Pitch correction like you've never seen (or heard)

Many of you probably know of Autotune, which corrects the pitch of a singer's vocals in real time. Melodyne has gone even further now. They found a way to separate the harmonics of each note in a chord, allowing individual notes to be manipulated at will. Simply amazing, even if you're not an audio geek.

via metafilter.
youmakekittymadsays...

honestly, vocal pitch correction isn't new technology, so i don't see this causing us to have MORE talentless hacks out there than we already do. however, this is an amazing studio tool for independent producers. i wonder what fantastic amount of money they're selling it for.

cheesemoosays...

Prices range between $199 for the most basic version, to $699 for the ultra-deluxe super-whizbang edition. Prices and a feature comparison chart for the different editions can be found here.

CaptWillardsays...

There's no doubt that this is cool, but does anyone think that making music like this is cheating? I'm not a musician, but I kind of look at similarly to how uhohzombies does. Any crappy musician who knows how to work this software will be able to sound like a virtuoso. I realize it doesn't mean that they'll be able to write music any better, but the finished product will certainly sound more professional.

None of that takes away from how impressive this technology is, however.

cheesemoosays...

I don't really see "cheating" as an issue here. For me, the end product is all I care about. Can't sing? No worries, just don't try and get me to come to your live show.

(I'm looking at you, DragonForce.)

dagsays...

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Impressive. It reminds me that computers have done so much to change the way we see things (CGI, and animation) and hear things. Why are they so lacking in the other senses?

When are we going to get some software that makes interesting shapes for us to feel- or super realistic programmable smells.

antonyesays...

There's no doubt that this is cool, but does anyone think that making music like this is cheating?

Not really; no more than an artist overdubbing their own tracks to create a fuller sound, and that has been happening for decades.

As cheesemo says, it's the end product that counts. This is simply a tool that will make production easier and cheaper, as less time will be spent perfecting. That's a good thing for independent artists that don't have large amounts of cash to fund their production and end up releasing sub-standard material, or don't release it at all.

Of course, the tools are open to abuse but that is also true of the tools that are around today anyway.

None of that takes away from how impressive this technology, however.

Very much so!

Rottysays...

Perhaps some individuals have musical ideas that they cannot express because they lack the ability to physically create them with instuments. Besides in the end, quality will dictate the lifespan of peoples creations. Does it really matter where the art comes from?

Skollsays...

This is really amazing. This offers enormous benefit to everyone interested in music from raw beginners curious about chords to home recorders laying down their own tracks. Would love to play with this, but unfortunately music plug ins are extremely expensive so I doubt I ever will.

honkeytonk73says...

Yeah its neat... but whatever happened to PLAYING the music on an actually instrument, live, with human hands?

While this is amazing technologically, it encourages production of even more 'formulaic re-mixed' trash (in my opinion) music rather than anything truly original.

Just my opinion of course.

cheesemoosays...

Well, there's good remixes and there's bad remixes.

There's good live music and there's bad live music.

I don't see how it matters how the good music gets made, just as long as it's good.

Bad music will be ignored as usual.

AeroMechanicalsays...

I thought the piano loop with the 'wrong' note sounded a lot better than the corrected version.

Cool program though. I agree in that it will require less technical skill if you can just fix it afterwards but for non-improvised music, it's really the way the artist envisioned it that counts more than how well they executed that vision.

*clip* nevermind, saw what I was looking for.

fissionchipssays...

AeroM, "real-time" just means a latency of < 10ms or so. A powerful enough processor is all you'd need to make it work.
That said, this is far more powerful as an editing tool. In order to use it in a live situation you would need a comparison track, removing much of the opportunity for improvisation. *insert pop musician joke here*

grintersays...

As far as I can tell, the theory really isn't that impressive. They seem to be bandpass filtering using a bunch of bins, and splitting the output among separate tracks.
The interface, on the other hand, is awesome!

Abductedsays...

Melodyne killed the Pop star.

No but seriously the pop music of today is killing legal music sales, this will only enable ordinary people with just as much talent as the "stars" to manipulate their way to good music without support of BadMusic Inc.

Live performances is what you pay for! Not digitally enhanced tunes of teenagers singing about their boyfriends and how slutty they are.
At least the metal heads have got this right.

/rant

doremifasays...

Altering pitches to accommodate amateur singers has been around for a while (remember the New Kids on the Block?). This just takes it to another, easier level.

ReverendTedsays...

I don't think this will create more no-talent hacks - it just promotes the balance of talent to shift behind the microphone. And whether it's luck, talent, or technology, if it produces something worth listening to - then I'm glad it's there.

silvercordsays...

And, upvote for the Pink Floyd "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" riff rip at about 3:45. Oh, yea, and Direct Note Access . . . DNA. Which is what you're messing with here. You get to play with the DNA of the song. Nice.

raddishssays...

If anything I'd say this allows more musicians to appear. Just because they aren't a master at some instrument doesn't mean their vision of it is any less artistic.

snoozedoctorsays...

Pitch correction lets me play my recorded songs to my friends without them becoming nauseated. It's much cheaper than hiring a singer. Some very talented songwriters, (myself not included), are not great vocalists. Jimmy Webb and Randy Newman come to mind.
But, it sucks when a pitch-corrected vocalist is sold as a performer. Ashley Simpson on SNL comes to mind. If you need pitch correction in the studio, you had better be offering up some talent besides your voice to an audience.

bamdrewsays...

Looks like it lets you set bin off certain sizes of a channels spectragram, then drag those bins around to manipulate harmonics or simultaneously played notes. Would be hard to use if didn't have clean, isolated samples. Would be silly to use if you didn't really want a super-clean sound.

Nice simple interface. I'm going to look around for tutorials.

Oh, I see that Grinter came to a similar conclusion... good times!

10040says...

>> ^uhohzombies:
Great, now we'll be enabling even MORE no talent hacks to become rich and famous just because they have nice tits.



Look up some early pink floyd interviews, and you will feel differently about that.

You, can use this to make your old job easier, r use it to make your work even moreso complexed, musical tools, especially this one, can only help the artist express what is inside. maybe you should look up what talent means, you can be pop AND talented! It doesn't happen very often but it does, if it didn't we would all shoot ourselves in the face.

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