Pitch Correction For Your Vocal Recordings

I’ve been recording music on multi-track equipment for 21 years now. I’ve gotten some incredible vocal takes over the years but I always hear the little bits that are a touch out of tune, or a little off the beat. About 2 years ago I switched to Pro Tools LE for all my studio recordings and it has really opened up a whole new world for music production. This is the current version of the system I own:
Digidesign Digi 003 Rack Factory Pro Tools LE System
Mine is actually the Digi 002 Rack but I just wanted you to have a reference on what my studio setup is like. [Click Here to Find Digidesign Digi 002 Rack on eBay]

   What I’d like to talk about today is the amazing pitch correction plugin by Celemony called:
Celemony Melodyne Uno

   In a software based recording environment such as Sony Acid or Steinberg Nuendo you basically save each audio track to your computers hard drive and then you can edit the individual tracks in an amazing number of ways.
   I use Melodyne Uno extensively when fixing up vocals. Melodyne Uno can be used as a plugin with an audio production suite or it can be used as a standalone program. The way it works is it will load an audio file and then analyze the pitch and determine what note you’re singing. It will tell you how far off standard pitch that note is as well as how much the pitch drifts while the note is held. It will even analyze how much vibrato you’re using in your voice. Then it will allow you adjust all those parameters of the sound including the length of the note and the timing on a time-line. If you assign a Beats Per Minute parameter to the file you’re working on, it will even quantize the vocal line for you and put the notes exactly on the beat.
   I use Melodyne Uno primarily for pitch correction. I sing pretty close to in tune most of the time so the corrections are very subtle. But they really make a big difference to the finished track! If you want to get really radical you can move the notes all over the place and completely rearrange the melody any way you want it.
   There are more expensive versions of Melodyne that will create harmony lines for you and let you work on multiple tracks simultaneously. They are all available as upgrades to Melodyne Uno so I would suggest getting Uno to try it out and then if you want the more feature rich versions to go ahead and upgrade.
So my recommendation for software based pitch correction is:
Celemony Melodyne Uno
it has just been fantastic for me and I know you’ll love it too.

Celemony Melodyne UnoMelodyne Uno offers you the celebrated Melodyne technology in the most compact and affordable format. It is a one-track audio editor for monophonic audio files. Melodyne Uno dispenses with the multi-track Arrange window of the larger versions of Melodyne and operates like a normal sample editor: all you do is load in a file, edit it, save your work, and you’re done. There couldn’t be a simpler or more intuitive way to benefit from Melodyne’s unique editing possibilities.Like the larger versions of Melodyne, Uno uses efficient combi tools for all Editor parameters. Moreover, the Correct Pitch and Quantize Time macros are available, too. The Correct Pitch macro allows you to correct the pitch of out-of-tune notes and eliminate ugly pitch drift from a recording with two mouse clicks. The Quantize Time macro offers you just as quick and convenient a way of correcting timing errors — notes that sound too late or too soon or are held too long or not long enough. This makes Melodyne Uno the ideal tool for vocal production, editing melodies and grooves, and for correcting audio recordings.

[Click Here to find Melodyne Uno on eBay]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 5:09 pm and is filed under 2. Equipment, Recording Gear, Vocal Gear. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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Pitch Correction For Your Vocal Recordings

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