Melodyne vs Auto Tune 7

[MondoLikeMetal]

I'm ready to plop down about $300 for a pitch correction software program. What do you guys like better - Melodyne or Auto Tune.
I was going to by Melodyne, when i saw two bad reviews on the Sweetwater website, somthing about it crashing for this guy alot. I don't have alot of ram or cpu speed, but i saw on another forum that if you take the singer's wave file out of your DAW, and work on it by itself with Melodyne as a stand-alone, you can then import it back into the song with no cpu issues.
Of course, Auto Tune is the industry standerd, and the new version 7 is supposed to be pretty good (athough i would be using it for metal, not Rhianna type vocals, where you here the pitch correction track.
Could you tell me your own experiences with the pitch-correction software you use.
Thanks,
Mondo

 

[crillemannen]

Autotune 7 is pretty good but melodyne smokes it by far. Especially if the vocals are really off key. I would go for melodyne

 

[xTomx]

Melodyne is insanely more powerful, the polyphonic capabilities are just mind blowing

 

[OneDaySky]

To be honest i use both! Melodyne is great if you got lots of patience, it adds silly artifacts and sometimes acts differently if you haven't printed the track yet. Autotune is alot harder to use but is def the way you should go i rate.
Besides Melodyne with the DNA function costs an arm and a leg compared to Autotune!

Autotune +1

 

[Machinated]

both are useful, i own melodyne but had to demo autotune when i was working with a band that melodyne just couldnt work with. autotune seems cleaner on some vocals to me.

melodyne is really useful, but given the choice of just one (and retrospect), I'd go for autotune.

 

[greyskull]

I prefer Melodyne, but autotune is definitely good, just a little more tweaky if you want to do things manually

 

[Trevoire520]

I know you won't want to hear this but I feel it's best to have both. Sometimes autotune sounds weird with a certain voice/part and other times melodyne sounds a bit weird too.

I picked up an old version of Autotune 5 on ebay for £50, have a look and see if you can get one of them cheap on ebay and then get the other new.

Gun to my head though, I'd probably choose autotune.

 

[kaomao]

Autotune because I'm used to it
When I tried melodyne it really introduced weird artifacts!

 

[MindMunch]

IMO Melodyne has always sounded better. On Reaper I put it as an insert fx on my vocal tracks and, after I edit each part, I render the item as a new take and remove the plugin or put it offline.

Melodyne Essential is 100 bucks, IIRC.

 

[arv_foh]

I prefer melodyne but I always print my tracks immediately after pitch correcting them because it does crash a lot if you don't

 

[OneDaySky]

I prefer melodyne but I always print my tracks immediately after pitch correcting them because it does crash a lot if you don't

I need to get into this habit!

 

[Jordon]

I have to agree with the "both" sentiment. They're both great....but they're both great for different things. Melodyne with pick up more aggressive vocals easier than AutoTune, but watch out for glitches. Melodyne always introduces glitching at least once in a song for me, so that's when Autotune comes in handy to be a bit more delicate.

 

[MondoLikeMetal]

Wow, looks like everyone is 50/50 on this. Maybe I'll buy a new Melodyne, and an old Auto Tune like Trev did.
So Melodyne Essentails will do the trick @ $100? Would love to save some money.

 

[greyskull]

I prefer melodyne but I always print my tracks immediately after pitch correcting them because it does crash a lot if you don't

Oh god yeah! I'd print either Melo or AT

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I didn't spring for DNA. Couldn't' think of an instance where I would want to use it.

I don't have any issues with it crashing either, I do freeze the tracks though and run the VST 3 version at all times.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

definitely Autotune.
I own both, haven't used melodyne since I got AT.

 

[MondoLikeMetal]

Thanks guys. I think I'll go with Melodyne Essential for $100, and the upgrade to editor if needed for another $200 (but don't know if I'll need the DNA feature), so it all comes out the same price. Then, like Trev did, I'll buy an older version of Aauto Tune for cheap and A & B the two programs.

 

[jipchen]

essential is a bit too "essential" imho, get assistant. You can only edit the note itself with essential (grab the blob and move it up and down) but bad singers don't sing this one tone in the same pitch over the whole duration so you'll need the additional features of assistant - you can look up each version's features on their website, too.
In order to tune vocals properly you will need to adjust pitch drift and modulation. The formant feature is also nice.

Assistant:
Monophonic Material
In the case of monophonic (solo voice, saxophone, bass guitar...) audio material, the following possibilities exist for editing notes:

modifying the pitch
modifying the pitch drift
modifying the pitch modulation
modifying the position
modifying the length
modifying the volume
shifting the formant spectrum
modifying the pitch transition between notes
modifying the volume transition between notes
shifting the formant spectrum of transitions between notes
timing (re-)quantization, manually or via macro
pitch quantization, manually or via macro
cut, copy and paste

Essential:
Monophonic Material
In the case of monophonic (solo voice, saxophone, bass guitar...) audio material, the following possibilities exist for editing notes:

modifying the pitch
modifying the position of notes
modifying the length of notes
timing (re-)quantization via macro
pitch quantization via macro
cut, copy and paste

 

[OneDaySky]

I have Melodybe Editor with DNA, its speciality is suppose to be good for tuning polyphonic instruments like guitars and pianos which use numerous notes similtaneously to form chords, but when I tried it on 1 of my DI tracks, it made it sound phasy and unnatural, yet in their tutorial video it sounds so smooth. I got a feeling its false advertsing. Its a great concept to be able to tune chords well after the band has left the studio, but I don't think the technology is good enough yet. I'm gonna be going back to Autotune.
Another thing is that I've heard that Melodyne adds latency to a track no matter what (its recommended that you fully zoom out your project so that there is no scrolling happening and to not even move your mouse during the audio transfer period to minimize this latency issue)

That's my 5 cents, hope it helps!

 

[MindMunch]

essential is a bit too "essential" imho, get assistant. You can only edit the note itself with essential (grab the blob and move it up and down) but bad singers don't sing this one tone in the same pitch over the whole duration so you'll need the additional features of assistant - you can look up each version's features on their website, too.
In order to tune vocals properly you will need to adjust pitch drift and modulation. The formant feature is also nice.

Actually the Essential does have the pitch drift macro and divison tool too. Not formant, modulation, volume or DNA, but to be honest I don´t use them that much.

I think the OP should get Melodyne Essential and see if it works for him. If he needs the big guns he can upgrade without losing money because Celemony charges only the difference between the versions.