MELODYNE 5 – An Introduction

Celemony’s ‘Melodyne 5’ is the industry standard used for correcting and manipulating audio files. The following description is part of what you can expect from the course.

There are a few versions of Melodyne available. But, during this course, Melodyne studio will be used and used in standalone mode. That said we will look at it in use with Steinberg’s Cubase too.

Melodyne can be integrated directly inside music software such as Cubase so that vocal performances can be edited or adapted or corrected as required.

Though the studio version is used in this course, much of what is discussed will apply to all versions.

We will start by looking around the UI so that we know where things are and how particular parameters and panels function. We will see that across the top left of the UI, we get seven menu options with relevant procedures pertinent to the specific tabs. Perhaps the most important menu tab to look at initially is the algorithm one.

When audio is imported into Melodyne, the program makes a pretty good guess of the type of algorithm to use. The melodic algorithm is often automatically selected when importing a vocal audio file. If a drum file is imported though, Melodyne would’ve used a different algorithm – perhaps the percussive one.

As the course progresses, what we see in the main editing area are the individual notes that comprise to make the vocal performance. These notes are referred to as blobs. These blobs appear once audio has been imported and analysed by one of the multiple Melodyne algorithms. In use, we will see some of the notes in the large editing pane. If you want to navigate around the large editing pane – to zoom in or out – you can select the horizontal perspective by grabbing at the foot and refocusing what is in view. The same can be done for the vertical by using the slider at the right.

Below the menu buttons at the top left is a series of buttons. Centrally, we find playback controls. We also see a timeline position indicator that displays the exact point the playhead is at. Next, we have the key the project is in – as well as its time signature and a metronome to keep time. There is another button to the right. This is an auto stretch activation button.

The UI is dominated by the note editor that displays those blobs ready for manipulation or correction. This main area is the note editor – and is predominantly where most editing occurs. Nevertheless, how we edit the blobs depends on what is in view in the user interface.

The different panels that comprise the UI are adaptable to the task in hand. Consequently, different areas of the interface can be displayed or hidden by the user depending on what tasks are to be focused on. At the upper left we can hide or display different panel areas with these buttons. Clicking on the first one reveals the note editor on the left.

There is much more to learn from Melodyne. So, let’s get started.

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