Starting points for editing
Prior to editing, listen to the recording and think about where you want to start. Naturally you will want at some stage to remove blatant flaws like wrong notes or timing errors – that much is clear. With Melodyne, however, you can also influence expression and attitude, and in this context it might be wise to ask a few preliminary questions:
Is the singer conveying, throughout the song, feelings or attitudes appropriate to the words he’s singing? If not, where is he going wrong? Does he come over, for example, in certain places as too laid back/not laid back enough? With the timing tools, in particular, you can steer this kind of nuance with a very light touch.
Are there moments where the singer “drifts off”, where he’s just going through the motions and fails to grab the listener? In such places, the Amplitude Tool can work real wonders.
Are there passages or individual words that sound uncertain or hesitant? And, if so, is this appropriate to the corresponding words or not? With the tools for Pitch Drift and Pitch Modulation, you can emulate a more self-confident delivery.
So with Melodyne, it isn’t always about correcting objective errors; there’s also the subjective coloring of expression. And accordingly, the impact of your intervention can be considerable – in both a positive and a negative sense. If, for example, you are only concerned with technical perfection and apply Melodyne with excessive rigor, the outcome could be a performance compromised in terms of expression and robbed of feeling. On the other hand, however much genuine feeling there might be in a performance, it will little avail if glaring technical shortcomings are constantly distracting the listener.
So you have to reconcile conflicting objectives in your work and also apply different criteria to different genres. The last thing you’ll want, in most cases, is for the listener to notice that any editing of a vocal part has taken place; and yet, there’ll be certain productions in which audible artifacts, obtrusive double-tracking and other artificial elements are specifically called for. Each genre has its listening expectations; whether you meet them or deliberately break the rules is up to you.