Celemony Melodyne – DNA to scrutinise
By Paul Dakeyne
| Posted in Music Technology
It’s been a while coming, but after the announcement that the technology was capable, Celemony’s powerful Melodyne plug-in finally gets a DNA release. Granted, said release is a high profile public beta test but this indicates the commercial product is just a breath away. DNA stands for ‘direct note access’, and adds a polyphony attribute to the original Melodyne program.
Now I’m no fan of contemporary Autotune abuse (great program, but enough already..) and thankfully Melodyne in it’s original version has helped me fine tune the odd slightly off key note within a great vocal performance from my artists, so negating this currently popular trend. Pushing the proverbial envelope further, Melodyne DNA promised, and now is pretty much delivering, accurate polyphonic analysis, isolation and editing of notes within chords! How technology is advancing eh, and ultimately opening up useful and creative possibilities for many producers, DJ/remixers and musicians.
It’s new capabilities are impressive indeed: Feed in for example a piano line full of chords and single notes, and DNA will allow the user to change tuning, formant, volume, duration and timing of any individual note or group of notes. Yes, you read that correctly. It also boasts an additional new ability to copy (a preferred note performance: eg, guitar) and paste it to the exact timing (of a note to replace) within the timeline. Simply shift the note to its new pitch and your done!
Obviously, actual note analysis is going to work better with isolated multitrack parts (individual instruments/voices etc), but it will even absorb a ‘full’ track and attempt to isolate every musical instrument from all frequency ranges. Tracks with drums in may yield slightly unpredictable results of course, but switching to Melodyne’s ‘percussive algorithm’ may assist in interpreting what you are seeking.
So, I think some major applications for this all new technology are quite obvious:
- Helping less musically trained users to analyse, learn and take inspiration from chord structures when song writing, remixing or producing
- Change performance nuances and correct undesirable notes from a within a previously un-malleable recording
- Potential to partially remove a vocal from a musical performance to aid in remixing or isolating a musician, again for analysis
It’s not 100% perfect, it’s not 100% infallible (for instance Melodyne will sometimes interpret an octave as a ‘hollow’ note, so it’s up to the user to tell it whether that note exists or not), but what we have here is a stupendously powerful tool that used with diligence and care, will deliver results that are truly and stunningly useful. Take a trip to Celemony’s beta videos webpage to take a deeper look..
Tags: celomony, direct note access, melodyne, polyphonic editing
This sounds like it’ll be an amazing product. I really look forward to hearing how people push this tool in creative way. Amazing to think how far things have come with music tech.
Charlie North