variaudio is a joke compared to melodyne. can’t even compare to melodyne 1
A little off-topic here. But what version of Melodyne do you guys recommend? I’ve always been using just Variaudio 
Studio 4 is the top of the range version… it all depends on your needs really… i’ve just done some fine pitch and timing corrections on 19 tracks of BVs in a few hours which would have taken me DAYS in the editor version…
You should check out their site as there are som excellent videos on there… not sure if it’s still on sale at the moment… Plugindiscounts.com is always worth a look as you’re likely to get it cheaper from there regardless…
Me too. But because of this thread I just downloaded the Melodyne trial (which is fully functional for 30 days) and will likely purchase the Editor version. After just an afternoon I’m seriously impressed.
They have a chart that shows what is in the various editions. One of the cool things about their pricing is that there is no penality for initially underbuying an edition. The cost to upgrade between editions is just the difference between edition prices. So if you buy Editor and then upgrade to Studio it will cost the same as buying Studio in the first place.
Also shop around. I found it cost $100 less from Sweetwater than on the Melodyne website.
Their tech support is excellent too! They REALLY seem to care about their customers…
Initially i had it registered on the dreaded iLok which it never played nice with and things went majorly wrong for me one xmas eve… dropped them an email not expecting to hear anything for a couple of days, 2-3 hours later i was back up and running on their own licensing system with no problems since… Highly impressed!
Ah yes, avoid the dreaded iLok like the plague. Celemony’s online system is simple and effective, allows you to authorize two machines (i.e. desktop and laptop) and can be done from anywhere with an internet connection.
Interested to hear more on this. What’s your workflow in terms of getting things in and out of Cubase, and how you use it in Melodyne?
V straight forward…
the bulk of the work was on the chorus, 16 tracks of harmonies/doubles, 4 vocalists, 1 male tenor, 2 female contralto and 1 female mezzo soprano. The part was a 4 syllable neologism i came up with as a ‘question’ in relation to the main vocals’ ‘answer’. they needed tightening up timing wise as it’s a very punchy funk/disco number so they needed to be VERY tight… Think Chaka Khan or Beverly Knight type BVs.
after tracking and selecting the best takes insert an instance of melodyne on each track then arm melodyne, this can be done from ONE window in S4 edition, and play through to transfer ALL the tracks to melodyne in ONE PASS
First i did pitch corrections, i worked on two bar sections for speed and to keep things organised, from top to bottom in the melodyne gui.
in the case of doubles i pitch quantised one of each of the doubles and then manually pulled the doubles closer to the correct pitch rather than quantising to keep it feeling ‘human’ which also helps to thicken the sound not unlike a micro pitch shifter. For individual voices i pitch quantised them… not that they needed a huge amount as they’re all highly competent singers.
Then i picked the most accurate one timing wise to use as a reference. i worked on two bar sections at a time again.
did any little tweaks to the reference track first then using the ‘grey blob’ selector for the reference track i went through each of the other tracks one at a time using the ‘grey blob’ (you can see ALL tracks that have been transferred into MS4 in the same gui instance) as a visual reference, obviously listening too and frequently playing the entire section to hear it in context to make sure the feel was how it should be.
To do this in the other versions you have to do each one in its own individual window so you need a window open for each voice if you want a visual reference too… this is what saves so much time in the MS4 version, as well as being able to transfer multiple tracks in one pass… it’s quite easy to get lost or make mistakes if you have to use separate gui instances for each track if you’re working on 16 tracks at a time… i also find it quite fatiguing doing it that way too, not sure if that’s just me though.
There were some other supporting BVs in the verses too which were just female as the male took the lead, again they were the same lines but harmonised so i used the same method as above… did the lot in a couple of ‘half-afternoons’… i have arthritis very badly so i would have been able to do it all in a few hours if that hadn’t been a factor… done this on a few tracks now and it still blows me away just how quick and easy it is in comparison to pretty much every other correction software out there… the results are outstanding as expected… Chaka Khan/Beverly Knight tight!
Hope that all makes sense!
Mat, huge huge thanks. Mostly made sense to a Melodyne ignoramus like myself! Transferring multiple tracks in one pass is a big deal, great to read that.
Again, a thousand thanks, rare to get such a practical and detailed post.
No worries mate… glad to help!
Obviously though the more you use it the easier it becomes, same as most things really… i find it incredibly intuitive and straight forward to use now… even things like the time handles are awesomely powerful once you’ve become familiar with them… would hate to be without it now.
Surprised you asked actually as i checked out your show reel… impressive!
I do have both Cubase 10 Pro with VariAudio3 and Melodyne Studio 4. I mus say I am pretty impressed with the new VariAudio. Especially the workflow is a big advantage of VA3 versus M4. VA3 has formant editing and volume control now.
Still in both tools, you need to know some techniques or else the result will sound artifical (most importantly splitting up notes at the roght positions and only correcting selectivly).
I do like the blob-view of M4 more than the note-view in VA3. However when correcting timing issues I like the underlying waveform in VA3. Also the fratire to show a reference MIDI lane is very useful. Also the chord track integration is a great help for me in VA3.
All in all I slightly prefer VA3 when working on monophonic vocals within my project, for everything else its Melodyne. When i need to pitch more thean 2 semitones (if I change the harmonies in a voice recording for example), I also have more trust in the Melodyne algorythms.
Lets see if that changes when we get ARA support in Cubase…
Thank you for this very useful report, I agree that the integration with Cubase is the key advantage of VA (although I haven’t been tempted to upgrade just yet).
I don’t really expect it to, I would still think VariAudio for mono and Melodyne for everything else, but the convenience of having ARA in Cubase would be great!
I just did a release track using VariAudio and that’s a first for me. I was under time pressure and maybe if I’d had more time I’d have tried Melodyne as well, but the thought of recording it in and bouncing it down etc. really made it unpalatable. VA worked a treat, fast and flexible.
I’m definitely looking forward to ARA, especially for the poly work, but really, anything to speed up working with Melodyne will be great. Maybe also we’ll be able to use AutoTune in ARA as well soon…
Mike.
Funny fact: Do you know what improved the quality of my VariAudio edits the most by far?
Answer: Watching a YT video about somebody explaining, what tricks pros use in melodyne to get good results 
)
Even thou it’s much easier to work in variaudio, it sounds significantly worse than melodyne,
and much much worse than waves tune and Antares auto-tune manual mode.
From best to worst sounding pitch correction software:
1 - Waves Tune
2 - Antares Auto-tune (Manual mode)
…
11 - melodyne
…
13 - variaudio
This is really the truth. Proper application of these tools is paramount. Most of us think you just strap it on and all is well. Not so, it takes finesse just like the other stuff
I’d be interested in hearing how people compare them 3 years on, Melodyne vs Cubase 10.
Most important feature for me is that melodyne has an ability for user to adjust pitch slide between notes.
This is really useful to make performance sound more natural.
Pitch transition it’s called in melodyne.
See here from 1:56 to 2:22
Have read some comments on Melodyne being sooooo much better than VA. Well, I’d say it’s different, Melodyne can do a bit more, polyphony etc. but: VA is absolutely fantastic for monophonic stuff that needs just a reasonable amount of treatment, especially in the current form VA3. Nothing bad to say about it, sounds very good to me if I put some time into my edits. Melodyne edits also need some time of tweaking to be ‘natural’.
VA3 is a pretty serious thing to me, nicely integrated and it just comes with Cubase Pro, nothing to complain about 