Melodyne Soloing/Muting Needs Fixing

[RexRed]

I was so excited to read that the soloing aspect of Cakewalk got some work done only to find that the only problem I have with soloing tracks did not get fixed.

I never freeze or bounce Melodyne tracks, I just leave them with Melodyne on them. I put Melodyne on the entire vocal track and a number of other tracks too.

A really big problem is when tracking with a Melodyne take in a track.

When I want to redo a vocal phrase in the Melodyne take, the way things should work is, I arm the track and hit "r"

it should mute the Melodyne take while/where I am recording the new take.

Instead, it plays both takes, the take I am recording and the Melodyne take are both heard.

When I mute the Melodyne take it does not mute, it just keeps sounding during the record segment.

If I comp and isolate the Melodyne clip I want to replace right click and mute that section of the Melodyne clip, it still plays while Cakewalk is recording...

The only way to get the Melodyne clip/take to mute is delete it or move it to another track and mute that track. This is a really convoluted way to have to do this. 

When a Melodyne take clip is muted it should not be heard during record.

When a Melodyne take is not muted but only a comped segment of the Melodyne take is muted it should not be audible while recording in that track.

Currently Melodyne clips are audible "during record" no matter how you try and silence them.

I hope this can get fixed soon, it is a humble request of mine.

Thank you. ?

 

A  side note:

My guess is that Melodyne has a phantom copy of the track it holds in its memory.

When you mute the Melodyne track it unmutes the phantom copy.

V-Vocal used to do this also, it always had a muted copy accompanying each clip.

If you muted the clip it unmuted the muted clip under it.

I'm not sure if this is right but it is just a thought.

Edited November 6, 2021 by RexRed

[RexRed]

I just got another update, still no fix yet...  

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

7 hours ago, RexRed said:

I just got another update, still no fix yet...  

Yeah...frustrating as it might be, it's not really a 'fault' ....it's working as intended.  

If you 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.

Personally I see this as more of a workflow issue.  When I was taught by experienced engineers the typical order of things when working with a vocalist might be :-

 1. Record Guide Vocal ( i.e. lead from top to bottom..get levels right etc..relax singer )

 2. Record multiple alternate takes ( this is where your singer can try different techniques for different lines etc ..I usually go for 3 - 5 takes depending on the singer )

3. Pick the best lines of each take  and comp a quick lead vocal track from above

4. LIsten through and then puch in any parts you think can be improved

5. Once you have all the best bits comped and have dropped in any overdubs you should have  a good overall final vocal track

6. With the recording session over you would then go through your lead vocal with various tools and fix / enhance so this includes timing edits, volume / gain automation etc.

7. Once that's done you'd normally sort out any tuning issues using Melodye as you'd have the entire final vocal take to work with.

8. Render / Bounce a copy of the Melodyned vocal and complete the mix as normal.

 

[RexRed]

Thanks for your reply Mark MoreThan-Shaw,

You seem to have omitted a step between 7 and 8.

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.

If Cakewalk can mute a track with Melodyne in it it should be able to mute a segment of a track when record is punched in.

It would need to trick Melodyne by temporarily using a second track to record the segment and then using an automatic script  place it into the track replacing the take or muting the take.

If it can be done manually then that process can be automated.

A toggle would decide if the take mutes Melodyne and other unmuted takes.

The take mute function when Melodyne is present needs to be on a track level not a take level. All take mutes could theoretically be on a track level.

Melodyne clips do not sound when the track is muted and one is recording in another track.

So this should be possible to do.   

 Workflows would be nice if they idealistically only flowed in one direction but the reality is if you want your song to be right you have to sometimes often go back and repeat certain steps.

Just like mixes, if the mix is not right you can master it anyway and release sub-par music or insist the mix be fixed...

I personally prefer the latter.

Edited November 12, 2021 by RexRed
typos

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

5 hours ago, RexRed said:

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.

To try and and do it your way I'd probably duplicate the entitre track ( keep the orignal just in case ), render it to audio , then work with the new audio track and punch in as normal. 

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.

[RexRed]

Hello Mark, thanks again for the comment.

I also remember the days of SMPTE time code on an 8 track Fostex reel to reel. 

And before then working on a Commodore 64 with Mastertracks till Cakewalk for MSDOS came along.

My music productions sucked back then. lol

I tend to think this can be done without modifying the ARA standard.

If a Melodyne/Cakewalk "track" can be muted and stay silent while other tracks are recorded then the same characteristics need to be applied to takes containing Melodyne.

Cakewalk needs to allow not only takes within tracks but also tracks within tracks.

There is a logistical way this could be remedied.

And how are other DAWS dealing with this issue?

If the ARA standard is universal that is all the more reason to have the ARA standard "improved/modified".

Other DAWS must be suffering from the same problem then.

I still haven't figured out how to duplicate a track folder yet, rather, I have not experimented with that yet..

Moving a Melodyne segment to another track and muting that track seems to be the solution now, duplicating a Melodyne track might confuse Melodyne uncertain of the outcome. 

I am not sure why Cakewalk can't move these segments to another track for us while muting that secondary track.

The main problem is muting Melodyne so it is not heard during the record process.  If that can be achieved then that would be very helpful.

During record it visually mutes the overlapping Melodyne take but Melodyne it is still heard. 

It already mutes the Melodyne section during playback just not during the record process.  If the Melodyne section can be muted during playback why would it not be possible to mute it during record?

There has got to be a way of routing Melodyne away from outputs during record. 

Edited November 14, 2021 by RexRed

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

16 hours ago, RexRed said:

There has got to be a way of routing Melodyne away from outputs during record. 

I don't think it's as straight forward as that  - you're not only muting the existing audio but overwriting what is held in Melodyne's cache and then re-processing it

It seems this would be complicated for it to do ( i.e. will it overdub/replace or merge audio ..how will you handle regions that overlap etc ..when will it re-process the new audio )

One of the Devs like @msmcleod will probbaly have a much clearer insight to the inner workings .  Maybe these are good suggestions for ARA3 .....if they ever make one. 

[RexRed]

Mark, you have provided a lot of great insight in your replies, thanks for your effort here.

I have been a bit muddled in my request here.

 It seem I have been asking for things to work the way one might think they would.

But due to complex factors that is clearly not as easy as it seems.

If I could clarify my greatest need here...

That need is to be able to simply mute Melodyne during record.

I can manually insert a record take into the take myself.

When I mute a Melodyne clip and record a separate  take in the same track it simply does not mute.

That is what I need fixed.

When I mute a Melodyne take and hit record it does not mute when I am recording in the same track. 

Punching in a clip automatically is secondary to the Melodyne muting problem.

Please find a way to make Melodyne mute work. When a Melodyne clips is muted it simply should not be heard.

I hope this clarifies this request.

I am aware there is complexity involved here and that complexity supersedes my own knowledge of how this all works.

I simply need mute to work as it seems it should. 

Thanks. ?

Edited November 23, 2021 by RexRed

[John Vere]

Your situation only verifies why most peoples workflow with Melodyne is as follows 

1. work with a copy of the original 

2. work with short clips 

3. Render the clip when finished 

This solves all of your issues. First if you don’t like what Melodyne did to a clip after rendering it’s a 2 second deal to grab a copy of the original and try again. There’s no reason to be afraid of committing a clip. 
If that isn’t working because the issue with that clip is not fixable with Melodyne then easy to re record that one clip. 
I think you’re workflow is not very common so therefore the developers won’t be to excited about fixing it. 

[white flowers]

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.

But yes, I hope that further work on ARA implementation is a priority for developers on all sides. It has come a long way, and I believe it will keep improving.

[Noel Borthwick]

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.

[Clovis Ramsay]

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.  

[RexRed]

WOW! They addressed this issue!

Now Melodyne mutes for recording additional takes!

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! 

I can't belive this, I am pinching myself and jumping all around with glee!

This is huge help and Calewalk also seems more responsive.

I noticed you updated ARA 2! 

Cakewalk is so completely and totally awesome!!!!!! 

Edited December 13, 2021 by RexRed

[RexRed]

On 12/3/2021 at 11:55 AM, Noel Borthwick said:

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.

Many thanks for this very useful addition to the software. 

Now there is a perfectly uninterrupted flow to spontaneous creativity.

Best to you!