Melodyne's new feature- Direct Note Access! Amazing possiblities!

yzmotoxer807

Well-known member
So for those who dont know, melodyne is an amazing pitch/timing correction tool for audio. Check out the site for more information. I recommend downloading the trial versions just to see. I own it and it truly is amazing.

Anyway, what I want to talk about today is the new technology that they will be adding to it this fall. It is called direct note access. Basically, until now, the only kind of audio file that you could edit was an audio file that was a single series of notes (vocals, guitar solo, drum track, etc.). As far as chords, like on a guitar or piano, where concerned, you could change the pitch of the overall chord but not the separate notes in the chord. For example, if you had an A minor chord, you could move it to be a G minor but it was impossible to move one note in the chord to make it major. The new direct note access technology makes this possible. It "magically" and automatically analyzes the chord and separates each note. You should watch the video on their site about it, it is soooooo coooooool!!!!! The perfect pitch correction tool for the music side of things.

Heres what I was thinking though: Wouldnt this open a world of possibilities on the video side of things. Wouldnt this make it possible to also isolate certain things out of a mix of different sounds. For example, lets just say that you recorded a conversation of two people talking, that you cant re-record, but you only want the audio from one person. You could just lower the volume when the unwanted person is talking right? But what if the two people over lap, or it is more than two people talking? How about ten or twenty people talking? With this technology couldnt you isolate just one person? Obviously the more people there were talking, the harder it would be to do but it would still be possible right?

Another use could be to isolate or eliminate certain instruments in a group that are playing.

Another one could be isolating or eliminating people that were singing together into one microphone.

I think that this technology has amazing potential to be an awesome tool, not only for musical uses, but for video as well.

What do you think? What are some other cool uses that you can think of? I want to hear what you have to say about this because I am excited (seeing as I do video and music) about this technology and I cant wait to upgrade to it when it comes out this fall (hopefully)!
 
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Looks AMAZING to me! how come I've never heard of this software to begin with? Yes, I'm not a huge audio guy, but I like to think I know the basics...

Where (on the industry standard) does this software sit right now with musicians?

The demo definitely looks fantastic... but I wonder if it's really that easy...
 
After owning melodyne for about a year and a half now, I can say that it usually really is that easy! I mean, no it will not turn your drunk aunt into one of the andrews sisters but for someone who is okay to begin with, it will make them a lot better. And for someone who is good to begin with, it will make them amazing. I dont like to use it for major things because I think of it as cheating too much, but for some timing correction or fixing a few bad notes, I like it a lot.

As far as where it sits right now with musicians, I have seen/heard of it being used a lot. Studios usually use the biggest, most expensive, most featured version (I only have melodyne uno) and this gives a ton of flexibility with almost all sequencers from the biggest to the smallest. Actually, BBC did a segment on using melodyne to fix okay/bad singers. I found the video on the melodyne site somewhere.

When this technology comes out, I want to upgrade to the plugin version becasue it makes integrating it so much easier than managing rendering of audio files and reconnecting them manually. Plus, the first version that this technology is coming out in is the plugin version.
 
It might be vaguely useful for the things you mention, but it won't be easy or magical! Worth playing with, though.
 
Yes, I dont expect it to solve ever audio problem ever, but I am definitely excited for it, especially for the musical side of my hobbies.
 
This program looks pretty cool for music. I'm not sure what it could do for film stuff though.
 
BTW, it's much cheaper if you don't buy it through their site. The plugin version is $299 from them and only $199 from Sweetwater and Musician's Friend. Very tempting to get. The demo was awesome.
 
Yeah musicians friend has the plugin version on sale right now and all of the other versions are about $50 cheaper than buying it straight from Celemony.
 
This program looks pretty cool for music. I'm not sure what it could do for film stuff though.

I want to believe audio is audio - and that it will work well on anything but it may work a lot better on pitched instruments.

As a musician I've been dreaming about something like this for years. :)
 
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