The Edit menu

Melodyne’s Edit menu includes items that allow you to undo entirely the effects of various types of editing and others that add random deviations to the audio material.

Restore Original

The “Restore Original” sub-menu contains commands that nullify entirely the effects of various types of editing.
You will also find in the context menu of the Note Editor whichever of these commands are relevant to the tool you are using at the time.

All the commands (except the last one) apply only to the notes currently selected and are grayed out if no editing of the type in question has yet been applied to them. Bear in mind that these commands work independently of the normal “Undo” function.

The effect of the following types of editing can be undone entirely via the Restore Original sub-menu:

Pitch

  • the editing of pitch
  • the editing of pitch centers
  • the editing of pitch modulation
  • the editing of pitch drift
  • the editing of pitch transitions

Formants

  • the editing of formants
  • the editing of formant transitions

Amplitude

  • the editing of amplitude
  • the editing of amplitude transitions
  • the application of fades
  • adjustments to the sibilant balance
  • the muting of notes

Time

  • the editing of timing (position/length of notes)
  • the placing of time handles
  • the editing of attack speeds

The command “Undo All Changes” undoes entirely the effect of all the types of editing listed above but only applies to the notes currently selected.

The final command, “Undo All Changes to Entire File” has the same effect as “Undo All Changes”, differing only in that it applies even to notes not included in the current selection, thereby restoring the entire file to its original state.

Adding random deviations

The Add Random Deviations sub-menu varies the pitch or timing of individual notes a) drastically, b) by a moderate amount, or c) in a subtle way; within these various limits, the direction and extent of the deviation is determined randomly.

These functions introduce random variation to either the pitch (i.e. the vertical position) or the timing (i.e. the horizontal position) of the selected notes.

This is particularly useful when you have made one or more copies of a single take but do not wish them to be identical either to one other or to the original – the object being, perhaps, to make a single vocalist sound like a choir. Through the addition of a certain amount of random deviation to each copy, you can obtain more natural-sounding results by ensuring that the synchronization of the individual voices is never improbably perfect and that no two copies exhibit identical fluctuations in pitch.

Macros

The commands in this sub-menu open Melodyne’s various macro dialogs. The same effect can be obtained by clicking their respective icons, which are to the right of the toolbar above the Note Editor.

Select Special

The effect of the commands in the “Select Special” sub-menu is described in the “Selecting Notes” tour.

Tempo

The commands in this sub-menu are explained in the Note assignment tour.

Chords and Keys

These commands can be used to trigger an analysis of the chords and keys encountered in the material.

Copy commands for the detection data

The detection of tempo, chords and keys in Melodyne studio is conducted on two levels:

Initially, Melodyne analyses each individual file as it is loaded, to detect and identify the notes and tempos it contains; you can then optimize the results of this analysis, which we call the “note assignment data”, in Note Assignment Mode. That is the file level. A key (or ‘tonality’) is derived automatically from the notes found in the file.

If, however, you import several files into Melodyne simultaneously – the tracks of a multi-track recording, for example – then the higher song level comes into play. Here, Melodyne conducts a second analysis of the tempo, key and chords, based this time on information derived from all the tracks. The drum tracks, for example, will have little to say about the tonality but prove extremely useful when it comes to tracking the tempo. With the vocals, on the other hand, it will be the other way around. Because all the tracks are considered together, the song-level analysis delivers more comprehensive and accurate results.

Now, occasions may arise when you will wish to transfer the results of the more accurate, song-level analysis, to file level – for instance, when you are planning to export one track only, the vocals, to another song. The more accurate the information provided by the track’s note assignment data regarding the tempo and tonality of its musical content, the more successful will be its integration into the new song. With the command “Copy Song Data to Note Assignment”, you can improve the accuracy of the file’s original note assignment data by sharing with it the conclusions drawn from the song-level analysis.

And the opposite case can also arise, when, after satisfying yourself that the file-level analysis is perfect, you will want to share its conclusions as to the tonality and tempo with the entire song. This can be done by choosing “Copy Note Assignment Data to Song”.

To use either of these commands, first make sure the track in question is in the Note Editor and, if more than one track is present there at the time, select one of its notes. Then choose the command you want from the menu. A small dialog will appear, inviting you to specify precisely which of the three types of data (tempos, keys and chords) you do and do not want copied.