Correcting intonation by macro

In this tour, you will learn how to correct out of tune notes or unwanted wavering in pitch quickly and easily with the correct pitch macro. 

The procedure

Select the notes you wish to edit. If no notes are selected, macro editing will by default affect all notes.

To open the macro, click on the Correct Pitch button in the top right-hand corner of the window.

Here, with the upper slider, you can apply a degree of correction ranging from 0% (no influence) and 100% to the pitch center of the note (or notes) selected. By default, such notes are moved towards, or to, the nearest semitone, but if you check the option “Snap to (the selected scale)”, notes foreign to the scale will be ignored, and, depending upon the setting of the intensity slider, notes will move a certain distance towards, or all the way to, the nearest degree of the scale in question.

A word of caution here: notes often fluctuate slightly in pitch, so their position is based on a mean pitch that Melodyne has to calculate. This mean pitch, or pitch center, forms the basis for pitch correction. If a note wavers slightly in pitch, it cannot be guaranteed that after 100% correction has been applied it will sound right at the new pitch – especially since what is the correct pitch at any given moment depends upon the musical context. The processes involved are no different in principle whether intonation is corrected automatically with the correct pitch macro or by hand with the pitch tool.

With the lower slider, you can progressively reduce the amount of pitch drift exhibited by the notes in question. By pitch drift, we mean the kind of slow wavering in pitch that is symptomatic of poor technique. More rapid fluctuations in pitch, such as pitch modulation or vibrato, remain unaffected.

You can modify both correction parameters in real time as the audio plays back; and hear, but also see (by the movement of the blobs in the editing area), the effect of different settings.

If you have already fine-tuned notes using the pitch tool, Melodyne will assume you are satisfied with the results; this means that, by default, if you now open the correct pitch macro with no notes selected and begin making changes, all notes will be affected except these. By default, notes that have been tuned manually are not affected by the macro. If you wish the pitch of these also to be affected by the macro, check ‘Include notes already edited manually’. The option is grayed out, of course, as being of no relevance, if no manual editing of intonation has been performed.

Exit with OK to keep your changes or Cancel to discard them. Naturally the fact that you have used the correct pitch macro in no way precludes your fine-tuning notes at any time subsequently by hand.

If you select a note that has already been edited using the macro and then open the macro again, the settings previously applied to it will be displayed; the macro remembers, in other words, the parameters previously applied to each note. If the current selection includes notes to which different settings have been applied, a mean value for each parameter will be displayed.

Even after exiting with OK, you can still reverse the effects of the macro editing by using the Undo function.