Melodyne correction on vocals with piano track as a reference

[Sven]

  I'm not a great vocalist but I try my best and with Waves Tune Real time or other plugins my vocals are passable.  I always re-approach Melodyne every few months and learn a few new tricks.  Ideally, I could just highlight the whole track, use their auto-tune macro and I'd be done.   Alas,  there are too many notes/blobs that move the wrong way for whatever reason and although I can go back and move them manually I find the whole process a bit tedious.   It slows me down too much.   I then go back to the convenience of Waves but don't like that it's not as scientific and I can't analyze the results.

  One new trick or piece of information  I learned in this video is that Melodyne is supposed to reference other tracks in calculating what the correct pitch should be (0:45 seconds):

 

  I first tried creating Melodyne regions with my acoustic guitar track and my vocal track and didn't see anything  very different on the vocal correction but that's understandable.   How much could a strummed acoustic help determine a vocal lead's exact notes?   

 Today I played my lead vocal note for note on the Cakewalk piano plugin and tried creating the regions again without the result I was hoping for.  Even the solo piano wasn't really in tune with the song until I used the auto-tune macro on it.  Now it's in tune perfectly.  Lovely happy blobs!

  So now I've got a piano part that's absolutely on pitch and my shaky vocal that I would like to fix using that piano part as a stern reference.   Is there any easy way to tell Melodyne to correct my vocal accordingly?

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

[John Bradley]

Interesting. I’ve never brought instrumental tracks into Melodyne for the purposes of improving the vocal correction. I wonder how much info it gleans from the other tracks? Just the key? If so, I can just tell it that!

Though I suppose if the key changes over the course of the song, that’s something you couldn’t handle by telling it ahead of time.

[Sven]

John Bradley,

  Obviously the key is important information but I'm trying to give Melodyne literally the correct reference it needs for my vocal note by note.  This should be easy I would think.   But again, I'm not a Melodyne expert.  

Thanks.

[John Bradley]

Right. I'm just questioning whether it actually does any of that.

He doesn't go into any detail on exactly what information Melodyne extracts from the other tracks, and barring that I'm not assuming it's doing anything more than using them to figure out the key/keys of the song and setting the note-snap on the vocal track accordingly.

It's also worth noting that you need to have Melodyne Studio, as that's the only version that has multi-track capability.

[treesha]

I need help with my vocals so I often make and bring a piano track of my intended vocal into melodyne making sure it is correct to help guide my vocals which always need fixing. I’ve been surprised how many times a plain type vst instrument is not perfectly in tune where it should be. I have not been as surprised when something like my electric bass is off or a very padish kind of vst instrument is off.  I often change notes in melodyne on instruments so I do have the habit of seeing how various vst and real instruments perform pitchwise according to melodyne. 

[Herky Acuff]

I will sing to a melody played first on piano. Especially for harmonies. But find it makes sense to just later solo the two tracks and make small Melodyne corrections to the sung notes later. I would wonder having Melodyne take a vocal and match it to another track might not sound organic enough. For me, anyway. 

[Xoo]

Well I'd love to know how he gets the top-left pane visible (with multiple tracks) - nothing in the manual I can see and no amount of random(!) clicking in the Melodyne UI seems to make it work.

[John Bradley]

It’s Melodyne Studio, the version with all the toys.

[Xoo]

Ah - I think I've got the one below that.  Thanks.

[John Bradley]

Studio, while a pricey upgrade over Editor & Advanced, is worth its weight in gold for that multitrack feature. 

Especially if you spend any time working with doubled vocal tracks, harmonies, etc.

Edited November 17, 2022 by John Bradley