Knowing a tool it doesn’t mean just knowing what we can do with it. Let’s find where Melodyne 4 can serve as a life saver.

by Alex Arsov, Sept. 2019

We’ve covered Melodyne 4 in SoundBytes Magazine previously (here). So instead of pointing out what’s new in the regular updates coming out before version 5 strikes, I’ve decided to make this article a bit different.

Where Do I Find My Melodyne Serial Number

I will assume you are familiar with this product, you know the price (which is quite reasonable for such unique tool), you’ve heard what it does and how it does it. Hopefully you’ve also read our Melodyne 4 article, but I’ll speculate that you’ve never really thought this through in detail. Melodyne is not an instrument, nor is it one of those effects that can colour your track according to your desires (after all, almost every DAW comes with such a tool, covering all your needs). This is almost all true.

.Studio One 4 Professional comes with a full license for Melodyne Essential.Studio One 4 Artist comes with a 30 day Free Trial of the Melodyne Software. Authorizing Melodyne Essential. Before you can use Melodyne, you must first launch the standalone Melodyne application that is installed along with the plug-in versions. Download Melodyne 4.2.4. Download here the installation program for your computer platform. Then double-click on the installation program and follow the onscreen instructions. Installation program for Windows – contains the stand-alone and all plug-in implementations of Melodyne.

There is one small difference, however: the full version of Melodyne 4 can analyze and correct polyphonic material one note at a time. OK, you already knew that, so is that something you should throw almost €400 EUR, or even €700 EUR at? Actually, yes, it is. In this article I will present a few examples of where and how this tool can be used, and show you why it is priceless, at least for me.

Sample All The Way

Celemony Melodyne 5 studio Upgrade from Melodyne 4 studio Multitrack Pitch and Time Shifting Software with Polyphonic Capability, Melodic and Percussive Pitched Algorithms, Musically Weighted Pitch Analysis, Fade Tool, Sibilant Tool, Leveling Macro, Recallable Search, and ARA Compatibility - Mac/PC Standalone, AAX Native, VST 3, AU.

Melodyne 4 free download windows. Multimedia tools downloads - Melodyne by Celemony Software GmbH and many more programs are available for instant and free download. Melodyne 4 Essential. Melodyne 4 Essential is now included in all versions of SONAR Professional and Platinum. And thanks to the seamless ARA integration, SONAR customers can enjoy a better experience when using Melodyne. With Version 4, Celemony introduces new features to award-winning software including.

First things first. Countless hit songs are built around an interesting sample. No matter if it is taken from old vinyl or from some sample library (Ueberschall offer a great collection of all sorts of sample compilations, not to mention innumerable other smaller companies that also sell sample packs). In the past I collected different musical magazines that almost always came with free sample packs. Over the years I collected over 20 GB of sounds that I could use in my production. Not that I go with that in every song, but some samples are really cool while some other can save the day when you need a specific instrument, but don’t have the skills to program a realistic part or a good virtual instrument to make it sound real.

The bad thing with those samples is that in most cases you are forced to build a song around them or just use those that have a certain harmony. I assume you get the picture. With Melodyne, a funky minor guitar chord can suddenly become major, or even major 7 or 9, or anything you want. If you don’t go too far, you can also change the key of the chord. I can’t tell you how many times it’s happened that I’ve really liked some sample, and rhythmically it fitted nicely into my arrangement, but it played at an inappropriate harmony. Melodyne 4 suddenly brings my 20 GB collection back to life. Almost everything is possible. There are some other tools that can change key, tempo and similar things, but Melodyne 4 is a dream come true in this case. A very unique tool.

Harmony – What?

The second use takes care of a problem I come across often. Sometimes you find an orchestral or synth line sample that is polyphonic, sounding really interesting and hot, and you’d like to use this sample or even just its harmony to create a different mood with different sounds. But the phrase sounds complicated and contains many notes, and you aren’t completely sure what the hell is going on inside this progression. Or even, God forgive us, you want to analyze a snapshot of some current hit and make something similar. Something that old rockers call inspiration while the new business oriented musical industry calls theft. Come on, most hits use the same chord progression and we are still at war over two similar notes. Anyway, cut a snapshot, put it inside the editor and you get back all the info about the progression. To build a melody or alternative progression around the main one that comes from the sample you really like, you’ll need to know exactly what’s going on inside this sample harmony-wise. Melodyne 4 to the rescue again.

Progression In General

I’m a professional musician. Often I get a request to do something in a genre that is totally new for me. Of course, in such cases Google becomes my best friend, but it has its limitations. You can really pick up some info about the tempo, some general rules, sometimes even about the most used key for that genre, but in most cases, there is nothing about harmonies, and in most cases there are no tutorials on how to play some well-known songs from a particular genre. (In most cases, these are not classic pop songs where you can strum the chords on a guitar or play them on the keyboard.)

So hello, Melodyne 4, my old friend! I just import the whole song, or just the part where the harmony is most prominent, into Melodyne. After some analysis I get the whole structure. I can see not only the progression used but also how the melody was built, where and how the progression changes. Every new genre is a blank page for me, and thanks to this tool I can get enormous amounts of information from the genre’s most typical songs. When Google marries Melodyne 4, the children are simply just perfect.

Serial Number For Melodyne 4

Band or Orchestra

If in the case you are recording live instruments, then multitrack editing is also something that other similar tools don’t offer. In the situation in which you have two guitars, something is clashing, and you don’t know what, or having several violins playing in unison, whoever has had similar problems will know what I’m talking about. Although individual lines may sound right when isolated, they become totally wrong when together. Again, Melodyne 4 is a lifesaver here.

The first three examples can be done with Melodyne 4 Editor, that comes at €399 EUR. For the fourth one you’ll need Melodyne 4 Studio for €699 EUR.

The Rest

I went through four very common uses of this tool. Of course I didn’t cover everything that Melodyne 4 can do, but many things can be done with similar tools that come with most DAWs, although maybe not with the same precision. Correcting the pitch and timing of a particular note, changing the length or even flattening some note fluctuations is something that Melodyne 4 can probably do better than most other tools.

It could be that I haven’t covered every job that can be done with this tool, as there is only your imagination to limit you, but even these three examples of usage prove to be priceless for me.

It is quite a specific tool, but if in any case you also have a full house of different samples lying around on your disks, then this could be something that can give new life to the whole archive.

More info at:

Melodyne Studio €699 EUR (multitrack)

Melodyne 4 Editor €399 EUR (polyphonic editing inside track)

Melodyne 4 Assistant €249 EUR (not polyphonic. same set of tools)

Melodyne 4 Assistant € 99 EUR ( allow pitch and time editing )

In the article, you are going to learn what Celemony’s Melodyne is, the basic options, and the difference in versions. I will run through some of the most common ways to use Melodyne, give a quick tutorial and help you decide if this product is for you.

Have you ever received a vocal track from a great singer, only to discover that some notes of the melody are not quite right? You have two options. You can get the track re-recorded, or you can use Melodyne to correct the notes. Obviously getting the vocalist to redo the vocal recording may not achieve the desired result. The notes may still come back out of tune, or worse, other notes are now out of tune.

Why not pull the track into Melodyne and adjust just those two notes? This process will take even the least experienced user a few minutes. Sounds much better than hours of painstaking effort and editing, not to mention the cost of carrying out multiple takes!

What Is Melodyne?

Melodyne is a software tool that allows you to manipulate pitch, timing and formant (more about this later) of an audio track on a note by note basis. While this is particularly useful for vocals, you can also use it to manipulate audio for any recording including bass, guitar, piano etc.

What Melodyne Is Not

Melodyne is not Autotune. We are probably all familiar with the highly distorted sound of Cher’s ‘Believe’. While Melodyne can produce this effect with its pitch tools, it is so much more than Autotune. The difference is with the word ‘Auto’. Using Melodyne, you can tune automatically. You can also adjust the pitch, correct the timing or change the formant of your audio on a word by word, syllable by syllable or note by note basis. Melodyne does this in such a way as to be completely undetectable in the final product.

Melodyne Free Trial

There is currently a 30-day free trial version of Melodyne 4 Studio. However, I would not suggest downloading unless you are prepared to lay out at least $99 for Melodyne 4 Essential. I can almost guarantee that once you try it, you are going to want to invest.

Different Options & Pricing

Essential

If you decide to go for it, then Melodyne 4 Essential at $99 is a good starting place. Using this version, you can load up and work on a single audio track. You can adjust the pitch and timing of individual notes, or automatically tune the entire track to a selected key. You can also copy and paste between sections.

Assistant

The next version up is the ‘Assistant’ at a cost of $249. In addition to the functionality above, you can correct where the pitch drifts away from the note’s pitch centre (or takes a ‘swoop’ to get there). You can also tweak formants, vibrato and amplitude. A useful feature of this version that is not available in the ‘Essential’ version is the ability to create an accurate MIDI file from an audio track. This is an easy way to make a MIDI file that follows the vocal melody. You can then get creative with this MIDI, such as making a flute, or a synthesiser play along.

Editor

The next version up is the ‘Editor’ version, which retails at $499. This offers the same functionality as the ‘Assistant’ but also allows for polyphonic detection with Direct Note Access (DNA). This means that you can import an audio file of a piano or guitar and pinpoint and manipulate individual notes within the chords. This is a very powerful feature, but perhaps not for the fainthearted.

Studio

The Rolls Royce version of Melodyne 4 is the ‘Studio’ version, which is not cheap at $849. Something that will make this slightly less painful is that you will never pay for upgrades. In fact, lifetime upgrades are free for all four versions. Using the Studio version, you can load and work on multiple audio tracks in one session. This means that you can line up and tune multiple lead, harmony, backing vocal and instrument tracks simultaneously. I use the Studio version to synchronise multiple backing vocals and harmonies with each other. I also make extensive use of the Audio to MIDI functionality to double lead vocals with a synthesiser or strings.

What Are The Minimum System Requirements For Melodyne?

All versions run on both Windows and Mac computers or laptops. The Windows version will run on an Intel or AMD Dual Core processor with at least 4 GB of RAM. It needs Windows 7, 8.1 or 10 and is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit architecture.

The Mac version runs on an Intel Dual Core processor also with a minimum of 4 GB of RAM and macOS 10.6.8 and 10.11.x to 10.15.

All versions will run as a standalone application or as a plugin in your favourite DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

Songwriting And Composing

Because of its multi-track capability, the Studio version of Melodyne can help you with all sorts of musical endeavours from songwriting to composing. Similarly to Band-in-a-Box, it enables you to quickly build up arrangements and experiment with new ideas. You can change the whole feel of a melody by shifting a note or two or changing the tempo. There is no need to re-record the whole vocal to hear what it would sound like. You can double the lead vocal tracks and create an experimental harmony track to hear what that will sound like. For more information on intervals and harmonies, head here. You can even change the vocals from male to female and vice versa using the formant tool.

What Is Formant?

I bet there are a few people reading who want to know what this ‘formant’ is that I have been talking about. There doesn’t seem to be an easy definition, but essentially the formant is a group of harmonics that are stronger than others. So, the formant of male voice is different to the formant of a female voice. With Melodyne, you can make a female vocal sound like it was sung by a male, without changing the pitch. Sounds weird? It is! You will have to try it out for yourself to understand it. You can do some funky things with the formant tool, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what was used in Cher’s ‘Believe’, too.

Quick Melodyne Tutorial

I am using the standalone version of Melodyne 4 Studio for this quick tutorial. I have a lead vocal and two harmonies of an original song called “Why I Never Asked”. The song was recorded in the key of Bb.

Open the program and open the WAV file of your lead vocal. Use the File Open command. Now import the two harmony vocals into the session using the File Import command.

You can see the three tracks in two different windows. In the top window, you can see how the tracks line up with each other. In the bottom window, Melodyne has split the tracks out across the pitch grid into what are called ‘blobs’. A blob is a word or a syllable that is sung on a single pitch. You can see the pitches on the left-hand side of the screen.

The first thing I do is select the lead vocal and tune it to about 90% on both pitch centre and drift.

I would then listen carefully to the entire track and make individual adjustments as necessary. I do this by simply picking up a blob and moving to the pitch I want.

You can also stretch or shrink a blob if the timing is off. It may be necessary to split a blob up into two portions so you can move each portion to different pitches on the grid.

Sometimes the vocalist may have wandered far from the note’s pitch centre, and you may want to rein it in. Here is an example of where I had a bit too much vibrato on the C note.

The above is what it looked like after using the pitch modulation tool to keep the vibrato in check.

Once I have the lead vocal as I want it, I will start tuning and lining up the two harmony tracks with it. I will tune the harmonies in the same way as above, and start lining up the harmonies one at a time with the lead vocal.

Starting with the lower harmony, I will take a copy of my tuned lead vocal and move it down a third to where the lower harmony was sung. I can now see the tracks one on top of each other and can start stretching and shrinking the harmony blobs to match the lead vocal. You can see in the picture below how the harmony did not align 100% with the lead vocal. This can easily be fixed in Melodyne 4 Studio by simply picking up and dragging the edge of the offending syllable or word so that it lines up nicely with the same syllable or word of the lead vocal.

When you adjust the timing of a blob, Melodyne automatically adjusts the size of the surrounding blobs so that the edits are indiscernible.

This may seem like lots of effort to get perfectly lined up harmonies but it gets easier with experience. It is certainly easier than recording multiple takes to get perfect alignment between backing and lead vocals.

To export your lead vocal as a MIDI file, simply hit File Export and select MIDI as your export format. You can then use this MIDI file to make artistic arrangement nuances in your production.

Summary: Is It Worth It?

If you are serious about producing high quality demos with vocals as a big focus, I would say yes. Even the vocals of top recording artists are put through Melodyne to fine tune. In my opinion, every vocal can benefit from some slight manual tuning. To see the benefit before investing time and money, there are Fiverr freelancers who can process your track though Melodyne for a reasonable fee. Then, load the tuned vocal with the raw one in your DAW and switch between them to hear the difference.

I would suggest starting with the Essential version. Get familiar with the product by using it on one lead vocal, and see where it takes you. Once convinced, start putting money in your piggy bank so that you can invest in the Studio version. There is no doubt that if you make the commitment to purchase and learn Melodyne, you will save time and money and produce better recordings. In my opinion – it is a great investment!

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If you’re not sold and are looking for Melodyne alternatives, take a look at our guide to the best Autotune plugins and software and our review of the best free autotune plugins + free download pack!

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