Good news for V-Vocal users

[Craig Anderton]

You'll hear the difference not only in the bass itself, but in the overall clarity of the mix - beat note problems with bass seem particularly problematic, so eliminating them is a Good Thing.

[razor7music]

I'm coming late to the party, but just had to say, that ever since I went with the full version of Melodyne, I have not used V-Vocal once.

When V-Vocal was what I had, I was glad because I found it much better/easier to use than AutoTune. When AutoTune was all I had, I was glad I had that because it was much better than being out of pitch.

[gmp]

 I virtually never use pitch correction on my pro demo singers - no need to anymore than Paul McCartney or Paul Simon. I record a lot of independent artists for their album projects and they all need a lot of help.

 I record lots of vocal performances and pick out the best lines and then tune them up. I have a lot of patience and I enjoy bringing the best out of them and fortunately get paid by the hour to performs miracles. 

Pitch correction makes all the difference in the world in these situations.  I like a more organic natural sound, so my productions don't sound corrected, it just sounds like they nailed it.

[Grem]

I use Melodyne to help me get the best out of my vocals because I am not the best singer. And I want people to hear my songs.

 

I have people that I work with that don't need pitch correction.  But most do need timing correction.

Between Melodyne and Audiosnap/stretching features of CbB, I have it all covered. 

 

I am of the opinion to get/record the best performace possible first. Then you work from there. And we all are extremely fortune to have all the amazing tools at our disposal. 

[gmp]

Here's more important info for those still using V-Vocal.

After further testing I found that with 2019.03 and 2019.05 the first V-Vocal clip many times is a problem and after that it's fine. The problem can be a blank V-Vocal screen or a crash. 

I've found the best method is to first disconnect all softsynths in the Synth rack, save the CWP, close CbB, wait 6-10 sec then Double click the CWP. With this method I'm getting no crashes or blank screens with V-Vocal.

None of this may be necessary if you don't use any soft synths. In my situation I use a lot of soft synths and as long as they're disconnected V-Vocal behaves. I think it has something to do with old 32 bit plugins or programs only being able to use 4 Gigs of RAM even though you have a lot more RAM. 

The reason I think it's this is because when I disconnect all synths I end up with 3.8 gigs of RAM and V-Vocal works ok. With them connected I have 6.1 of RAM in use and V-Vocal crashes.

AS far as the pausing after closing CbB and then reopening. I think this is something that's universal with CbB. It seems to need a few seconds to gather itself before restarting CbB.

I experimented with how much pause is needed and for me using a fast SSD boot drive it's about 6 sec. If CbB is not open wait 10 sec more then Double click again, but don't repeatedly double click without pausing. I've done that and it can go on for minutes.

Once I've gotten past the initial crash or blank screen right after disconnecting softsynths, then I've had it do over 50 V-Vocal clips with no crash. So if you use my method above, you should almost never get a crash or blank screen.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 10, 2019 by gmp

[gmp]

Today is 7/23/19. I've found that 2019.05 is just as reliable as 2019.03 and have been using it for weeks and last night I installed all the latest Win Updates and used V-vocal for hours today with no crashes. So my method in the post above is working well

[Jim Roseberry]

On 5/20/2019 at 3:43 AM, Tezza said:

If you buying pitch correction software for yourself because your vocals sound crap, STOP! get a friggin decent singing teacher first!!!!!

Absolutely agree with this.

First class vocal instructor can make an incredible difference.

 

I "warm up" for about an hour on gig days.

It's made an incredible difference in my vocal agility/stamina. 

In short, don't be afraid to work your voice hard the day of a gig/recording.

Right before we go on, I do vocal "slides" up/down... to make sure the voice is ready.

[Jim Roseberry]

On 5/20/2019 at 4:01 PM, Craig Anderton said:

You'll hear the difference not only in the bass itself, but in the overall clarity of the mix - beat note problems with bass seem particularly problematic, so eliminating them is a Good Thing.

I'm a bit late to this thread... but it's good to have this confirmed.

 

I've been using Melodyne on bass tracks (to tighten up the pitch-center)... and to my ears it makes an audible difference.

I wish I could do the same with polyphonic guitar parts... but I find the polyphonic algorithm causes phasing issues.

[Jim Roseberry]

FWIW, When people rave about any plugin or program, they're virtually never talking about the "light" or entry-level version.

ie:  If a musician/engineer is raving about ProTools, they're not talking about ProTools Free.   ?

 

Melodyne Essentials is included with many DAW applications... and it-is-what-it-is... an entry-level intonation correction tool.

All entry-level products are essentially a "gateway" to the full version.   

If you need advanced intonation correction abilities (and most of us do), you're left with few options (none of which are low cost).

Thankfully, there's an upgrade path... and Celemony discounts several times a year.

 

Cubase's Vari-Audio (included with the full program) is fairly close to Melodyne. 

That's the best "no cost" option I've seen... and that's only helpful if you've got Cubase Pro.

[Pilutiful]

On 5/20/2019 at 6:45 PM, Craig Anderton said:

I always use pitch correction on bass. Bass strings violate the laws of physics; they simply can't be under enough tension to produce notes that low, yet still be part of a playable instrument that doesn't have a 7-foot-long fretboard. So the pitch varies wildly as the note sustains. I use Melodyne to flatten the notes past the initial pluck. 

Thanks for this nugget. Tried it and I'm surprised how much it helps on the overall clarity of my mix.

[sjoens]

Of course, bass plugins don't suffer from this. 

Old threads never die. they just get better & read more.

[Russell]

1 hour ago, sjoens said:

Of course, bass plugins don't suffer from this. 

Old threads never die. they just get better & read more.

Well this "old" thread taught me something new . . . Gonna try pitch correction on my bass tracks now . . .

[Craig Anderton]

19 hours ago, sjoens said:

Of course, bass plugins don't suffer from this. 

Old threads never die. they just get better & read more.

If they're modeled basses, no.  But if they're sampled, and left to decay instead of immediately going into a loop, this kind of pitch correction may make a major difference.

However, that assumes someone didn't apply this technique before assigning notes to keys. When I did the bass expansion packs for Rapture, I flatted the pitches with Melodyne. To this day, I still use those basses for almost all my keyboard bass parts because not having pitch inconsistencies really cleans up the low end. Even very slight mistunings can cause phantom beat notes, because the frequency is so low. 

[sjoens]

Just learned from Celemony that 64 bit Melodyne 4 won't work on my new 12th gen Intel i7 laptop. And for some reason CbB doesn't see vvocal on it either.

They specifically mention 10th & 11th gen Intel but I suspect every gen to follow will behave the same from now on.

Anyone else having issues like this?

[bitflipper]

You might be able to get a decent upgrade price on version 5. I think I paid about $150 (Studio edition). Version 5's levelling tool alone justifies the upgrade. A couple clicks and you've greatly reduced the amount of compression you need on vocals.

[sjoens]

I get why Celemony won't fix it as they've moved on, but... seems odd for Intel to break a 64 bit app and leave the 32 bit one alone.

Out of 99 scanned plugins, this is the only one failing.

[Xoo]

Not that surprising- I doubt the 32 bit "core" has changed in later revisions of the CPUs, whereas the 64 bit piece is what they're focussing on, so changes are more likely to be made (and I assume it's an unintentional breakage!).

[sjoens]

Well then...  for $29 I guess I shud jes shutup and upgrade. 

Edited November 28, 2022 by sjoens

[msmcleod]

2 hours ago, sjoens said:

Just learned from Celemony that 64 bit Melodyne 4 won't work on my new 12th gen Intel i7 laptop. And for some reason CbB doesn't see vvocal on it either.

They specifically mention 10th & 11th gen Intel but I suspect every gen to follow will behave the same from now on.

Anyone else having issues like this?

 

2 hours ago, bitflipper said:

You might be able to get a decent upgrade price on version 5. I think I paid about $150 (Studio edition). Version 5's levelling tool alone justifies the upgrade. A couple clicks and you've greatly reduced the amount of compression you need on vocals.

Just remember that Melodyne 5 doesn't work on Windows 7 - so I guess if you've got a >= 10th Gen Intel machine running Windows 7, you're completely out of options for Melodyne unless you upgrade both Windows and Melodyne.

[Xoo]

And Melodyne 5 doesn't have a 32 bit version, so if you still need a 32 bit version, you're out of luck if you upgrade to 5.