Melodyne Editor versus DP with ZTX

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Sun Feb 03, 2019 5:57 pm

Another question on plugins:

After moving to a new Mac I couldn't get Melodyne Editor to work. Celemony support tells me it won't work on Mojave and I need a paid update. But maybe I don't need it at all.

Any opinions on the relative effectiveness of Melodyne versus the current capabilities of DP? I do the occasional vocal fine tuning and tweaking, rarely multitrack. Is there something DP with ZTE can't do that Melodyne does particularly well? Can't do the comparison myself now I don't have Melodyne. (For general pitch or tempo changes, I'm happy with IRCAM. It did a better job than Melodyne Editor for this work anyway.)

I'm assuming regardless of how good ZTE in DP is now, it will be better in DP 10.

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Sun Feb 03, 2019 6:08 pm

That's not true; I've used it several times on Mojave in the past few weeks.

Well, maybe not; I get confused over all the Melodyne variants, and as I have a top-tier license, it means I sometimes have lower-tier or even abandoned flavours of the product on my system that I'm afraid to delete because at one point one of them (Melodyne Bridge?) was used behind-the-scenes by the main plug-in.

But I think there was a standalone version at one point, and maybe it was discontinued.

IJ'm about to cook an elaborate dinner so don't want to go down a rabbit hole right now, but if you don't mind checking the product tiering on your own, let me know if Editor is the top-of-the-line. If so, then I can vouch for it working quite well on Mojave, with no issues. Otherwise, I can see if I have a copy of it on my system and launch it in place of whichever version is the one I use.

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Sun Feb 03, 2019 6:09 pm

As for Melodyne vs. ZTX, I haven't tried them on the same tasks yet, so don't know. There's also IRCAM's time-stretch tool, which does other things besides. I have all three (and not just in the versions that ship with various DAW's, but on their own as direct licenses). I figure they each have different strengths.

bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Sun Feb 03, 2019 6:29 pm

mhschmieder wrote:Well, maybe not; I get confused over all the Melodyne variants, and as I have a top-tier license, it means I sometimes have lower-tier or even abandoned flavours of the product on my system that I'm afraid to delete because at one point one of them

I have Melodyne Editor 2. There is an upgrade to V4. Celemony says V2 stopped working or at least is not supported after Sierra. In my case, I can load V2 and import sound into it, but the preferences are not accessible, so I can't change the output ports it uses and monitor it's playback. It also spontaneously launches the authorization window to tell me I have an iLok licence for it.

The annoying things is that Melodyne is the only thing that did not port from from my 2009 iMac to the 2018 Mini.

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Sun Feb 03, 2019 7:46 pm

Personally, for monophonic vocal pitch correction, I have always found DP's turning works great. The new algorithms are cleaner for dramatic changes and time stretch and, particularly, for polyphonic material, but the old algorithm continues to function well for me for fixin' vocals.

buzzsmith · Post by **buzzsmith** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:05 am

I've been, generally, very pleased with the recent pitch and time manipulation that DP has employed.

However, I'm working on a big band project with live brass and reeds. Separate tracks...Trumpet 1, Trumpet 2...everyone recorded individually. No bleed.

The client wants the final in E but I recorded the guys in F as it's a better key.

I did a test first before deciding to do this and it seemed fine.

But, when it came time for the premix, tweaking, etc. DP's transposition down left the tracks a bit "lifeless"...like a formant change or a huge cut around 3K. (Guessing, here.)

I popped all 13 tracks into Melodyne 4.2.1 and everything was just fine.

Buzzy

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bayswater · Post by **bayswater** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 7:39 am

buzzsmith wrote:
I popped all 13 tracks into Melodyne 4.2.1 and everything was just fine.

Buzzy

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I had a similar problem with a harmonica part that had been recorded separately a whole tone higher than the other tracks, and there was bleed from other tracks. DP 9 didn't work that well, Melodyne 2 was OK, but IRCAM did the job better.

Looks like Melodyne 4 is an improvement over V2 for this work, but I think I'll hold off upgrading for now, at least until we see what DP 10 does. If it becomes necessary to go to Melodyne 4, it only takes few minutes to install.

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:21 am

buzzsmith wrote: DP's transposition down left the tracks a bit "lifeless"...like a formant change or a huge cut around 3K. (Guessing, here.)

Which DP algorithm did you use?

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 1:53 pm

It's been a few months since I did something similar in a pinch, so I don't remember how I used the built-in tool for that purpose, but I did notice that transposing down can be less successful than transposing up. I can think of many reasons why that would be the case. But I don't notice this with Melodyne.

Overall though, DP's built-in tools are so good now that I sometimes forget to re-do it with Melodyne or Zynaptiq later on. I used to do a test run, an UNDO, and then a real pass using Melodyne. There are fewer contexts where I still find that necessary.

buzzsmith · Post by **buzzsmith** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 4:19 pm

HCMarkus wrote:
buzzsmith wrote: DP's transposition down left the tracks a bit "lifeless"...like a formant change or a huge cut around 3K. (Guessing, here.)
Which DP algorithm did you use?

HC, I'll have to open the project to double check. I'm guessing (again) the default one which has worked great 95% of the time. And instantaneous!

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