Transferring audio

How Melodyne works

Before it can make its editing functions available to you, Melodyne must first analyze the audio material. Since for this analysis the audio file has to be examined as a whole, it cannot be conducted in real time; it is performed once only, at the start, before the first blobs appear in the Note Editor. In the stand-alone implementation of Melodyne, this is when the audio file is first opened.

In the case of the plug-in, the matter is somewhat more complicated. Since most commonly-encountered plug-in interfaces are designed for pure real-time operation, a plug-in, logically enough, is only shown the part of the audio file that is being played at that instant, which is rather like looking through a keyhole. But Melodyne, as we have seen, requires a more comprehensive overview; for this reason, you have to send it in advance the track segments you wish to edit, so that it can study them.

This is the purpose of what we call the “transfer”: This is essentially a recording process whereby the plug-in implementation of Melodyne makes its own copy of the track segments playing back in the DAW. In this way, Melodyne obtains the audio data that it must have if it is to detect and display the notes. These transfers make using Melodyne more effort than one would like, but there is no other way of overcoming the limitations of real-time plug-in interfaces.

There are, of course, exceptions: To make working with Melodyne in a DAW more effortless, we have developed the ARA plug-in interface extension. DAWs that support ARA provide Melodyne with all the information it needs about the audio files they are using and make it possible to open a track for editing in Melodyne immediately – i.e. without going through the transfer procedure first. This is the most convenient way of using Melodyne in a DAW.

If your DAW supports ARA, apart from the next paragraph, the rest of this tour need not concern you. Instead, search for your DAW in the Help Center, where you’ll find details of how to take advantage of ARA with each of the various DAWs that support it.

The following, however, applies to all scenarios involving Melodyne – with or without ARA: The amount of memory Melodyne requires depends partly upon the length of the files you are transferring to it or loading but mainly upon the number of notes they contain: the more notes a file contains, the longer the detection process takes and the more memory it requires. This makes it difficult to formulate a concrete rule, but, in general: with files longer than an hour, the detection process is generally slow; files longer than two hours, however, may be impossible to load or transfer at all, due to shortage of memory. In such cases, please divide the file up and transfer or load only the segments that you actually wish to edit in Melodyne.

Transferring audio to the plug-in implementation of Melodyne

Open in your DAW the project you wish to edit.
Load the plug-in implementation of Melodyne as an audio insert effect in the audio track containing the material you wish to edit. Position the plug-in implementation of Melodyne above any insert effects you may be using in the track – if in doubt, put it in the first insert slot. For the analysis (or “detection”) to achieve the best possible results, Melodyne needs to be given as dry and clean an input signal as possible.

• Move the playback cursor in the DAW to a point before the beginning of the passage you wish to edit with Melodyne.
• Click the Transfer button at the top left of the Melodyne window to prepare it to accept the transfer.

• Press Play in the DAW to transfer the material, which Melodyne will import automatically. Press Stop when the end of the passage you wish to edit is reached.

Stopping the DAW playback automatically brings to an end Melodyne’s transfer readiness. You can also interrupt a transfer in progress at any time by clicking the Transfer button.

If you wish, you can transfer to Melodyne further passages from different parts of the DAW track. Clicking the Transfer button during playback by the DAW toggles Melodyne’s “enable transfer” function on and off, allowing you to punch in and out as the playback proceeds. Alternatively, as you reach the end of each of the passages you wish to transfer you can stop playback by the DAW, find the start of the next passage, transfer-enable Melodyne again, restart playback by the DAW, stop it again, and so on. If you wish, you can just transfer the entire track or even several tracks simultaneously to multiple instances of Melodyne. To do this, simply enable the Transfer buttons of all the instances to which you wish to transfer material simultaneously.

Important: If your DAW project contains changes of tempo or time signature, please consult the tour entitled “Adjusting to tempo variations in the DAW”.

Tip: Initialize the key prior to the transfer: In the case of monophonic or polyphonic audio material, Melodyne also recognizes the key (or “tonality”) of the music. With short melodic phrases, however, the key chosen is often not the one intended, simply because too few notes are available for a correct appraisal. To prevent this happening, you can set the key using the Scale Ruler of an empty instance of the plug-in or an empty document (if using the stand-alone implementation of the program) before the transfer or loading of an audio file. To do this, simply click on the desired keynote in the Scale Ruler and select the desired scale or key from the context menu. Melodyne will then retain this initialized value, regardless of its own subsequent analysis.

Replace Ranges

During playback, those passages that have been transferred to Melodyne will be played back by Melodyne; all others by the DAW. In other words, wherever it has material to play back, Melodyne’s signal will replace that of the original track.

From the Options > Note Editor sub-menu, choose Show Replace Ranges. All the passages that will be played back by Melodyne (as opposed to the DAW) will now be marked. Such regions can be extended simply by dragging their borders with the mouse.

To shorten a playback region, delete a few blobs and select Set Replace Ranges to Notes from the context menu of the Time Ruler. This command works not only at the borders of the playback region but also when you delete notes from the middle of the region – as shown in the following illustration.