Melodyne As Process Plug-In?

Cubase
#1

This may be a noob question… I’ve used Melodyne for a while but never really -inside- Cubase.

Can you use Melodyne Editor 2 not as a =plug-in= but with the Process Plug-In on one particular Audio Event? I’ve tried a few times and it never seems to work properly. Is this an issue for support or is it just not designed for this?

This would be -very- handy for me and the one reason I tend to fall back on AutoTune… It’s not as good, but it seems to work as Process Plug-In.

Any ideas?

TIA,

—JC

PS: I’ve asked over at the Celemony Forum and received a big fat no-reply.

#2

Just for clarity. Are you wanting to tune a single line (melody) or chords?
If your fall back is autotune, I would have imagined that the built in variphrase might suffice?
The “transfer” of audio to Melodyne is always req. and it does work as offline plug, but finnicky for small portions of a file…

#3

Just single lines. Frankly, if I have to ‘tune’ more than a little, I do something really novel… I replay the part.

But what Melodyne does much better is -lengthening- notes. Sometimes I’ll have a good performance, but a note will note be as ‘legato’ as I would like. Stretching in Melodyne sounds much less synthy than VariAudio or A/T. However, IMO it’s a PITA to load as a plug-in just for 1 or 2 notes in a 10 minutes piece… hence why I’d prefer to use it as Process/Plug-In (if I could get it to work.)

—JC

#4

In my experience with CM… it works more stable with 10min than 10 sec. So it may be better to capture the whole file, ignore everything but the 2 notes and tweak only that?

#5

The time spent, for me at least, on loading the plugin and transferring is not a big deal… It’s still seconds to a few minutes before one is ready to edit

One thing - check buffer sizes. Mine are small for tracking, but this is a problem for CM

#6

I do only live recording, every instrument on a separate track.
In each track I load Melodyne as vst plugin.
Buffer size should be 1024.
Works great.

Regards,
Twan

#7

If I’ve got a short clip to process with Melodyne then I create a new track, copy the part, grab more than I need into Melodyne, sort it out, then render out that channel to a new wav file and copy this back to the original track, trimming as necessary. As people say, it’s just not that easy to deal with short bits of audio sometimes. It would be different it Steinberg implemented ARA!

Mike.

#8

Thanks for the replies. Just confirms why I don’t use Melodyne much. The ‘plug-in’ version is really not much better in this regard than the old ‘Studio’.

Cheers,

—JC

#9

Yeah, me too, I’ve taken up using Vari-Audio, and I like it very much. I use Autotune though too, that’s a big time-saver for me :slight_smile: I find that it makes my job quicker because I don’t quite have to be so careful about tuning up perfectly in Vari-audio. Doesn’t always work, sometimes glitches, but again, I render out my audio channel with only the tuning applied, bounce the vari-audio too and then cut bits from the orig unprocessed vocal back in if I really need to (like on really crunchy consonants or swooped notes which autotune turns into steps!). It’s magic really!!

Now I remember, last time I used melodyne was to correct some wrong notes in live performance, DNA did the job really well even though the notes were sustained and hanging over each other. Now that’s defo magic :wink:

Mike.

#10

Just venting, but also, the requirement to set the buffer to 1024 in Melodyne is pretty much a deal breaker for me. I’m always astounded that in 2014 people still are willing to put up with these kinds of hoops.

I’m -constantly- doing last minute punches, tweaks. I can’t imagine just getting a set of WAVs and then ‘mixing a song’. It’s a totally iterative process for me.

#11

I think you’re looking at it wrong. You’re editing, not recording or playing midi into VI’s, so setting a buffer to 1024 is no big deal, pretty irrelevant.

It’s not Autotune that can auto correct singers in real time. It’s something people use in “post”, as in after all the tracking is already done, in the edit phase.

#12

We have a fundamentally different way of thinking about a DAW.

Some people think of DAWs as, essentially, a continuation of the traditional workflow:

Acquire --> Mix —> Master

Discrete phases. Which is kinda like how newspapers used to be done: write, submit, edit, publish. Done.

I have always wanted the acronym to be changed to DAP: Digital Audio Publisher; the audio version of InDesign or Word, where content is being added/edited/re-organised right up to the very moment of ‘publishing’… and even then… re-purposed. There are no ‘phases’. That’s what I strive for.

In short, for me, the composing never ends. Therefore… any plug-in that induces latency such that I can’t track over it (which means anything beyond at MAX 11ms) is generally not used by moi.
YMMV

—JC

#13

Hallo I’m under OSX, Meldyne works great with Cubase 6.5.5 not with Cubase 7.5, this is the main reason I switched back to C6.5, because I love to use melodyne for choir arrangements and real violins correction and effect, also export midi part of everything inside, and of course works great with tempo variation on songs. I’ve tried to use Variaudio but the bugs was not all corrected under C6.5 as steinberg promised years ago :frowning:. Regarding your question I use melodyne for arranging “beta” choir before recording the final choir voices, then print the scores exporting MIDI.

#14

Try Melodyne rewired into cubase maybe? Instead of using it as a plugin.

Bounce your whole track, load it into rewired Melodyne and simply work in Melodyne only. You can set loops within Melodyne, transport in Melodyne, no tempo learning necessary, no buffer size changes necessary etc…

The only difference to using it as a plugin is

  • transferring the data into Melodyne (export/import instead of real time transfer)
  • the way the Melodyne signal is integrated into the cubase project (separate rewire track instead of a track insert)
#15

I do not really understand your problem. In my case it works very well with Cubase 7.5. I also rework the choirs and single violin-lines etc.
No problem at all.

Perhaps you should try it again with an actual Mac.

#16

lucky please can u Do that please:

1 open melodyne in vocal track
2 track the vocal inside melodyne
3 remove melodyne from the cubase slot

When I remove Melodyne from slot cubase 7.5 crash always.

Im on Mac Pro 24gb ram, cubase in 64bit mode.
The funny thing is with cubase 6.5.5 I don’t have this issue.
thanks

#17

The reason we have all these “hoops” is because Steinberg won’t include ARA which Celemony has made so it directly integrates inside the DAW so you don’t have to play back the track to “capture” it in the plug-in. Don’t blame Melodyne, blame Steinberg for this…I have requested that Steinberg do this but they say it isn’t planned unfortunately.

#18

The other way would be for Celmony to make their functions available as an API, much like Elastique do. That may be an easier thing to do for Steinberg because then they’d be able to keep variaudio but also use the Melodyne features, like DNA. But in any case, I’m sure Steinberg are working on a DNA style feature, it’ll happen sooner or later.

Mike.

#19

Not unusual. I think it’s more unusual that you’d superimpose your way of thinking on the universe and be “astounded” by someone thinking and working differently than you do. You expess your use case and why it would be problematic for you, but at the same time are “astounded” that your way of thinking actually might not be the only one?

You appeared to be impying that anyone who doesn’t do or view things exactly like you is… doing something wrong or compromising… otherwise, why is another random use case, another way of thinking or working, “astounding”?

That’s kinda what i meant by … “You’re looking at it the wrong way.” Only your way?

It would have been easier to just say … “For the way i personally work, that’s a roadblock.” Without bringing “People in 2014” (you know, those other really stupid people who work and think differently than you :slight_smile:) into it.

Obviously, many disagree with you on that as Melodyne has sold a relative ton of copies. Are you really astounded that thousands of people use Melodyne? Did you really expect them all to be literal clones of you and your preferred workflow or is it possible they just think and work differently? :slight_smile: