Using Melodyne on vocals with some piano bleed over

[T Boog]

  I normally use headphones for recording my vocals (of course) but I really hate using them. I recently recorded one of my songs that's just midi piano and vocal and I decided to ditch the headphones. First I recorded the piano track and then I played it back at fairly low volume thru my monitors and recorded the vocal track. 

I have a 57 dynamic mic but I decided to just try my condenser mic and see how it turned out. Of course it was okay but the real question was gonna be, "could I still apply a little Melodyne to the vocal without it causing noticable wonkyiness in the final mix?" 

The result...  When the vocal is soloed, u can hear the bled over piano go out of tune in the parts wear I applied Melodyne. However, when the piano track is added in, it sounds perfect. Those little pitch anomalies are undetectable and there's no noticeable freq cancelations either. It sounds beautiful and radio ready.

I was just curious what others here think of this. I did ask Google since it's the authority on everything 😉 and it said...

"Positive perspective: If the final product sounds good to you, and the pitch correction doesn't introduce unwanted artifacts or detract from the performance, then it's perfectly fine."

I'm a recovering perfectionist so I encourage myself to fight against my perfectionism. Also, I follow the Eddie Van Halen theory that if it sounds good, it IS good. I think it's mainly about the quality of the song anyway so I'm rolling with it. 

But I'm just curious what u guys think about this. Is it just the overall final sound that matters or should I be excommunicated for breaking a home recording cardinal rule?  🤣

[Amberwolf]

All I ever care about is how it sounds in the mix, since my goal is the end-result as a whole; I'm creating a soundscape and if all the bits fit, well...that's it.

 

I have done some absolutely awful abusive edits to pieces of audio I've created or gotten from other places, in order to fit them into the spot in the track I want them in, because for whatever reason I couldn't just rerecord that bit (sound source unavailable or unmodifiable, etc).    Some of them sound quite tragic on their own. 😆 

But in the mix, I can't even tell there *was* an edit...or the edit sounds like it was supposed to be that way, and whatever couple of listeners I can scrape up to give me any feedback never say anything seemed wierd or bad in there.  

So....if it works, it works.  

 

 

But I have like...zero fans that come back to keep listening to my stuff, so I'm probably not the one to take advice from.  😊

 

 

Edited yesterday at 06:03 AM by Amberwolf

[treesha]

If it blends in and sounds good that’s the main thing. I’m wondering why when you melodyned the vocal/low piano track, assuming that’s what you did, why didn’t you tune the piano when you tuned the vocals? 

[mettelus]

+1 to the end product is what matters. Frequency masking is your friend in that case, as the louder (original) piano track will get more focus by the listener. Another thing you can try in a track bleed scenario is make a copy of that piano track, phase invert it, and knock the gain down to match the bleed part on the vocal track. That should cancel out most of the bleed (may need to adjust timing on it a smidge), then you can bounce both those 2 tracks to a new one and use Melodyne as previously.

[Amberwolf]

1 hour ago, mettelus said:

. Another thing you can try in a track bleed scenario is make a copy of that piano track, phase invert it, and knock the gain down to match the bleed part on the vocal track. That should cancel out most of the bleed (may need to adjust timing on it a smidge),

Note that this would hae to be done before the melodyne retuning of the vocals....

[T Boog]

4 hours ago, treesha said:

why didn’t you tune the piano when you tuned the vocals? 

Cheers Treesha. The piano, being midi, is in perfect tune on the piano track. However, when u pitch correct a vocal that is slightly flat, for example, you're then causing the bled over piano on the vocal track to go slightly sharp. 

But ironically, I think it may add a little life to the track in those places. I think it creats a very, very subtle chorusing effect in those areas. Again, the overall mix sounds great.

[treesha]

It’s been surprising to me how many virtual instruments that begin as a perfect midi note, after rendering if I open them in melodyne the pitch is off and then sounds right if I correct it.  I guess I expected midi to virtual instrument would be perfect. Then came melodyne. Yeah you probably hit a sweet spot blending  the tracks. 

[Amberwolf]

11 minutes ago, treesha said:

 I guess I expected midi to virtual instrument would be perfect.

Depends on how the VI is designed. 

 

If it's got internal pitch envelopes (like ADSR volume but for pitch), or oscillators, or other ways to detune itself, it may play differently each time a note is triggered, or if the oscillators aren't synced (or are random) it might vary on every pass of playback and every render.  (something I really hate since I want the exact same output every time so I edit such sounds where possible (like in Z3TA2+) and don't use them when not). 

 

If it's a simple sample-playback it shouldn't do this, and it should be identical in a render vs a playback.  (they should phase cancel if you invert one, assuming no randomness or unsynced effects on either one's track or in the VI itself).

 

If it's a physical-modelling VI, it depends on how it really works inside--if it has the exact same math for every modelling pass, it'll be identical, but if it includes variation for "realism" it won't phase cancel, and if any of that variation includes pitch changes it may be tuned differently too.  I don't have any PM VIs so I don't know what options might be available on any of them to reduce or eliminate that.

 

 

If it's not the VI itself, but effects in the track detuning things, you can try not including them in the render (so they are still used live) and then the render itself would still be tuned identically to the playback.  

 

If it's an artifact of the rendering process, then I'd call that a bug somewhere--if it happens to all VIs it's probalby in the host, if it only happens to some it's something to do with the way they respond to the rendering process, and that's usually an issue with "fast bounce' vs realtime rendering, and the simple way to fix that is use realtime bounce instead, at least until the root bug can be fixed (if the manufacturer of it cares enough to do so). 

 

[mettelus]

4 hours ago, T Boog said:

But ironically, I think it may add a little life to the track in those places. I think it creates a very, very subtle chorusing effect in those areas.

It does  Because of the fuller sound a piano produces (multiple strings per note), this "trick" can be used to fill out otherwise thin VSTis. Same notes on a piano (essentially layered), but at a significantly lower volume (and maybe tweak the attack to match the instrument you are embellishing, or just use a "soft" piano). Pianos are very versatile to add frequency content without being obvious when desired.