I used to be a Melodyne Beta tester and have spent a lot of time comparing the Melodyne Studio 4 algorithm against Variaudio 3 and my conclusion is this. Using monophonic files (single instruments/voices, etc) Melodyne does a far better job at timestretching but Variaudio is much better at pitchshifting!
Please test it for yourself and am sure you’ll agree?
Kind regards
James Colah
Thanks for this. I have always hesitated to learning Variaudio in Cubase as most of my tracks are polyphonic, but this gives me some encouragement to look at Variaudio for my monophonic vocals. Thanks!
That’s interesting, i don’t do any kind of audio time stretching or quantizing so that’s why Variaudio stands out more for me.
Any idea why/how Variaudio has become better at pitch shifting when Celemony are considered the ‘go to’ in that market? I just presumed that Celemony would be ahead of the pack, like many i expect?
Has anyone noticed that melodyne now opens supper slow when activating ARA or opening the plugging? It happens on both Nuendo 10 and Cubase 10 since last update. I am also using the latest version of Melodyne. Also, after using melodyne ARA Nuendo crashes when closing the project. I suspect that this update was not ready for prime time and that’s why it’s not in the announcement section of the forum.
Just wow. It´s posts from arrogant (having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one’s own importance or abilities) people like this that keep a lot of Cubase users from using this forum.
not sure what about Windows 7, but currently have two machines with Windows 10 and S1, one with 130% and other with some else ratio.
I’ve seen no major problems yet, DAW and stock plugins look nice. 3rd-party plugins seem not to be upscaled and that sometimes is arguably better than scaling on Retina Macs, but YMMV.
I have both Melodyne and Autotune that I used before I upgraded to C10 with its VA3.
VA3 wiped the floor with those with the type of vocals I work with (female soprano and alto). Both Autotune and Melodyne have 10x the artefact number when I edit the quite imperfect vocals. VA3 can achieve a clean comp without any pretty much. With AT or Melodyne I can’t achieve an artefact-free comp. Just my anecdotal experience.
Not to mention that it’s integrated. I haven’t touched either AT or Melodyne since the first week of C10 ownership when I did a lot of A/Bing AT/Melodyne/VA3 before settling on VA3. YMMV of course
Tried Melodyne many times and compared it to VA3 since it came out. Find it a lot easier (even with ARA) to fix tuning issues in VariAudio. And I find there is less artifacts going on on VA3 as well. Yes it cannot do polyphonic stuff and stretching/timing edits could be better, but if only pitch correction is needed VA3 is the clear winner for me.
Anyone able to post some compares? I’d be very curious to hear a vocal get some tuning with some of the various methods and hearing the end results. Also, are we talking light tuning, or full on creation of new harmonies or melodies? I came to Cubase from Studio One so I’m just used to Melodyne and never took Variaudio seriously as a result, but it sounds like I should give it a shot.
Weighing in on the Variaudio/Melodyne debate. I use both, and have for years, and find that on the whole Variaudio has less artifacts than Melodyne, but only when used subtly instead of drastic changes. My song production partner is on Pro Tools and only uses Melodyne, and he (like me) lament how on some vocals Melodyne messes with the high end, whereas Variaudio rarely does that (again, when used for a half or a whole step fix, mostly) – we often end up tuning/fixing vocals with Variaudio instead. The latest Variaudio is a joy to use for me (I’m also very experienced in Melodyne and enjoy that as far as actual use as well, but it’s not integrated with Cubase like Variaudio, obviously,), and if Cubase had it in-line instead of in a separate window it would be a major improvement to something that’s already great. Melodyne is great, too, in its own ways.
I personally do not want Steinberg to spend the time and effort to make Variaudio multitimbral, but that’s just my opinion because it’s something I rarely need to use. I understand that others have other needs.
I think they will as Variaudio ties in to chord track so seemlessly. I.e. if you create harmony tracks using the built in functions it creates single voice audio tracks that are set to follow chord track, and thus you can change the chord progressions and immediately get a taste on how harmonies would change. So outside of tuning/fixing abilities it’s very strong for song composition - something melodyne/ara2 doesn’t/can’t achieve.
I cannot see how Steinberg aren’t planning to take this forward with poly instruments, it just seems a logical step regardless of what majority of users want… From a development viewpoint they must have a team who’s sole work is with Variaudio who will carry this further as it’s their job to improve it.
In fact, it wasn’t until ARA2 support that i started using melodyne again and realised how far Variaudio has come in comparison… So perhaps SB know best? 
Melodyne for me is easier to use, especially because it is better at reading vibrato as part of the note as opposed to a series of notes at the tail end in Variaudio.
I also find the GUI more pleasant to look at and more organized as well and the options are more helpful in getting the end result I am looking for.
I’m not hearing the better quality in Variaudio but maybe i have not listened closely enough.
I’m sure plenty will say that Melodyne sounds better to them, as we can see on any forum. It sounds great at times, but at other times it does a weird thing to the high end which I’ve heard on multiple systems. My hearing is OCD though – I hear way too much for my own good, hahaha.
You can simply roll back the installation. I am not at home for a while so don’t know the precise location in Windows 10, as I have been using windows 8.1, but have now upgraded to 10 and am not familiar with it yet. Should be somewhere in Apps.
Go to the old style Programs and Features screen in windows:
Copy and Paste this into the address bar in File Explorer (Not internet explorer) to get there quick:
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Programs and Features
Then click the ‘View Installed Updates’ link text in the top left.
From the installed updates list you’ll have the 10.0.40 update as an uninstallable option.
You might need to update your plugins / VSTi. As suggested by Martin Jirsak.
That’s what I did and it fixed my crashes. Try that first…
i sent you a PM, hope it works!
Yup.
I comp and mix vocals for a living at a professional level. I use a number of DAW’s including Cubase and I’m well versed in V.A and melodyne.
I love Melodyne, but V.A is not only often MORE transparent for vocal editing, it’s also MUCH quicker to work with - mainly due to the fact that all the tool handles are available right there on the waveform (maybe you didn’t know about toggling the extra smart controls), you don’t need to keep switching through the various tools in Melodyne (15 or so I believe?!), plus editing multiple parts together is a breeze, don’t need to keep checking whether your in ‘clip mode’ or not, plus the key commands match up with the host (simple things like ctrl+shift+click to play from mouse cursor - can’t do that in melodyne which is infuriating). VA is also much better integrated into Cubase obviously, as it’s native. Not to mention that Melodyne has had issues with losing it’s internal data on reloading projects with various DAW’s on and off for YEARS - check any of these DAW’s forums and you’ll see the graveyard of melodyne error message posts, where as VA has never caused a single issue for me. Melodyne workflow for most pro users I know using it is - load up melodyne via ARA - do your melodyne work, check it, make a backup of the raw melodyned file, then BOUNCE, because when you load that project back up there’s a chance that melodyne data won’t be there any more.
There are a number of reasons for ‘Chizzler’.
If you are polyphonic editing then yes obviously melodyne is better, as VA can’t do this… for monophonic audio editing though, VA still wins for me. Timing control is also slightly better in melodyne as you can move the ‘blobs’ rather than just compress/stretch them - although because VA is so smoothly integrated it’s very easy to just do your timing edits on the main page using cuts/slip editing and all your VA info is still retained in the edited audio.
The fact that this users acts so incredulous (and frankly downright rude) about the suggestion that VA could be better for these tasks, suggests that they actually don’t really know how to use it all, or think that MOST people are using melodyne/VA for pitching polyphonic material? Not vocals?
Hmm…