Celemony’s flagship Melodyne audio editor has long been reaching past the limits of what most people imagine as pitch correction. It was clear the mission of the software was no less than seamlessly transforming audio – shaping sound as directly as you can MIDI notes.
Well, now it’s gone even further. Now we’re not just talking about moving polyphonic notes around. In Melodyne 4, we’re talking reaching into the spectra of polyphonic sound material itself. It’s like playing God with a recording.
The banner feature for version 4 is called simply the “Sound Editor.” But whereas editing sound usually means working in the time or frequency dimension separately, here, you do both seamlessly – individual notes, even in polyphonic materials, are yours to reshape one overtone at a time. They’re calling it “polyphonic spectral shaping.” It’s a little like someone being given Warp Drive after they’ve been limited to steam. Watch:
You’ll notice a shift in the marketing, too. Melodyne are now talking explicitly about “sound design” – not editing or correction, but transforming sound. That to me was always the most interesting potential to this software, so it’s nice to see it become the main message.
With something this insane, you know mad mathematical genius Peter Neubäcker has to be involved. He’s the sort of character who thinks about these sorts of problems before breakfast the way the rest of us mortals ponder which color t-shirt to wear.
There are other big changes in Melodyne 4, too:
- No more track limits. Direct Note Access, Melodyne’s spooky ability to edit audio as easily as MIDI, now works across multiple tracks – even seeing and editing them onscreen at once.
- Dynamic tempo detection. Click now follows the flow of musicians, rather than having to impose a grid. You can also copy-paste tempo and the like. Hmmm… imagine if all software worked this way? Software has often promised to do something like this before, but the algorithm here seems to be way ahead of other attempts.
- Dynamic just intonation. Okay, actually, I haven’t learned yet what this is, but the early music nerd in me likes the sound of it.
- Algorithm improvements.
I want another hit of Neubäcker, so here he is talking about the tempo detection stuff. It’s about tempo detection that can see… into the future. And backwards. At once. Yeah, let’s absorb that:
Question: how would you want a product like this reviewed? My own bias is toward experimental use of the software rather than proper editing workflows, but maybe that’s just me. And I’m sure I could talk to users who go other directions. And would you perhaps like Peter to talk about the way he sees the universe? Let us know in comments.
We’ll be meeting up with Celemony next week, too. See you there. I know how German residents need some sunshine.
Judging from the poster frames of all those videos, Melodyne’s philosophy is all about pinching things.
How many of these new features come with the cheap versions?
None. From Melodyne Essential 2 it’s a free update to 4. The basic algorithm hasn’t changed as far as I can tell. Not even the interface changed much. DNA and Sound Editor and the new tempo detection (which is a function of DNA according to the video) is only available in the bigger versions. Melodyne Essential basically stays what it is, which is fine for me.
wow, that’s pretty deep..
I imagine “dynamic just intonation” means being able to adjust the pitch mapping of justly intoned scales on the fly to accomodate modulations and modal shifts that would otherwise go out of tune in just intonation. Which is cool for folks into non-equal tempered harmony.
omg combine this with a scala plugin… drag and drop microtonality…
I’m curious if Celemony has corrected the fragmentation of their various Melodyne products with this release. From the Melodyne 3 era, I have Melodyne Singletrack, Melodyne, and the Melodyne VST plugin. Each version provides a unique functionality and user interface.
Studio 4 is now 64 bit ,, stand alone and plugin in the same install,,,
I use Studio One 3 Pro 64 bit, and ARA is a great thing !!!
real-time, yeah this is new, but offline, not so much. Conceptualizing a sound outside the context of time, much like one would do with through music, with notation, makes you see the sound in a different way, and opens you up to more imaginative and creative possibilities. Coming from someone who has recently fallen *way* too deep into the composers desktop project though, so ymmv.
I would be very interested in a review focussed more on the sound design capabilities. A couple of suggestions and questions:
1. For sound design: is there any kind of automation possible in the sound editor? As in, is it possible to vary the amount of one of the macro knobs over the time of the recording? That would infititely increase the sound design possibilities.
2. Focus on the new features: give examples of what tempo detections does and how it can be used to manipulate a loop. If possible, show whether the claimed algorithm improvements are actually audible. Many plugin makers claim this with new revisions, but more often than not it turns out to be very minimal and more of a marketing term.
3. Again sounddesign: show soundcloud examples of a variety of ways to manipulate, say – a piano loop or a voice recording. What comes out when melodyne is driven to the extremes?
Agreed – I’ve never used melodyne, so I’d also like to know if the synthesis/note detection can be exported as midi, ideally with pitch bend info for non-trad tones. If those macros’ realtime analysis output could also be sent as CCs or OSC it would open worlds for sound design.
best way would be to put in into the most mundane context that the rest of us could understand. Take several selections of drums, bass, guitar, keys, and vocals of music that is defined as classic and utterly recognizable to our collective consciousness so that all of our energy will be spent on absorbing exactly what the software is capable of doing. This way there will be nothing to distract us in any way from gaining a clear and concise understanding. Hopefully avoid distortion, bit crushing, and resonating in the examples as this type of thing is a distraction too. I would use music like the beatles, Michael jackson, adele, billy holiday, Queen, George clinton, James brown, and David Bowie….as well as the amen break, a selection of much slower but equally recognizable drums, and instrumentation for examples.
Did you watch any of the videos?
Please record something in time but without click and find where Melodyne can detect the tempo and where not, also, additional question – what about variable tempo? What are the boundaries of variable tempo detection? This is crucial for me for example.
Please record something in time but without click and find where Melodyne can detect the tempo and where not, also, additional question – what about variable tempo? What are the boundaries of variable tempo detection? This is crucial for me for example.
the upgrade cost from any “editor” version to studio 4 is $150 and to me it feels like a new program. it is very expensive to go to studio 4 if you don’t own it already though. I’m more excited about the tempo detection and sound editor than the original program. i can see myself making electronic music with more human tempo changes from now on. hopefully it will play nice with ableton