user manual Last updated on 09/21/2023

Melodyne 5 assistant - Reaper 6.73

The Melodyne Help Center and this PDF document

This PDF document was generated automatically from the contents of the Melodyne Help Center. It
contains what, on the date indicated on the front page, were the latest versions of the text and
images.

You will find the comprehensive and invariably up-to-date Melodyne Help Center along with
numerous films and inspiring tutorials, as well naturally as the latest version of this PDF document, on
our web site. Why not take a look? Just follow the link at the foot of each page of this PDF.

Melodyne 5 assistant – Quick Start

Integration • Checking the algorithm • Editing • The macros • What else should I read?

Melodyne expert tips by Rich Crescenti

Vocals • Other instruments

Reference manual videos

Fundamentals and workflow • Tools and functions • Algorithms and note assignment • Tempo

Installation and activation

Procedure and terminology • What files are installed and where • Your user account • Licence options:
Deactivate • License options: iLok • Checking for updates • Selling your license • Uninstalling Melodyne

Updates and upgrades

Terminology: major and minor updates, upgrades • Checking for updates • Information about your edition,
version and serial number • How updates and upgrades are performed and what the process involves • iLok

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when updating or upgrading • Compatibility after an update or upgrade • Parallel operation of old and new
versions after an update or upgrade • Going back to your old Melodyne • What upgrades are available and
what benefits do they bring

Inserting and preparing to use Melodyne

Required versions and compatibility • Loading Melodyne • Keyboard shortcuts • Integration of the Undo
function into Reaper • Bypassing or removing Melodyne, and comparing your editing with the original file •
Tip: Working with long files • Saving, archiving and passing on your songs • Buffer size

Playback, navigation, zooming

Local playback in Melodyne • Controlling playback, scrubbing and zooming using the Time Ruler • Resizing
the window • Scrolling and zooming in the Note Editor • Navigation and zoom functions

Cycle mode
Defining the cycle range • Switching cycle mode on and off • Changing the length of, and moving, the cycle
range • Defining the cycle range using a blob selection

Display and other options

Showing and hiding elements of the user interface • Show Pitch Curve • Show Note Separations • Show
Note Tails • Displaying sibilants • Displaying fades • Show Blob Info • Show Intended Notes • Highlight
Notes During Playback • Monitor When Editing Blobs • Show Clip Borders

Preferences and keyboard shortcuts

Opening the window and user interface settings • The audio cache • Shortcuts • Check for Updates

Audio characteristics and algorithms

The detection process • The Universal algorithm • The “Percussive” algorithms • The Melodic algorithm •
The “Polyphonic” algorithms • Switching algorithms • Automatic or manual algorithm selection

Note Assignment Mode

What editing the detection involves • What is edited and where • Various types of notes

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Tools for note assignment

The Main Tool in Note Assignment Mode • The Activation Tool • Starting point lines and designated starting
points • The Note Separation Tool and the Separation Type Tool • The Starting Point Tool • The Sibilant
Range Tool • The Note Inspector

The Algorithm Inspector

The Preview parameters • The Algorithm parameters • Sibilant Handling, Robust Pitch Curve, Separate Audio

The Time Grid

Activating and setting the Time Grid • Moving notes when the grid is active

Chord recognition and the Chord Track

Limitations of the editions Melodyne essential and assistant • One Chord Track for all Melodyne instances •
Triggering the harmonic analysis • Selecting between alternative designations • Entering chords manually •
Keyboard shortcuts for editing the chords • Auditioning chords • Chord symbol conventions • The Key Track
and key changes • The Key Track and the Scale Ruler • Chords and keys in Note Assignment Mode

The Pitch Grid

The functions of the Pitch Ruler and access to the Pitch Grid • The Pitch Grid and the background in the Note
Editor • The Scale Ruler and the Reference Pitch Ruler • Adjusting the master tuning • Selecting the tonic
and scale variety • The Scale Window

Tracks and clips

Track Edit Mode and Clip Edit Mode • Restructuring of the arrangement • Rendering • Vocal comping

Selecting notes
Standard selection techniques • Snake selection • Selection using the Pitch Ruler • Selection commands in
the menu

Correct Pitch Macro

Opening and using the macro • Closing the macro and correction values when it is reopened • The Correct
Pitch macro and sibilants

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Quantize Time Macro

Quantizing timing: What is moved and where to? • Opening the Quantize Time Macro and setting the
parameters • Closing the macro and correction values on reopening

The Leveling Macro

Opening and setting the Leveling Macro • The Mean Amplitude • Closing the macro and correction values
when it is subsequently re-opened

Main Tool
Modifying the pitch and timing of notes • Modifying note lengths • Editing note separations

Pitch Tool
Shifting the pitch center • Monitoring pitch shifts • Editing pitch with the inspectors • Correcting pitch with a
double click • Pitch transitions • Resetting individual edits and introducing random deviations

Pitch modulation and drift

Editing pitch modulation and drift • The inspector for pitch modulation and drift • The Reset commands

Formant Tool
Shifting formants • The inspector for the formants • Formant transitions • The Reset commands

Amplitude Tool
Editing amplitude • Editing amplitude using the inspectors • Amplitude transitions • Muting notes • The reset
commands

Tools for fades and sibilant balance

The Fade Tool: Fade-in and fade-out on notes • Fades in conjunction with other tools • The Sibilant Balance
Tool: The management of sibilants and breath noise • Uses for the Sibilant Balance Tool

Timing Tool
Modifying the position and length of notes • Timing changes in the case of connected notes • Correcting
timing with a double-click • Adding random deviations • The reset commands

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Time Handles and Attack Speed

How time handles and the Attack Speed Tool work • Modifying the evolution of notes using time handles •
Changing the attack speed of notes • Combining time handles with the Attack Speed Tool

Note separation tools

Inserting, moving and removing note separations • Editing note separations with multiple notes selected •
Soft and hard note separations • Switching between hard and soft separations with the Separation Type Tool
• In the context menu: Separate Note • In the context menu: Separate Notes as Trills • In the context menu:
Merge notes

The Note Inspector

The parameters of the Note Inspector • Entering values and handling multiple selected notes

Copying notes
The selection, cursor and grid when copying • Tempo adjustment when copying: the Auto Stretch Switch •
Copying in an ARA context

The Edit menu

Restore Original • Adding random deviations • Macros • Select Special • Chords and Keys

Audio to MIDI
About Audio-to-MIDI • Exporting MIDI

Time-stretching, tempo and tempo matching

The time stretching behavior of Reaper and Melodyne • Tempo and the Time Grid • Quantizing notes •
Importing a tempo map from Melodyne into Reaper

Switching to Melodyne studio trial mode

Switching to trial mode • Comparing editions • Expiry of the trial period • Convinced?

Melodyne 5: Update guide

The Melodic Algorithm with Sibilant Detection • Compatibility with Melodyne 4 • New tools (not only) for vocals
• The Leveling Macro • Pitch correction by double-clicking and the Correct Pitch Macro • Chord Recognition
and the Chord Track • The new Percussive Pitched Algorithm • Keyboard shortcuts

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Already own a Melodyne?

How does the coupon work? • What if I have already activated my Melodyne 5 essential by mistake? •
Coupons: terms and conditions of use

Version history
New in Version 5.3.1 • New in Version 5.3 • New in Version 5.2 • New in Version 5.1.1 • New in Version 5.1
• New in Version 5.0.2 • New in Version 5.0.1

User manuals for older versions

Melodyne 4 • Melodyne editor, assistant and essential 2 (singletrack) • Melodyne studio 3 • Ending support
for older versions of Melodyne

© Celemony Software GmbH 2023 • Last updated on 09/21/2023 • Help Center • www.celemony.com 7
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Melodyne 5 assistant – Quick Start

Melodyne 5 assistant gives you direct access to individual notes within your recordings, allowing you
to edit their pitch, position, duration and other musical parameters in an intuitive way. The quality of
Melodyne’s correction of out-of-tune notes is legendary, but you can also introduce melodic
variations, create vocal arrangements, quantize audio, improve timing and do many other things with
it as well.

Here is a quick and concise guide to getting Melodyne 5 assistant up and running.

Integration
In your ARA-compatible DAW, open Melodyne (using whichever command is provided by your DAW
for that purpose) directly on the audio clip(s) you wish to edit with Melodyne. Melodyne will then
perform its detection analysis and show you the results in its Note Editor.

Melodyne 5 assistant is suitable for the editing of lead vocals and monophonic instruments as well as
drum and percussion tracks, but you can also edit entire mixes with it – using functions such as
transpose, quantize and time-stretch.

Checking the algorithm

Melodyne’s characteristic blobs represent the notes found in your recording, which you can select,
drag and edit using the tools provided. Before you begin, however, there is one thing you must check:

Based on its analysis of the audio material, Melodyne assistant will have chosen to use either its
Melodic or its Percussive algorithm. When the Percussive algorithm is used, all the notes are
displayed in a single horizontal line; when the Melodic algorithm is used, on the other hand, the
vertical position of the notes represents their pitch.

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If your audio material is not displayed the way you want, you can select a different algorithm from the
Algorithm menu. Please note, however, that if you do this, any editing of the track you may already
have done using Melodyne will be lost! That is why, you should always make sure that the correct
algorithm has been selected before you begin editing.

Editing
In Melodyne assistant, you will often be working with Melodyne’s Main Tool, which can be used not
only to change the pitch of notes but also their position in time and their duration as well as to split
them. With the other tools, you can alter, among other things, the vibrato, amplitude and formant
spectrum of notes as well as their internal timing.

Using the tools, you can edit notes individually or entire selections of notes simultaneously. The Main
Tool is used as follows:

To change the pitch of a note:

– Click in the middle of the corresponding blob and drag it up or down. The note will move in steps of
a semitone.
– If you hold down the Alt key as you drag, the grid will be deactivated and you will be able to move
the note by smaller amounts (in steps of a cent).
– If it’s the right note but simply out of tune (“off key”), double-click on it and it will snap at once to the
intended pitch.

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To change the position in time of a note:

– Click in the middle of the corresponding blob and drag it to the left or right. When released, the note
will snap to the nearest grid line.
– If, however, you hold down the Alt key as you drag, the grid will be deactivated and you will be able
to position the note freely.

To change the duration of a note…

…by making it begin earlier or later: Click the left-hand side of the blob and drag it, respectively, to
the left or right.
…by making it end earlier or later: Click the right-hand side of the blob and drag it, respectively, to the
left or right.
– If you hold down the Alt key as you drag, this will deactivate the grid, allowing you to position the
beginning or end of the note freely.

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To split a note in two:

– Position the tool at the intended split point – not on but slightly above the blob; the appearance of
the mouse pointer will then change, and you will be able to split the note with a double click. This can
give you greater flexibility when correcting or reshaping notes.
– The note separation that is created can be removed with a double click to reunite the two segments.

The macros
Whilst the tools are used primarily to solve specific problems with individual notes, the macros allow
you to edit multiple notes and even entire recordings in one go. The macros affect only the notes
currently selected, unless none are, in which case they affect all the notes of the current audio file.
There are three macros:

Correct Pitch, which moves notes to, or towards (you decide how far), the nearest semitone. How far
they move also depends upon how badly out of tune they were to begin with. With the second slider,
you can rein in pitch drift within notes.

Quantize Time moves notes to or towards (you decide how far) either the intended beat or the
nearest line of the selected grid.

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Note Leveling allows you to make loud notes quieter, or quiet notes louder, or both. In this way, you
can smooth out disparities in volume and give your recordings greater homogeneity. It is also the
perfect way to optimize input to any compressor after Melodyne in the signal chain.

What else should I read?

In this tour we have covered only the points needed to get you off to a fast and successful start with
Melodyne. But there’s plenty more to discover and to learn. Take a look at the list of topics on the left:
In the Help Center, you will find each of these topics explained in detail as well as a wide range of
video tutorials. You can access these any time via Melodyne’s Help menu.

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Melodyne expert tips by Rich Crescenti

Rich Crescenti is a freelance engineer who works as a Melodyne specialist for our American
distributors, writes pro audio articles, interviews and reviews, and conducts numerous courses and
seminars, having clocked up over 10,000 hours of classroom instruction time. Furthermore, Rich is a
real Melodyne power user: watch him in action in the following videos, benefit from his experience,
and be inspired! Shown here: Melodyne 5 studio, smaller editions may differ.

Vocals

Other instruments

© Celemony Software GmbH 2023 • Last updated on 09/21/2023 • Help Center • www.celemony.com 13
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Reference manual videos

Here you will find all the videos to accompany the Reference manual, sorted by topic. The videos are
in English with subtitles in German, French, Spanish and Japanese. Shown here: Melodyne 5 studio,
smaller editions may differ.

Fundamentals and workflow

Tools and functions

Algorithms and note assignment

Tempo

© Celemony Software GmbH 2023 • Last updated on 09/21/2023 • Help Center • www.celemony.com 14
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Installation and activation

From this tour, you will learn all you need to know about installing and activating Melodyne. We begin
with the basic procedure and the most important terms before outlining further options and details.
From the separate tour “Updates and upgrades”, you can learn how updates and upgrades work and
what you need to bear in mind when considering them.

Procedure and terminology

Serial number and Melodyne license: Your serial number is a multi-character string that
corresponds to your Melodyne license. If you make the purchase in our web shop, we give you your
serial number; if you buy it from a dealer, you will get it from them. If you obtain Melodyne essential
as part of a bundle, whoever supplied the bundle will provide the serial number as well.

Registration and user account: Your user account is created when you first register a Melodyne
license. To do this, simply enter the serial number. When you make the purchase from our web shop,
that is part of the procedure. You can then register any further Melodyne licenses via your user
account. From your user account, you can manage your Melodyne licenses, choose your newsletter
options and download installation programs.

Installation program: When you download the installation program (whether for macOS or Windows)
from your user account, it installs the latest versions of the stand-alone implementation of Melodyne
as well as of all the various plug-ins.

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Activation: In order to run Melodyne on a particular computer, the computer must first be activated
for Melodyne. In the course of this process, Melodyne checks the validity of your license data with our
server, so an Internet connection is required. You will be prompted to activate Melodyne the first time
you launch the program; this only takes a few clicks and you will need your serial number. Please
note: Unlike the deactivation process (see below), you can only activate a computer from the
computer itself, not from your user account.

Licence, number of activations and workstations: The standard Melodyne license allows you to
use Melodyne on one workstation only at a time. However, the license does allow you two activations,
the second being an emergency one you can use to activate a substitute computer quickly and easily
if, for example, your primary computer breaks down in the middle of a production.

If you wish to use Melodyne simultaneously on two or more workstations, you can purchase further
activations, converting your standard license into a team license. If you perform an update or upgrade
of your team license for which a charge is made, up to four workstations are included for the same
price as a single workstation update or upgrade. For five workstations or more, special purchase
discounts and update/upgrade conditions apply. You can find out more about these in our web shop.

What files are installed and where

The installation program you download from your user account installs the stand-alone
implementation of Melodyne as well as all the various plug-ins. In the process, the following files are
placed in the following locations:

Windows 10

VST 3: C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Celemony\Melodyne.vst3

AAX: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-ins\Melodyne.aaxplugin

Melodyne stand-alone: C:\Program Files\Celemony\Melodyne 5\Melodyne.exe

Note for Windows users: For its audio processing, Melodyne needs to be able to store temporary files
on your hard disk and read them. For this purpose, a directory called: C:
\Users\*\Documents\Celemony\Separations is created. To avoid Windows Defender (virus protection)
being invoked every time data is read from this directory – which would slow Melodyne down
drastically – an exclusion from Microsoft Defender anti-virus scans is defined for this folder when
Melodyne is installed.

macOS 10.12 (and later)

VST 3: Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/Melodyne.vst3

AAX: Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins/Melodyne.aaxplugin

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AU: Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Melodyne.component

Melodyne stand-alone: Macintosh HD/Applications/Melodyne 5/Melodyne.app

Your user account

You can access your user account via the menu of our website, the following link: www.celemony.com
/login or by choosing License from Melodyne’s Help menu.

In addition to the latest installation program for your Melodyne and your newsletter preferences, you
will find in your user account various options for managing your license. There is the option, for
example, of deactivating an activated computer or of transferring an activation to iLok (except with
Melodyne essential or in the case described above of the emergency activation).

Licence options: Deactivate

Any computer that has been activated to run Melodyne can be deactivated. The activation will then be
credited to your user account, so that it can be transferred later to a different computer.

This means that if you have no activations left in your user account but wish to use Melodyne on a
new computer, you can simply deactivate another computer that is still active, and this will free up an
activation to transfer to your new one. You can switch between computers like this as often as you
like. The only restriction is the number of computers involved. If you want to switch activations
frequently between a fairly large number of computers, we recommend using the iLok USB copy-
protection dongle (see next section).

To deactivate a computer: Log in to your user account via our website or by choosing “License”
from Melodyne’s Help menu. If you log in via our website, you must click the “License options” button
to get to the page with the “Deactivate” option. If you choose “License” from Melodyne’s Help menu, it
will take you to this page directly.

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Nice to know: The fact that you can deactivate a computer from any other computer (provided you
first log in to your user account) is important, as it allows you to retrieve your Melodyne activation
from a lost or stolen computer or from one that has broken down. You can only activate a computer,
on the other hand, from the computer itself and cannot do it through your user account.

License options: iLok

iLok is a service provided by Pace that we offer as an optional supplement to our computer-based
activation system (except in the case of essential, the smallest edition of Melodyne).

The iLok USB copy-protection dongle is popular because it can store many licenses and be used on
different computers. So it allows you to take your Melodyne activation “on the road” with you if you
are constantly moving from one computer to the next and want to use Melodyne on each computer in
turn.

Pace offers a variety of license-protection solutions. For technical reasons, we only support one of
these i.e. activation by means of an iLok USB dongle, which is available from dealers for around 50
US dollars. The two other varieties (computer-based iLok activation and activation via the iLok Cloud)
are not supported by Melodyne.

If you wish to use iLok, you can transfer your Melodyne activation to your iLok account. Your second
Melodyne activation is reserved for our own computer-based activation, as an emergency solution, so
to speak, if your iLok is not to hand when needed. Additional activations that you may have
purchased for your Melodyne license can also be transferred to iLok. Please note that a Melodyne
activation that has been transferred to an iLok account cannot be retrieved. So before transferring an
activation, you should make sure you really can, and do wish to, use an iLok USB copy-protection
dongle to activate Melodyne.

Checking for updates

Each time you launch Melodyne, it automatically checks to see whether a newer and better version of
the program is available for download. If a new version is available, a page giving you details of it will
open in your browser and from this you can download the new version.

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If you open the “Check for Updates” page of Melodyne’s “Preferences” dialog, you can opt, if you
prefer, to check for updates manually (which is done by clicking the “Check Now” button) rather than
have Melodyne do this for you automatically at program launch. We recommend you to leave the
default setting (“Automatically”) so that you never miss an important update.

Selling your license

Naturally it is possible to sell your Melodyne, but to do so you need to contact our support. Since the
person you sell it to will require their own user account with their own access data, we will have to
remove your serial number from your user account and also cancel any activations you may have
transferred to iLok. Only then can the license be transferred to the purchaser.

Please note : Resale of a Melodyne license purchased by credit card from our web shop is not
possible within three months of the date of purchase. This is to prevent possible credit card fraud.

Uninstalling Melodyne
To uninstall Melodyne under macOS, just run the program “Melodyne Uninstaller”, which you will find
in the “Melodyne 5” folder within your “Applications” folder. Under Windows, follow the standard
procedure for uninstalling applications.

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Updates and upgrades

From this tour, you will learn all about updating and upgrading Melodyne. We explain the installation
procedure, the Melodyne license and the activation of the program in the tour “Installation and
activation”.

Terminology: major and minor updates, upgrades

Minor update: This is a free update containing bug fixes and perhaps new functions of lesser
importance. In this case, although the version number is incremented, its first digit remains the same
(e.g. from 5.0.3 to 5.1.0).

Major update: This is an update that contains significant new features and is indicated by a change
in the first digit of the version number (e.g. from 4.2.1 to 5.0.0). These updates are not free of charge.
Exception: Melodyne essential, for which even major updates are free of charge.

Upgrade: This is a change, for which you do have to pay, from a smaller edition of Melodyne to a
larger one with more functions (e.g. from Melodyne essential to Melodyne assistant).

An upgrade may also contain a major update. For example, an upgrade from Melodyne 4 editor to
Melodyne 5 studio. It is not necessary to update to editor 5 before upgrading to studio 5.

Checking for updates

Each time you launch Melodyne, it checks automatically to see whether a new and improved version
is available for download. If this is the case, a page will open in your browser giving you details and
allowing you to download the new version.

In Melodyne’s Preferences dialog, you will find a page entitled “Check for Updates” where you can
switch from automatic checks (the default) to manual checks triggered by clicking the “Check Now”
button. We recommend you to leave the default setting (“Automatically”) unchanged, so you never
miss an important update.

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Information about your edition, version and serial number

To discover which version of which edition you have, as well as your serial number, choose Melodyne
> “About Melodyne” from the main menu.

The name of your edition and your serial number are also displayed in your user account. There you
will also see which basic version you have (i.e. the first digit of your version number: 4, 5 etc.) but not
which specific update is currently installed on your computer (e.g. 5.1.0).

How updates and upgrades are performed and what the process involves
When you are notified by Melodyne’s Check for Updates function or by newsletter that an update for
your Melodyne is available, you will always be provided with a download link for the corresponding
installation program. If you learn of an update in some other way or if you have purchased an
upgrade, you will find the installation program in your user account.

Every update or upgrade requires you to install the latest version of Melodyne. In the case of a free-of-
charge minor update, that’s all there is to it. In the case of a major update or an upgrade, on the other
hand, you will be given a new license and at the same time your old one will expire. This also means
that your old serial number will be replaced by a new one. So Melodyne may also need to be
reactivated after the update or upgrade.

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When you are reactivating the program after a major update or an upgrade, your old activations will
no longer count, because along with your new license you will receive new activations.

A tip about updates: If you are running Melodyne on more than one computer, a major update is liable
to involve many changes to the program, some of which may also affect the sound. For this reason,
you will probably not want to update Melodyne on the production computer until the projects you are
working on there are complete, but you may still want to try out the new version on your laptop. This
is not a problem: if you buy an update from Melodyne 4 to Melodyne 5, your activations for Melodyne
4 will not be removed immediately but only after the installation of Melodyne 5. You can update
Melodyne on one of the computers and continue to run Melodyne 4 on the other for a transitional
period.

iLok when updating or upgrading

With iLok, too, a distinction has to be made between (on the one hand) a minor update and (on the
other) a major update or an upgrade. In the case of a minor update, you don’t need to do anything;
your iLok USB dongle will continue to work.

With a major update or an upgrade, however, you receive a new license, so in both these cases
your iLok license must be updated. If you are using iLok, we transfer your new licence automatically
to your iLok account, where it replaces the old one.

At this point, action from you is required: To run your new Melodyne, you must then transfer your
new Melodyne license from your iLok account to your iLok USB dongle.

Compatibility after an update or upgrade

An update will give you new features and possibilities, but will remain compatible with your existing
projects. Please note, however, that we are talking here about upward compatibility only: You will be
able to open projects saved by your old version of Melodyne in your new one, but you will not be able
to open projects saved with your new version of Melodyne in your old one.

In the case of massive leaps, however, such as from Version 1 to Version 5, there will naturally be
major differences, as the pace of development at Celemony is unrelenting. New processing methods
and bug fixes, as well as new and improved functions, all find expression in higher sound quality – or,
to put it in neutral terms, acoustic differences. For this reason, you are advised in case of doubt not to
perform this type of major update while you are still working on a project.

Different editions of the program are also compatible, provided they have the same version numbers.
You can, for instance, open a project created by Melodyne editor Version 5.0.1 in Melodyne essential
Version 5.0.1 or even in Melodyne player (a non-activated Melodyne) Version 5.0.1. Everything will
sound exactly as it did when it was saved by Melodyne editor, even if some or all of the functions you
used to perform the edits in Melodyne editor are not available in Melodyne essential or player.

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The reason is that Melodyne editions differ from one another not in the technology they use but in the
range of functions they provide. Since Melodyne essential offers fewer functions than Melodyne
editor, you will be limited to these when performing any further editing in Melodyne essential of a
Melodyne editor project, and no further editing of it at all will be possible using Melodyne player. A
wider range of functions, on the other hand, would be available to you if you opened the same editor
project in the more powerful Melodyne studio.

Parallel operation of old and new versions after an update or upgrade

This is impossible for technical reasons: DAWs recognize the Melodyne plug-in by its identifier, and
this does not change when the product is upgraded or updated. The advantage is that this allows you
to update or upgrade Melodyne in the middle of a project and continue working seamlessly. It does
mean, however, that you cannot run your old and new versions of Melodyne in parallel inside the
same DAW, as they would need to use the same identifier and no DAW will allow the same identifier
to be used more than once.

Going back to your old Melodyne

After a major update or upgrade, it is usually not possible to go back to the version or edition of
Melodyne you were using previously. However, if serious problems or incompatibilities arise in your
system after an update or upgrade, please contact our support. We’re sure to find a solution.

What upgrades are available and what benefits do they bring

You can upgrade from any edition of Melodyne to any of the larger editions – even directly from the
smallest, Melodyne essential, to the largest, Melodyne studio.

You will find an overview of all updates and upgrades in our web shop. Under “More Info...”, you can
discover which key functions and features not offered by your current edition the upgrade will bring
you.

You will find a table comparing the various editions here.

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Inserting and preparing to use Melodyne

The following tour will show you how to integrate Melodyne into Reaper.

Required versions and compatibility

To enjoy the advantages of Melodyne with ARA in Reaper, you require at least Reaper Version 5.97
and Melodyne Version 4.2 as a VST3 plug-in.

In the Reaper program settings for VST plug-ins, you can switch ARA support on or off. By default, it
is switched on.

If you open older projects, in which you had used Melodyne as a transfer plug-in, Melodyne will
continue to be integrated as a transfer plug-in. You will find that all your Melodyne editing has been
preserved and you can continue where you left off. When starting new projects, however, ARA is
available.

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Loading Melodyne
In Reaper, you can load Melodyne in either of two ways: either as a “Track-FX”, in which case it
affects the entire track, or as an “Item-FX”, in which case it affects one Media Item only. We
recommend you to integrate Melodyne with ARA always as “Track-FX” for the entire audio track.

Please note that the Melodyne plug-in must invariably occupy the first insert slot in the channel strip
and is automatically moved there if you insert it into another slot. This prevents the other plug-ins you
are using on the track from operating destructively.

For now, insert the Melodyne plug-in. If there is already a Media Item on the audio track, you will see
its contents in Melodyne and can set to work at once editing the notes.

Without ARA, you would have had to play through the entire track at this point in order to transfer it to
Melodyne. With ARA, this is no longer necessary.

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Multi-window vs. single window operation

Like other plug-ins with which you are no doubt familiar, Melodyne opens a separate window for each
track into which it is inserted.

You can position and resize these Melodyne windows at will. To resize a Melodyne window , drag its
bottom right-hand corner.

To avoid an avalanche of windows, you can set Reaper to open a single window only. To do this,
check “Only allow one FX chain open at a time” in the plug-in settings.

If you wish the Melodyne window to remain open at all times in the Reaper doc, you should also
check the option “Auto-dock new FX chain windows”.

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Keyboard shortcuts
Whereas under Windows, the keyboard shortcuts CTRL+A/C/X/V are automatically passed on to
Melodyne, to ensure the same result on a Mac you must go to Reaper’s FX menu and check the
option “Send all keyboard input to plug-in”.

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Integration of the Undo function into Reaper

With the option “Save minimal undo states” in Reaper shown here, you can select whether or not the
undoing of Melodyne editing steps should be integrated into Reaper’s own Undo history.

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If you leave the option unchecked, you can undo editing steps in Melodyne not only from within
Melodyne but also using Reaper’s own Undo function. That can be convenient but it has its
drawbacks, as it means Melodyne has to send a large quantity of data to Reaper after each editing
step, which can slow things down when you are working with Melodyne.

For this reason, we recommend you to check (i.e. select) the option shown. Admittedly this
prevents you undoing Melodyne editing steps from within Reaper, but you can still undo them from
within Melodyne. The time-consuming transfer of data to Reaper is thereby avoided, which makes
working with Melodyne considerably more fluid and agreeable.
Since Reaper Version 5.972, this is the default setting.

Bypassing or removing Melodyne, and comparing your editing with the original file
To switch Melodyne to bypass or remove it from a Media Item, deactivate or delete Melodyne from
“Track FX”. Of course, if you switch Melodyne to bypass, time-stretching will no longer be performed
by Melodyne but by Reaper, which can lead to differences in the sound.

In addition to Reaper’s bypass function, which deactivates Melodyne altogether, Melodyne’s

“Compare” button offers you a quick way of comparing the current state of your editing with the
original audio files.

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The Compare switch resets the notes – not only acoustically but also visually – to their unedited state.
This lets you see at a glance which notes have, and which have not, been affected by your editing.

The Compare switch invariably affects all Media Items governed by Melodyne, whichever track they
are on, and regardless of whether or not they are currently visible in the Note Editor. The entire song
is then temporarily returned to the state it was in before you began modifying notes with Melodyne.

Any adjustment of the tempo of Media Items to match that of the song is also reversed.

Tip: Working with long files

With ARA, Melodyne always analyzes in its entirety the audio file that is being referenced by a media
item, even if you have narrowed the item’s boundaries before using Melodyne. This has several
advantages. It allows you, for instance, to widen the item boundaries again later without any further
analysis by Melodyne being required.

It does mean, however, that there can be a noticeable hold-up when Melodyne is first used on a
media item; this would be the case, for example, if the audio file being referenced by the item was a
live recording lasting several hours (which Melodyne would analyze with the Polyphonic algorithm).

So if you just want to edit part of such a recording, we recommend that, before you begin editing with
Melodyne, you convert the passage in question into a new item (File>Render>Selected Media Items).
This will then be based on a new, shorter audio file that Melodyne will be able to analyze that much
faster.

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Saving, archiving and passing on your songs

Thanks to ARA, when saving and archiving your work, it is not necessary to give special thought to
Melodyne, because all the files used by Melodyne (which it will need again when the song is next
opened) are stored in the Reaper project.

If, however, you are passing on your Reaper project to third parties – for remixing, for example – you
do then need to make sure that they also have at their disposal Version 4.2 (or higher) of Melodyne.
Which actual edition of Melodyne the recipient possesses is not relevant. Should, for example, they
only possess the “small” Melodyne essential, where you have been working with the “big” Melodyne
studio, they will still hear all your Melodyne editing exactly as if they too had the studio edition.
Naturally, if they propose to modify or add to your Melodyne editing of the song, they will be limited in
the actions they can perform to the function set of the edition they possess.

It cannot hurt, however, to render your tracks before sharing your work with others. This may be
advisable for other reasons too, such as any use you may have made in your project of third-party
plug-ins.

Buffer size
We recommend an audio buffer size of 1,024 samples. Smaller values lead to a marked increase in
the CPU load. Should you require a smaller buffer, e.g. when you are performing the headphone mix
directly in your computer and not monitoring via an external channel strip or mixer, switch all
instances of Melodyne during the recording to bypass. Reactivate Melodyne as soon as you begin
editing your new track.

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Playback, navigation, zooming

This tour will give you an overview of the functions Melodyne offers for navigation and the playing
back of audio.

Local playback in Melodyne

If you commence playback from the DAW, using its bar ruler, for example, or transport buttons, the
full arrangement plays back. The DAW mixer then determines the balance between tracks. The same
is true if you commence playback by double-clicking on the Melodyne ruler. It is also possible,
however, to “solo” Melodyne (i.e. for Melodyne to playback on its own); we call this “local playback”.
With ARA integration, this local playback is started by double-clicking in the background of the Note
Editor.

Local playback in Clip Edit Mode: Here, a significant difference arises at the clip borders between this
mode of playback and playback in the DAW: During DAW playback, you hear only what lies within the
clip borders selected in the DAW. If any notes are incomplete, due to a poorly positioned clip border
slicing off the start or end of the note, this is immediately obvious during DAW playback. During local
playback, on the other hand, you can hear material lying beyond the borders of the clip (i.e. in areas
with a gray background).

This allows you to check out what the result would be if you were to move the clip borders in the
DAW. It can also be useful if, for instance, you wish to use the rest of the track – i.e. the material lying
outside the clip as currently defined – as a “note supply” from which to “pinch” notes, by copying them
and pasting them into the clip you are working on.

Controlling playback, scrubbing and zooming using the Time Ruler

Double-click in the Melodyne Time Ruler to start the DAW playback from the corresponding
place.
Double-click in the editing background of Melodyne’s Note Editor to start Melodyne only (local
playback) from the position in question.

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[Alt]-double-click in the Time Ruler plays back only the current note selection in both the DAW
and Melodyne.
[Alt]-double-click in the editing background of the Note Editor plays back only the selected note
segment and only in Melodyne.

These functions can also be triggered during playback.

If you double-click again in the Time Ruler while the playback is in progress, the playback will stop
and the playback cursor will move to the point clicked.

A single click in the Time Ruler moves the playback cursor to the point clicked. If you do this while
playback is in progress, instead of halting, playback skips to the position clicked and continues from
there. If you do it while playback is halted, the playback cursor moves to the position clicked but
playback remains halted and only resumes if you double-click in the Time Ruler.

When playback is halted, you can scrub through the audio material by clicking and dragging in the
Time Ruler.

By dragging upwards or downwards, you can zoom the display at the current position. Scrubbing and
zooming can be used in combination, allowing you to navigate and position the cursor intuitively,
setting the zoom factor at the same time.

Resizing the window

To change the size of the window, click and drag the bottom right-hand corner. The procedure is the
same for both the stand-alone and plug-in implementations of Melodyne.

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Scrolling and zooming in the Note Editor

Select the Scroll Tool (the hand icon) from beneath the main tool or hold down the [Command] and
[Shift] keys to move the display area with the mouse.

Select the Zoom Tool (the magnifying glass) from beneath the Main Tool or press [Command]+[Alt] to
zoom the display with the mouse. You can zoom horizontally and vertically at the same time – with
different levels of intensity in each case.

[Command]+[Shift]+double-click zooms in on one blob or several (if several are selected). A

corresponding double-click in the editing background returns you to the previous zoom level.

If your hardware supports the corresponding functions, you can also scroll and zoom with the mouse
and trackpad:

The mouse wheel and swiping with two fingers on the trackpad can be used for horizontal and
vertical scrolling.
Pinching with two fingers on the trackpad zooms the display simultaneously on the horizontal
and vertical planes.

Drag the horizontal or vertical scrollers (i.e. the scroll boxes or ‘thumbs’) to move the display. The
horizontal scroller contains a miniaturized image of the contents as an orientation aid.

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Drag the ends of the scroller to zoom the display.

If you are editing a particularly long audio file, you may find the reduced size of the scroller makes it
difficult to achieve the desired zoom resolution. In that case, you can zoom in further by holding down
the [Command] and [Alt] keys whilst dragging in the edit pane or else by dragging vertically in the
Time Ruler.

If you pull one end of the horizontal or vertical slider as far as it will go and hold it, you can increase
the vertical or horizontal size of the area displayed. This can be useful in the plug-in, for example,
when you have only transferred the first three bars (measures) of your material but wish to insert
something at bar 20.

Double-click in the center of the scroller to zoom in or out just enough to ensure that all the blobs are
displayed. If cycle mode is active, double-clicking on the horizontal scroller zooms the display just
enough to ensure that the entire contents of the cycle range are visible.

Use the slider in the bottom right-hand corner near the Note Editor to alter the height of the blobs.
This does not alter their volume. Your likely motive will be to obtain a clearer view of material
containing a lot of particularly quiet or particularly loud notes.

A note about automatic scrolling in the Note Editor

If you have selected one or several notes, Melodyne assumes that you wish to see and edit them,
and exercises the requisite restraint by deactivating the auto-scroll function temporarily. Only when
you deselect the notes (for example, by clicking in the background of the Note Editor) and restart the
playback does the display resume its pursuit of the playback cursor.

Similarly, if you move the horizontal scroller so far during playback that the playback cursor actually
disappears from the screen, automatic scrolling will be deactivated. Stopping and restarting in this
case will reactivate the auto-scroll function.

If automatic scrolling has temporarily been deactivated, the auto-scroll icon in the bottom right-hand
corner of the Note Editor takes the form shown here.

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Navigation and zoom functions

To resize the window (also in Plugin), drag the bottom right corner
Hold down the [Command]+[Shift] keys and drag the editing background of the Note Editor to
move the area displayed
Use the mouse wheel to scroll up and down or else (holding the [Shift] key) left and right
A two-finger swipe on the trackpad can be used to scroll the display
A two-finger pinch on the trackpad can be used to zoom the display.
[Command]+[Alt]+drag in the Note Editor serves to zoom the display horizontally and/or
vertically
Drag vertically in the Time Ruler to zoom in on the area indicated
Press [Command]+[Alt] and use the mouse wheel to zoom both axes simultaneously
Press [Command]+[Alt] and double-click to zoom in on a blob or the current selection of blobs
Press [Command]+[Alt] and double-click in the editing background to restore the previous
zoom setting
Drag the scrollers to move the display horizontally or vertically
Drag the ends of the scroller to zoom the display horizontally or vertically
Pull the left- or right-hand ends of the horizontal slider as far as they will go to increase the
length of the section displayed (important in the plug-in e.g. when you have only transferred
the first four bars and are able to navigate only in this area but wish to insert something at bar
20)
Double-click the scrollers to zoom in or out horizontally or vertically until all notes are displayed
The slider in the bottom right-hand corner governs the height of the blobs

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Cycle mode
In Melodyne’s cycle mode, a selected passage is repeated endlessly.

Defining the cycle range

To define a cycle range, click and drag in the lower part of the Time Ruler. If, as you do so, you hold
down the [Alt] key, the Time Grid will be ignored, allowing you to position the start and end points
(which we call the “cycle locators”) freely.

Please note that when ARA is operational, the DAW’s cycle and that of Melodyne are firmly coupled:
If you change the one cycle, you simultaneously change the other one as well.
In the case of Pro Tools (from Version 2022.9 upwards), this means that when you change the length
of the loop in Melodyne, you control remotely the edit selection in Pro Tools too.

Switching cycle mode on and off

Double-click on the cycle range in the narrow strip immediately below the Time Ruler to toggle cycle
mode on and off. When cycle mode is active, the cycle range is shown in dark grey

In the stand-alone implementation of Melodyne, you can also switch cycle mode on and off from the
transport bar.

It is also possible by choosing File > Preferences > Shortcuts to define a keyboard shortcut for
toggling cycle mode on and off.

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Changing the length of, and moving, the cycle range

Drag the right- or left-hand locators to alter the length of the cycle range. If, as you do so, you hold
down the [Alt] key, the Time Grid will be ignored, allowing you to position the locators freely.

Drag the middle of the cycle range to move it ‘en bloc’ to the left or right. If, as you do so, you hold
down the [Alt] key, the Time Grid will be ignored.

If you [Shift]+click near either of the cycle locators, it will move to the designated position. If, as you
do so, you hold down the [Alt] key, the Time Grid will be ignored.

Defining the cycle range using a blob selection

To move the cycle locators to the beginning and end of the current blob selection (snapping to the
grid) hold the [Shift] key and double-click anywhere in the cycle range. If you hold the [Alt] key as well
as the [Shift] key as you do this, instead of snapping to the grid, the locators will be placed at the
beginning of the first, and end of the last, blob in the selection.

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Display and other options

Melodyne offers for the user interface and working in the Note Editor various options that allow you to
adapt the appearance and behavior of the program to your tastes.

Showing and hiding elements of the user interface

Melodyne’s user interface can be adapted to a variety of different work situations and demands. You
will find the means of doing so in the Options menu as well as the interface itself.

“Show Info Pane” (A): Shows/Hides the info pane.

“Show Scale Ruler” (B): Shows/Hides the Scale Ruler.
“Pitch Grid Settings” (C): Offers the choice between various options for the Pitch Grid.
“Time Grid Settings” (D): Offers the choice between various options for the Time Grid.
“Auto Scroll” (E): When this option is selected, the display in the Note Editor follows the
playback cursor. (See also the note below.)
“Track Edit Mode” (F): Shows the notes of all the regions/clips on the track.
“Clip Edit Mode” (G): Shows only the notes of the region/clip currently selected.
“Tempo Dialog” (H): Offers various options governing the way tempo adjustments are
performed.
With the “Keys” (I) and “Chords” (J) switches, you can show or hide the Key and/or Chord
tracks.
The “Compare” switch (K): This facilitates acoustic and visual A/B comparisons between the
edited and original state of the notes.

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A note about automatic scrolling in the Note Editor:

If you have selected one or several notes, Melodyne assumes that you wish to see and edit them,
and exercises the requisite restraint by deactivating the auto-scroll function temporarily. Only when
you deselect the notes (for example, by clicking in the background of the Note Editor) and restart the
playback does the display resume its pursuit of the playback cursor.

Similarly, if you move the horizontal scroller so far during playback that the playback cursor actually
disappears from the screen, automatic scrolling will be deactivated. Stopping and restarting in this
case will reactivate the auto-scroll function.

If automatic scrolling has temporarily been deactivated, the auto-scroll icon in the bottom right-hand
corner of the Note Editor takes the form shown here.

All the options described below relate to the Note Editor and are found by choosing Options > Note
Editor Options from the main menu or by clicking the cog icon in the top right-hand corner of the Note
Editor.

Please note that these options can be selected independently for Edit and Note Assignment modes.

Show Pitch Curve

If you check the option Show Pitch Curve, a thin line tracing the exact pitch of the tone at each instant
will be superimposed on the corresponding blob.

On the left, you can see the ‘naked’ blobs (with none of the Note Editor display options selected) and
on the right, the same blobs with the Show Pitch Curve option checked.

Regardless of whether or not this option is checked, the pitch curve will be displayed whenever the
Pitch Tool is selected.

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Show Note Separations

If you select the option Show Note Separations, gray vertical lines appear at the beginnings and
endings of notes indicating their limits or separations.

Note Separations are either shown as lines (soft separations between connected notes) or thin
brackets (hard separations).

Note separations are always displayed when the independent Note Separation Tool is in use,
regardless of whether or not the menu entry is checked.

Show Note Tails

In the detection and display of notes, Melodyne editor draws a distinction between the notes
themselves and their tails – notes being the events of musical relevance and tails depicting the non-
musically-determined fading-away of the sound. The share of the reverberation ascribed to a given
tone, for example, is reflected in its tail. The Show Note Tails option allows you to decide whether the
reverberative phase of notes should be displayed or hidden. This is likely to depend upon whether
you prefer to concentrate upon their musical or their acoustic aspects.

If the tail is not displayed, the end of the musically relevant part of the note provides the handle you
can drag with the Time Tool to make the note longer or shorter. Any reverberation present will in this
case automatically be governed by the changes made. This display option serves to provide a clearer
overview of the intended musical events.

If the note tail is displayed (assuming it has one), it is this that provides the handle for the Time Tool.
Show Note Tails is the option most suitable when what is sought is as authentic a picture as possible
of the sounds actually heard – including any reverberation present.

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Displaying sibilants
If you check the option “Show Sibilants”, the presence of sibilants (usually “s” sounds or breath noise)
is indicated by hatching.

When the Sibilant Balance Tool is selected in normal edit mode, or the Sibilant Range Tool is
selected in Note Assignment Mode, the sibilants are invariably hatched, whether this option is
checked or cleared.

Displaying fades
If the “Show Fades” option is checked, the control elements belonging to the Fade Tool are displayed
beside any notes you have previously edited using the Fade Tool.

When the Fade Tool is selected in normal edit mode, the control elements in question are invariably
displayed, whether this option is checked or cleared.

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Show Blob Info

With the option Show Blob Info, you can elect to show or hide a variety of display elements designed
to facilitate working with individual notes.

The most striking of these elements is the Local Pitch Ruler that appears directly in front of any note
over which you move the mouse pointer. Within the blob itself, thin lines mark the drag zones for the
context-sensitive tools.

If you drag a blob when the Show Blob Info option is checked, a vertical line also appears in the Time
Ruler aligned with the exact start of the note. This makes more precise positioning possible.

Show Intended Notes

If you check the option Show Intended Notes, gray frames appear around each blob.

These invariably lie directly on the semitone and coincide exactly with a gridline. They represent, in
other words, Melodyne’s assumptions (based on its own analysis of the audio) as to the intended
pitch of the note and its intended position within the measure or bar. These assumptions generally
turn out to be correct, but are not inevitably so. They are to be thought of as suggestions.

The frames also display the positions in pitch and time towards which the notes in question will
gravitate if partial quantization is applied to them with the macros, which are also the positions they
will snap to if you double-click on them with the Time Tool or Pitch Tool.

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Highlight Notes During Playback

With this option, you can select whether or not you would like your eye to be drawn to the note
currently playing back. Highlighting is mainly useful when the screen is thick with notes.

Monitor When Editing Blobs

When you shift the pitch of blobs in the Note Editor with this option selected, Melodyne plays for the
purpose of orientation the sound of the note at the position originally clicked. You can turn this
acoustic feedback on or off.

Show Clip Borders

This option is only visible when you are using ARA. It allows you, if you wish, to hide the gray lines
between the clips in Track Mode to obtain a clearer overview of the material in the Note Editor. This is
especially useful when the track you are examining contains a large number of clips and you have
zoomed the display a long way out.

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Preferences and keyboard shortcuts

From the Preferences property sheet, you can select fundamental options governing the modus
operandi of Melodyne as well as define a number of keyboard shortcuts.

Opening the window and user interface settings

In the plug-in implementation of Melodyne, you open the Preferences property sheet from the
Settings menu; in the stand-alone implementation, choose Preferences from the program (macOS) or
File (Windows) menu. The settings available in the stand-alone implementation differ slightly from
those offered by the plug-in.

The following user interface options, however, are available in both implementations of Melodyne.
Any changes you make in either implementation apply to both.

Language: Determines the language of the user interface.

Pitch labels: Determines which system is used to name the notes – i.e. (descending
chromatically) English (C, B, Bb etc.), German (C, H, B etc.) or Latin (Do, Si, Sib etc.).
Chord spelling: Here you can choose the spelling convention used on the Chord Track.
Appearance: Here you can select between different contrast settings for the user interface.
Default tuning: Determines the default frequency of the reference pitch A4 for newly created
documents.
Maximum undo levels: Melodyne allows you to undo up to 100 actions. The default value,
however, is 25. You can, if you wish, increase this value, which will consume more RAM, or
you may prefer to reduce it, if memory is running short.
Show tooltips: Once you are thoroughly familiar with Melodyne, you may prefer to hide the
tooltips, i.e. the explanatory text that appears as you move the cursor over the various icons
and other elements of the user interface.

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The audio cache

On the Audio Cache page of the Preferences dialog you will find the following two options:

Audio cache: This shows the location of the audio cache Melodyne uses for its work.
Audio cache size: This allows you to adjust the size of the cache.

The cache is used to store files Melodyne needs temporarily. The size of the files generated depends
on the audio files being processed as well as upon the algorithm Melodyne is using for the detection.

If these files are deleted and the Melodyne project that created and was using them is later opened
again, they have to be recreated, which, obviously, means it takes a little longer to open the project.
If, on the other hand, the files are still available, Melodyne will just carry on using them as before.

You can adjust the size of the cache. If, when the program is next opened, the cache is full, Melodyne
frees up space automatically for fresh data.

Please note: The location of the audio cache is predetermined and cannot be altered:
Windows: C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\Celemony\Separations.
macOS: /Users/USERNAME/Library/Caches/com.celemony.Melodyne/Separations

Shortcuts
From the “Shortcuts” page, you can assign keyboard shortcuts to a large number of Melodyne
functions and commands. The functions and commands in question are grouped according to
category; click on the triangle alongside a given category to see a list of all the functions it includes.
The following screenshot, for example, shows all the commands associated with the editing tools.

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Click on a command (“Pitch Modulation Tool” in our example) and then press the key or key
combination you wish to assign to it. Melodyne will remember your choice, so any time you press the
key or combination in question, this will activate the Pitch Modulation Tool. Repeat the procedure for
as many commands as you like.

To the right of each key combination assigned, you will see an “x”. If you click on this, you can choose
one of the following functions:

“Delete”: This cancels the assignment, so it will no longer be possible to invoke the command
in question using a shortcut.

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“Melodyne 5”: This restores the default shortcut for the command in question. (In the case of
many commands – namely those for which there is no default shortcut – choosing “Melodyne
5” here will have the same effect as choosing “Delete”).

As an alternative to opening and closing the categories and scrolling through list of commands, you
can find the command you’re looking for by typing in the left-hand search box. This rapidly narrows
the choice and can save time. You don’t have to type the entire name of the command; just typing
“Modulation”, for instance, throws up two search results:

If you change your mind, just click on the “x” in the left-hand search box and the original list will be
restored in its entirety.

As well as searching by command or function name, you can search for the keys or key combinations
already assigned; you do this using the right-hand search box. Here, too, an incomplete entry can
yield multiple search results, which is very helpful in practice.

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For example, suppose you wish to assign a keyboard shortcut to the command that activates the
Pitch Modulation Tool. In that case, [M] (i.e. the “M” key on its own, standing here for ‘modulation’)
would appear to be the obvious choice; or, if that key’s already taken, perhaps [Shift][M] or [Cmd][M].
To find out, just type “m” in the right-hand search box, and you will see what your options are:

[M] on its own, as you see, has already been assigned, but the combinations [Alt][M] and [Shift][M]
are still available.

You could also combine both fields, like this, for example:

This makes it child’s play to find a suitable shortcut. And, naturally, in our example, you could still opt
for [M], even though it’s assigned by default to another function; it appears in your filtered list to make
it easy for you to reassign it, if you choose to do so.

You can save your preferred shortcut assignments as a set and also load custom-designed sets,
such as those recommended for particular DAWs. To manage all such sets, use the gear/cog menu
at the top left.

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“… edited”: This shows you which set of shortcuts you are currently using. If it says “Cubase”,
for example, and nothing more, this means that the set of shortcuts currently loaded is the one
designed for the Steinberg DAW of that name and that you have not yet modified it in any way.
If, on the other hand, it said “Cubase (edited)”, this would indicate that, after loading the set
designed for Cubase, you had made certain changes of your own. In such cases, you might
wish to save the set under a new name (see below).
“Melodyne 5”: Click here to load the factory default shortcuts for all commands and functions. If
you do this, any unsaved assignments of your own will be lost.
“Open” and “Save”: These commands allow you to load an existing set of shortcuts or save the
changes you have made to the hard disk. By saving your preferred shortcut assignments, you
can take them with you when you change studio and load them into Melodyne there.

When you use the Save function, Melodyne suggests you store your shortcuts in the following folder:

macOS:
/Users/Shared/Library/Application Support/Celemony/Shortcuts/Melodyne5

Windows:
C:\ProgrammData\CelemonySoftwareGmbH\Shortcuts\Melodyne5

The advantage of storing your shortcuts in the folder suggested (give them a name such as
“MyShortcuts”) is that they will then appear in the list and be readily to hand at all times.

If, on the other hand, you’re travelling to a different studio where you will be working on a different
computer, you should simply ignore the folder suggested and save your shortcuts to some other
location, such as a USB stick or your Dropbox folder.

Check for Updates

On this page, you can determine whether Melodyne checks for updates automatically or manually i.e.
only when you click the ‘Check Now’ button, which you can do at any time.

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Audio characteristics and algorithms

For the display and editing of different types of audio material, Melodyne employs different
algorithms. Here, we outline which algorithms are available and for which types of audio material
each is used.

The detection process

Melodyne analyzes the audio material to find the notes it contains and offer them to you for editing.
We call this process “detection”.

In the course of the detection process, Melodyne itself takes a view as to what kind of material it is
confronted with and decides which algorithm to use for the display and playback of the notes. You
can tell which algorithm is selected at any given time by the check mark in the Algorithm menu as well
as by the blobs in the Note Editor.

A brief overview: Which algorithm for which type of material?

To obtain the most suitable and detailed editing possibilities, for the following sound sources, the
following algorithms are generally used:

Singing, speech, saxophone, flute, monophonic bass etc.: "Melodic"

Drum and percussion sounds or loops, and other percussive sounds with no significant pitched
components: "Percussive"

808-kicks and -toms, tabla and similar percussive sounds with a pitched component:
"Percussive Pitched"

Polyphonic instruments of all kinds, loops featuring multiple instruments, and complete mixes,
that you wish to time-stretch, quantize or transpose: "Universal"

The Universal algorithm

The Universal algorithm is particularly suitable for complex signals containing both percussive and
tonal elements. If, for example, you wish to alter the pitch, timing or tempo of an entire piece of music,
this algorithm will deliver the best sound quality.

The Universal algorithm, like the Percussive one, displays all the detected notes at the same pitch.
The Pitch Ruler displays no note names, merely relative values for the semitones, and the scale
functions are deactivated. Please note that with files that have been detected using the Universal
Algorithm, the Attack Speed Tool cannot be used. Attack speed handles will therefore not be

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displayed for the corresponding blobs and the Attack Speed field in the Note Inspector will be grayed
out. Please note that “Universal” is never used automatically for the detection; it must be selected
manually if required.

The “Percussive” algorithms

The "Percussive" algorithms are suitable for recordings of drums and other percussion instruments
but also noise and atmospheric effects as well as other material in which Melodyne cannot detect any
clear pitch in the sounds. In this case, successive drum strokes (for example) are distinguished, but
they are all displayed at the same pitch. The blobs can still be raised or lowered, however the Pitch
Ruler does not display the names of any notes but simply relative values in semitones. The scale
functions are deactivated.

Some percussion instruments, however, do have what can be understood as a melodic capability, in
that many of their sounds have a perceived pitch. Certain 808 kick drums, for example, are clearly
tuned to the bass. The berimbau, too, for all the percussive character of its sound, plays recognizable
melodies – as does the tabla. It is for such instruments – instruments that are in fact percussive yet
still somehow also melodic – that the "Percussive Pitched" algorithm is intended. Here the detected
sounds are separated and assigned to individual pitches. This makes it easy to adjust the tuning of an
808 kick drum, berimbau or tabla to the piece of music in question.

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Whilst the Percussive and Universal algorithms are similar in terms of the way the blobs are handled
and displayed – just as the Percussive Pitched and Melodic algorithms seem similar at first sight – the
two percussive algorithms in fact operate in a different way internally from their optical “twins”, as they
are optimized for various aspects of percussive sounds and consequently deliver their most
convincing sound quality when dealing with material of a predominantly percussive nature. When
dealing with non-percussive sources, however, such as the human voice, guitars, pianos and so forth,
they are at a distinct disadvantage compared with the other algorithms, which are optimized for
sounds with a distinct pitch.

In case of doubt – with instruments seeming to fall (or perhaps alternate) between the stools
“percussive” and “melodic” – the best policy is to try each algorithm in turn.

Another distinctive feature of the “Percussive Pitched” algorithm, which it shares only with the
“Melodic” algorithm, is that Melodyne is able here to detect, display and permit the editing of sibilants.
With the “Melodic” algorithm, however, this happens automatically, whereas with the “Percussive
Pitched” algorithm, sibilant control is by default switched off. To switch it on, go to Note Assignment
Mode and check “Sibilant Handling” in the Algorithm Inspector. You can learn more about this here.

The Melodic algorithm

Melodic material is monophonic, by which we mean it is such that only one note is ever sounding at
any given instant. Please bear in mind, however, that reverberation can cause notes to overlap even
in monophonic material, creating, in effect, a kind of polyphony. If melodic material is to be edited in
Melodyne, therefore, you should aim for as clean and “dry” (reverberation-free) a recording as
possible.

The blobs representing notes in melodic material are displayed at different pitches. Whether the blobs
are isolated or joined to other blobs depends on the way they were played or sung: staccato or legato.

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The “Melodic” algorithm is predestined for lead vocal tracks, as these are invariably monophonic; for
there to be polyphony, there would have to be at least two singers. Furthermore, this algorithm takes
into account the sibilants invariably heard in vocal parts. In the term ‘sibilants’, Melodyne includes not
only consonants and digraphs such as “s” and “ch”, but also word fragments like “k” and “t” as well as
the sound of the vocalist inhaling or exhaling between words.

Such sounds, which Melodyne identifies automatically and displays hatched, share one peculiarity in
nature: There is no way singers can give them a particular pitch, so they remain unaffected by
melodic changes. This behavior is preserved perfectly by Melodyne’s “Melodic” algorithm: Sibilants
remain unaltered even when the word or syllable to which they belong is shifted upwards or
downwards in pitch.

Let’s say the word is “sweet”, and we move the blob that represents the note in question upwards or
downwards. Whilst the entire note will appear to move, acoustically this will not be the case as the “S”
at the beginning and the “T” at the end will sound exactly the same after the pitch shift as they did
before; only the “wee” in the middle will change pitch – in the direction, and by the amount, of the blob
movement.

When editing timing, too, you will notice that the sibilants (indicated by the hatching) are never
unnaturally squeezed or stretched.

This intelligent treatment of sibilants is vital to achieving natural-sounding correction of intonation and
timing. Melodyne even takes into account the borderline cases that occur in nature, where sibilants
and pitched components are heard simultaneously (rather than successively, as was the case earlier
with the word “sweet”).

In Note Assignment Mode, you can edit the results of the detection and (if need be) alter the length of
the sibilants detected or deactivate sibilant detection for an audio file in the Algorithm Inspector.

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The “Polyphonic” algorithms

In Melodyne, thanks to DNA Direct Note Access, notes can be detected within recordings even of
polyphonic instruments such as the piano or guitar – including the individual notes of which chords
are composed. When the Polyphonic algorithms are used, the blobs are displayed in a similar manner
to those of monophonic material, with the obvious difference that the blobs are stacked vertically (at
their respective pitches) whenever a chord or harmonic interval sounds. For example, in the case of a
chord of E minor, you will see the individual notes E, G and B.

In Melodyne essential and assistant, of course, you can only see the notes of polyphonic instruments,
displayed as gray blobs. With the editions Melodyne editor and Melodyne studio, on the other hand,
can you also edit the polyphonic blobs and change, for example, the G of an E minor chord to G# to
obtain a chord of E major.

But even the gray blobs in Melodyne essential and Melodyne assistant are highly useful, as you can
use them to discover the chords played by the guitar or the piano and display them in the Chord
Track. This chord track then provides you with important clues for editing other melodic sound
sources such as bass guitars or vocals.

Please note, however, that in Melodyne essential and Melodyne assistant a polyphonic instrument is
never detected automatically using a polyphonic algorithm. By default, the Universal algorithm, which
allows you to transpose or improve the timing of the material, is used.

If you wish to see the gray, polyphonic blobs, you must choose one of the polyphonic algorithms
manually. Then work out the chord track before switching back to the Universal algorithm for the track
in question.
How to switch algorithms is explained below. You will find information on the detection and use of
chords in the “Chord Detection and the Chord Track” tour.

Your choice between the two polyphonic algorithms should be determined by the type of instrument
and the playing technique employed:

Polyphonic Sustain is suitable for a wide range of polyphonic audio material in which the
start of each note does not differ significantly from the rest, as is the case with string
instruments played legato and organ music.
Polyphonic Decay is a variation of the algorithm designed for instruments or playing
techniques where the start of each note is markedly different from the rest of it, examples
being string instruments played pizzicato, guitars and pianos.

Switching algorithms
You can at any time select a different algorithm to that chosen automatically for you by Melodyne.
You might want to do this, for example, if you find that the material has not been interpreted in a way

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that suits your editing needs. To do this, while playback is halted, select the algorithm you prefer from
the Algorithm menu. Melodyne will reinterpret the material in the light of your choice and adjust the
display accordingly.

Note: when you do this, any editing performed prior to switching algorithms, including any copying of
notes, will be lost . The right time to decide which algorithm you wish to use, therefore, is before you
begin editing.

In the plug-in implementation of Melodyne, the choice of algorithm applies per transfer, whereas in
the stand-alone implementation and an ARA DAW, it applies per audio file in the document being
edited – collectively, we describe all such material as ‘audio sources’. Before you can change the
algorithm applied to a particular audio source, you must first select one or more notes belonging
exclusively to it. If you have selected no notes, or notes from two different audio sources, the
Algorithm menu will be grayed out. In such cases, reduce your selection to notes belonging to one
audio source only and it will be possible to switch algorithms.

A special feature of the stand-alone implementation: When you switch algorithms, triggering a fresh
detection, Melodyne looks at the status of the Auto Stretch switch: if the Auto Stretch function is
activated, once the new detection is complete, the tempo of the file will also be adjusted: if Auto
Stretch is not selected, the original tempo of the file will be retained.

Automatic or manual algorithm selection

By default, Melodyne makes its own determination, based on the characteristics of the sound, as to
which is the best algorithm to apply, distinguishing between three types of material:

Percussive material, in which case the “Percussive” algorithm is selected.

Monophonic melodic material, in which case the “Melodic” algorithm is selected.
Polyphonic material, in which case the “Polyphonic Sustain” algorithm is selected.

This default behavior is overridden, however, if you are using files in Melodyne for which you have
already saved additional information regarding the algorithm and note detection. (From Note
Assignment mode in the stand-alone implementation of Melodyne, it is possible to store this type of
assignment data in an audio file.)

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Do not forget, however, when you no longer need to impose your choice of algorithm on Melodyne, to
restore Automatic as the default setting. Otherwise, since Melodyne remembers your default selection
even after you have quit the program, you might be surprised to discover when the program is next
launched that your vocals have been interpreted as percussive.

You will find further tips on working with these algorithms in the Melodyne Training section.

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Note Assignment Mode

Since Melodyne invariably conducts an analysis (we call it “detection”) of the audio material before
you can do any editing, the correctness or otherwise of this analysis has a considerable influence
upon how well you are able subsequently to work with the material and how authentic the results of
your editing will sound. For this reason it is important to check whether Melodyne has identified the
notes within your material accurately and if necessary correct any mistakes. This where Melodyne’s
Note Assignment Mode comes in.

What editing the detection involves

When you are working in Note Assignment Mode, none of the changes you make has any audible
effect on the notes themselves. All you are doing is ensuring that the notes that are displayed do
actually correspond to those that were played or sung. In other words, you are bringing what you see
into line with what you hear. In the process, you are working at all times on the display of the original
recording and, with it, so to speak, on the basis for all musical changes made later with Melodyne.
The sounder the basis, the better the eventual sound of your edits.

The fact that it is sensible and necessary to check and edit the detection and, with it, the
interpretation of the audio material may seem tiresome at first sight. But it brings with it enormous
advantages, for there are often several possible interpretations of the audio material, and which is the
correct one in a given acoustic and musical context is for you, ultimately, to decide.

But don’t worry. The detection process in Melodyne is mainly automatic and delivers logically
coherent results. How much there is to edit in this mode depends upon the algorithm used and the
audio material in question. With a dry recording of a single vocalist, for example, you will very rarely
encounter problems. It may happen from time to time that a note is detected in the wrong octave, in
which case, if you later transpose it, it will sound unnatural. Correcting the detection in such cases is
a task swiftly accomplished. The same goes for percussive material, where it is generally only
necessary to introduce or remove the occasional note separation.

What is edited and where

Like the choice of algorithm, Note Assignment Mode applies invariably to all the notes of i) a
particular audio file, ii) a particular recording, or iii) a particular transferred segment – we will use the
term “audio source” to cover all three. When the Note Editor contains notes from different audio
sources, begin by selecting a note belonging to the source the detection of which you plan to edit.

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Now click the wrench (spanner) icon next to the toolbox of the Note Editor to activate Note
Assignment Mode. The background in the Note Editor changes color to show that you are no longer
in normal Edit Mode but have switched to Note Assignment Mode. In Note Assignment Mode, what
you see and hear is the original state of the audio source; any editing you may have performed on it
previously is ignored here.

Any time you click on the blob icon (to the left of the wrench), you will leave Note Assignment Mode
and return to Edit Mode. There you will hear once again the results of any editing you performed
before switching to Note Assignment Mode. This only applies, however, if you have not changed
algorithm in Note Assignment Mode, as any change of algorithm triggers a fresh analysis, and any
time you trigger a fresh analysis – any time, in other words, the detection process is repeated – all
editing that has been performed on the notes previously is lost.

Various types of notes

A Melodyne “blob” represents a note, but Melodyne distinguishes between several types of note, and
it is important – especially when you are working in Note Assignment Mode – to understand the
difference between them. They are:

active notes
inactive/potential notes
silent notes.

Most blobs represent active notes. These are what Melodyne, having carefully analyzed the
recording, believes to have been the notes (i.e. the fundamentals) that were actually played or sung.
Active notes correspond to the notes that would be displayed on the sheet music: here a D, here an
F#, here another D or an A etc. As well as a definite pitch, active notes have a definite length; and
naturally, you can alter these and other characteristics of the notes in Melodyne.

When the Melodic algorithm is used, only one note can ever be active at a time; that is because this
algorithm is the one designed for monophonic sound sources (the human voice, say, or an instrument
such as the clarinet or trumpet that is only capable of playing one note at a time). With the polyphonic
algorithms, which are designed for instruments like the piano or the guitar that are capable of playing

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chords, or multiple melodic lines simultaneously, two or more notes can be active at the same time,
with a separate blob assigned to each. When the audio material has been analyzed using the
Percussive or Universal algorithms, however, all the notes of a chord are represented by a single
blob. So it is better, with these two algorithms, to think of a blob as representing a “slice of time”
rather than a musical note. To illustrate the difference, here we see a guitar chord detected (on the
left) using the Polyphonic algorithm, and (on the right) using the Percussive one:

From the blobs on the left, you can see exactly which notes comprise the chord. From the “time-slice
blob” provided by the Universal algorithm, on the other hand, it is impossible to tell which, or even
how many, notes comprise the chord.

In terms of their editability using the tools, there is not a great deal of difference between the ordinary
blobs provided by the Polyphonic algorithm and the Universal algorithm’s time-slice blobs – except,
that is, when it comes to editing chords: When represented by a time-slice blob, a chord can only be
transposed en bloc; so a chord of F major, for example, could become G major or A major. In other
words, the intervals between the various notes that make up the chord cannot be changed because
all the notes hidden behind the (single) time-slice blob move exactly the same distance when the
chord is shifted upwards or downwards. With the Polyphonic algorithm on the other hand, a separate
blob is assigned to each of the notes that make up the chord and you can move each blob individually
– perhaps in a different direction and/or by a different amount to the blobs above or below it. In this
way you can turn an F major into an F minor – or any other chord you like.

Melodyne’s potential notes form our next category.

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Represented by outlines (or “hollow silhouettes”), they lie at pitches where Melodyne thought about
drawing a regular, solid blob, but decided in the end to place this somewhere else, leaving the
silhouette as a hint at to what might be a possible alternative for that particular note.

So you might consider turning this potential note into a regular note. This, you can only do in Note
Assignment Mode, so it is only in Note Assignment Mode that you will ever see a hollow silhouette.
Once you return to normal edit mode, only solid blobs (representing the active notes) appear in the
display. It should be added that potential notes are only ever encountered with the Melodic or
Polyphonic algorithms.

Finally, there are what Melodyne calls silent notes. These can be seen in both Note Assignment and
normal Edit Mode, regardless of which algorithm is used to detect the material. A silent note appears
wherever there is a break between two notes; it corresponds, therefore, to a rest or pause in the
score.

Like a rest, then, it has a definite length but no pitch, so you cannot transpose silent notes. Their
length, however, will change if the notes that precede them are shortened or lengthened, or if the
notes that follow them are moved forwards or backwards in time, in the same way that an eighth note
(quaver) rest in the score would become a sixteenth note (semiquaver) rest if the preceding note
were lengthened, or the following note moved forward, by the same amount.

Silent notes are not in fact entirely silent, because even during breaks between normal notes the
recording continues, picking up things like the hiss of the microphone preamp or the hum of the guitar
amp, but they are generally far quieter than the notes around them.

Here we see three notes: an active note, followed by a silent one, followed by another active one:

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This illustrates the two significant visual characteristics of the silent note: i) it has no Pitch Curve; and
ii) it is always placed level with the note to the left of it; if you shift the latter up or down, the silent note
moves with it, but the change is purely visual; whatever sounds the silent note represents remain
unaltered.

It is when you come to use the tools in Note Assignment Mode that a clear understanding of the
nature and behavior of the various types of note found in Melodyne will pay the greatest dividends.
That is the subject of the next tour. You will also learn there how to transform silent notes into normal
ones – as well as silhouettes into solid blobs and vice versa, thereby activating and deactivating,
respectively, the corresponding notes.

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Tools for note assignment

The Main Tool in Note Assignment Mode
In Note Assignment Mode, the toolbox contains tools with functions other than those used in normal
Edit mode. The most important difference is this: In Note Assignment Mode, the tools have no direct
or immediate impact on the sound of the notes; their object, rather, is to bring the detected and
displayed notes as closely as possible into line with the actual music. This makes it possible
subsequently to edit the material more efficiently and obtain optimal acoustic results.

Which tools are available depends upon the algorithm, as, to a lesser extent, do their functions.

As is the case in normal editing mode, the Main Tool in Note Assignment Mode combines a number
of the most important functions of the other tools, so as to allow you to perform a variety of common
tasks without having to change tools.

In the lower part of a blob, the Main Tool functions as the Activation Tool.
In the upper part of a blob, the Main Tool functions as the Note Separation Tool.

We will deal with each of these in turn.

The Activation Tool

The Activation Tool has no function when the Percussive and Universal algorithms are selected. What
follows, therefore, only applies when either the Melodic or the Percussive Pitched algorithm is
selected.

If you move the Activation Tool over a blob, its overtone series will be displayed in the background.
This enables you to see at a glance which of the blobs above it coincide in pitch with the partials of
the note selected.

In addition to the normal solid blobs used in Melodyne to represent notes, you may see hollow blobs
of which only the outlines or “silhouettes” are visible. These represent what we call “potential notes”

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and lie at pitches where Melodyne considered drawing a regular, solid blob, but decided instead to
place this at a different pitch, leaving the silhouette as a hint that this might be a possible alternative
for that particular note.

So you might consider turning this potential note into a regular note. This you can only do in Note
Assignment Mode, so it is only in Note Assignment Mode that you will ever see a blob silhouette.
Once you return to normal edit mode, only solid blobs (representing the active notes) appear in the
display. It should be added that potential notes are only ever encountered when the Melodic or
Polyphonic algorithms are employed.

If you double-click on a silhouette, it will be replaced by a solid blob, indicating that the note in
question has been activated. As soon as you do this, the solid blob vertically aligned with it will be
replaced by a silhouette, indicating that the corresponding note has been deactivated; this is
inevitable, since there can never be two notes sounding simultaneously. There can, of course, with
the larger editions, Melodyne editor and Melodyne studio, which offer algorithms that support
polyphony, but with the Melodic algorithm, of which we are speaking here, no two notes can ever be
active at the same time.

If you double-click on a solid blob, you will deactivate it. As no blob would then remain, a silent
note will be created in its place, representing a rest or pause in the music. If you double-click on a
silent note, the solid blob will reappear, indicating that the original note has been reactivated. Silent
notes – what distinguishes them, how they arise in nature, and how they behave in normal edit mode
– are described in greater detail here.

Dragging blobs with the Activation Tool

A double-click is the gesture you will use most often when working with the Activation Tool. It is also
possible, however, to drag blobs with it, as a means of persuading Melodyne to move the focus of its
search to a different area. Particularly with material in which pitches are unclear, a new note can (in
theory) be assigned to almost any pitch in this way, provided Melodyne finds something there. If
Melodyne finds a plausible destination for the note in the area to which you have dragged it, the blob
will snap to it; otherwise, it will return to its original position.

Melodyne only considers certain pitches to be plausible. This is one of the strengths of Melodyne: It
brings to its analysis of the audio material real musical intelligence, and does not therefore
automatically ascribe every cluster of spectral energy to the presence of a separate note. So, having
eliminated all the pitches at which the note played could not possibly lie, Melodyne is left with a
handful of candidates it considers “plausible” and invites you to choose between them.

Recalculation of the pitch center

When you move notes with the Activation Tool, a fresh search for the Pitch Curve within the blob is
conducted automatically. While conducting the new search, Melodyne also recalculates the pitch
center of the note. It does this even if you have only moved the blob a very short distance before

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returning it almost immediately to its original position. You can also trigger a fresh search for the Pitch
Curve and a recalculation of the pitch center by holding down the [Alt] key and double-clicking – for
instance, after activating or deactivating the option “Robust Pitch Curve” in the Algorithm Inspector.

This is particularly useful when you are importing a file from an older version of Melodyne, as the
technology Melodyne 5 uses to determine the pitch center of notes is greatly superior to that of earlier
versions. After the recalculation (most swiftly triggered by holding down the [Alt] key and double-
clicking), the blobs will be realigned slightly on the vertical access – some higher, some lower than
before – with the results representing the musical content better than those of earlier versions of the
program. This provides for better results – especially when you are quantizing pitch by double-clicking
or using the Correct Pitch macro in normal edit mode.

If, on the other hand, the original detection was performed by Melodyne 5 itself, recalculating the pitch
centers will change nothing, as the results – already optimal – will be no different the second time.
The only circumstance in which [ALT]-double-clicking has any effect is in Note Assignment Mode is
when the option “Robust Pitch Curve” is checked in the Algorithm Inspector. This option is discussed
in greater detail here.

Starting point lines and designated starting points

If, in Note Assignment Mode, you select one of the separation tools, vertical lines appear in the Note
Editor. At the same time, a slider with two indicators appears next to the toolbox.

We call the vertical lines “starting point lines”. Rising in parallel from their respective blobs to the Time
Ruler, they show the musical starting points that Melodyne has identified in the audio file. A
“designated starting point” is indicated by a short vertical line (a “vertical”) topped by an inverted
triangle and is invariably found near the start of a blob (though not necessarily at its leftmost
extremity); when active, it indicates what, for the purposes of timing, Melodyne considers to be the
effective musical starting point of the note. The musical starting point may, but does not necessarily
have to, be aligned with the separator at the beginning of the note. Think of a brass instrument, for
example, where each note is often heralded by a certain amount of wind noise. This noise also
belongs to the note, so it falls to the right of the note separator. What is relevant from the standpoint
of timing, however – as is the case also with quantization – is the moment when the sound really
unfolds and the pitch first becomes discernible; that is the timing-critical moment, and it is that later
instant that is designated the musical starting point. If Melodyne is unable to pinpoint the musical
starting point of a note, no starting point line is displayed and the note has no designated starting
point. For the purposes of quantization, the leftmost extremity of the note is then considered to be the
starting point.

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Each of the longer, starting point lines also culminates in an inverted triangular indicator, which you
will see just below the Time Ruler. This indicator can be solid, in which case the corresponding
starting point line is visible and active; or it can be hollow, in which case the line is invisible: we call it
in this case a “potential” or “inactive” starting point line. An inactive starting point line invariably
coincides with the beginning of a note. For the note in question, however, Melodyne has been unable
to discern with sufficient confidence a musically relevant starting point; it is for this reason that the
starting point line is only a potential one and that no vertical (no designated starting point indicator) is
displayed at the blob.

The two slider indicators, the Parenthesis and the Ball, govern, respectively, how sensitive Melodyne
is to the presence of potential starting points and how willing it is to activate them, the result being
reflected in turn by the total number of triangles displayed and the percentage of these that are solid
red. As you move the Parenthesis gradually to the right, more and more hollow triangles (indicating
the presence of “potential” starting points) appear beneath the Time Ruler; this reflects Melodyne’s
increasing sensitivity that is allowing it to divine more and more points in the material at which a
starting point might reside – “might” because the lines that are added remain invisible and do not (yet)
have any effect upon the blobs.

You can alter this, however, with the slider’s second indicator: the Ball. As you move the Ball to the
right, more and more of the previously invisible, “potential” starting point lines will become active; and
directly below them, at the level of the blobs, designated starting points will appear at the same time.

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You can activate a potential starting point line by double-clicking on the hollow triangular indicator
beneath the Time Ruler and, conversely, deactivate an active line by double-clicking on the
corresponding solid triangle. Double-clicking in a free place in the ruler generates a new starting point
line.

By dragging its indicator, it is possible to move a starting point line forwards or backwards in time;
this, however, will seldom be necessary, as Melodyne almost invariably identifies the ideal position.
You may still wish, though, to do some fine-tuning. If, for the purposes of experiment, you move a
starting point line from left to right, you will notice that as soon as you pass over the start of a blob, a
vertical appears complete with inverted triangle (indicating the presence of a designated starting
point) that follows the line for a while before disappearing as soon as the note begins to decay, as,
clearly, it would be futile to look any further for the musical starting point.

Starting point lines exhibit a kind of “magnetic” property seen not only when you move them but also
when separating notes and designating starting points manually.

The Note Separation Tool and the Separation Type Tool

The Note Separation Tool and the Separation Type Tool (directly below it in the toolbar) are available
with all algorithms and function in the same way as their counterparts in Edit Mode. You can set or
remove note separations by double-clicking and also move them along the time axis. With the
Separation Type Tool, you can toggle between hard and soft separations.

By contrast with normal editing mode: In Note Assignment Mode, the separation tools are not used to
reshape the music but to edit the analysis or “detection”. The object is to ensure that the blobs
represent as accurately as possible the actual music. Tip: To provide two or more notes of differing

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pitch with a soft separation, you can select “Convert Selection to Connected Sequence” from the
context menu (see below).

Since the placing of note separations and the editing of starting points often go hand in hand, you can
also edit starting points with the Note Separation Tool. Simply move the pointer into the vicinity of the
triangular starting point markers near the Time Ruler and it changes appearance to resemble the
Starting Point Tool.

It is possible at any time to deactivate a designated starting point (i.e. withdraw the designation). A
new starting point can only be designated if an active starting point line is present in a plausible place
i.e. the left-hand end of a blob. Look for a moment at the starting point indicators: In the relevant
place, a hollow triangle (indicating the presence of a potential starting point) will probably already be
displayed. Double-click on the triangle to activate the starting point line.

If no potential starting point line has been identified at the desired position, using the slider near the
toolbox you can cause additional potential starting point lines to appear: to do this, simply move the
right-hand control element (the Parenthesis) further to the right.

Alternatively, by double-clicking on an empty area of the ruler at the level of the starting point
markers, you can create a new starting point line and drag it into position with the mouse. When, with
the Melodic, Percussive or Universal algorithms selected, you activate a potential starting point line or
create a new starting point line, a note separation is automatically inserted near a note at the position
in question.

Tip: When editing starting point lines, if ever you have the feeling that somewhere a note starting
point exists but that it is not indicated even by a potential starting point line, scrubbing in the relevant
area often makes it to easier to locate the exact position. At the position in question, a rather loud
noise component will be audible. Where the noise is loudest, release the mouse button and double-
click to place a starting point line.

The context menu: When you select one of the note separation tools, a context menu appears in the
Note Editor in which you will find the following commands:

Convert Selection to Connected Sequence: With this command, you can convert a selection
comprising two or more adjacent notes between which there are hard separations into a

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connected sequence with soft separations. This is also possible with notes differing in pitch
and allows you gather together melodic lines to make more coherent editing possible later.

Separate Note: This command separates a note automatically at a point determined by

Melodyne. It is useful when you need to make precise cuts in a vocal passage and isolate
sibilants or breathing noise prior to editing using the tools.

Reseparate Notes at Starting Point Lines: This command splits the selected notes at all active
starting point lines passing through them. It offers you, therefore, a convenient way of inserting
separations at the same point in multiple notes simultaneously, while removing any
superfluous separations found elsewhere.

Separate Notes as Trill: The effect of this command is to slice a selection of one or more notes
into smaller segments determined by the instantaneous pitch of each note. This is done by
inserting note separations into the slopes of the pitch curve as it rises and falls, thereby turning
each ‘hill’ and each ‘valley’ of a vibrato into a separate note.

Please note that the fluctuations in the Pitch Curve must be fairly pronounced for the “Separate Notes
as Trill” function to have any effect and that it is only available when the Melodic algorithm is active,
being grayed out in every other case. If you wish to assign a shortcut to the command “Separate
Notes as Trill”, this can be done using the Preferences dialog.

Reset Separations Based on the Selected Grid: This command separates the notes at obvious
starting points as well as at suitable positions on the selected Time Grid. This command is
available with the Melodic, Percussive and Universal algorithms.

The Starting Point Tool

The Starting Point Tool is the second sub-tool of the Note Separation Tool.

It is available with all algorithms and is used to designate or undesignate starting points manually by
double-clicking. This tool function is also available in Note Assignment Mode by checking the
corresponding option in the Note Inspector. A designated starting point is indicated by a vertical (i.e. a
short vertical line) with a red triangle on top located at or near the leftmost extremity of the blob.

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By moving the Starting Point Tool in the region of the starting point markers beneath the Time Ruler,
you can also edit these with the Starting Point Tool. As a rule, however, you will generally use the
Note Separation Tool for this purpose, as described above.

The Sibilant Range Tool

Melodyne defines as “sibilants” all components of the sound that have no detectable pitch curve. In
the case of vocals, these include not only fricative consonants and digraphs such as “s”, “z”, “ch” and
“zh”, but also other unvoiced consonants such as “k” and “t” as well as the sound of the vocalist
inhaling or exhaling between words. When the various pitch tools are used, these components are
treated differently from the pitched components – a policy that leads to particularly good and natural-
sounding results when editing vocal tracks. For Melodyne to detect the presence of sibilants, either
the Melodic or Percussive Pitched algorithm must be active.

Sibilants are detected, and their extent ascertained, automatically; but, if need be, you can overrule
Melodyne and move the start and end points of sibilants at will. This is done in Note Assignment
Mode using the Sibilant Range Tool.

When this tool is selected, the range of the sibilants detected by Melodyne is represented on the
display by hatching. A sibilant might lie at the beginning and/or end of a note, but never in the middle.
The tool has the following functions:

Click and drag the edge of the hatched area to extend or shorten the range of the sibilant in
question.

Double-click on the hatching to remove it. (This instructs Melodyne to treat the sibilant in
question the same way it treats all other components of the sound, which would allow you to
apply radical pitch shifting to a “S”, for example, as a special effect). If multiple blobs are
selected at the time of the double-click, all their sibilants will be declassified in the same way.

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Double-click on a note without any hatching (or from which the hatching has been removed):
this instructs Melodyne to search the note for sibilants. Depending upon the note, one of the
following states will result:

- Melodyne will find a sibilant at the beginning and/or end of the note and display its extent through
hatching. Sometimes the entire blob will be hatched (e.g. in the case of breath noise). It makes no
difference in the case where exactly in the blob you click; towards the beginning, towards the end, the
result is the same. This case in fact only occurs if you have previously declassified any sibilants it
contains by double-clicking. Melodyne will then rediscover the sibilants when you double-click a
second time.

- If the note represented by the blob is in fact sibilant-free (i.e. it contains no sound components that
Melodyne regards as sibilants), but you wish it to be treated as though it did contain them, the effect
of the double-click is to create a sibilant range at the point clicked. To be more exact: if you double-
click with the tool on the front half of the blob, the sibilant range will extend from the start of the blob
to the point clicked. If you double-click in the second half of the blob (i.e. right of center), the range
will extend from the point clicked to the end of the blob. You can also do both: create a sibilant range
at the start of the blob and then another at the end, or vice versa.

Tip: To check the boundaries of the hatched area acoustically, use the “Sibilant” preview control in
the Algorithm Inspector. With the control at the extreme right setting, you will hear only the hatched
area of the note; at the left extreme, you will hear only the part of the blob without the hatching.

The Note Inspector

As is the case in normal edit mode, the Note Inspector in Note Assignment Mode governs the
selected notes – only here, different parameters are on view.

Pitch: The three fields correspond to those in edit mode and display i) the nearest note of the
chromatic scale, ii) the deviation (if any) in cents from it, and iii) the equivalent frequency in hertz. It is
not possible to input values into these fields but their content is updated whenever a blob is assigned
to a different pitch (e.g. to correct an octave error).

Hard separation: The status of this field is determined either by changes made with the Separation
Type Tool or by checking/clearing the box. You can only check this box if there is currently a soft
separation between the selected note and an adjacent one.

Starting Point: The status of this field is determined either by changes made with the Starting Point
Tool or by checking/clearing the box. Here, just as with the corresponding tool, you can attach the
selected note to a starting point line or detach it from it.

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The Algorithm Inspector

The Algorithm Inspector in Note Assignment Mode offers you a number of options that allow you to
adjust and optimize the way the selected algorithm operates to suit the audio material to be edited.

Whenever Note Assignment Mode is active, the Algorithm Inspector is available in the info pane.

Algorithm: The pop-up button at the top shows the current algorithm. With the menu displayed, you
can select a different algorithm from the list, thereby triggering a fresh analysis. Warning: Any time
you switch algorithms, all editing previously performed on the audio source in question is lost! For this
reason, you should make a habit of checking to make sure the best algorithm has been selected and,
if this is not the case, choosing a more suitable one before you begin correcting the analysis or
editing notes.

The Preview parameters

In the Preview section, you will find the following important options to assist you with the editing of the
detection and the fine-tuning of the algorithm parameters.

Synth: The objective in Note Assignment Mode is to ensure that the notes displayed really do match
the notes intended and played. Since, however, in Note Assignment Mode you are listening to the full
original sound of the audio file you plan to edit and editing of the blobs has no audible effect,
determining whether notes have been correctly detected is generally only possible on a visual basis.
This is where the Monitoring Synth comes in: Using a synthetic tone generator, the Monitoring Synth
plays the blobs exactly as they appear, thereby providing you with acoustic as well as visual

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feedback. You can toggle the synth on and off by clicking on the “Z” icon; click and drag upwards or
downwards to control the volume. The Monitoring Synth is not available when the Percussive or
Universal algorithms are selected.

Tempo, Pitch and Formants: With these three controls, you can “simulate” changes to the
corresponding parameters in order to examine their effect upon the current algorithm settings.
Example: you have changed the formant character in the Algorithm Inspector. This change, however,
has no effect until you shift the formants in normal edit mode, as in Note Assignment Mode you
always hear the original state of the audio source. You would have, therefore, to leave Note
Assignment Mode, shift the formants by way of experiment in normal edit mode, and then return to
Note Assignment Mode if you felt any further adjustment to the formant character was necessary. The
preview controls make such a procedure unnecessary: simply turn the formant control, and you can
begin at once experimenting with the character slider without ever leaving Note Assignment Mode.
The tempo and pitch controls operate much the same way. The values of all three preview controls
only apply temporarily and are reset each time you leave Note Assignment Mode.

NB: When the synth is in use, the controls for pitch and formants are grayed out, as they cannot be
used simultaneously.

Sibilance: With this control, you can simulate the effects of the Sibilant Balance Tool. This is useful
when your intention is to modify a sibilant range in Note Assignment Mode, as it allows you to hear
exactly where the sibilant in question begins and ends. With the Sibilant Preview Control slider at its
rightmost extreme, you hear only the sibilant; at its leftmost extreme, it is the other way around: you
hear everything except the sibilant areas. If you then notice that a sibilant is still sounding in a pitched
zone, or pitched components in a sibilant zone, you know that the boundaries of the sibilant range are
not perfectly drawn.

The Algorithm parameters

The other parameters in the Algorithm Inspector relate to the behavior of the algorithm, allowing you
to fine-tune it for the entire audio source.

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Playback Type: Melodyne applies two different processes for the playback of audio. The Melodic
Algorithm employs as standard the playback type “Tonal”, whilst the other algorithms favor
“Complex”. These choices are generally the best in practice but you can override them here if you
wish.

The difference is most noticeable when time stretching is performed (and also when notes are
transposed upwards): material with clearly recognisable pitches generally sounds better with the
“Tonal” option. For material in which the pitch of notes is not clear and where noise components are
more in evidence better results are generally obtained with “Complex”. Experimenting with the two
playback types is therefore most useful when material falls between these two stools. Experiment with
the tempo and pitch preview controls to see which playback type is best suited to your needs. Please
note, however, that if “Tonal” is selected, the Character, Transients and Formant Character
parameters described below are no longer available and therefore grayed out.

Tip: For the playback type “Tonal”, a variation called “Tonal (high)” is also available. If you are
working with sopranos or very high-pitched melodic instruments (such as piccolos), instead of “Tonal”,
you should try out the variant “Tonal (high)”, as this could enhance the sound quality. Voices or
instruments with normal registers, however, are less well served by “Tonal (high)”, so its use in such
cases is best avoided.

Character: This is a another pop-up button and allows you to select between a smoother and a
crisper playback. If “Crisp” is selected, Melodyne uses a smaller processing window that allows fast
acoustic movements in the signal to be reproduced more clearly. This setting is therefore best for
percussive sounds and others with many fast tone changes. To soft, sustained sounds, however, the
crisper setting can introduce a certain restlessness. To avoid this, opt for “Smooth” which employs a
larger processing window and is therefore more suitable for the reproduction of smoother, more
gradual tonal transitions.

Transients: This parameter is only available when the Universal and Percussive algorithms are in
use. It determines how the transients in the signal should be handled during playback. With the slider

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fully to the right (the default position in the case of the Percussive algorithm), the transients are
clearer and more acute. As the slider is moved to the left, the transients become softer. By default,
with the Universal algorithm selected, the slider is in the middle. Experiment to see which setting
delivers the best sound with your own material.

Formant Correction Up/Down: Whenever you transpose a note in Melodyne, the formants are
automatically corrected to avoid, in the case of vocals, the dreaded “Mickey Mouse” effect. Or, in
technical terms, whenever you transpose a note a whole tone upwards, Melodyne automatically
corrects the resulting formants by shifting them back down a tone, in this way preserving the original
timbre. In the case of the human voice, this is generally what is wanted, but with an acoustic guitar
perhaps not: With many sounds, it can add charm if the formants are transposed in parallel with the
fundamentals – i.e. not automatically corrected.

The Formants Up and Down sliders are provided, therefore, to allow you to determine the degree of
the automatic formant correction – independently for upward and downward transpositions. With the
slider all the way to the right, the full 100% formant correction is applied; fully to the left, no automatic
formant correction at all is applied. When you return to normal edit mode, you will only hear the effect
of these parameters if you shift, or have shifted, the formants of one or more notes in the Note Editor.
To simulate and test their effect in Note Assignment Mode, use the pitch controller in the preview
section of the Algorithm Inspector. If the current value for this is positive, you will be able to preview
the effect of the Up slider; if the current value is negative, you will hear the effect of the Down slider.

F(ormant) Character: When formants are shifted, this slider alters their weighting in the frequency
range and therefore alters the sound of the shifted formants. Experiment to see with which setting
your material is best reproduced. This parameter has no audible effect when you return to normal edit
mode unless and until notes have been transposed in the Note Editor. To simulate and test its effect
in Note Assignment Mode, use the formant control in the preview section of the Algorithm Inspector.

The Formant Center parameter is only relevant to the algorithms Universal and Percussive, as the
blobs are not sorted by pitch when either of these two algorithms are active, and the formant center is
therefore not determined automatically. Not only with the Melodic and Polyphonic but also with the
Percussive Pitched algorithm, the formant center is derived from the pitches themselves, so this
control is grayed out when any of these algorithms is selected.

Sibilant Handling, Robust Pitch Curve, Separate Audio

Sibilant Handling The Melodic algorithm detects the presence in a recording of what we define
broadly as “sibilants”. Included here along with fricative consonants and digraphs like “s”, “z”, “sh” and
“zh”, and certain other word fragments such as “t” and “k”, is breath noise, such as the sound of a
vocalist inhaling or exhaling between words. Melodyne 5 treats these differently from all other
components of the sound when you begin to make pitch or timing adjustments, and the editing
sounds more natural as a result. If you prefer, you can decline to give sibilants this special treatment
by clearing the checkmark next to “Sibilant Handling”.

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For vocals, Sibilant Handling is without question ideal; whether that is equally true of monophonic
instruments varies enormously from case to case. If with a bass guitar, for example, the attack noise
is marked as sibilant, you should listen critically to the results when you first change the melody or
timing, and decide whether or not they are to your liking. If not, clear the checkmark next to “Sibilant
Handling”.

By default, Sibilant Handling is always switched on when the Melodic algorithm is selected, whereas
with the Percussive Pitched algorithm it is by default switched off. With the other algorithms, the
corresponding functions are unavailable, so the option is grayed out.

Note: When you open older projects (from the time before Melodyne 5), you will find that the Sibilant
Handling option on their vocal tracks is not checked. The reason for this is that you may already have
perfected the vocals, in which case we assume you’ll want your project to sound exactly the same as
it did before. If so, leave the Sibilant Handling option switched off.

If, on the other hand, you want the project in question to enjoy the benefits of Melodyne 5’s new
functions, you should activate Sibilant Handling. Your older vocal tracks will then most likely sound
better at once, and you will enjoy greater creative freedom in other areas besides.

Robust pitch curves: With the algorithms “Melodic” and “Percussive Pitched”, Melodyne detects the
Pitch Curve in very high resolution. This is especially advantageous in the case of vocals, as there is
then particularly detailed control over all aspects of the intonation, and the pitch tools are able to
deliver optimal sound quality.

With certain recordings, however, this high resolution can be counterproductive. This is particularly
the case with instruments that were in fact played monophonically but where sub-optimal recording
conditions (resulting for example, from obtrusive room resonances) or the physical composition of
their resonance chambers gives rise to what we might call “technical” polyphony.
Examples of this might be the electric upright bass or frequency modulated synthesizer sounds –
sometimes, even, the human voice, when, for example, a (usually male) rock singer wrings deep
throaty sounds from his voice.
In such cases the pitch tools (at least, when heavy use is made of them) deliver artifacts, and it is
then that switching to a “robust pitch curve” makes sense.

The simple act of switching to a robust pitch curve initially results in no detectable change, but as
soon as a note is edited with one of the tools in Note Assignment Mode, Melodyne searches afresh
for the pitch curve of this note (and of this note only) and delivers then, when this option is checked, a
simpler, more stable, more robust curve.

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The simplest command to trigger this type of renewed search for the pitch curve, but which otherwise
changes nothing, is a [Alt]+double-click with the first assignment tool.

The Polyphonic, Universal and Percussive algorithms have robust curves by default, so with these
algorithms the option is grayed out.

Separate Audio: When you are editing the detection of an audio source, Melodyne sometimes has a
great deal of processing to perform in the background and large volumes of data to move in and out
of its cache. The option Separate Audio gives you control over this behavior. If the Auto box is
checked, with each change you make, Melodyne performs all the requisite calculations immediately.
The advantage? Whenever you use the preview controls to test your algorithm settings, Melodyne
accesses the latest data, and everything sounds exactly as it would in normal edit mode. The
disadvantage? Melodyne sometimes needs to introduce a processing pause during which the
progress indicator appears and your work is interrupted.

Since you do not always need the preview controls, you have the option of changing this behavior by
clearing the Auto checkbox. In the case of certain editing actions, the requisite calculations are then
not performed immediately but only when you click the Now button or leave Note Assignment Mode.
The advantage of this is that your workflow is not interrupted. The disadvantage is that the preview
controls in such situations cannot access the latest data and therefore do not always reflect the
changes you have made. Should there be a discrepancy between the previous data and the current
state, the Now button will flash to warn you. If you then click on it, Melodyne will perform all the
outstanding calculations and update the totality of the data.

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The Time Grid

The Time Grid slices up the time axis at regular intervals to provide a clearer temporal overview. It
can also have the function, however, of causing content as it is moved to snap to the nearest grid
line, thereby making it easier to position notes exactly on the beat. For the spacing of the grid (i.e. the
distance between adjacent grid lines), you can choose between Seconds and any of a variety of note
values (half note, quarter note etc.).

Activating and setting the Time Grid

To adjust the Time Grid, either choose Options > Time Grid from the main menu or click the note icon
(at the top right of the Note Editor) to open the pop-up menu shown here.

Clicking on the note icon activates or deactivates the grid; you can also define a keyboard shortcut for
this command from the Shortcuts page of the Preferences dialog. If you click the note value or the
arrow alongside it and hold down the mouse button, the grid menu pops up.

This allows you to the set the interval between grid lines to any of a variety of regular or triplet note
values or else to Seconds.

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The time axis is then graduated at intervals equivalent to the note value selected. If you have chosen
a small note value (such as 1/16) and then zoom the display outwards, at a certain point it will
become impossible to display all the grid lines; the grid value selected, however, will remain active.

Moving notes when the grid is active

When the Time Grid is active and Seconds is not checked, notes moved from one beat to another will
end up the same distance from the new beat as they were from the old one. In other words, whilst the
grid does influence their position, they don’t snap exactly to the nearest grid line unless they were on
a grid line to begin with. The note depicted below, for example, sounds slightly after the first beat of
the bar.

If, while the grid is active, this is moved to the second beat, there, too, it will sound slightly after the
beat – the offset in the two cases being identical.

Even if the grid is active, you can still adjust the position of a note (or a selection of notes)
independently of the grid by holding down the [Alt] key as you move it.

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Chord recognition and the Chord Track

Melodyne is capable of recognizing the chords and detecting changes of key (or ‘tonality’) in your
recordings. Here you will find all you need to know about Melodyne’s Chord and Key tracks.

Limitations of the editions Melodyne essential and assistant

The chord recognition function is implemented in Melodyne assistant and essential but in those
editions it is not possible to edit polyphonic material i.e. material in which two or more notes sound
simultaneously. The procedure is as follows:

Recordings of polyphonic instruments are opened by default in Melodyne assistant and

essential with the Universal algorithm.
To allow chord recognition, select “Polyphonic” from the Algorithm menu. The notes are now
displayed polyphonically but in gray, and they cannot be edited using the tools.
You can, however, following the procedure described in the next section, get Melodyne to
identify the chords formed by these gray notes and display them in the Chord Track.
Once the chords have been identified, you must switch back to the Universal algorithm before
you can perform any musical editing e.g. transposition or timing quantization.

One Chord Track for all Melodyne instances

The Chord Track is displayed in all instances of Melodyne that are open – i.e. on each track. You
therefore see the same chords for all instruments, although the melodic line, or chords, played by
each instrument may be different.

So what the Chord Track is displaying is the combined effect of all the instruments: the harmonic
structure of the song or composition as a whole. Armed with this information, you can examine the
notes played by any instrument at any moment and see how well they accord with the overall
harmony.

Triggering the harmonic analysis

To get Melodyne to identify the chords, proceed as follows:

Open the recording of a polyphonic instrument (e.g. piano or guitar). In Melodyne studio, you
can open multiple tracks simultaneously in the Note Editor (e.g. guitar and bass) so the
harmonic analysis can take all of them into account.

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Display the Chord Track (and the Key Track too, if you wish) by checking the relevant entries
in the Options menu. Alternatively, you can click on the icons beneath the Time Grid Settings
menu in the top right-hand corner of the Note Editor.

Right-click in the Chord Track and select “Analyze Chords” from the context menu. You will
then see a ‘lead sheet’ of your recording.

Please note: Before optimal results can be obtained from the chord recognition function, the detected
tempo must be correct; otherwise the chord symbols may be aligned with the wrong beats. For this
reason, prior to the chord analysis you should choose “Copy Song Tempo to File” from the Tempo
dialog.

You can repeat the “Analyze Chords” command at any time to update the analysis.
You might do this, for example, after recording a new guitar part containing different chords.

If it’s only certain chords that need to be reexamined, select the chords in question in the
Chord Track and choose “Analyze Chords”.
To select two or more chords, use the Shift and Cmd keys.
If you click on one chord and then press Cmd+A, all the chords will be selected.

Note: The chord analysis is invariably based on all the notes in selected areas of the Chord Track. It
is not possible to influence the analysis by selecting or deselecting individual blobs. That would in any

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case make no sense from a musical point of view, as the less information taken into account, the less
accurately the chords displayed would reflect the overall musical content of the recording.

There could, however, be cases – if you were analyzing the chords of a complete mix, for example –
when certain blobs (attributable to the kick drum, say, or the cymbals) might lead to confusion. The
solution in such cases is to the copy the audio file to a new track, delete the offending blobs, and
trigger a fresh chord analysis based on that track only.

Selecting between alternative designations

The context (right-click) menu of the Chord Track suggests alternatives for the chords detected:

These, we must stress, are not compositional suggestions, as in “here you could also play this chord”.
The alternatives suggested are simply alternative interpretations of the audio material.

A chord made up of the notes C, E, G and A, for example, could be interpreted as either C6 or Am7.
Both interpretations are legitimate, but which is the more apt might depend on the degree to which
the various notes are emphasized; Does the highest note sound loudly and clearly, for instance, or is
it barely perceptible? The most appropriate interpretation might depend also on the surrounding
chords or the prevailing key (or ‘tonality’) of the passage in question. These are questions of content
but also of taste that are best left for you, the user, to answer. For this reason, Melodyne offers you all
plausible interpretations and lets you choose between them.

Of course, in the case of very basic chords, there will be fewer alternatives and in some cases only
one. If the chord, for example, consists of three notes: C, E and G, this can only sensibly be
interpreted as “C Major”.

Entering chords manually

Independently of the results of the chord detection, you can also fill in the Chord Track manually, by
typing in the names of the chords or standard chord symbols.
To do this, select an existing chord (a frame will appear, highlighting the chord selected) and type in
text in the normal way:

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In areas of the Chord Track where no chord symbols are displayed, you can enter them simply by
double-clicking in the appropriate places and typing them in.

Melodyne accepts all the standard conventions for denoting chords.

For “F minor”, for example, you can spell the chord in any of the following ways: “Fminor”, “Fmin”,
“Fm” or “F-” (with the “F” in upper or lower case). By default, Melodyne prefers the set language.

You can eliminate specific chord changes by moving the cursor over the borders between chords (the
cursor than changes its shape) and then double-clicking.

Conversely, you can insert additional chord changes by double-clicking on an existing chord. By
default when you are inserting or moving chords, they snap to the nearest quarter note (crotchet) on
the grid. By holding down the Alt key, however, you can temporarily increase the resolution of the grid
and in this way reach intermediate destinations, an eighth or a sixteenth note to either side.

In the context (right-click) menu of the Chord Track, you can decide whether when you introduce a
new chord change, a fresh anlysis of the newly created chord halves should take place:

Keyboard shortcuts for editing the chords

The following shortcuts, which are the same as those used for the selection and editing of blobs in the
Note Editor, allow you more swiftly to enter and edit the chords to be displayed. If you wish, you can
change the shortcut assignments in the Preferences dialog.

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Shift-click and Cmd-click: Extend the chord selection

[Left/Right Arrow]: Select previous/next chord
Shift+[Left/Right Arrow]: Extend selection to include previous/next chord
[Up/Down Arrow]: Switch between alternate chord designations (as described above)
Cmd+[Up/Down Arrow]: Shift the chord up or down diatonically i.e. using only the notes of the
current scale, so major intervals are replaced where necessary with minor ones and vice versa
to suit the key. For example, if the key is A minor and the chord selected is C major. After
pressing Cmd+[Up Arrow], this will become D minor (not D major, which is not found in the key
of A minor). If, on the other hand, the key were E minor, selecting a C major followed by Cmd+
[Up Arrow] would produce D major. In this case, the quality of the chord (e.g. the type of triad)
would not change.
Shift Cmd[Up/Down Arrow]: Transpose the chord chromatically upwards without regard to the
key. So C major becomes C# major, followed by D major, then D# major etc. So the quality of
the chord does not change: major chords remain major, minor chords remain minor.

By editing the Chord Track in this way, you are not (initially) changing the recorded music. However,
such changes to the Chord Track will make a difference when you come to edit the notes, if you
select “Chord” or “Chord Scale” as the Pitch Grid.

Auditioning chords
In the Context (right-click) menu of the Chord Track, you will find an option to audition the chords:

If this option is activated, as you step through the chords with the arrow keys or alter them through
text input or using the keyboard shortcuts, you will hear the chords in question played with a guitar
sample.

Chord symbol conventions

Melodyne’s Preferences dialog allows you to choose the chord symbol conventions used in the Chord
Track. There are various conventions in common use and Melodyne is familiar with all of them. Some
musicians, for example, write “Cm” to indicate a chord of C minor, whilst others prefer “C-” or “c-”.

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Even though you may have chosen a particular format (e.g. “c-”) for the display, you can still use a
different convention (e.g. “Cm”) to input the data; Melodyne will simply translate “Cm” into “c-” for you.
This is particularly useful if you have opted for a convention that involves special characters that are
awkward to type in. In the Preferences dialog, you could specify, for example, that a chord of F major
with a major seventh should be displayed as “F#7”, but use a format that is easier to type (such as “F
maj 7”) when entering chords in the Chord Track.

As well as choosing a naming convention for the display, you can also influence the complexity of the
chords. For certain musical genres, you may prefer to make the lead sheet easier to read. The
context (right-click) menu of the Chord Track offers the following options:

Slash Chords
If the guitarist is playing a chord of C major, for example, but the note sounding in the bass is not C
but G, then – even though this does not change the chord (since the note G does appear in the chord
of C major) – you may still feel it is important for the notation to take account of this fact using the
familiar “slash chord” notation: C/G (i.e. C major with a G in the bass).
If you check this option, this convention will be used throughout the track.

Expanded chords
If you check this option, Melodyne finds expanded chords (such as those common in jazz). If the
option is cleared, a simpler description will be preferred. For example, if the chord in question is C
Major but a D is sounding at the same time. D is the ninth of a C major chord, so an exact description
of the chord would be “Cadd9”. In this case, though, it would be a perfectly legitimate simplification to

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just write “C major” in the lead sheet. This would in any case have no effect (initially) upon the music
itself. Whether or not this option is checked could have implications, but only on the manner in which
you edit notes later on. (The editing of the notes in the chord context is dealt with in the next tour).

Less Thirds
Melodyne adds thirds in the course of the chord detection even when none were played, which is
usually very helpful. But in the blues genre, for example, the musicians often omit thirds on purpose
and in such cases the addition of thirds is undesirable. If you check this option, the added thirds are
hidden. Thirds that were actually played, however, remain unaffected and are always shown. If no
added thirds are present, this option is grayed out.

The Key Track and key changes

The methodology for editing the Key Track is basically the same as that just described for the Chord
Track.
The only real difference is that the context (right-click) menu has fewer entries:

The upper area offers you alternatives to the detected key.

Analyze Key: This triggers a new detection of the key.
Church Modes: Uses the church modes (Dorian, Phrygian etc.)
Open Scale: Opens a separate window to let you select a key.
Conduct New Analysis after Slicing Modes: By double-clicking in the Key Track, you can slice
an existing segment in two, or merge two segments. This option determines whether or not a
fresh analysis of the key of the segment or segments involved should be carried out
automatically whenever you slice or merge segments in this way.

The Key Track and the Scale Ruler

The Scale Ruler (the left-hand margin of the Note Editor) invariably displays a key, for which
numerous variations are possible. If your song contains key changes, which scale is displayed will
depend upon the playback position:

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Chords and keys in Note Assignment Mode

In Note Assignment Mode, you do not see a shared Chord Track for the entire song, as is the case in
normal Edit Mode, but only the chords played by the instrument you are examining. Note: Even if you
have activated the option “Edit” > “Chords and Scales” > “Use DAW Keys”, you can still use all the
functions of the Chord Track in Note Assignment Mode, because remote control of the Chord Track
from the ARA DAW is only effective in Track Edit and Clip Edit modes – not in Note Assignment
Mode.

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For this reason, we speak in the one case of “project chords” that relate to the entire song and in the
other of “file chords”, which are only visible in Note Assignment Mode and relate only to the
instrument in question. In the Edit menu, you will find commands that allow you to replace file chords
with project chords, and vice versa.

It is the same with the keys: The song has a common Key Track (“Project Scale”), whereas what you
see in Note Assignment Mode in each case is the current “File Scale”.

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The Pitch Grid

You can shift the pitch of notes in Melodyne either continuously or in discrete steps using the grid.
When the grid is active, notes can only be moved to such pitches as the snap mode selected at the
time will allow.

The functions of the Pitch Ruler and access to the Pitch Grid
You can change the options relating to the Pitch Grid either from the sub-menu of the same name
under Options in the main menu or by clicking the clef icon directly above the Pitch Ruler.

Clicking on the Clef icon toggles the grid on and off. When the grid is deactivated, you can slide notes
continuously upwards or downwards in pitch. Only faint lines in this case separate the notes in the
Pitch Ruler.

If you click on the Clef icon (or the little arrow next to it) while holding down the mouse key, the menu
containing the grid options drops down.

The Pitch Grid and the background in the Note Editor

The Pitch Grid, when activated, causes notes to snap to particular pitches as you drag and release
them. The white horizontal beams beneath the blobs in the Note Editor represent the pitches allowed
by the currently selected grid. The gray beams represent pitches that are not included in the current
grid and that the blobs therefore spring over as they are moved.

When you double-click on a blob with the Main Tool or the Pitch Tool, it will snap to the center of the
nearest white lane – so whether it was perfectly in tune or slightly offset from its previous pitch, its
offset from its new pitch will be zero. Thus, as well as moving notes to more suitable pitches, a simple
double-click perfects their intonation at the same time.

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If, on the other hand, you hold down the [Alt] key as you double-click, if a blob was offset 10 cents
(say) from its previous pitch, it will be offset from its new pitch by the same amount. In other words,
even though the blob may move to a different pitch, its “degree of imperfection” (in terms of
intonation) will be preserved – such deviations are, after all, often musically desirable and used
intentionally in order, for instance, to obtain a warmer, richer tone.

For the Pitch Grid and the background to the blobs in the Note Editor, the following options are
available:

Pitch Grid

No Snap: The Grid is deactivated and notes can be shifted continuously up or down in pitch.

Chromatic Snap: Notes snap to the nearest note of the chromatic scale.

Key Snap or Chord Snap: Notes snap to the grid currently selected as the display background
in the Note Editor.

Pitch Background

Keyboard: The background in the Note Editor mimics the pattern of black and white keys on
the piano keyboard – only in this case, the pitches produced by the black keys are shown in
gray. When the grid is active, these pitches are inaccessible, so you are effectively locked into
C Major – which is fine if the song happens to be in that key but not much use otherwise.

Key: Now the notes of the current key or tonality are displayed in white and notes foreign to
the key in grey. Again, when the grid is active, only the white beams are accessible. If there is
a change of key in the course of the song, the pattern of white and gray beams will change
accordingly.

Chord: Now the background pattern changes from chord to chord, with white beams
representing chord members and notes foreign to the current chord shown in gray. So in the
case of chords based on simple triads (C Major, F minor etc.), only three notes per octave will
be available. In the case of more complex chords, more pitches will be available – four per
octave in the case of a major seventh chord, for example.

Chord Scale: With this option, once again seven white beams per octave are displayed. Unlike
the case, however, when “Key” was selected, these are not the notes of the current key, but
instead form a scale that reflects the current chord.

A brief explanation: It is perfectly possible, in jazz for example, for chords to be used that do not fit the
key, without the listener immediately interpreting this as a key change. For example: You are in C
major, and the chord played is D major, which does not actually fit the key. If the option “Chord Scale”

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is selected, for this one chord a black-and-white pattern will be displayed corresponding to the notes
that fit the chord played within the key. So, in our example, F# would be a legitimate tone and would
be shown in place of F.

Pitch lines: When this option is selected, a ruled line appears in what was previously the center
of each beam, and the beams are no longer displayed. The pitch lines invariably reflect the key
– including any key changes – but not the chords; bold lines indicate the pitch of notes
belonging to the key; that of notes foreign to it are denoted by thin lines. This display mode is
useful when you are correcting intonation errors, as the lines show the exact pitches to aim for.

Pitch Labels
Here you can choose whether the names of the notes (C, D, E etc.) or degrees of the scale (I, II, III
etc.) are shown on the Pitch Ruler.

A practical example
You are perhaps wondering what earthly purpose is served by all these options. An example may
make things clearer. Let’s suppose you want to import a guitar part from your loop library and adapt it
to the current song. Here’s how it’s done:

First create a chord track (either by applying the chord recognition function to the instruments
you already have or by typing in the chords).
Now activate Scale Snap
As the Pitch Background, choose "Chord"
Insert the guitar part from your library and select all its notes (shortcut: [Cmd]+A)
Then double-click any of the selected notes

Now the imported guitar part will follow the chords of the song. You may perhaps want to shift one or
two of the chords upwards or downwards along the Chord Grid to obtain inversions.

With this procedure, of course, you may find occasionally that two notes that were different in the
original guitar part end up on the same pitch. This is bound to happen where, for example, in the
original recording, there’s a major seventh chord (which is made out of 4 notes) but a simple major or
minor chord (consisting of 3 notes) in the current song. Such problems, however, are easily solved:
just select one of the two notes and drag it by hand to a “free” white note. Or you could switch the
display background from “Scale Notes” to “Chord Scale” to obtain a wider choice of suitable notes.

When you are dealing with vocal parts, on the other hand, you will hardly ever find the “Chord” setting
useful – it would limit the voice to too few notes (often only 3 or perhaps 4 per chord). Choose instead
“Chord Scale”, which will allow you greater flexibility when working with melodies. Where, on the other
hand, you have multiple vocal tracks comprised of little more than “Ooh” or “Aah” sounds that you are
using to provide layers of harmony, then “Chord” might be the most useful setting.

Once you have finished composing the melodic line and begin to address the finer points of
intonation, switch the display background to Pitch Lines. This is because the lines – which represent

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perfect intonation – provide a clearer indication of which notes are out tune (and by how much) than
that provided by the (far broader) beams.

The Scale Ruler and the Reference Pitch Ruler

To select a scale for the Pitch Grid yourself or change other settings, click the rightmost icon (the two
sharp signs) beneath the Pitch Ruler. Two new columns will appear to the left of it.

Adjusting the master tuning

The narrow column on the very left is the Reference Pitch Ruler. Drag in either direction the mark
alongside any note – A4, for example – and the Frequency Ruler appears, which you can consult as
you fine-tune the note in question and, with it, of course, all the other notes of the scale. What you are
doing here is adjusting the master tuning for the entire Pitch Grid. A tip: increase the vertical zoom
factor, as this will make it easier for you to locate the value you want.

By right-clicking any of the marks on the ruler, you can open a small context menu. This offers a
number of pointers to help you bring the Pitch Grid swiftly into line with a particular tuning:

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At the top, you will see the current frequency of the note selected.
Concert: bases the tuning on modern standard concert pitch (where A4 = 440 Hz).
Default: bases the tuning on the frequency currently assigned to A4 in the Preferences dialog.
Detected: bases the tuning on Melodyne’s analysis of the music being edited – the original
tuning.
Set as Default: tells Melodyne to use the current value as the default tuning for new
documents and adjusts the value in the Preferences dialog accordingly.

The various settings for A4, incidentally, can be found quickly by clicking the tuning fork icon at the
top of the Reference Pitch Ruler. By typing into the box immediately below this icon, you can assign
to A4 any frequency you like.

Selecting the tonic and scale variety

The wider ruler next to the Reference Pitch Ruler is the Scale Ruler. Here you can select the ‘tonic’ (i.
e. the first degree or keynote) of the scale as well as its mode or type. First click on the note you wish
to use as the tonic. The following menu opens:

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Related scales: in the top part of the menu, you will find a varying number of scales preceded by a “=”
sign. These are scales that correspond to the current scale but are differently named. If your DAW
offers a chord track and you have checked the option “Edit” > “Chords and Scales” > “Use DAW
Keys”, certain options – such as the ability to select a related scale or switch between major and
minor keys – are no longer available within Melodyne, as in that case you perform the settings in the
key display of your DAW. Please note that when you select a related scale from this menu, only the
main structure of the mode in question is adopted: the scale is simply given a new name and, if
applicable, a new tonic. It can be, however, that the exact definition of the related scale in question
contains additional secondary degrees or fine-tuning. If you wish to use these, please choose Open
Scale... from the scale drop-down menu.

The current note: in the middle of the submenu, grayed out, you will see the name of the note
you have clicked on and which you can now make the tonic.

Major / Minor: Allows you to select a major or minor scale with the note selected as tonic. To
select C Major, for example, click C in the ruler, followed by C Major from the submenu.

Open Scale... : opens Melodyne’s Scale Window, which offers access to a wide variety of
additional scales. This window will be described in the next section.

Analyzed: this offers you rapid access to two options derived from Melodyne’s analysis of the
material: the closest major or minor scales and an exact microtonal scale.

Notes Reflect Scale Changes: normally when you change the scale, Melodyne adjusts the
Pitch Grid but does not change the notes themselves unless you double-click on them first, in
which case they will snap to the grid. If, however, you wish the notes to adjust automatically to
any change of scale, select either Tuning or Tuning and Mode. Then any changes will take
effect immediately and you will hear them at once during playback.

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Play Scale: plays the current scale. When this function is active, the loudspeaker icon appears
above the Scale Ruler. By clicking on this icon, you can deactivate the function without
needing to access a menu.

Tip: Initialize the key prior to the transfer/load: In the case of monophonic or polyphonic audio
material, Melodyne also recognizes the key of the music. With short melodic phrases, however, the
key chosen is often not the one intended, simply because too few notes are available for a correct
appraisal. To prevent this happening, you can set the key using the Scale Ruler of an empty instance
of the plug-in or an empty document (if using the stand-alone implementation of the program) before
the transfer or loading of an audio file. To do this, simply click on the desired keynote in the Scale
Ruler and select the desired scale from the context menu. Melodyne will then retain this initialized
value, regardless of its own subsequent analysis.

The Scale Window

Melodyne’s Scale Window offers a multitude of scales you can select, listen to, and make use of. To
access this window, choose “Open Scale” from the context menu of the Scale Ruler.

The selected scale applies to all instances of the Melodyne plug-in.

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To open the Scale Window, select Open Scale from the context menu of the Scale Ruler.

Now choose a category from the left-hand pane followed by the desired scale from the pane on the
right. Click the loudspeaker icon to the right of each entry to hear the scale selected.

If you have activated the option Notes Follow Scale Changes, during playback you will hear
immediately the effect of applying the scale selected to your audio material. The window allows you to
try out (or ‘audition’) different scales quickly and easily. If you wish to adopt the changes, exit the
window with OK; otherwise click Cancel.

From the lower pane of the window, you can select between the parameters of your existing scale
and those of the scale selected in the Scale Window.

Mode and Tuning: you can adopt either the parameters of your existing scale (on the left) or of
the scale currently selected in the Scale Window (on the right).
Tonic: you can choose between the selected tonic or the tonic from the preset.
Pitch: here you can choose between current tuning, the pitch from the preset or various
standard tunings.

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Stretching: here you can select whether or not stretched tuning should be applied to the scale.
External Scales Folder...: this button allows you to open a folder containing scale definitions in
Scala format (filename extension “.scl”) which will then appear as an additional category in the
Scale Window.

On the Internet, you will find at http://www.huygens-fokker.org/microtonality/scales.html a collection of

over 4,000 Scala files that you can copy to any part of your hard disk and audition and try out in this
way using Melodyne.

You can also load scale definitions created in Melodyne studio (filename extension ‘.mts’) with this
button.

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Tracks and clips

Thanks to ARA, Reaper and Melodyne work hand in hand when you are arranging your song. The
following tour will familiarize you with all the requisite functions.

Note: Each DAW manufacturer has its own terminology – “regions”, “audio events”, “media items” etc.
– to describe segments of audio tracks. In the Melodyne user manual, we use for this purpose the
catch-all term “clip”.

Track Edit Mode and Clip Edit Mode

In Melodyne, two different modes are available for editing notes; you switch between them using the
buttons above the Note Editor. The left-hand button activates Track Edit Mode; the button to the right
of it, Clip Edit Mode.

In Track Edit Mode you see the contents of the entire Reaper track, regardless of how many clips it
contains.

The borders between adjacent clips in Reaper are shown in Melodyne as vertical gray lines. The
moving of borders is performed in Reaper – not in Melodyne. In Melodyne, you can see at once
whether a clip change occurs at an unfortunate moment – such as in the middle of a note – which
facilitates the task of finding a better place for it.

Tip: When multiple tracks – each containing multiple clips – are displayed simultaneously in the note
editor, the display may become cluttered by a plethora of gray lines. This can be avoided by clearing
the option “Show Clip Borders” in the Options menu.

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Most of the time, you will probably prefer to work in Track Edit Mode, due to the one-to-one
correspondence of its display to the arrangement of the track in question, and also therefore to what
you are hearing. However, Melodyne also offers the alternative Clip Edit Mode, which under certain
circumstances allows you greater flexibility.

In Clip Edit Mode, you see only one Reaper clip at a time. If in the Options menu the entry “Follow the
Selection in the DAW” is checked, Melodyne’s display follows the clip selection in the DAW. (In
Melodyne studio, the track list is still shown but in Clip Edit Mode, the Edit and Reference buttons are
grayed out.)

Track Edit Mode and Clip Edit Mode differ in the way notes are displayed at clip borders: whilst in
Track Edit Mode, only notes lying within the clip borders determined by Reaper can be seen, in Clip
Edit Mode notes on either side of the borders remain visible; you therefore see in Melodyne – in the
area with a gray background – what you would hear if you were to resize the clip in Reaper. This can
be helpful, for instance, when you wish to shorten a note that is held too long, but where the ending of
the note is located beyond the border of the clip. In Track Edit Mode, you would not be able to access
the end of the note, as nothing outside the clip is displayed there. In Clip Edit Mode, on the other
hand, you can simply grab the end of the note and adjust it neatly to the length of the clip.

Switching between Track, Clip and Note Assignment modes

You can also specify from within Melodyne itself which clip should be displayed in Clip Edit Mode.
Your workflow might then look like this:

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In the screenshot, Track Edit Mode is activated, so all the clips belonging to the selected track are
displayed. Before switching to Clip Edit Mode, select one note belonging to the clip you wish to edit.
In our example, a note from the third clip is selected. This being the case, selecting Clip Edit Mode
would open this third clip for editing.

Suppose, however, that instead of just one, several notes were selected, at least two of which
belonged to different clips. Under these circumstances, the Clip Edit Mode button would be grayed
out, as Melodyne would have no way of knowing which clip you wished to edit. Before you can enter
Clip Edit Mode, you must therefore limit your selection to notes (or a note) belonging to the single clip
you wish to edit.

Tip: If you are already in Clip Mode and wish to change clips, it is not necessary to switch back to
Track Mode in order to do so. Simply click on the desired clip in the DAW, and Melodyne will display
its contents immediately. For this to happen, however, the function “Follow the Selection in the DAW”
must be activated in the Options menu and Melodyne must be present on the track containing the
newly selected clip.

Incidentally, the note selection must be equally unambiguous before you can switch to Note
Assignment Mode (using the button to the right of Clip Edit Mode).

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Restructuring of the arrangement

Until ARA came along, Melodyne’s editing was always performed on a copy of the contents of the
Reaper track created in the course of the ‘transfer’ process. The snag was that if you changed the
track subsequently – for example, by moving or muting clips – or if new clips were created e.g. by
recording overdubs, the whole transfer process had to be repeated. With ARA, it does not, as all
changes made to the clips in Reaper are automatically reflected in Melodyne.

Fading and muting clips

Within clips on tracks with Melodyne, fades and gain changes have the same effect acoustically as
they do within clips without Melodyne. The size of the corresponding Melodyne blobs, however,
remains unaffected.

If you mute clips in Reaper, the corresponding notes disappear from Melodyne, the guiding principle
being: “only that which is heard should be displayed”. But don’t worry: the Melodyne notes are
retained “in memory” and reappear – including any editing you may already have applied to them – as
soon as you make the clip audible once more in Reaper.

Ghost and real copies

Whenever clips are looped in Reaper, the looped notes appear automatically in Melodyne as well.
This is because what has been created is a copy (‘alias’ or ‘clone’) of the original clip. Any changes to
the notes that you make in Melodyne will therefore appear in all the looped clips.

Reaper offers you two different ways of looping a clip. One is to mark the clip and then press the F2
key. This opens the “Media Items Properties” dialog, where you should check the option “Loop
Source”. The other way is to right-click on a clip, and select under “Item Settings” in the context
menu, the option “Loop Item Source”.

If you copy clips (by using Cmd-C and Cmd-V or by holding down the Alt key and dragging), the audio
notes in each copied clip can be edited individually and independently of the source clip.

A typical application might be to introduce small musical variations to a repeating motif (such as a
bass riff) that you have created by making multiple copies.

When you duplicate tracks, too, you will have real copies to work with. To duplicate a track, choose
“Track” > “Duplicate Track” from the main menu or right-click and select “Duplicate Track” from the
context menu. This will create a new track (with Melodyne already present as an insert) containing
copies of the clips from the original track.

The Melodyne content of the duplicate track will then be independent of that of the original. A typical
application here might involve copying a vocal track with the intention of creating a second voice from
it using Melodyne.

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Rendering
Rendering or “Bouncing” in Reaper is a very user-friendly, and at the same time extremely flexible,
process. As a Melodyne user, however, you should familiarize yourself with the details of the Render
dialog in Reaper.

In Reaper, a render normally includes the processing of plug-ins. As a rule, you will want your
Melodyne editing to be included but not the effects of other plug-ins, such as compressors and
equalizers. So, in this guide, whenever we recommend you to bounce a Reaper clip, the procedure
we intend you to follow is this:
– bypass all plug-ins other than Melodyne;
– right-click on the clip in question and choose “Render item as a new take” from the context menu;
– then reactivate the other plug-ins.

With this procedure, all the enhancements you have made to the clip using Melodyne will be frozen
into the render, and this will then form the starting point for your future Melodyne editing.

Vocal comping
When comping, you are typically dealing with different takes of one and the same musical part that
you have sliced into small clips. From these clips, you stitch together a patchwork consisting of the
best individual performance of each word, phrase or segment. There are several ways of doing this in
Reaper: Either you store all the takes in the same audio channel (by checking “Show all takes in

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lanes” under “Options”) and then combine the best renderings of each phrase or segment through
judicious use of the scissors and mute tool.

Or you can display on a track at any one time only the current take, and navigate between tracks by
pressing “T” or “Shift+T” to switch to the next or previous track, respectively. If you prefer this method,
clear the option “Show all takes in lanes”.

Thanks to ARA, Melodyne is equally happy with either method, as, whichever you use, each take
retains its own ‘Melodyne memory’. It is therefore possible to edit individual notes in one take, switch
to a second and perform further editing there, before switching back to the first take and picking up
where you left off. Thanks to Melodyne, you can begin making corrections even when you are still
comparing takes; you no longer have to wait until you have settled on the final running order before
doing so – as, incidentally, prior to ARA (to the chagrin of many producers) was invariably the case.

There is one problem, encountered most often when comping vocals, that is impossible to solve
without ARA. Generally, when comping, you aim to position the clip borders between notes (or
between a breath and a note); unfortunately, since there are generally slight differences in the
phrasing of different takes, you will often find that there is no gap between the end of a note in one
take and the beginning of the next note in another, which means there is no good place to make the
cut; wherever you decide to switch takes, at least one of the notes involved will be sliced in two.

The solution to this problem lies – thanks to ARA – in Melodyne’s Clip Edit Mode. This allows you, as
described above, to look (and reach) beyond the borders of a clip and adjust the timing of the sliced
note until it fits neatly within the comping borders.

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Selecting notes
In this tour, you will learn which techniques you can use to select notes in Melodyne prior to editing
them.

Standard selection techniques

Click a note in the Note Editor to select it. Selected notes are more boldly colored.

[Command]-click additional notes to add them to the selection.

[Command]-clicking a selected note removes it from the selection.

Another way of selecting multiple blobs is to lasso them by clicking the background in one corner of
the desired selection and then dragging the pointer to the corner diagonally opposite. This is
sometimes called rubber-banding. If you hold down the [Command] key, you can add a further rubber-
band selection to the existing one. You can also add individual notes to the selection (or remove them
from it) by [Command]-clicking.

To select a passage (i.e. a series of notes), click the first note of the series and then [Shift]-click the
last (or vice versa).

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Snake selection
If you press the [Shift] key, click a note and then move the mouse pointer away, Melodyne’s snake
selection mode is activated. You can now add notes to the selection by painting over them with the
snake.

If you move the mouse (and thereby the snake) backwards again, you can remove notes previously
painted over from the selection.

Selection using the Pitch Ruler

Click a note in the Pitch Ruler to select notes of the corresponding pitch.

If cycle mode is active, the selection only affects such notes if they lie within the cycle range.

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By [Command]-clicking other notes in the Pitch Ruler, you can add them to the selection and later
remove them by the same means.

If you double-click, as opposed to single-clicking, a note in the Pitch Ruler, you will select the same
note in all octaves rather than simply that single instance of the note.

Click and drag in the Pitch Ruler to select a range of notes.

By using the [Command] key in the Pitch Ruler, you can remove from the selection a range of notes
or individual notes. Here too, if a cycle is active, only notes within the cycle range will be selected.

Selection commands in the menu

In the Edit menu and the context menu of the Note Editor, you will find the command Select All and
the Select Special sub-menu, which contains a number of more sophisticated options.

The command Restore Last Selection reverses the last selection step, thereby restoring the selection
that was active beforehand. This is useful if you are in the process of performing a complex selection
and accidentally shoot astray, causing the selection to disappear. By clicking Restore Last Selection,
you can retrieve it.

The command Invert Note Selection deselects all selected notes and selects all notes that were
previously not selected. The commands that follow are similarly self-explanatory, allowing you to
select all the notes that follow, all notes of the same pitch, all notes of the same pitch in all octaves,
and so on.

The command Select Fifths Above and Below in All Octaves selects tones a fifth above and below the
selected tones in all octaves. All the Select commands in the second subdivision of the menu operate
on the cycle zone only if cycle mode is active.

The two commands that follow, Select Same Beat in All Bars and Select Notes Between Locators, are
also self-explanatory.

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Correct Pitch Macro

The Correct Pitch Macro is used to rectify poor intonation quickly and intelligently and rein in any
undue wavering in pitch.

Opening and using the macro

Select the notes you wish to edit. If no notes are selected, macro editing will by default affect all notes.

To open the macro, choose Edit > Quantization Macros > Correct Pitch or click on this button at the
top of the Note Editor.

Here, with the upper slider, you can apply a degree of correction ranging in intensity from 0% (no
influence) to 100% (full power) to the pitch center of the notes selected. By default, such notes are
moved towards, or to, the nearest semitone:

If you prefer, however, you can have the notes snap to the nearest degree of the current scale or (if
chords have already been defined) to the nearest member of the current chord; in either of these
cases, check the option “Snap to Chord Scale”.
Depending upon the position of the intensity slider, the notes will then snap all, or part of, the way to
the corresponding pitches.

The macro works in a musically intelligent manner: At lower settings it affects only those notes that
are wildly out of tune, leaving untouched those that are already quite close to the intended pitch. As
the slider is moved further towards the right, however, even those notes are influenced, and to an
increasing degree, until at 100% all the selected notes are exactly in tune.

The pitch center, which the macro adjusts automatically, is the same parameter that is modified when
pitch correction is performed manually using the Pitch Tool.

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With the lower slider, you can progressively reduce the amount of pitch drift exhibited by the notes in
question. By “pitch drift”, we mean the kind of slow wavering in pitch that is symptomatic of poor
technique. More rapid fluctuations in pitch, such as pitch modulation or vibrato, remain unaffected.

You can modify both correction parameters in real time as the audio plays back; and hear, but also
see (by the movement of the blobs in the Note Editor, the effect of different settings.

If you have already fine-tuned some notes using the Pitch Tool, Melodyne will assume you
are satisfied with the results; this means that, by default, if you now open the Correct Pitch Macro with
no notes selected and begin making changes, only the other notes will be affected. By default, in
other words, notes that have been tuned manually are not affected by the macro. If you wish the pitch
of these too to be affected by the macro, check ‘Include notes fine-tuned manually’. The option is
grayed out, of course, as being of no relevance, if no manual editing of intonation has been
performed.

Closing the macro and correction values when it is reopened

Exit with OK to keep your changes or Cancel to discard them. Naturally the fact that you have used
the Correct Pitch Macro in no way precludes your fine-tuning notes at any time subsequently by hand.

If you select a note that has already been edited using the macro and then open the macro again, the
settings previously applied to it will be displayed; the macro remembers, in other words, the
parameters previously applied to each note. If the current selection includes notes to which different
settings have been applied, when it is opened the minimum and maximum values for each parameter
will be displayed.

Even after exiting with OK, you can still reverse the effects of the macro editing by using the undo
function.

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The Correct Pitch macro and sibilants

When the algorithm Melodic (the usual choice for vocals) is selected, Melodyne detects and marks
what it defines broadly as “sibilants”. In the case of vocals, these include not only fricative consonants
and digraphs such as “s”, “z”, “ch” and “zh”, but also word fragments like “k” and “t”, as well as the
sound of the vocalist inhaling or exhaling between words. Whilst such sibilants do move upwards or
downwards in the display under the effects of the macro, acoustically they remain unaltered.

By transposing only the pitched components of the sound in this way, the macro is able to maintain
optimum sound quality throughout; to alter the frequency of sibilants would sound unnatural. But if, as
a special effect, you ever do wish to apply pitch shifting to sibilants, this can be done manually using
the Pitch Tool, as is described in detail here.

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Quantize Time Macro

In this tour, you will learn how to work with the Quantize Time Macro, which makes it possible to
correct the timing of notes swiftly and effortlessly.

Quantizing timing: What is moved and where to?

Before examining the operation of the Quantize Time Macro, we should clarify a few basic concepts
and relationships.

To understand these better, let’s begin by selecting the Time Tool. When this is active, a note
separation (indicated by a vertical dash) or the musical starting point of the note (indicated by a
vertical dash with a triangle) appears near the start of each blob.

Now check Show Intended Notes in the Options > Note Editor sub-menu, which can also be
accessed via the cog icon in the top right-hand corner of the Note Editor.

Gray boxes now enclose each blob.

When it first analyzes the material, Melodyne calculates for each note two parameters of relevance to
the process of time correction.

The first is the intended musical beat of the note; this is indicated by the start of the gray frame
enclosing the blob. As you can see, the start of the frame invariably coincides with a grid line.

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The second is either the beginning or the musical starting point of the note, represented, respectively,
by a note separation or a vertical dash with a triangle. The latter will not necessarily be aligned with
the left-hand extremity of the blob. Think of a brass instrument, for example, where each actual note
is often heralded by a certain amount of wind noise. Admittedly this noise belongs to the note, but
from the standpoint of timing what is of relevance is the moment the sound really unfolds and the
pitch first becomes discernible; that is the timing-critical moment.

If you quantize notes with the Quantize Time Macro, the musical starting point of each note (if one
has been determined; if not, the beginning of the note) will move towards the left-hand side of its gray
frame. The quantization intensity slider determines whether it goes all of the way, or only part of the
way, to the beat assigned it.

There are also notes for which no starting point is displayed. Such is the case with notes – and not
only the human voice but almost all instruments too are capable of producing them – with an attack
so drawn out that it is impossible to find an instant of which you can say with any confidence “this is
where the note really begins”. It still begins somewhere, of course, so Melodyne treats the onset of
the sound – the start of the long attack phase, in other words – as the musical starting point and
moves that to (or towards) the quantization target – i.e. the beginning of the frame.

In determining, or seeking to determine, the musical starting point of each note, Melodyne conducts a
careful analysis of the audio material and in most cases its determination is musically correct. Any
time you disagree, though, you can enter Note Assignment Mode and define some other instant
within the life of the note as its musical starting point.

The Melodic algorithm requires separate mention because when it is active, Melodyne locates and
marks what it calls “sibilants”. In the term “sibilants”, Melodyne includes not only fricative consonants
and digraphs such as “s”, “z”, “ch” and “zh”, but also word fragments like “k” and “t” as well as the
sound of the vocalist inhaling or exhaling between words. Whenever such a sound coincides with the
start of a blob, the musical starting point identified by Melodyne always comes later. This produces
more sensible results when quantization is applied than would be the case if the sibilant itself were
regarded as the musical starting point of the note.

Another way of changing the way sibilants are handled by the Quantize Time macro is to use the
Separation Tool to slice the note in two at the point where the sibilant ends; so an “s”, for example, at
the beginning of a word, would get a blob all to itself. Since an unvoiced “s” can have no musical
starting point, the left-hand extent of this blob (i.e. the onset of the sound itself) would then be
regarded as the critical moment for the purposes of quantization.

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Opening the Quantize Time Macro and setting the parameters

Select the notes you wish to edit. If no notes are selected, macro editing will by default affect all
notes.

To open the Quantize Time Macro, choose Edit > Quantization Macros > Quantize Time or click the
Quantize Time icon (illustrated here) to the right of the toolbar in the Note Editor.

First, the Groove Reference (if any) that will govern the time correction must be selected.

If Auto is selected, the target (or ultimate destination) of any quantization will be the left-hand edge of
the gray frame, as already described. This is invariably aligned with the grid line that represents the
beat to which Melodyne, in the course of its analysis, assigned the note. (On the whole, the system
functions very well; but it can happen that Melodyne gets it wrong, and that after
quantization you have to move the note manually to the preceding or following beat.) By selecting
Auto, in other words, you are telling the Quantize Time Macro to move notes to (or towards) the beats
assigned them by Melodyne based on its own analysis of the material.

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With the other buttons, you can select the target grid for the quantization. The ‘T’ next to the note
values stands for the corresponding triplet. If you select 1/4 as the Groove Reference, to give one
example, the grey frames will move to the nearest quarter-note (or ‘crotchet’) and this will then
become the ultimate destination for any quantization.
Note that the time correction macro works differently from, and in a more musical fashion than, the
quantization typically offered by MIDI sequencers. Instead of simply causing all notes to snap to the
selected grid, it edits the points of rhythmic emphasis of the selected notes. If, for example, you take
a passage containing successions of sixteenth notes (semiquavers) and quantize it to quarter notes
(crotchets), the beginning of each succession of sixteenth notes will be moved to the nearest quarter
note. The timing of the semiquavers within the sequence, however, remains unaltered. If you wish to
tidy that up as well, you can do so in a second pass, taking each semiquaver sequence in turn and
using sixteenth notes as the quantization factor.

The Intensity slider determines what percentage of the distance to this ultimate destination the notes
will travel in the course of quantization. If you select 0%, for example, they’ll not budge; 50%, and
they’ll go half way; 100%, and they’ll travel the full distance, ending up precisely on the beat. You can
modify both the Groove Reference and the Intensity of the quantization in real time as the audio plays
back; and hear, but also see (from the movement of the blobs in the Note Editor), the effect of
different settings.

If you have already finely adjusted the position of notes using the Timing Tool, Melodyne will assume
you are satisfied with the results; this means that, by default, if you now open the Quantize Time
Macro with no notes selected and begin making changes, all notes will be affected except these. If
you wish the position of these too to be affected by the macro, check ‘Include notes fine-tuned
manually’. The option is grayed out, of course, as being of no relevance, if no manual editing of note
positions has been performed.

Closing the macro and correction values on reopening

Exit with OK to keep your changes or Cancel to discard them. Naturally, the fact that you have used
the Quantize Time Macro in no way precludes your moving notes at any time subsequently by hand.

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If you select a note that has already been edited using the macro and then open the macro again, the
settings previously applied to it will be displayed; the macro remembers, in other words, the
parameters previously applied to each note. If the current selection includes notes to which different
settings have been applied, a mean value for each parameter will be displayed. Even after exiting
with OK, you can still reverse the effects of the macro editing by using the undo function.

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The Leveling Macro

The Leveling Macro serves to reduce or eliminate excessive volume differentials between the notes
on a track. It can be used to make quiet notes louder, or loud notes quieter, or both – until, in the
extreme case, no dynamic variation remains.

Opening and setting the Leveling Macro

First select the notes you wish to edit. If no notes are selected, the macro will govern all the notes on
the track.

Now open the Leveling Macro either from the Edit menu or by clicking on the icon shown here above
the Note Editor.

The macro offers you two converging sliders. The left-hand slider, as you move it from left to right,
makes the quiet notes louder; the right-hand slider, as you move it from right to left, makes the loud
notes quieter.

When you first open the macro, their positions are as follows;

If you apply maximum leveling, they will then look like this:

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The Mean Amplitude

Coming from the left (quiet) and right (loud), the two sliders as they converge shepherd the blobs
towards the Mean Amplitude in the center. This value is derived from an analysis of the notes you
selected before opening the macro. It is therefore based upon the musical content and cannot be
adjusted manually.

When you use the macro, you will notice that any given note will respond either to one slider or to the
other. The reason is obvious: a given note’s amplitude in the original audio file cannot be less and
greater than the Mean Amplitude. Note also that since the ultimate extent of each slider is the Mean
Amplitude (a line that neither can cross), a note that was originally quieter than the Mean Amplitude
can never pass above it; and a note that was originally louder than the Mean Amplitude can never
pass below it.

A further observation: You may notice that certain blobs, representing very quiet sounds that are also
of very short duration, do not respond to the macro at all. This is deliberate, as Melodyne initially
assumes the blobs in question represent (extraneous) noise, which if boosted by the left-hand slider
of the macro would become even more obtrusive. Naturally, you can edit such sounds freely by hand
using the Amplitude Tool.

If you have adjusted the volume of any of the selected notes manually using the Amplitude Tool
before opening the macro, it is the adjusted rather than the original values that will be considered
when calculating the mean amplitude. It is from the most recently set amplitude of the manually
adjusted notes that any movement towards the centre will begin as the leveling takes effect. If you do
not wish a manually adjusted note to be affected by the leveling, simply exclude it from the selection
before opening the macro.

Of course, if you only select one note prior to opening the macro, neither slider will have any effect,
as in that case the mean amplitude of the selection and the amplitude of the selected note will be
identical.

Closing the macro and correction values when it is subsequently re-opened

Exit the macro with “OK” to keep your work or with “Cancel” to return to the status quo ante.
Obviously, you can apply further adjustments later to the volume of the notes in question with the
Amplitude Tool whether you exit with “OK” or “Cancel”.

Furthermore, even if you exit with “OK”, you can still use the Undo function to nullify the effects of the
macro. Another way of doing this is to right-click (with the Amplitude Tool selected) and choose
“Reset Amplitudes” from the context menu.

If you select a note the amplitude of which has already been affected by the macro and then open the
macro again, the percentage shown in the macro window may differ from that displayed on the

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previous occasion. This is likely to be the case if the other notes selected are different on each
occasion, as the mean amplitudes of the two selections will almost certainly differ and, with them, the
percentage values displayed.

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Main Tool
Melodyne’s Main Tool is context-sensitive, its exact function at any given moment depending upon its
position relative to the selected blob. It has no unique functions but simply offers a different mode of
access to functions it shares with the more specialized tools for editing pitch, timing and note
separations, combining them in such a way that you can perform the most essential editing tasks
without ever having to change tools.

Modifying the pitch and timing of notes

Select the Main Tool (denoted by an arrow) from either the toolbox or the context menu of the Note
Editor or by pressing the [F1] key of your computer keyboard. (If you wish to assign a different
shortcut to this tool, you may do so after choosing Melodyne > Preferences > Shortcuts > Editing
Tools from the main menu.)

With the Main Tool, move the arrow to a point near the center of a blob and press and hold the
mouse button as you drag it upwards or downwards (to alter its pitch) or left or right (to move it
forwards or backwards in time). It is the initial movement (whether vertical or horizontal) that decides
whether the pitch or timing of the note is altered. Before changing axis, you must first release the
note. If you hold down the [Alt] key as you drag the note, the Pitch Grid or Time Grid, even if active,
will temporarily be ignored, allowing you to position the note exactly where you want it.

While you are dragging a note up or down, you will hear the frozen sound of the note at the point
where you clicked. If, whilst dragging, you move the mouse to the right or left, you can put other parts
of the note under the acoustic microscope. If you do not wish to monitor pitch changes in this way,
uncheck the option Monitor When Editing Blobs in the Options > Note Editor sub-menu, which can
also be accessed via the cog icon in the top right-hand corner of the Note Editor.

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If you double-click with the Main Tool on the middle part of a note (or one of a selection of notes), you
quantize the note(s) in question to the nearest pitch allowed by the current Pitch Grid.

The blob not only jumps to a different note altogether (e.g. from E to F, if E is not allowed by the
active Pitch Grid), but also loses any fine offset it may have had from its previous pitch. In other
words, it snaps precisely to the target pitch, the offset being then 0 cents.
This gives you a quick and easy way of correcting the intonation.

However, if correcting the intonation is not what interest you here and your aim is simply to make the
notes fit new chords, hold down the [Alt] key as you double-click. Then the note will jump, as you
intend, to the nearest note in the chord, but retain its previous offset, creating interference effects that
are sometimes desirable.

Modifying note lengths

Open the Note Editor Options menu and check Show Blob Info. Zoom in on a few individual blobs, so
that you can study them more closely. Now, as you move the mouse pointer over a blob, thin lines
appear indicating the zones in which the Main Tool performs particular functions. For illustrative
purposes, the lines here have been drawn more boldly than in the program itself. The central area
you already know about. This has to be distinguished from the front, back and upper regions of the
blob. As you move the mouse pointer from one of these regions to another, it changes its appearance
to emulate whichever of the more specialized tools is most appropriate to that zone – adopting its
functions at the same time.

Drag the front part of a note to the right or left. Hold down the [Alt] key as you do so if you wish to
override an active time grid. Now only the beginning of the note moves; the end remains anchored, so
the note is either being stretched or compressed.

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In the same way, you can move only the rightmost part of the blob (corresponding to the end of the
note).

Notice that as you move the beginning or end of a note in this way, the preceding or following note, if
adjacent, is also either stretched or compressed by the same amount to avoid either the two notes
overlapping or white space (silence) appearing between them. This type of relationship exists
whenever a pitch transition between consecutive notes has been detected. By moving the adjacent
note as well, Melodyne ensures that discontinuities are avoided and the musicality of the phrasing is
preserved.

If this behavior is not what you want, you can change the ‘soft’ separation between the notes into a
‘hard’ one using the Separation Type Tool. Instead of the separation line, a bracket will then appear
between the two notes to indicate that no further connection exists between them. You will find the
Separation Type Tool beneath the Note Separation Tool in the toolbar.

Editing note separations

If you move the mouse pointer to the upper part of a note (above the horizontal line), the Main Tool
adopts the appearance, and emulates the functions, of the Note Separation Tool. If you double-click
now, you can create a note separation – i.e. slice the note in two.

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Don’t be surprised if the two notes that result move apart in pitch: this is because a new tonal center
is calculated for each of the newly created notes, and that may differ from the tonal center they
shared when they were one note. In such cases, each therefore moves to a new vertical position
based on its newly calculated pitch center.

You can move an existing note separation horizontally with the Note Separation Tool. Before you
begin, choose Options > Note Editor Options and check Show Note Separations.

You can double-click a note separation to remove it.

If you select several notes and move a note separation, the note separations of the other selected
notes will also be moved. If you double-click one of the note separations to remove it, those of the
other selected notes will also be removed.

If you have selected several notes that overlap, you can simultaneously insert a note separation at
the same point in all of them, as well as move or remove one.

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Pitch Tool
The Pitch Tool edits the central emphasis of the pitch of each note. This is the ‘pitch center’ note
parameter that can also be edited using Melodyne’s Main Tool.

Shifting the pitch center

Select the Pitch Tool from either the toolbox or the context menu of the Note Editor or by pressing the
[F2] key of your computer keyboard. (If you wish to assign a different shortcut to this tool, you may do
so after choosing Melodyne > Preferences > Shortcuts > Editing Tools from the main menu.)

The Pitch Tool is the topmost of the three pitch editing tools. It is responsible for the pitch center of
each note, which can be thought of as its center of gravity. Melodyne allows you to edit the pitch
center of notes independently of any modulation or drifting in pitch they exhibit. Press the [F2] key
twice and three times in quick succession to select, respectively, the first and second sub-tools of the
Pitch Tool. From the Preferences dialog, you can also, if you wish, define separate keyboard
shortcuts for all three tools.

Drag a note up or down with the Pitch Tool to alter its pitch. If the note is one of several selected, all
the notes in the selection will move up or down en bloc.

Depending whether No Snap, Chromatic Snap, Key Snap or Chord Snap is selected for the Pitch
Grid, notes can either be moved freely or will snap to the nearest semitone, the nearest note of the
selected scale or the nearest note of the prevailing chord.

Hold down the [Alt] key as you move notes if you wish the selected grid to be ignored; this will allow
you to position the note freely.

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Monitoring pitch shifts

As you move a note in pitch, you will hear the “frozen” sound of the note at the position clicked. By
moving the mouse to the left or right while doing so, you can put other parts of the note under the
acoustic microscope. If you do not wish to monitor pitch changes in this way, clear the option Monitor
When Editing Blobs in the Options > Note Editor sub-menu, which can also be accessed via the cog
icon in the top right-hand corner of the Note Editor.

If the note in question is part of a chord, you have the additional option of hearing the entire chord –
and, with it, the changing harmonic context – as you drag the note up or down. To do this, once you
have begun dragging the note, press and hold down the [Cmd] key. This is useful when you are
creating or improving vocal harmonies by pitch-shifting notes within multiple tracks, as it allows you to
hear and evaluate each new chord as it is created.

Editing pitch with the inspectors

As an alternative to editing the selected notes with the Pitch Tool, you can enter the desired value for
the note and the deviation in cents from equal temperament in the inspector near the toolbar or the
Note Inspector. The Note Inspector also allows you to determine the frequency in hertz of the note or
notes selected. In each case you can increase or decrease the current value by clicking in the
relevant box and dragging the arrow upwards or downwards.

When typing values into the Pitch field, you can enter either absolute values (C3, D4 etc.) or relative
ones (+2, -1, etc.).

If you have selected several notes that differ in pitch, three hyphens are displayed in the boxes –
followed, as you click in the box and drag, by values describing the extent of the relative change.

Correcting pitch with a double click

You can tell that a note is sharp or flat from the fact that it doesn’t lie plumb in the middle of any of the
horizontal lanes in the editing display. These represent the notes of the chromatic scale, the note in
question, in each case, being indicated by the vertical Pitch Ruler to the left of the Note Editor. If, with
Chromatic Snap activated, you double-click the offending note with the Pitch Tool or Main Tool, it –
and any other notes selected at the same time – will “snap to the grid”, which means they will move
instantly to the very center of their respective lanes. The “fine offset” of the notes in question will then
be 0 cents; in other words, they will be perfectly in tune.

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If, however, instead of Chromatic Snap, Scale Snap or Chord Snap are activated, as well as setting
their fine offsets to zero, a double-click may actually cause the notes in question to change lanes.

If, for example, as is shown here, Chord Snap is active and you double-click on an E, it could move to
F if there is no E in the prevailing chord, as would be the case, for example, if that chord were F
minor. In addition, the offset from the target note (in this case F) would be 0 cents, so the new note
would be perfectly in tune.

If you are not interested in correcting the intonation, however, but simply in eliminating a clash
between the note in question and the chosen chord, hold down the [Alt] key as you double-click. It will
then snap to the nearest chord tone, as is your intention, but its offset from the destination pitch will
be the same is its offset from the pitch it came from; this is sometimes desirable, as minor
imperfections of this kind can contribute towards the creation of rich and vibrant chorus effects.

When you are editing pitch, the blob simply serves as a “handle”; what you should concentrate on is
the Pitch Curve within the blob. For the auditory impression – if what you are seeking to avoid is the
jarring effect of poor intonation – what is essential is for the “right” part of each note to reside at the
“right” pitch.

The fine offset displayed in the Note Inspector, which serves as the basis for any intonation correction
resulting from a double click, is based on the path traced by the Pitch Curve throughout the entire
duration of the note. Here Melodyne takes a great many musical criteria into consideration – among
them, the fact that the central part of a note, as a rule, plays a more decisive role in the listener’s
perception of pitch than its beginning or end. The Inspector is, in effect, offering a recommendation,
which you accept whenever you drag a note with the [Alt] key pressed or double-click on it.

In principle, you can rely on this; once you’ve double-clicked on a note, it will be in tune.

In addition – and this depends ultimately upon genre-determined listening habits or perhaps simply
your own taste – you may wish to slice up a problematic note by inserting additional note separations
and then double-click on the newly created note fragments. The smaller the fragments, the closer you
will get to intonational perfection, though the emotional impact of the performance may suffer in
consequence.

To learn more about the various tuning strategies available – and their application to vocal tracks in
particular – and for suggestions as to how the sometimes conflicting demands of perfect intonation
and emotional richness can best be reconciled, visit the “Training” section in our Help Center.

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Pitch transitions
When one note follows another and a tonal relationship between the pair has been detected, the pitch
curve is drawn through them, and in the area between them a thick orange line is displayed that
represents the pitch transition.

If you position the Pitch Tool over the rear part of a note, click and drag vertically, you can make the
pitch transition steeper or less steep.

Pitch transitions only exist between adjacent notes between which there is a soft separation. By
clicking on a soft separation with the Separation Type Tool (the sub-tool of the Note Separation Tool),
you can transform it into a hard separation, thereby deactivating all association between the two
notes and with it the pitch transition.

Resetting individual edits and introducing random deviations

In the Edit > Reset Individual Edits > Pitch cascading menu, you will find a variety of commands that
can be used to reverse the effects of particular types of pitch editing, thereby restoring specific
aspects of the notes selected to their original state. The commands apply only to the current selection
and are grayed out whenever no editing of the type in question has yet been applied to the notes
concerned. Note that these commands operate entirely independently of the normal undo function!

With the commands in the Edit > Add Random Deviations sub-menu, you can randomly alter the pitch
of the notes currently selected – introducing either slight, moderate or drastic deviations from the
original intonation. You can also employ the commands several times in succession to intensify the
effect. These commands are useful when, for example, you’ve doubled a track in order to obtain a
fuller or ‘fatter’ sound. By introducing random deviations, so that the copy is no longer identical to the

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original, you can simulate more realistically the effect of two performers playing or singing in unison.
All these commands affect only the selected notes and are therefore grayed out if no notes are
selected.

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Pitch modulation and drift

The term ‘pitch modulation’ covers rapid and usually intentional variations in pitch such as trills or
vibrato. ‘Pitch drift’ is our term for slow fluctuations in pitch of the kind that are usually unintentional
and symptomatic of poor technique. You will find the tools for editing these parameters beneath the
Pitch Tool in the toolbar.

Editing pitch modulation and drift

Select the Pitch Modulation or the Pitch Drift Tool from either the toolbox or the context menu of the
Note Editor or by pressing the [F2] key of your computer keyboard.

The Pitch Modulation Tool is the first, and the Pitch Drift Tool the second, sub-tool of the Pitch Tool.
Press the [F2] key twice in quick succession to select the former and three times in quick succession
for the latter. (If you wish to assign a different shortcut to this tool, you may do so after choosing
Melodyne > Preferences > Shortcuts > Editing Tools from the main menu.) There, if you wish, you
can also define separate keyboard shortcuts for all three tools.

With the tool selected, click on a note and – without releasing the mouse button – drag up or down.
The note edited could be part of a multiple selection, in which case you will be editing all the selected
notes simultaneously. Watch as the pitch curve changes shape.

Drag far enough downwards and the modulation or drift are reduced to zero and then inverted.

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If you double-click a note with the Pitch Modulation Tool or the Pitch Drift Tool, you will restore the
pitch modulation or drift of the original recording, assuming you’ve changed it, otherwise eliminate it
altogether. Subsequent double-clicking toggles between the original modulation or drift and none. If
you eliminate altogether both the modulation and the drift, you will get an unnaturally flat monotone
that can be suitable for effects.

The inspector for pitch modulation and drift

As an alternative to editing selected notes with these tools, you can enter the desired values in the
inspector alongside the toolbar or in the Note Inspector. Drag the existing value to change it or double-
click on it and type in the value desired.

With the Pitch Modulation Tool or the Pitch Drift Tool selected, the inspector displays values in
percentage terms. 100% represents in this case the original modulation or drift, 0% a straight line,
and -100% the same curve inverted with its axis unchanged. If you have selected several notes with
different values, a dash is displayed in the box – followed, as you click in the box and drag, by values
describing the extent of the relative change.

The Reset commands

In the Edit > Reset Individual Edits > Pitch cascading menu, you will find a variety of commands that
can be used to reverse the effects of particular types of pitch editing, thereby restoring the notes
selected in specific respects to their original state. These commands relate always to the current
selection and are grayed out if no editing of the type in question has been applied to the selected
notes. Note that these commands operate independently of the normal undo function.

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Formant Tool
Formants are areas of emphasis or attenuation in the frequency spectrum of a sound that are
independent of the pitch of the fundamental note but are found always in the same frequency ranges.
They are characteristic of the tone color or ‘timbre’ of each sound source, and interesting effects can
be produced by shifting them, such as making a man’s voice sound like that of a woman, and vice
versa.

Shifting formants
Select the Formant Tool from either the toolbox or the context menu of the Note Editor or by pressing
the [F3] key of your computer keyboard. (If you wish to assign a different shortcut to this tool, you
may do so after choosing Melodyne > Preferences > Shortcuts > Editing Tools from the main menu.)
A beam appears over the blobs indicating the extent (if any) to which the formants have been
transposed from their original pitches.

With the tool selected, click on a note and – without releasing the mouse button – drag the mouse up
or down. As you do so, the formants will be transposed upwards or downwards, the degree and
direction of the movement being indicated by a corresponding vertical movement of the beam.

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The beams indicate the distance in cents (100 cents = 1 semitone) by which the formants have been
transposed upwards or downwards. You can shift the formants a few cents (for the finest of nuances)
or several thousand (for a drastic denaturing of the sound). Double-clicking on a note with the
Formant Tool restores its formants (as well as those of any other notes selected) to their original
pitches.

The inspector for the formants

As an alternative to editing selected notes with the tool, you can enter the desired values in the
inspector, which you will find alongside the toolbox or in the Note Inspector. Drag the existing value to
change it, or double-click on it and type in the value desired.

If you have selected several notes that differ in the amount of formant shifting that has been applied
to them, a dash is displayed – followed, as you click in the box and drag, by values describing the
extent of the relative change.

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Formant transitions
A thick orange line appears between the formant beams of adjacent notes as soon as you shift the
formants of one note more, or in a different direction, than those of the other. This line represents the
formant transition between the two notes.

If you move the Formant Tool to the end of the first note, it changes into the Formant Transitions
Tool. Dragging vertically with this tool governs the speed of the formant transition, which is indicated
by the steepness of the connecting line.

Formant transitions only exist in the case of adjacent notes between which there is a soft note
separation. If you transform this into a hard note separation by double-clicking with the Note
Separation Type Tool (the sub-tool of the Note Separation Tool), all association between the notes
will be severed and the formant transition between them deactivated.

The Reset commands

In the Edit > Reset Individual Edits > Formants cascading menu, you will find a pair of commands that
can be used to reverse the effects of any shifting of formants or editing of formant transitions you may
have performed, thereby restoring the notes selected in these respects to their original state. These
commands relate always to the current selection and are grayed out if no editing of the type in
question has been applied to the selected notes. Note that these commands operate independently of
the normal undo function!

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Amplitude Tool
The Amplitude Tool allows you to adjust the amplitude (i.e. volume) of the selected notes, edit the
amplitude transitions between them, and mute them.

Editing amplitude
Select the Amplitude Tool from either the toolbox or the context menu of the Note Editor or by
pressing the [F4] key of your computer keyboard. (If you wish to assign a different shortcut to this
tool, you may do so after choosing Melodyne > Preferences > Shortcuts > Editing Tools from the
main menu.)

With the tool selected, click on a note (or one of several notes selected) and – without releasing the
button – drag the mouse up or down. The vertical depth of the blobs will increase or decease as the
notes they represent get louder or softer.

The gearing of the amplitude adjustment is dependent upon the vertical zoom resolution. Press and
hold the [Alt] key, to switch to smaller increments for finer adjustment.

Editing amplitude using the inspectors

As an alternative to editing selected notes with the Amplitude Tool, you can enter the desired values
in the inspector to the right of the toolbar or the Note Inspector. Drag the existing value to change it or
double-click on it and type in the value desired. Press and hold the [Alt] key, to switch to smaller
increments for finer adjustment.

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If you have selected several notes to which different amplitude adjustment has been applied, a dash
is displayed in the box – followed, as you click in the box and drag, by values describing the extent of
the relative change.

Amplitude transitions
A thick orange line appears between connected notes as soon as you change the amplitude of one
note more, or in a different direction, than that of the other. This line represents the amplitude
transition between the two notes. If you move the Amplitude Tool to the end of the first note, it
changes into the Amplitude Transitions Tool. Dragging vertically with this tool governs the speed of
the amplitude transition, which is indicated by the steepness of the connecting line.

Amplitude transitions only exist in the case of connected notes between which there is a soft note
separation. If you double-click on the separation with the Separation Type Tool (which you will find
beneath the Note Separation Tool in the toolbar), you turn the soft note separation into a hard one,
thereby disconnecting the two notes and deactivating the amplitude transition.

Muting notes
Double-clicking with the Amplitude Tool on one or more selected notes mutes them. Only the outline
of the blobs is now shown, to indicate that the notes in question have been muted, but you can still
select and edit them. A further double-click unmutes the muted notes.

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In the Note Inspector, you will find a button marked Note Off for this function. Click once on the button
to mute the selected notes. Clicking them a second time unmutes them.

The reset commands

In the Edit > Reset Individual Edits > Amplitude cascading menu, you will find two commands that can
be used to reverse the effects of the two types of amplitude editing we have just described (thereby
restoring the notes selected in certain respects to their original state) as well as the Unmute
command, which is self-explanatory. These commands relate always to the current selection and are
grayed out if no editing of the type in question has been applied to the selected notes. Note that these
commands operate independently of the normal undo function.

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Tools for fades and sibilant balance

Beneath the Amplitude Tool, there are further tools offering still greater control over volume ratios
within a track.

The Fade Tool: Fade-in and fade-out on notes

Activate the Fade Tool from either the toolbar or the context menu of the Note Editor or by pressing
the [F4] key on your computer keyboard twice in quick succession. If you would prefer to use some
other keyboard combination to activate this tool, you can easily define an alternative from the
Shortcuts page of the Preferences dialog.

Using the Fade Tool, you can implement a fade-in at the beginning of a note and – quite
independently – a fade-out at the end.

For the former, click with the tool at the left-hand end of a note, hold the mouse button and drag to the
left or right. As you do this, a triangular handle will appear, the length of which changes as you move
the mouse.

At the same time, the shape of the blob will change, indicating a corresponding change in its
loudness contour.

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As an alternative to clicking, holding the mouse button and dragging, you can create a new fade by
double-clicking. If you double-click on the first half of a note, you will create a fade-in. To create a
fade-out, double-click on the second half of the note.

As soon as a fade-in is created, any soft separation between the note in question and the preceding
note will be replaced by a hard separation. With a fade-out, a hard separation will be inserted
between the note that fades out and the one that follows.

If you double-click on a fade, it is removed and the blob regains its original dynamic contour. An
alternative method of restoring the original dynamic contour of a note is by a right-clicking and
choosing “Discard Fades” from the context menu. Whichever method you choose, please note that
whilst this removes the fade, the hard separation remains in place. To replace this with the original
soft separation, you must use the Separation Type Tool.

You can also select and apply fades to multiple notes simultaneously and adjust them simultaneously
as well.

To change the length or curve of a fade, proceed as follows:

To change the length, click on the fade in question and drag to the left or right.
To change the curve, click on the curve and drag upwards or downwards.

If you drag the end of a fade-in so far to the right that you reach the start of any fade-out that may
have been applied to the note, you can still carry on dragging; all that will happen is that the fade-in
will be extended and the fade-out shortened accordingly.
You can also make a fade-out longer by extending it leftwards, but in this case no further than the
point where it meets any fade-in that may be present.

It is not possible for a fade-in and a fade-out to overlap.

Fades in conjunction with other tools

The length of a fade is not defined in milliseconds but tied to the position (set by you) within the note.
So if, for example, a note with a fade-out is later lengthened using the Time Tool, the fade-out will be

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lengthened by the same amount. This gives rise to considerably more musical possibilities –
particularly in combination with the other tools – than those afforded by the fixed fades offered by
DAWs for regions or clips.

A further example: fade-outs continue, naturally, until the end of the note. If, however, towards the
end of a note there is some unwelcome noise on the track, and you wish the fade out to end before
this, you can split the note using the Note Separation Tool, delete (or mute) the part of the note to the
right of the separation and then apply a new fade out to the part of the note that remains.

As a result of the placing of a fade, a hard separation will automatically be inserted between the note
in question and the one that follows. It is therefore easy to create an overlap with the Time Tool
between previously adjacent notes and then – using the Fade Tool – create a very musical crossfade
between them.

The Sibilant Balance Tool: The management of sibilants and breath noise
Select the Sibilant Balance Tool from either the tool bar or the context menu of the Note Editor or by
pressing the [F4] key on your computer keyboard three times in quick succession. If you would prefer
to use some other keyboard combination to activate this tool, you can easily define an alternative
from the Shortcuts page of the Preferences dialog.

With the Sibilant Balance Tool, you can control the loudness of the sibilants relative to the other
components of the sound. It is only available with the algorithms Melodic or Percussive Pitched; with
all other algorithms it is grayed out.

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In the case of vocal tracks, Melodyne regards as sibilants not only “s” and “ch” sounds, but also
certain other word fragments such as “k” and “t” as well as the sound of the singer inhaling or
exhaling between words: those components of the sound, in other words, that lack a definite pitch.
Broadly speaking, and if we include instrument tracks, Melodyne regards as sibilants all parts of the
signal that consist essentially of noise.

If you drag upwards (positive values) from a note or selection of notes with the Sibilant Balance Tool,
you reduce the volume of the pitched components of the sound. If you drag downwards (negative
values), it is the sibilants that become quieter.

At the two extreme settings in the case of vocals, you will either hear sibilants and breath noise only
(if you drag upwards) or only the pitched components of the sound (if you drag in the other direction).
This would admittedly create the impression of a pronounced lisp, but there are certain applications in
which such extreme settings make sense (see below).

Double-clicking with the Sibilant Balance Tool sets the parameter to -100%, which is equivalent to
maximum attenuation (i.e. muting) of the sibilants; a second double-click, resets the parameter to 0%,
thereby restoring the note to its original state.

Please note that in speech or singing it is not the case – from a technical standpoint – that the sound
at any given instant is invariably either sibilant or pitched; sometimes it is a little of both – i.e. the
overall sound is a blend of pitched and unpitched components. Fortunately, the Sibilant Balance Tool
operates in a way that takes this into account, governing only the noise components of the sound.
Such an approach makes eminently good sense musically – fortunately without compromising the
intuitiveness of the software, as you still see only one blob per note, not two.

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Uses for the Sibilant Balance Tool

When individual sibilants become obtrusive (which is more often a problem with some singers than
with others – though a poorly designed or adjusted signal chain at the recording stage could be the
real culprit), you would ordinarily turn to a de-esser. But adjusting the controls of a de-esser can be
tricky, as de-essers invariably act upon the entire signal. This can have a negative influence even
upon sibilants that were perfectly OK; furthermore, the pitched components of the sound necessarily
feel their influence as well. The Sibilant Balance Tool (with values somewhere between -40% and
-10%) takes considerably less time to set up, operates with far greater precision, and also, at the end
of the day, delivers acoustically superior results.

In the case of backing vocals or when double-tracking, you could even use settings of around -80%.
Heard on their own, the voices affected might appear to lisp, but when the lead vocals are restored to
the mix, the overall result is a much tidier sonic image in which – at the ends of words in particular –
there is far less of the usual fluttering. This fluttering is most often the main problem with double-
tracking, and it becomes even more obtrusive when you apply delays and reverb to the various
voices – as you must, in fact, to ensure they sit right in the mix. Very few mouse-clicks are now
needed to bring these commonly encountered mixing problems under control; all you have to do,
basically, is select all the notes of the backing vocals, then set the sibilant balance to somewhere like
-80%.

And a further tip for sound design and mixing: Begin by duplicating the vocal track. On one track, set
the sibilant balance to -100% (in which case you will no longer hear any sibilants or breath noise) and
on the other track, set the same parameter to +100% (so, on this track, only the sibilants and breath
noise will be audible). Now set the same volume level for both tracks in the mixer, so initially you have
exactly the same signal as before – only split between two tracks. This leaves you free to make
intensive use of the effects chain (delays, reverbs etc.) on the sibilant-free track, and only sparing use
– or none whatsoever – on the track containing the sibilants.

Note: Melodyne detects automatically the exact location and length of each sibilant. This means that
with the vast majority of vocal tracks, you will no longer need to give the matter any thought; your only
concern now will be to find the ideal balance between the pitched and unpitched components of the
sound using the Sibilant Balance Tool. Nonetheless, in exceptional cases or for experiments in sound
design (and not only with vocals), you may wish, on occasion, to adjust the results of the sibilant
detection. To do this, enter Note Assignment Mode and select the Sibilant Range Tool, the use of
which is described in detail here.

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Timing Tool
The Timing Tool allows you to edit the horizontal position and length of notes with or without
quantization.

Modifying the position and length of notes

Select the Time Tool from either the toolbox or the context menu of the Note Editor or by pressing the
[F5] key of your computer keyboard. Press the [F5] key twice or three times in quick succession to
select, respectively, the first or second sub-tools of the Time Tool. (If you wish to assign a different
shortcut to this tool, you may do so after choosing Melodyne > Preferences > Shortcuts > Editing
Tools from the main menu.) There, if you wish, you can also define separate keyboard shortcuts for
all three tools.

Click the center of a note (or of one of a number of selected notes) and drag it to the left or right to
move the entire note (or notes) horizontally. Press and hold the [Alt] key during the movement if you
wish the time grid to be temporarily ignored to permit finer adjustment.

If you only wish to move the beginning of a note but not the end, click on the front part of the note and
drag. Depending on the direction of movement, the note will be time-stretched or -compressed. Press
and hold the [Alt] key if you wish the Time Grid to be ignored when editing. Stretching and squeezing
also acts upon either a single note or a multiple selection of notes according to choice.

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In the same way, you can move only the rightmost part of the blob (which corresponds to the end of
the note) or selection of blobs to stretch or squeeze the corresponding note or notes.

Timing changes in the case of connected notes

Notice that as you move the beginning or end of a note in this way, the preceding or following note, if
adjacent, is either stretched or compressed by the same amount to avoid either the two notes
overlapping or white space (silence) appearing between them. This is invariably the case when one
note follows directly on from another and there is a soft note separation between them. By moving the
adjacent note as well in this way, Melodyne prevents discontinuities occurring and preserves the
musicality of the phrasing.

You can, if you wish, deactivate the connection between consecutive notes by transforming the soft
note separation between them into a hard separation. This is done by clicking on it with the
Separation Type Tool (which is a sub-tool of the Note Separation Tool).

All connection between the two notes will also be forcibly severed if you cut one of the notes and
paste it into a different location.

In both cases, when the note separation line between the two notes is replaced by a square bracket,
it means that the notes are no longer connected.

If you move one of the two notes far enough from the other using the Timing Tool, the link between
them will also “snap”. In this case, however, if you move it back, the original link will be restored –
provided the position of the other note has not been moved in the meantime.

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Correcting timing with a double-click

If you double-click with the Time Tool on a note (or one of several selected notes), you quantize this
(or these) to what Melodyne, in the course of the detection, considered to be the ‘intended’ note (or
notes). To see these (displayed as little gray frames beneath the blobs), choose “Options > Note
Editor > Show Intended Notes”.

The gray frames are not necessarily (all) aligned with the grid selected in the Bar Ruler. One intended
note, for example, might coincide with a line belonging to the 16th note grid, another with one
belonging to an 8th note triplet grid, and so on. The result of double-clicking is therefore more
‘intelligent’ musically (and thus, in practice, more suitable) than simple quantization, say, to 8th notes,
with which, if you use a MIDI sequencer, you are perhaps more familiar.

There may be applications, however, in which you might actually prefer rigid quantization to a
particular uniform grid. In that case, you can achieve the desired result with the Quantize Time macro,
the use of which is described in detail in this tour. You will also learn there how note lengths are
adjusted during quantization as well as what options exist for the quantization of chords.

Adding random deviations

With the commands in the Edit > Add Random Deviations sub-menu, you can randomly alter the
timing of the notes currently selected – introducing either slight, moderate or drastic deviations from
the original timing. You can also employ the commands several times in succession to intensify the
effect. These commands are useful when, for example, you’ve doubled a track in order to obtain a
fuller or ‘fatter’ sound. By introducing random deviations, so that the copy is no longer identical to the

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original, you can simulate more realistically the effect of two performers playing or singing in unison.
All these commands affect only the selected notes and are therefore grayed out if no notes are
selected.

The reset commands

In the Edit > Reset Individual Edits > Time sub-menu, you will find a number of commands that can
be used to reverse the effects of whatever editing has been performed on the timing. These
commands apply always to the current selection and are grayed out if no editing of the type in
question has been performed on the notes selected. Note that these reset commands work quite
independently of the normal Undo command.

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Time Handles and Attack Speed

The Time Handle Tool and the Attack Speed Tool are found below the Timing Tool in the toolbar.
Their purpose is to allow you to adjust the internal time path and envelope of notes.

How time handles and the Attack Speed Tool work

Time handles are handles you can affix to particular stages in the evolution of a note and drag
sideways in order to advance or retard their attainment. In this way, you can accelerate or slow down
particular phases of a note’s development in order to fine-tune the musical phrasing.

The Attack Speed Tool also affects the speed at which a note evolves: either by stretching and
slowing down its early development phase and thereby accelerating its later development, or vice
versa.

The result is either a slower, softer attack or a faster, harder one. The ‘perceived’ musical starting
point of the note, however, remains unchanged.

Modifying the evolution of notes using time handles

The Time Handle Tool is the first of the two sub-tools of the Time Tool. To select it, press the [F5] key
twice in quick succession. (If you wish to assign a different shortcut to this tool, you may do so after
choosing Melodyne > Preferences > Shortcuts > Editing Tools from the main menu.) There, if you
wish, you can also define separate keyboard shortcuts for all three time tools.

Zoom in on the note you wish to edit, so that you can see it clearly and position the time handles
more precisely. Now double-click the point in the note’s evolution that you wish to advance or retard.
A time handle will appear that you can move forwards or backwards in time by dragging the tool
respectively upwards or downwards. Since the overall length of the note remains unchanged, the
result is to shorten and accelerate the phase of the note’s development lying to one side of the time
handle while lengthening and slowing down the phase the other side.

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You can attach multiple time handles to a single note, moving each one individually, thereby
influencing fine details of the note’s evolution. There is no limit to the number of time handles that can
be attached to a single note. Melodyne does, however, impose constraints as to how close to one
another the handles can be placed. If ever you find you cannot place a time handle exactly where you
want it, try a little further along.

If you select multiple time handles using the usual selection techniques, you can move them all en
bloc.

Double-clicking on a time handle or a selection of time handles removes them, thereby causing the
affected phases of the note to evolve at their original speeds.

By choosing Edit > Reset Individual Edits > Time > Remove Time Handles from the main menu, you
can remove the time handles from all the selected notes.

Changing the attack speed of notes

The Attack Speed Tool is the second sub-tool of the Time Tool. To select it, press the [F5] key three
times in quick succession. From the Preferences dialog, you can also, if you wish, define a separate
keyboard shortcut for this tool.

Please note that this tool has no function when the Universal algorithm is selected. You will notice
therefore that the corresponding blobs lack handles and that the Attack Speed field in the Note
Inspector for these blobs is grayed out.

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When you select the Attack Speed Tool, a white dot appears at the start of every note. If you now
place the tool anywhere on a note (not necessarily on the dot) and drag vertically, the dot will move
up or down.

If you move it upwards, the attack phase of the note will be compressed and play back faster, but the
rest of the note correspondingly more slowly. The note will therefore have a harder attack; its peak
amplitude will be reached more swiftly.

If you move the point downwards, the opposite will occur. The beginning of the note will be stretched
– even beyond its visible starting point – and will play back more slowly, the rest, however,
increasingly rapidly. The attack will therefore be softer. Note that the position of the musical start of
the note indicated by the orange anchor is not affected by changes in attack speed. The ‘perceived’
start of the note is therefore independent of the attack speed. The end of the note is in all cases
unaffected.

You can vary the attack speed of notes individually, in order to accentuate them. You can also,
however, select and modify the attack speeds of multiple notes simultaneously and thereby alter the
timbre of an entire phrase.

If you double-click on a note or one of a selection of notes with the Attack Speed Tool, the
corresponding parameter will return to its neutral (central) position. The same result can be achieved
by choosing Edit > Reset Individual Edits > Time > Reset Attack Speed from the main menu.

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Combining time handles with the Attack Speed Tool

You can combine the use of time handles with that of the Attack Speed Tool. Altering the attack
speed in this case will cause the time handles to move, functioning as a kind of timing master. You
can therefore shape the evolution of the note to enhance the phrasing before adjusting the overall
timing (so that the note starts faster or more slowly) with the Attack Speed Tool.

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Note separation tools

With the Note Separation Tool, you can cut notes as well as removing and moving note separations.
With the Separation Type Tool, you can switch between hard and soft separations.

Inserting, moving and removing note separations

Select the Note Separation Tool from either the toolbox or the context menu of the Note Editor or by
pressing the [F6] key of your computer keyboard. (If you wish to assign a different shortcut to this
tool, you may do so after choosing Melodyne > Preferences > Shortcuts > Editing Tools from the
main menu.)

By double-clicking within a note with the Note Separation Tool, you can introduce a note separation
and thereby slice the note in two.

Don’t be surprised if the resulting pair of notes move apart in pitch; this is because as soon as the
fission occurs a new tonal center is calculated for each of the newly created notes, and their
respective tonal centers may differ from the tonal center the notes shared when they were one. In
such cases, each therefore moves to a new vertical position based on its newly calculated pitch
center.

You can move an existing note separation horizontally simply by dragging it with the Note Separation
Tool.

You can double-click a note separation to remove it.

Editing note separations with multiple notes selected

If you select several notes and move a note separation, the note separations of the other selected
notes will also be moved. If you double-click one of the note separations to remove it, the note
separations of the other selected notes will also be removed.

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If you have selected several notes that overlap, you can insert a note separation in the same place in
all of them simultaneously as well as move or remove one.

Soft and hard note separations

Depending upon the audio material and the algorithm selected, Melodyne places either soft or hard
separations between notes. Soft separations only occur between consecutive notes and provide a
link between the notes: if the end of the first note is moved, the beginning of the second note moves
along with it, to ensure that no gap opens between them. This helps you preserve phrasing when
editing.
The connection between notes also plays a role in the pitch, formant and amplitude transitions
between notes: such transitions are only possible in the case of connected notes between which a
soft separation exists.
In the case of a hard separation, consecutive notes are independent of one another. This means that
changing the length of the first note has no affect upon the position of the second. It also means there
are no pitch, formant or amplitude transitions between the two notes.
Soft separations are indicated by a thin vertical line between notes, whereas hard separations are
denoted by a bracket.

Switching between hard and soft separations with the Separation Type Tool
The Separation Type Tool is the sub-tool of the Note Separation Tool. It allows you to toggle between
hard and soft separations. To select it, press the [F6] key (assigned by default to the note separation
tools) twice in quick succession. If you would prefer to use some other key combination, choose
Preferences -> Shortcuts -> Editing Tools -> Note Separation Tools and press the keys of your
choice. If you wish, you can define separate keyboard shortcuts for each of the two tools.

Double-click on a separation with this tool in order to change its type.

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Please note that it is only with certain separations that the option of switching freely between ‘soft’
and ‘hard’ exists.

Soft separations can always be turned into hard ones.

Hard separations, however, can only be turned into soft ones if they were soft to begin with
and their type has subsequently been changed. An exception to this rule is material detected
using the Percussive algorithm; in this case, all separations are initially hard but can be turned
into soft ones.

In the context menu: Separate Note

This command separates notes automatically at a point determined by Melodyne. It can be used, for
example, to slice up a vocal passage into small segments in order to prepare the way for extremely
detailed editing using the tools.

You will find the “Separate Note” command in the context menu of the Note Separation Tool and on
the “Shortcuts” page of the Preferences property sheet, where you can assign a keyboard shortcut to
it.

In the context menu: Separate Notes as Trills

When the Note Separation Tool is selected, you will find the command “Separate Notes as Trills” in
the Note Editor’s context menu. The effect of this is to slice a selection of one or more notes into
smaller segments determined by the instantaneous pitch of each note. This is done by inserting note
separations into the slopes of the pitch curve as it rises and falls, thereby turning each ‘hill’ and each
‘valley’ of a vibrato into a separate note.

The use of this command allows you, for example, to improve the intonation of a trill, by tuning the
notes more closely to their intended pitches, or to rein in an unruly vibrato, by applying the Correct
Pitch Macro to its upper and lower extents.

Please note that the fluctuations in the Pitch Curve must be fairly pronounced for the “Separate Notes
as Trills” function to have any effect and that it is only available when the Melodic algorithm is active,
being grayed out in every other case. If you wish to assign a shortcut to the command “Separate
Notes as Trills”, this can be done using the Preferences dialog.

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In the context menu: Merge notes

This command is used to merge a single note with the one that follows by removing the separation at
the end of the note selected.

If more than one note is selected, the command is grayed out.

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The Note Inspector

The Note Inspector in the info pane offers you an overview of the parameters of the selected note(s)
and allows you to alter the values.

The parameters of the Note Inspector

The Note Inspector brings together the inspector fields that are usually displayed near the toolbar
when the various tools are in use. It allows you to see all the most important parameters at a glance
and even edit them without having to change tools.

In addition to the data included in the inspector fields, the Note Inspector displays the frequency in
hertz as well as a button for the muting of notes.

The editable parameters displayed in the Note Inspector are (from top to bottom):

the pitch of the selected note in semitones, cents and hertz

the pitch modulation expressed as a percentage
the pitch drift expressed as a percentage
the formant shift in cents
the amplitude in decibels
the button for muting and unmuting notes
the attack speed expressed as a percentage
the sibilant balance

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Lower down in the inspector, you can see to which audio file the selected note belongs and which
algorithm was used for the detection.

Entering values and handling multiple selected notes

When only one note is selected in the Note Editor, the Note Inspector displays the concrete values for
that note.

As a general rule, you can modify all values either by clicking in their respective fields and dragging
the mouse pointer upwards or downwards or by double-clicking in the field and typing in a new value.

In the case of the Pitch field, you can enter either an absolute (C3, D4 etc.) or a relative (+2, -1, etc.)
value. In the other fields, it is always the absolute value that is adopted.

If you have selected multiple notes, the Note Inspector will only displays concrete values for
parameters if these are shared by all the selected notes. Where values differ, a dash “–” is displayed
in the relevant field.

If a dash is displayed, by clicking on it and dragging, you can alter the individual values of all the
notes selected by the same amount; in this way, for example, you could transpose an entire selection
up two semitones. The Scale Snap function, of course, if activated, will govern the eventual
destination of the various notes.

As you drag the values, Melodyne remembers the difference between them. This is even true when
certain parameters ‘collide’ with their maximum or minimum values; provided you keep the mouse
button pressed and drag then in the opposite direction, the initial difference will be restored. Only if
you release the mouse button at the point of collision will the initial difference be forgotten.

Alternatively, with multiple notes selected, you can type in a value that will then be assigned to, and
thereafter shared by, all the selected notes (whereupon the dash, of course, will disappear).

An exception here is the pitch, as, if you type in the value “2”, for example, all the selected notes are
shifted two semitones upwards. If you wish to assign the same pitch to all the selected notes, type in
an absolute value, such as “C2”. If the Percussive or Universal algorithms are selected, of course, this
has no effect, as these algorithms only know relative pitch.

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Copying notes
To copy notes in Melodyne, first select the desired notes, then choose Copy from the Edit menu or
the context menu of the Note Editor. To insert them, use the Paste command. The following points
here need to be noted.

The selection, cursor and grid when copying

When you copy notes to the clipboard using the Copy command, you will notice that the cursor
moves to the start of the selection, or, to be more precise, to the quarter-note (crotchet) on the Time
Grid closest to the first note of the selection.

If, with the notes still selected, you use the Paste command, all that appears to happen is that the
notes that were selected prior to the paste are now no longer selected and the cursor is now located
just after the last of them.

In fact, however, the notes previously selected have been replaced by those on the clipboard. In other
words, the notes have been copied onto themselves, with the copies replacing the originals.
Admittedly, this may not sound particularly useful, but look at the position of the cursor: it is now
aligned with the quarter-note on the Time Grid closest to the last copied note.

If you now execute a further Paste, the notes on the clipboard will be pasted a second time. This time,
however, since no notes were selected, nothing will be replaced. Instead, the newly pasted notes will
end up just after those that replaced the originals the first time round.

Their position is now determined by the cursor. And since, after the first paste, this was aligned with a
quarter-note on the Time Grid (the first quarter-note after the pasted notes, to be specific), the effect
of the second paste is that the original alignment of the notes relative to the gridlines is reproduced
exactly, only further along the timeline. This behavior allows you to string together a succession of
copies of the same passage, quickly and accurately – in order, for example, to create multiple
iterations of a drum loop.

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Based on what we have just seen, we can formulate the following rules:

If any notes are selected when the Paste command is executed, these are replaced by the
contents of the clipboard. The pasted notes are stretched or squeezed until they fit exactly the
range from the beginning of the first to the end of the last note of the selection. This is
illustrated here: on the left are the notes to be copied; in the centre, a single selected note,
which serves as the destination of the copy; on the right is the result after the paste is
performed: The selected destination note has been replaced and the pasted notes squeezed
just enough for them to fit exactly the space it occupied.

If when the Paste is executed no notes are selected, the cursor determines the point at which
the pasted passage begins. The grid settings here play an important role: when copying notes
to the clipboard, Melodyne remembers the distance between the first of the copied notes and
the nearest grid line. When the paste is repeated at the new cursor position, the offset of the
first pasted note to the gridline nearest to it will be exactly the same.

In other words, notes in Melodyne are not copied in such a way that they necessarily coincide with
gridlines, because then the subtleties of expression would be lost. Instead, the notes copied retain

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their respective offsets to the grid. There is an exception, however, to this rule: if, instead of being
calibrated in beats, the grid is calibrated in seconds (i.e. if you have selected “Sec” from the Time
Grid Settings drop-down menu to the right of the Time Ruler), then the note (or first of a series of
copied notes) will begin exactly at the cursor position, with no offset.

After each paste, the cursor is moved to the first quarter-note following the most recent paste,
making it easy to string together multiple iterations of the same passage. Obviously, if you
wish, you can move the cursor by hand to some other point on the Time Ruler and make that,
rather than the automatically selected quarter-note, the reference point for the next paste. You
might want to do this, for instance, to introduce a pause between iterations.

The pitch of the copied notes is always the same as that of the originals. This is even true
when notes are selected, and therefore replaced, when the paste is performed. The length of
the passage selected, in this case, is retained but the original pitch of the notes it contained is
not. Of course, after performing the paste you can move the notes by hand to any pitches you
like.

Tempo adjustment when copying: the Auto Stretch Switch

If notes are selected when the paste is performed, the inserted passage will be stretched or squeezed
to fill the available space (i.e. that between the beginning of the first selected note and the end of the
last) as we have already seen. But how is the tempo of the copied passage treated when the position
of the paste is determined instead by the cursor?

If the tempo at the destination of the paste is different from that of the passage from which the notes
were copied, it is the status of the Auto Stretch Switch that determines whether the pasted notes
adjust to the tempo of the destination or retain their original tempo. If the Auto Stretch Switch is on,
they adjust; if it is off, they do not. So unless you want to change the tempo at the cursor position, you
should switch Auto Stretch on before performing the paste.

Copying in an ARA context

Within a clip, you can copy and paste notes without any restrictions. Whether you can copy a note
from one clip and paste it into another depends upon whether or not the two clips are accessing the
same audio file.

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Example: You have sliced up a fairly long drum recording in the DAW into individual clips, sorted
these in the DAW arrangement, and are looking at them now in Melodyne’s Track Edit Mode. In this
case, you can copy and paste notes freely (because they were originally part of one long recording)
without paying attention to the clip borders.

If, on the other hand, you have made a collage in the DAW arrangement of snippets taken from
different recordings – from successive vocal takes, for instance – and are looking at these in Track
Edit Mode, you cannot copy and paste notes with the same freedom. The color assigned to each of
the five takes in the following screenshot indicates the take from which it is derived:

Here you cannot copy the note selected at the beginning of Bar 17 (or, indeed, any other note derived
from a red clip) and paste it into Bar 16, because the destination clip is a different color – in this case,
green – and is therefore derived from a different recording. You can, however, paste it into Bar 18,
because the content there is derived from the same red take.

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The Edit menu

Melodyne’s Edit menu includes items that allow you to undo entirely the effects of various types of
editing and others that add random deviations to the audio material.

Restore Original
The “Restore Original” sub-menu contains commands that nullify entirely the effects of various types
of editing.
You will also find in the context menu of the Note Editor whichever of these commands are relevant to
the tool you are using at the time.

All the commands (except the last one) apply only to the notes currently selected and are grayed out
if no editing of the type in question has yet been applied to them. Bear in mind that these commands
work independently of the normal “Undo” function.

The effect of the following types of editing can be undone entirely via the Restore Original sub-menu:

Pitch

the editing of pitch

the editing of pitch centers
the editing of pitch modulation
the editing of pitch drift
the editing of pitch transitions

Formants

the editing of formants

the editing of formant transitions

Amplitude

the editing of amplitude

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the editing of amplitude transitions

the application of fades
adjustments to the sibilant balance
the muting of notes

Time

the editing of timing (position/length of notes)

the placing of time handles
the editing of attack speeds

The command “Undo All Changes” undoes entirely the effect of all the types of editing listed above
but only applies to the notes currently selected.

The final command, “Undo All Changes to Entire File” has the same effect as “Undo All Changes”,
differing only in that it applies even to notes not included in the current selection, thereby restoring the
entire file to its original state.

Adding random deviations

The Add Random Deviations sub-menu varies the pitch or timing of individual notes a) drastically, b)
by a moderate amount, or c) in a subtle way; within these various limits, the direction and extent of
the deviation is determined randomly.

These functions introduce random variation to either the pitch (i.e. the vertical position) or the timing (i.
e. the horizontal position) of the selected notes.

This is particularly useful when you have made one or more copies of a single take but do not wish
them to be identical either to one other or to the original – the object being, perhaps, to make a single
vocalist sound like a choir. Through the addition of a certain amount of random deviation to each
copy, you can obtain more natural-sounding results by ensuring that the synchronization of the
individual voices is never improbably perfect and that no two copies exhibit identical fluctuations in
pitch.

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Macros
The commands in this sub-menu open Melodyne’s various macro dialogs. The same effect can be
obtained by clicking their respective icons, which are to the right of the toolbar above the Note Editor.

Select Special
The effect of the commands in the “Select Special” sub-menu is described in the “Selecting Notes”
tour.

Chords and Keys

These commands can be used to trigger an analysis of the chords and keys encountered in the
material.

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Audio to MIDI
From this tour, you will learn how to save audio notes in Melodyne as MIDI notes.

About Audio-to-MIDI
Melodyne allows you to export audio notes as MIDI notes, in order, for example, to double your
vocals with a sound from a software synthesizer.

The MIDI notes are an exact representation of the audio notes in Melodyne. For each audio note, a
MIDI note is created with the same position, length and pitch. The velocity of each MIDI note is
derived from the amplitude of the audio note it represents.

That is equally true whichever algorithm is used, with a few algorithm-specific exceptions: In the case
of vocals, breaths are not exported as MIDI notes; and if you save rhythmic material or material
edited with the Universal algorithm as MIDI, all the MIDI notes will share the same pitch but take their
position, length and amplitude from their audio equivalents in the rhythm track. You can use this
technique, for example, to derive from a drum loop a quantization reference for other MIDI tracks in
your DAW.

The generation of MIDI notes from audio material offers a wealth of different creative possibilities. Try
it out for yourself!

Exporting MIDI
ARA makes converting an audio clip to MIDI notes particularly simple:
If you wish to use the resulting MIDI clip in the Reaper project itself, just click on the “+” sign at the top
right of the plug-in window and select “ARA: import into project > Notes” from the menu. Reaper will
then automatically create a new track containing the newly created MIDI clip.

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If, on the other hand, you want to save the MIDI notes for use by some application other than Reaper,
select “Export project MIDI…” from the Reaper task bar. Reaper will then save the notes to a MIDI file
in the location of your choice.

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Time-stretching, tempo and tempo matching

The time stretching behavior of Reaper and Melodyne
One of the strengths of ARA integration lies in the adjustment of the tempo of audio files to the
existing song tempo. This functions from a technical standpoint in the following manner: Melodyne
“detects” in the case of each audio file the tempo of the original recording. This works even with takes
that were recorded without a click and that therefore contain tempo fluctuations – and works even if
they were recorded in a quite different context from the current Reaper song e.g. with stems taken
from a different song or loops from a loop library. The information “discovered” in this way by
Melodyne is then shared with Reaper, which in turn might come back to Melodyne with the request
that it “reshape” the playback tempo of the file in question to make it match the song tempo exactly.

This communication, governed by ARA, between Melodyne and Reaper does not preclude human
intervention, as there are times when it is only sensible that you, the user, should have some say in it.

For example, in the question of whether or not Reaper should “believe” what Melodyne is telling it
about the tempo. It may be that you know for a fact that the stems were recorded at a specific
constant tempo, and therefore have no desire for Melodyne to engage in the search for a non-existent
variable tempo. The procedures by which you can intervene in the process are described below.

First make sure that the tempo of the media items can be adjusted. To do this, in Reaper’s “Project
Settings”, under “Timebase for items/envelopes/markers”, choose the option “Beats (position, length,
rate)”. Once you have done this, whenever you open a media item with Melodyne, it will be Melodyne
that assumes responsibility for any time-stretching.

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We can take for granted that if the audio file was recorded or bounced in the current Reaper song, it
ought to play back at the song tempo. So if you speed up the song, the tempo of the audio file ought
to be sped up by the same amount.

For this to happen, instead of conducting its own tempo analysis, Melodyne must simply take the
tempo from Reaper. To ensure this happens:

Select at least one blob in Melodyne.

Choose the option “Copy Song Tempo to File(s)” from Melodyne’s Tempo dialog (this function
is described more fully below).

This will result in a single value (and no brackets) being displayed in Melodyne’s Tempo field.

If, on the other hand, the file comes from another song – with a tempo, say, of 117 BPM – then you
must choose one of the four options from Melodyne’s Tempo dialog described below to ensure
Melodyne is able to squeeze or stretch the audio to match the song tempo.

You can always tell when Melodyne has detected a file tempo different to that of the song, as in that
case two values are displayed in the Tempo field. The first value is the tempo of the Reaper song (in
this example 83 BPM). The value in brackets indicates the tempo Melodyne has detected in the audio
file (here 117 BPM).

In Track Mode, too, the song tempo is displayed without brackets, whilst the tempo of the clip over
which the playback line is currently passing is shown in brackets. (If, in a multi-track context, the
playback line is passing simultaneously over two clips with different file tempos, only a dash (“-”) will

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be displayed within the brackets.) In Note Assignment Mode, where you are examining the “raw”
source material, only the file tempo (in our example, the “117”) is displayed.

Now it is up to you to decide how the conflicting tempos are to be reconciled. To do this, open the
Tempo dialog.

Next select one of the following options:

“Confirm xxx BPM as File Tempo”: This tells Reaper to accept the tempo detected by Melodyne. This
triggers Melodyne’s time-stretching and the tempo of the audio file is adjusted to match that of the
song (slowing, in our example, from 117 to 83 BPM). Typical application: You are using an audio file
(the tempo of which you do not know) and simply wish it to match that of the song

“Assign File Tempo”: If you think Melodyne has slipped up in its detection of the file tempo, with this
command you can open the Tempo Editor in Assign Tempo Mode and correct the tempo manually.
Typical application: Your file consists of a vocal take containing many pauses during which Melodyne
can find nothing upon which to base its file detection and as a result, if only in places, gets the tempo
wrong. Through tempo assignment you can lend Melodyne a hand, so to speak, to ensure that any
subsequent time-stretching proceeds upon the basis of accurate values and delivers musically
appropriate results.

Please note that in Melodyne essential and assistant the entry “Assign File Tempo” is not available,
as the Tempo Editor does not feature in these editions. Instead, you can multiply the detected tempo
in order to assign a new tempo to the file.

“Apply Project Tempo”: In this case, regardless of the tempo detected by Melodyne, you do not wish
the file to be subjected to time-stretching. In other words, you have determined that the file and song
tempos are identical (which means that no time-stretching is necessary). Choose this option if the
audio file was recorded or bounced in the current Reaper song. Another application: You had already,
using functions supplied by Reaper, adjusted the tempo of the file to the song tempo, before deciding
to open a passage within it in Melodyne. Now you wish to change the melody or key in Melodyne but
without jeopardizing the tempo adjustment already performed.

“Apply Constant Tempo”: With this command, you can, if necessary, set the file tempo manually. To
do this, select the command from the menu and type into the Tempo field the desired tempo. You

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might wish to do this when you already know the tempo of the recording that you are importing into
your song. Suppose, for example, the song tempo is 83 BPM and you are importing from a sampling
CD a drum loop the stated tempo of which, in the booklet, is 90 BPM. As a rule, Melodyne will detect
the 90 BPM immediately and display “83 (90)” in the Tempo field. To trigger the time-stretching in this
case, it would be enough to select “Confirm as File Tempo”. In the event of Melodyne here displaying
a value other than 90 BPM for the file tempo, as, for instance, when it interprets the loop in double
time and consequently displays “83 (180)”, you can use the “Apply Constant Tempo” command to
correct the misapprehension by typing “90” in place of “180”.

Tempo and the Time Grid

The discovery (or explicit definition in the Tempo dialog) of the “correct” file tempo serves other
purposes as well as that of musically sensitive tempo adjustment. It makes the work of editing the
notes easier, because the file tempo also determines the calibration of the Time Ruler as well as the
positioning of the grid lines in the background to the Note Editor.

Imagine, in this case, that you want to move a note a semiquaver (sixteenth note) to the right or left.
What you intend, in all probability, is that the exact length of this sixteenth note should be a function
of the current song tempo (say 100 BPM). If the Time Grid, however, were still based on the tempo of
the original recording (120 BPM, say), then when you attempted to move a note by a semiquaver, it
would end up in the wrong place – (the rule here being: the quicker the tempo, the more closely
spaced the gridlines). For this reason, Reaper and Melodyne, communicating via ARA, strive to
ensure that their rulers and Time Grids provide at all times an “accurate” representation of the current
tempo and that any quantization that is undertaken is therefore similarly “accurate”. In the following,
an overview taking into account the various edit modes as well as the difference between local
playback and playback in Reaper.

Tempo display in Track Mode:

Melodyne’s Tempo field displays a single value: the song tempo in Reaper.
Melodyne’s ruler and the Time Grid in the Note Editor background are synchronized and they
are each calibrated according to the same principle: the faster the song tempo, the smaller the
distance between lines.

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Tempo display in Clip Mode

Melodyne’s Tempo field displays two values (as described above): the song tempo, followed
by the file tempo in brackets. A single value is displayed only when the tempo of the file and
that of the song are identical.
Melodyne’s Time Ruler and the Time Grid in the Note Editor background are now no longer
necessarily in sync, as the ruler reflects the song tempo, whereas the grid represents the
tempo of the file. If the two tempos are not identical, the dashes on the ruler will no longer
coincide with the lines of the grid.

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This is as it should be and reveals the effect of dynamic time-stretching during playback in Reaper:
the Time Grid, and with it the notes of the original recording, are squeezed or stretched to accord with
the song tempo and also, therefore, with the ruler. The results, of course, will only be musically viable
if the Time Grid is calibrated on the basis of “accurate” tempo-detection or -input. For this reason, Clip
Mode allows you to examine the Time Grid to ensure that it corresponds with the notes. Should this
not be the case, you can make the necessary adjustments using the Tempo dialog options described
above.

During playback in Reaper, the clip follows the tempo of the song i.e. the value before the
brackets. This is achieved by stretching or squeezing the original file to match this tempo.
During local playback, the clip is heard at its original (file) tempo – i.e. at the tempo shown in
brackets – and no time-stretching or -squeezing occurs.

Tempo display in Note Assignment Mode:

Melodyne’s Tempo field displays a single value: that of the original file.
The ruler and Time Grid are synchronized.

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Reaper follows the song tempo. Local playback follows the file tempo. There is one difference
here: Double-clicking on the Melodyne ruler in this edit mode also starts local playback and not
(as in Track and Clip modes) playback from Reaper.

Quantizing notes
As described above in the section entitled “Tempo and the Time Grid”, it is possible – in Clip Mode
only – for discrepancies between the ruler and Time Grid to occur. These serve initially as an
orientation aid, reminding you perhaps that you have moved a clip in Reaper a sixteenth note
backwards, the evidence being that the Time Grid is now a sixteenth note ahead of the ruler.

Such an offset, however, has an effect upon the quantization, because Melodyne uses its own Time
Grid for the quantization and not Reaper’s ruler. In practice, of course, the two are nearly always
identical and the quantization therefore mostly behaves in the manner with which users of MIDI
editors, for example, will be familiar. But when, as described above, a clip has been moved in the
Reaper arrangement (perhaps only by a few milliseconds, for creative purposes), in Clip Mode the
quantization destinations (i.e. the positions towards which notes will gravitate when quantization
occurs) are visually obvious.

Quantization works the same way in Track Mode as in Clip Mode, being based invariably upon the
Time Grid of the original file. In Track Mode, however, you see the Time Grid of Reaper, which, in the

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exceptional cases described above (such as when you have shifted a clip slightly to the left or right in
Reaper) can be misleading, as the quantization destinations may be offset slightly from the gridlines.
This, however, is merely an optical discrepancy. Switch to Clip Mode and you actually see the grid
that is defining the quantization destinations.

Importing a tempo map from Melodyne into Reaper

Melodyne has a powerful tempo detection function that is applied to every audio file opened. This
allows it, for example, to trace the changing tempo of a live recording and create an accurate map of
it. If you want, you can import the tempo map created by Melodyne into your Reaper project and
adopt it as the tempo map of the entire project. To do this, proceed as follows:

First make sure that in Reaper’s “Project Settings” dialog, under “Timebase for items/envelopes
/markers:”, the option “Time” is selected.

Now, once the recording has been opened in Melodyne and its tempo detected, click the “+” symbol
in the Melodyne plug-in window and choose “ARA: import into project” > “Tempo, time signature and
measure grid” from the cascading menu. The Reaper project will then adopt the tempo, the time
signature and the measure (or ‘bar’) grid created by Melodyne. You can confirm this by examining the
tempo curve in Reaper, which is displayed in the master track when you press ALT+T.

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If when you open the same menu from the Melodyne plug-in window, under “ARA: import into project”
you choose this time “Tempo” (as opposed to “Tempo, time, signature and measure grid”), you may
find the audio file no longer begins at the same point on the Reaper measure ruler. In this illustration,
it should coincide with the first beat of the bar (“1”) but in fact comes slightly earlier.

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In such cases, the command “ARA: align media to detected grid” (in the same menu of the Melodyne
plug-in window) can be useful. First, compare the audio file with Reaper’s time ruler and decide how
far out of sync it is. Express this discrepancy as a note value (e.g. “1 sixteenth note”) and set Reaper’
s time grid to the same value (in our example, to sixteenth notes). Having done this, choose “ARA:
align media to detected grid” from the Melodyne window. The beginning of the file will then snap to
the grid and all will be well.

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Switching to Melodyne studio trial mode

Explore all the possibilities Melodyne has to offer! To do this, simply switch your Melodyne essential,
assistant or editor to Melodyne studio trial mode. If you do not have Melodyne, you can download the
trial version here.

Switching to trial mode

When you switch to trial mode, your Melodyne essential, assistant or editor will be transformed for 30
days – free of charge and without obligation - into Melodyne studio, the largest Melodyne edition,
which contains the full range of Melodyne functions. You can use all these functions for 30 days
without restriction, exactly as if you had purchased Melodyne studio. Trial mode can only be activated
once on the same computer. To switch to trial mode, and each time you launch Melodyne studio
during the trial period, you will need an Internet connection.

Here’s how to activate trial mode:

1) Start Melodyne. Next go to the Help menu and select “License”.

In the plugin:

In the stand-alone implementation:

2) You will be directed to your user account in your browser where you will see your license options.
In the “Melodyne studio trial mode” frame, switch to trial mode:

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That’s all there is to it. Trial mode will remain active for 30 days, so when you return now to Melodyne
you will see that the “Melodyne studio” edition is running.

Comparing editions
If you wish, you can switch to a smaller edition in the course of the trial period in order to compare the
range of functions offered by the various editions. This could be useful, for instance, if you own
Melodyne essential and are wondering which of the larger editions to upgrade to. Easy. Just try them
all.

To switch editions, select “License” from the Help menu exactly as before. This will take you back to
your user account in your browser, where you will be given the option of switching to one of the
smaller editions.

Your choice, however, will only remain effective while Melodyne is actually running. As soon as you
restart Melodyne, the full Melodyne studio function set will be restored.

Expiry of the trial period

At the end of the 30-day trial period, Melodyne will automatically revert to your previous edition.
Further editing of projects created during the trial period will still be possible, but only using the
functions of your previous Melodyne edition. Playback, however, will be unaffected, so none of the
work you did during the trial period will be lost.

Convinced?
If you wish, you can switch permanently to Melodyne studio at any time during the trial period or
thereafter. The requisite upgrade can be obtained from our web shop or from your local dealer.

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Melodyne 5: Update guide

The following is a brief summary of all you need to know to get started with the new Melodyne 5. In
the individual tours in the Help Center, you will find plenty of exciting tips, tricks and background info
to read later, but the best place to begin is here.

The Melodic Algorithm with Sibilant Detection

First the good news: You don’t have to do anything; during its initial analysis of the material (the
‘detection’), the algorithm in its default setting automatically separates the pitched from the unpitched
(noise-like) components of the sound and thus behaves correctly during the playback. The upshot is
better sound, pure and simple.

The extent of any noise-like components that have been detected – we call them ‘sibilants’ – is
indicated by hatching. This is how Melodyne marks not only sibilants proper (“s”, “z”, “ch” and “zh”)
but also other unvoiced consonants like “k” and “t” as well as the sound of the vocalist inhaling or
exhaling between words.
If any part of the detection seems strange or incorrect to you, you can switch to Note Assignment
Mode where you will find the requisite Correction Tools though doing so is seldom necessary.

When you alter the pitch of a note, Melodyne does not alter the frequency of the sibilants, as that
would sound unnatural – after all, in real life no singer has the wherewithal to sing one “S” higher than
another or pitch the sound of their own breathing. In the display, however, the hatched areas do move
up or down with the rest of the blob when the corresponding note is transposed, but they do this
solely in the interests of legibility, so that the visual integrity of each syllable is preserved.

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The way changes in the length of notes is implemented in Melodyne now also better represents the
natural behavior of singers: if a note contains both sibilants and pitched components, the sibilants
remain unaltered. When time-stretching is applied to the word “sweet”, for example, it becomes “s-
weeeeeeee-t” (not “sss-www-eeeeee-ttt” or anything ghastly like that!).

The case is different where the note in question (or, in this case, the sound to which the blob refers)
consists solely of sibilants and has no pitched components at all, as is often the case with breath
noise: this would certainly be shortened to make room for a time-stretched word invading its space.
But here, too, the principle is the same, because if the rest between two words were shorter, the
singer would necessarily take a shorter breath. So even when it comes to lengthening or shortening
breathing sounds, Melodyne 5 automatically achieves a natural effect.

And once they have been isolated, breaths can be stretched or squeezed using a different algorithm,
with results that sound considerably better than those of earlier versions of Melodyne.
Since, however, sibilants often coincide with pitched components, it can happen that breath sounds
do sometimes move; when this happens, it is because Melodyne has detected a small pitched
element in them that has been transposed, and this fact must naturally be reflected in the display.
This should not surprise you.

All editions of Melodyne profit from these improvements – even the entry-level Melodyne essential.

Compatibility with Melodyne 4

When you open projects that were saved by an earlier version of Melodyne, they sound exactly the
same in the new version as in the old. This is because when you open old documents, two new
functions are initially not activated:

Sibilants are not detected.

Pitch centers of notes are still calculated as in Melodyne 4.

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The upshot is that everything sounds exactly as it did before, so if you open your old project today
with the intention simply of making some minor change to the mix, you do not need to take any
special precautions.

If, however, you plan to do substantially more work on the project, taking advantage of the new
features of Melodyne 5, you can do so simply by switching on Sibilant Handling on the vocal tracks.
This is done by:

placing a checkmark next to the option “Sibilant Handling” in the Algorithm Inspector in Note
Assignment Mode. This will trigger a fresh analysis of the entire track; when this is finished,
any sibilants will be marked and the playback algorithm will behave accordingly. This may
change the sound, usually for the better. Please note however that Sibilant Detection is only
available with the Melodic or the Percussive Pitched algorithm; with all the others, the function
is grayed out.

Unfortunately, this function is not available with the edition Melodyne essential. If you want to edit an
old Version 4 project taking advantage of the new sibilant functions, you must trigger a fresh detection
of the material by clicking the words ‘Melodic’ or ‘Percussive Pitched’ (as appropriate) in the Algorithm
menu. Please bear in mind, however, that if you do this, all your previous editing will be lost, so it will
seldom be worth it. Another option would be to upgrade to Melodyne assistant; then not only would
the entire tool kit be at your disposal but you would also be able to switch Sibilant Handling on and off.

triggering a recalculation of the pitch center of the notes. To do this, you must enter Note
Assignment Mode and ALT-double-click on the relevant notes. While it is replotting the Pitch
Curve of each note, Melodyne also recalculates its pitch center. As a result of the improved
method of determining the pitch center of each note, the blobs may realign themselves slightly
in the vertical plane, with some moving upwards and others down; the results in either case
reflect more faithfully the perceived pitch of the notes.

More on the new way of calculating the pitch center.

New tools (not only) for vocals

With Version 5, Melodyne assistant, editor and studio have gained two new tools:

The Sibilant Balance Tool: This governs the ratio between the amplitude of the sibilants and that of
the other (pitched) components of the sound. Its uses range from the defusing of problematic sibilants
(de-essing) and the rapid adaptation of doubled vocal tracks, to creative sound design and improved
mixing options.

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The tool is easy to use: Drag downwards to attenuate the sibilants, or upwards to attenuate the
pitched components. You can make very fine adjustments but also – when double-tracking, say –
mute altogether either the sibilants or the pitched components.
The tool can be used for the detailed editing of single notes or, when multiple notes are selected, to
apply the same change throughout an entire passage.

You will find all the details here.

The Fade Tool: With Melodyne 5, you can fade in at the start of a note and/or fade out at the end. No
doubt you’re familiar with the principle from your DAW. Using the tool is easy: just double-click to
insert a fade; then use the left/right arrows to move it, and the up/down arrows to adjust its slope.
That’s all you need to know.

What is much more interesting, however, is that this function increases the control Melodyne offers
over the playing dynamics of all types of instrument, because it operates on a per-note basis. So in
polyphonic material, for example, you can fade in or out on individual notes within chords. The Fade
Tool also makes possible the rapid elimination of extraneous noise in material of all kinds – most
notably, polyphonic instrument tracks – as well as providing totally new scope for creativity.

You will find all the details here.

The Leveling Macro

The new Leveling Macro allows you to rein in volume disparities swiftly. Its effect is to reduce
differentials between the amplitude of different notes on a track – not only in melodic but also in
percussive and even polyphonic material.

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The left-hand fader makes the quiet notes louder, whilst the right-hand fader makes the loud notes
quieter. With both faders set to 100%, all the notes will have the same amplitude.

Whilst this may sound simple, it can accelerate your workflow considerably – particularly in the case
of polyphonic material, as it allows you swiftly and effortlessly to iron out or reduce disparities
between the volume levels of different notes within chords.

You can find out more about the Leveling Macro here.

Pitch correction by double-clicking and the Correct Pitch Macro

Whether you double-click on out-of-tune notes to correct intonation errors or use the macro, the new,
musically weighted calculation of pitch centers delivers better results. Whereas previously you often
had to fine-tune individual notes manually, even after double-clicking or using the macro, now Select
All followed by a double-click always results in musically correct intonation. Further editing is now
required, at most, in a handful of specific genres to steady-up the beginning or ending of words – and
even this can be performed in Melodyne 5 in next to no time.

More on this....

Both the Correct Pitch macro and double-clicking also profit from the new Chord Track. To an extent
you can control, and in an extremely musical manner, not only can the intonation of the notes be
improved swiftly but they can also be transposed simultaneously to fit the chords of the song. This
allows any instrument track or any sample to accompany any song.

Chord Recognition and the Chord Track

If it is not already visible, click here to show the Chord Track.

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There are now various ways of filling in the chords:

by hand. If you know the chords, you can just type them in. From the Preferences dialog, you
can choose between various chord naming conventions.

via ARA: If your DAW is equipped with a chord track and makes it available via ARA,
Melodyne can simply take the chords from the DAW. Any subsequent chord changes you
make in the DAW will be reflected immediately in Melodyne.

using the Chord Recognition function. If you do not know what the chords of the song are,
Melodyne can find out for you. Select for the purpose tracks with as much harmonic
information as possible (e.g. guitar, keyboard or bass) and as little pitch fluctuation as possible
(so preferably not vocals); do not include drum tracks.

Now right-click on the Chord Track and choose “Analyze Chords”.

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Once the Chord Track has been filled in, you can set the Pitch Grid in the note-editing background to
reflect the changing harmonies of the song. From this, you can tell at a glance which pitches are, and
which are not, suitable destinations for notes.

If you now activate the grid by selecting ‘Chord Snap’, whenever you drag and drop notes they will
snap to pitches consistent with the named chord.

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The same thing will happen whenever you double-click on a note or selection of notes; each note will
move to the nearest pitch consistent with the named chord. It can happen, of course, that two or more
notes then come to rest at the same pitch, so it is worth casting a quick eye over the results.

You will find everything relating to chords, the Chord Track and adapting new material to fit the
chords here.

The new Percussive Pitched Algorithm

With Version 5, Melodyne has acquired a new algorithm. The Percussive Pitched Algorithm combines
the strengths of two of the existing algorithms.

Like the Percussive algorithm, the new algorithm is optimized acoustically for drums and percussion,
or – in more general terms – for noise-based material.

In other respects, though, with its display format in which pitches are clearly identified, the Percussive
Pitched algorithm is more like the existing Melodic algorithm.

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Suitable candidates for the new algorithm are all drum-like instruments that are capable at the same
time of producing recognizable melodies: an 808 loop, for example, which in addition to the noise-
based snare and hi-hat sounds includes a kick drum tuned to the bass of the song as well as tuned
toms. A beatboxer track would be another typical candidate for the new algorithm; there, too, melodic
(bass) with percussive (snare) elements are united in one and the same recording.

More on this....

Keyboard shortcuts
In Melodyne, virtually any function can be controlled using a keyboard shortcut. Experienced
Melodyne users know how to take advantage of this, and are able to perform tasks considerably more
swiftly by using shortcuts tailored to their own specific working habits.

To facilitate the handling of keyboard shortcuts, the Shortcuts page of Melodyne 5’s Preferences
dialog offers a search function that makes creating your own sets of shortcuts easier and more
intuitive.

You can find out more about keyboard shortcuts here.

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Already own a Melodyne?

If you are already a Melodyne customer and have received a license for Melodyne 5 essential
bundled with some other software or hardware product, don’t worry; you can use the license in our
web shop as a coupon when purchasing any other update or upgrade. Here’s how it works:

How does the coupon work?

In our web shop, first place the update for your existing Melodyne or the desired upgrade in your
shopping cart; then, when you come to pay, enter the serial number of your Melodyne 5 essential as
your coupon code and click on “Redeem”.

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The coupon has a value of €/US$ 20. This is what you will save if you use the coupon when
upgrading to a larger edition of Melodyne or when adding a workstation to your existing license. If you
use it when updating from an older version of Melodyne to the current edition, the coupon will save
you even more:

Melodyne assistant: with the coupon, the update is free of charge, so you save 49 €/US$
Melodyne editor: with the coupon, the update costs only 29 €/US$, so you save 70 €/US$
Melodyne studio: with the coupon, the update costs only 49 €/US$, so you save 100 €/US$

What if I have already activated my Melodyne 5 essential by mistake?

In that case, you can still use the Melodyne 5 essential serial number as a coupon code. If you do so,
however, you will no longer be able to reactivate your Melodyne 5 essential, as use of the coupon
voids the license.

Coupons: terms and conditions of use

Anyone who has received a serial number for Melodyne 5 essential as part of some other product
bundle can, if he or she is already a Melodyne customer, use this serial number instead on a single
occasion as a Melodyne coupon in the Celemony web shop. Use of the coupon in this way voids the
Melodyne 5 essential license.

The coupon is only valid in the Celemony web shop (under www.celemony.com) and only
when purchasing Melodyne updates or upgrades or when adding an additional workstation to
an existing Melodyne license. The coupon cannot be used for the purchase of any other
products. When the coupon is used in the purchase of a product for which it is valid, you will
be credited with the amount in question, which will therefore be subtracted from the purchase
price.
The coupon can be redeemed within one year of receipt of the serial/coupon number and in
any case within three months of the release of Melodyne 6.
Only one coupon can be redeemed per purchase transaction in the Celemony web shop. The
coupon cannot be exchanged for cash.
The coupon cannot be used in combination with other coupons/discounts and cannot be
redeemed for purchases already made.

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Version history
Here you will find an overview of all changes introduced by the most recent Melodyne updates.

New in Version 5.3.1

The update to Version 5.3.1 contains improvements and bug fixes, which is why we recommend it to
all users.

Pro Tools with ARA: When repeated use was made of the Undo function in Melodyne, under
very special circumstances Pro Tools could crash.

ARA and plug-in: Under certain circumstances, not every note was included in local playback.

ARA: When creating a new project, the DAW under certain circumstances displayed an error
message even though the new project was error-free.

ARA: When you switched back to Edit Mode from Note Assignment Mode, it could happen that
the display scrolled all the way to the top instead of returning to the previous vertical position.

Studio One: When Studio One was launched, a crash sometimes occurred while the Melodyne
plug-in was being scanned.

Digital Performer: Under rare circumstances, moving blobs could lead to a crash.

Samplitude: In Melodyne 5.3, it sometimes happened that the ARA files of older projects were
muted during playback.

Stand-alone implementation: In Note Assignment Mode, execution of the “Convert Selection to

Connected Sequence” function sometimes led to a crash.

Stand-alone and ARA: On very high-resolution screens under macOS Monterey, crashes
could occur in Full Screen Mode.

Keyboard shortcuts: The assignments for Track Mode and Clip Mode were erroneously listed
under “Editing Tools” instead of “View Configuration”, as they are now.

Keyboard shortcuts: The Fade Tool and Sibilant Balance Tool now appear directly beneath the
Amplitude Tool, which corresponds to the layout in the toolbox.

Note Assignment Mode: Under certain circumstances when you were editing in Note
Assignment Mode, individual notes were not played back.

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Time Handles: When undoing an edit made with the Time Handle Tool, it sometimes
happened that the sound of the note in question remained unchanged.

ARA: When the Universal algorithm was used, a display error (gaps between the blobs)
sometimes occurred when blobs were being edited.

New in Version 5.3

The update to Version 5.3 contains improvements and bug fixes, which is why we recommend it to all
users. Moreover, Melodyne 5.3 is required for ARA integration into Pro Tools 2022.9.

New features and improvements

Surround: In both ARA and Transfer modes, Melodyne can now also be used for the editing of
tracks in the standard surround formats.
ARA in Pro Tools: Melodyne 5.3 comes with all the technical prerequisites for ARA integration
into Pro Tools from Version 2022.9 upwards and thus makes a significantly improved workflow
in Pro Tools possible.
Preferences: When Melodyne is employed for the first time as a plug-in, it loads the set of
keyboard shortcuts corresponding to the DAW you are using.

Bug fixes

Recording: In the stand-alone implementation of Melodyne, you can now also use a recording
device with a mono input (e.g. a MacBook microphone).
ARA in Cubase: When moving an ARA event to a track that is not selected, the selection in
Melodyne is now retained.
Pro Tools: The position of the playback cursor in Melodyne is now correctly updated even
when playback is stopped.
AAX in Pro Tools: When bouncing/committing, Melodyne now correctly evaluates the offline
setting.
The Correct Pitch macro: When the macro was applied to a very large number of notes
simultaneously, Melodyne would sometimes freeze. This no longer happens.
Preferences: Previously, in ARA mode, the keyboard shortcut for “Playback Selection” was
erroneously listed under “Others” instead of under “Transport Bar”. This has been fixed.
The Note Inspector: The input field for Sibilant Balance now reliably accepts input even when
multiple tracks are being edited simultaneously.
ARA in Cakewalk by Bandlab: Under certain circumstances, Melodyne would crash when
loading a session. This has been fixed.
Ableton Live: The cause of random crashes when Melodyne was running in Live 11.1.1 under
macOS Monterey on a Mac with an M1 chip has been detected and eliminated.
Note editing: The “Restore Original” commands in the Edit menu now behave more
consistently in the stand-alone implementation, in the Transfer plug-in and under ARA.

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New in Version 5.2

New features and improvements

Compatibility: In version 5.2, Melodyne now runs natively on Macs with Apple Silicon
processors. The Mac version is supplied in Universal Binary format with native code for
processors from Intel/AMD and Apple.
Pitch editing: The scale snap behavior for pitch systems with closely spaced alternate stages
has been improved.
The playback function: In ARA mode and when using the transfer plug-in, you can now trigger
playback of the current blob selection using the shortcut Alt+Space. If you would prefer to
assign a different key combination to this shortcut, you can do so from the Shortcuts page of
the Preferences dialog.
Cache: The location of Melodyne’s internal cache is now displayed in the Preferences dialog in
ARA mode too, and you can alter its size.

Bug fixes

Pitch editing: “Monitor When Editing Blobs” now also functions reliably with the arrow keys
when pitch shifting.
Editing the tempo assignment under certain circumstances led to a crash. Fixed.
Accidentally dragging a track to the Project Inspector tab under certain circumstances led to a
crash. Fixed.
Changing the pitch reference at high zoom levels under certain circumstances led to a crash.
Fixed.
Moving an inserted note separation under certain circumstances generated an error message.
Fixed.
Scale changes: If the “Tuning and Mode” option is active when using “Notes Follow Scale
Changes”, notes are now moved correctly.
Windows: Melodyne’s file name extension is now correctly assigned.
Melodyne essential: The option “Highlight Notes During Playback” has been added to the
Options > Note Editor submenu.
Stand-alone mode: When the Replace Audio command has been used, local playback now
correctly reflects the track selection.
Melodyne essential: The option “Show Fades” that appeared erroneously in the Options menu
has been removed.
The Note Inspector: When algorithms without sibilant detection are in use, the Sibilant Balance
parameter is now grayed out.
Selection: When removing a note separation results in two blobs merging, the resulting blob is
now also selected in ARA mode.

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New in Version 5.1.1

Change: A workaround has been integrated for ARA compatibility with Mixcraft 8.

Fixed: Lead sheets are now exported correctly via MIDI.

Fixed: In Apple Logic, playback can also now be started reliably from Melodyne.

Fixed: Under macOS, shortcuts using the “cmd” and function keys are now displayed correctly.

New in Version 5.1

Features and improvements

macOS 11 Big Sur: Melodyne 5.1 is compatible with macOS 11 Big Sur on Intel-based Macs
as well as on ARM-based Macs under “Rosetta”.

DAW-oriented keyboard shortcuts: We are always looking for ways to make the operation of
Melodyne even easier for users of digital audio workstations. That’s why we’ve included sets of
keyboard shortcuts customized for Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase and Studio One in Version 5.1.
You can choose the set you want from the Shortcuts page of the Preferences dialog.

Exporting lead sheets: It is now possible to export the contents of the Chord Track as a lead
sheet via MIDI; you will find the relevant command in the Chord Track’s context menu.

Algorithm selection: During ARA operation with Cakewalk, Melodyne’s Select Algorithm menu
is now displayed prior to any MIDI export.

ARA improvements: The interaction with ARA DAWs has been optimized in various ways –
partly to ensure compatibility with future DAW versions.

New keyboard shortcuts: It is now also possible to assign keyboard shortcuts to the following
commands: “Show Sibilants”, “Note Leveling”, “Copy Song Data to Note Assignment…” and
“Copy Note Assignment Data to Song…”.

Bug fixes

A keyboard shortcut assigned to “Toggle Cycle Mode” now also works reliably when Melodyne
is running as a plug-in and under ARA.

MIDI export has been improved and muted notes are no longer included in the export.

Under macOS, keyboard shortcuts using the function keys are now also correctly displayed in
the menu.

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The “Set Cycle to Selection” function now also works correctly in Studio One.

When you stop playback in Pro Tools, the playback cursor in Melodyne now remains where it
was when playback was halted, instead of springing back to the previous start position.

New in Version 5.0.2

Bugfix: The installation program no longer launches under Windows 7, displaying instead a
message saying that Windows 7 is not supported.

Bugfix: In the Note Editor, you can now also place time handles without having to select a note
first.

Bugfix: In the Note Editor, you can now also move note separations without having to select a
note first.

Bugfix: In Samplitude X5, when a new audio file is detected, whichever algorithm is selected
as the default is now used.

Bugfix: There is no longer a delay before newly inserted note separations are displayed in the
Note Editor.

Bugfix: In Cubase (in Transfer mode, i.e. without ARA), Melodyne still displays correctly even if
you have changed the size of its window.

Bugfix: During local playback in ARA mode, overlapping notes are no longer erroneously
played back at the comping boundaries.

New in Version 5.0.1

Bugfix: Use of the “Separate Notes as Trills” command no longer produces occasional artifacts.

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User manuals for older versions

Melodyne 4
The online user manuals for Melodyne 4 studio, editor, assistant and essential in English, German,
French, Japanese and Spanish can be found here.

These versions were replaced in May 2020 by Melodyne 5 studio, editor, assistant and essential.

Melodyne editor, assistant and essential 2 (singletrack)

The online user manuals for Version 2 of Melodyne editor, assistant and essential are available in
English, German, French, Spanish and Japanese; they are complemented by numerous video
tutorials.

Melodyne editor | Melodyne assistant | Melodyne essential

These versions were replaced at the beginning of 2016 by Melodyne 4 editor, assistant and essential.

Melodyne studio 3
The user manual for Melodyne studio 3 is available here in PDF format:
English | German | French | Spanish | Japanese

This version was replaced at the beginning of 2016 by Melodyne 4 studio.

Ending support for older versions of Melodyne

The following versions of Melodyne are very out of date and no longer compatible with current
operating systems. For that reason, support for them was discontinued at the end of 2018. It is no
longer possible, therefore, to download, activate or obtain technical support for these versions of
Melodyne:

Melodyne studio versions 1 and 2

Melodyne cre8
Melodyne uno
Melodyne plugin
Melodyne essential from a Digidesign or E-mu bundle

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We have, however, provided links to free updates to the latest versions of all the discontinued
products. If you have one of them and have not already received a notification from us to this effect,
please contact our support for an update.

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