost work to it, and in the long run, it's quicker just to play the file into Melodyne.

I would argue that it doesn't matter how you import the audio (although obviously ARA is almost instantaneous) Melodyne it is equally (un)stable (forgets your edits) in either mode. Just create a process to bounce out your fixes as quick as you can.

...FWIW...I use Melodyne extensive for all sorts of reasons and haven't lost anything for several years. Before I figured out how to avoid having all the edits trashed my outcome/situation sounded much like what you describe.

"Ok then, the disclaimers: I have the full studio, but I don't think that matters. I don't work off line at all, I was just never very successful with that approach. I work mostly with full tracks/stems in place, and the material recently has been on basement/rehearsal/demo/live compositions done with marginal recording equipment and expertise. The saving grace has been that the performance/musicianship has been excellent. The following I've worked out based on trial/error/etc., utube, and available docs. Mostly T&E.

Because I am just starting out, I don't yet have these "rules" ingrained, so the possibility of making a mistake and losing work/time is great. Perhaps too great for me right now, with looming deadlines. But I really appreciate the guidance and am happy to hear that there are work-arounds, that if memorized and adhered to, make it useable!

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