How To Tune Vocals With Melodyne

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Good morning children! Today, we're going to turn water into wine.

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Meaning, we're gonna turn out of tune vocals into in tune vocals...

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using Melodyne, taste, and discernment.

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I was lucky enough to be able to catch Sara Lieb...

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another scaringly in tune singer...

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being slightly off, because she was busy setting up her monitoring system.

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Here it goes! Let's add Melodyne to the vocal track.

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Celemony... Melodyne plug-in.

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Now, before you do anything, think about music...

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press play, or listen to anything...

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you must make absolutely sure as to where Melodyne is gonna put the files it creates.

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Melodyne has a tendency to do whatever it likes.

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And that's fine enough, we're in democracy. But it doesn't work for us.

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Because, say it puts the files on an internal drive...

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or, on an external audio drive, that you may wipe...

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that's not the same drive as your current session.

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In 6 months from now, when the singer calls and wants to recall the session for just one note, you will hate yourself.

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So the first thing I do, every single time I use Melodyne...

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every time I open the plug-in...

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I make sure that the files are parked in the same folder as my session.

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To do so, you have to do... this! You go into Settings.

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You have to Move/record Files to...

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And then you have to navigate your drive to where your session's gonna be.

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In this case, it's Internal Audio / Puremix / Puremix Sources / Might as well be Spring tuning.

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What I do is I create a folder called, you guessed it...

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Melodyne! Create... Choose... Ok.

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Now I'm in a safe environment. No matter what happens...

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every single file that Melodyne creates will be in that folder.

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When you switch songs, if you're tuning several songs at once...

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you must make sure that it goes into the same folder as the song.

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Every single time. I promise it's worth the grief.

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Second. Set yourself up for success.

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Here's the workflow that I think works best.

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You can tweak it for yourself, but this is a good basis.

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If you see the window the way it is right now, it's enormous.

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I don't need all this. So I'm gonna set up the track I wanna tune...

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and a reference track, and Melodyne, all in the screen.

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To do so, you go to Preferences and you enter a User size.

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In this case, I like the Width, but I don't like the Height because I wanna be able to see the whole height.

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So I'm gonna set up 600, for example. Press Enter.

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For you to see the FX, you have to close the plug-in and reopen it.

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Boom! There you have it.

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So now, you have... your ref track...

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your tuned track... and Melodyne.

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The reason for this is very simple.

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You cannot locate in Melodyne.

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You can click here in Melodyne, and Pro Tools won't go there.

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You can only click in Pro Tools.

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So now, you can have your location area here and then you'll always know where you are.

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Then, you have your tuning area here.

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It works best this way, as far as I'm concerned.

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I strongly urge you to transfer the whole track you wanna tune into Melodyne...

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even if you only plan to tune one or two notes, for several reasons.

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First, transferring everything into Melodyne will keep your brain from having to keep track of what's coming from the original Pro Tools track...

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and what's coming from the Melodyne memory.

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Why does it matter? Because you might find yourself editing one word for 10 minutes...

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moving it left, moving it right...

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and wondering why Pro Tools is not playing back what you're doing.

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Most of the time, the reason why that happens is you tuned that one word in Melodyne last week, and forgot.

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Transfer everything into Melodyne, so you won't be able to do that anymore.

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Second. Your singer will ask you to recall this and tune another note next week it's a guarantee.

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If you only catch some parts of the signal...

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and your singer wants you to capture, say the word after the word you just tuned...

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you may erase what you just did.

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Might as well just take everything through and not have that problem.

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Because your singer WILL ask you to tune another note...

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even if he already asked you to tune another note...

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after he asked you to tune another note. It's a guarantee.

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Third. Transferring everything into Melodyne...

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will force you to capture everything, including opening breaths...

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closing breaths, and little noises...

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and make sure that the sound is consistent throughout.

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At this time, you press Play and transfer.

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Don't just press Play, press Play and listen.

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This is your chance to get a bird's-eye view of what needs to be done.

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Looking at the tuning job note by note is guaranteed doom.

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If you look at it as a note by note thing...

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what's gonna happen is you're gonna try and make everything perfect and take all the life out of the music turning your singer, no matter who your singer is, into Britney Spears which is a bad thing to do.

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The idea here is to listen to it on the emotional level and try and figure out what's in the way.

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If there's nothing in the way of you enjoying the music, don't tune anything.

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If something is in the way, and kind of yanks you out of the emotion then that you're gonna tune, and only that.

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So let's listen to Sara.

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Three more basic principles...

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Number 1: dont't look, listen.

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The little cases, boxes, that Melodyne lets you put the pitch in is evil.

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It means nothing.

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Number 2: don't use pitch or note snap, and don't use the automatic mode it will fail you miserably and repeatedly every time.

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Number 3: don't tune in solo.

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Use a pitch reference, like the bass or the piano of the song.

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Why? Because you're not trying to make the vocal perfect you're trying to make the relationship between the vocal and the band perfect.

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And that's a much different thing.

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So the first thing I'm doing, always, is remove Pitch Snap.

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So now, I'm on my own, like a grown man.

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I zoom a little bit, so I know what I'm doing and I zoom a little bit this way, so I know what I'm doing.

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Let's listen to the top of the song again.

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See, I'm able to locate here, without having to close the plug-in.

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Here you go. Listen to this.

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I'm gonna play that phrase again.

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Try and figure out what bothers you there.

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As far as I'm concerned, the "Willow" is a little approximative and the "Wind" is a little sharp.

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So the easy one to do is the "Wind".

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In Melodyne, all you have to do, if you don't have Pitch Snap...

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is just grab the word, and move it to where you want it to be.

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That's better. As a reminder, this is the way it was.

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Where am I gonna put this pitch? I don't know. I'm gonna move it a little bit in the direction that I feel it should go and listen to it.

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If I like it, leave it there, if I don't, try something else.

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What I know is this: most singers undershoot even the best singers in the world.

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Meaning, when they go up, they get a little flat and when they go down, they get a little sharp...

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especially for big intervals.

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Why is that is a different discussion, but that's the way it is.

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So if I'm gonna tune a singer who's good I'm not gonna put that singer exactly on...

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I'm gonna put that singer where that singer would have put it if he had nailed it.

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And that's not usually exactly on. It's a little under, or a little over.

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Check it out.

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Let's pick one position for the word "Wind", and listen to it.

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Too flat...

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A little more...

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Now, I kinda like that! Let's listen again.

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It's a little sharp-ish still, but here's the problem.

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It's all about the relationships between the notes.

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So for example, say you have this nailed but this is a little bit out of tune...

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this will never feel good. You're gonna want to tune this.

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And that's the whole problem: where do you stop? If you start tuning this, then this is gonna want to get tuned and this one's gonna want to get tuned, and this one too, and Pouf! You're Britney Spears. So you have to use lots of restraint.

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In this particular case, I think the big problem is "Willow".

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The "Willow" is not quite precise enough and is the articulation of the phrase.

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So I'm gonna fix "Willow" and see how the rest feels after that.

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If you look at the word "Willow" here...

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and I'm gonna position...

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She's not quite nailing both notes.

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And Melodyne thinks it's just one note.

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This happens all the time.

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This is how you deal with it.

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With the Multi tool...

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you can go right under the waveform here and double-click.

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If you don't have those skills, you can use the Separation tool right here and double-click on the note.

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It's now two separate notes.

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Switch back to your Select tool.

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You can now move this independently from this.

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And it's gonna sound this way.

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Ha ha! This brings a new perspective on life.

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I like to listen to the whole phrase to get the arch of it and note just focus on one note.

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All of a sudden, "Wind" sounds wrong, so I'm gonna move it back up here.

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That's good enough for me. I'll play it again.

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Could we massage this more? Yeah! Shall we try "Will" a little higher? Mmm! Sounds nice! So that's the process.

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Look at it as a phrase, not as a bunch of notes.

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If you look at it as a bunch of notes, every note is wrong.

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And you're gonna spend 12 hours doing this, and end up with Britney.

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If you look at it as a phrase, she sounds like a lovely singer to me.

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I'm still not happy with "Wind"...

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Hear the word "Have"? I'll play that again.

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"I'd say I have, have, have"! That's a little flat. That definitely needs love.

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That's too much love. A little less love.

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I was sharp.

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Nice! Now, I noticed something...

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Listen to the word "Have", compared to the other words, now that we've tuned it.

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See how it feels in the field.

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Does it feel louder? A little bit, weirdly? She probably leaned towards the mike.

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Here's something else we can do in Melodyne, that's kinda cool.

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Melodyne is usually the first plug-in in your stack.

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Of course, dynamic things like this can be done with a compressor.

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Fair...

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But what if you could do it pre-compression and basically do some quick manual compression that's non-destructive, and sounds good. Check this out.

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I can use the Amplitude tool and just lower the waveform a little bit here.

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Much more natural, and I don't need to compress.

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Now, you don't wanna do the whole track like this.

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But those words that really stick out, they're gonna force you to compress a lot you can take care of in here in a very transparent manner and not have to compress so much. That's a good trick.

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Melodyne is fantastic, because it gives you subtle tools that let you salvage performances that otherwise would have to be thrown out.

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Two of those tools seem to confuse people a lot.

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They're the Pitch Modulation tool, and the Pitch Drift tool.

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If your singer hits the pitch "Baaah", and then goes "Baaaaaah"...

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and there's too much of that vibrato, that's the Pitch Modulation tool.

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It's also good for doing "Baaaah", and fixing too much of a sway there.

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If your singer hits the pitch, but then kind of drifts and hovers like this, "Baaah" there's no vibrato involved, that's the Pitch Drift tool.

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Drift... Pitch drift.

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The combination of the two lets you fix just about anything.

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Let me show you.

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Let's listen to this phrase.

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"My Daaays...", I think "Daaays" a little hover.

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It's good, but, she wouldn't do that. She would do a little less.

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So you can right click, and hit Pitch Modulation.

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And make it less! Like this.

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Be gentle now.

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That's more like her.

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Of course, you can add it back, and it'll put more in.

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Like this.

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Which is in tremendously bad taste.

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So I'm gonna go back where I was before.

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By the way, in Melodyne, you can always go back to the beginning...

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reset everything to 0, so you don't have to freak out that you're screwing up the performance.

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You do that in Edit / Edit Pitch / Reset Pitch Center to Original Reset Pitch Modulation to Original, and Reset Pitch Drift to Original.

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So you can always go back to your source material.

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I like this probably a little less.

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Pitch Modulation, less of it, like this.

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Ok! Now, listen to the last word... "Be".

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There's a lot of stuff going on there.

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It's going up, it's going down, it's a little in and out.

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So I'm gonna switch to the Drift tool.

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And tell it not to drift so much.

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And it sounds like this.

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Lovely! Again, with less piano, so you can really focus on the pitch of the singer.

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This is the original pitch.

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And this is the pitch with a little bit of the Pitch Drift action.

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Much better.

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So, the combination of Pitch Modulation for this part and Pitch Drift for this part lets you really get every note where you want it to be like painting the pitch on.

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One last thing.

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You must, absolutely must, no matter what, print your Melodyne work to a track.

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Don't expect the plug-in to recall, a year from now.

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This stuff doesn't travel well, just make it in stone.

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To do so, I'm gonna create a new track...

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in this case I need a Mono track / Audio Track / Samples.

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I'm gonna call it "mel Lead Vox" so that I know this is the printed Melodyne. Create...

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Make sure I sent it to the proper output...

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which, in my case, is the SUM output.

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Put it in Input, and make sure it's getting sound.

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Alright, so "Willow" is sharp.

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Why was I thinking? That's the other problem with Melodyne...

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You have to do in passes.

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Any tuning, with any plug-in, you have to do in passes if you're gonna do it with your brain, not with the automatic system.

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After listening to the same phrase for 5 minutes you will no longer have any reference.

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Keep going. Go to the end of the song. When you come back at the beginning...

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you'll have a fresh view on it, and you can adjust it.

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I think "Willow" is too sharp, I'm gonna bring it down.

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"Willow" can be a little sharper...

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That's good enough for Jazz.

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I'm gonna go here, put my new track in record...

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Hit Record.

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That's it! Now, go Melodyne something! Et voilà!