Melodyne - Direct Note Access

I haven't been dazzled by a product in quite some time and usually on this blog we don't care about new products but rather how people use them. For a while now I've known that a few of my friends have been Melodyne users because mainly, they can't seem to shut up about how dope it is. But tonight, a friend sent a youtube video (he's one of the few people I actually click links from) that has finally proven to me that this product innovative, clearly exceptional and groundbreaking. Ok, so these three adjectives are really mundane but I swear Melodyne is more impressive than my vocabulary. Celemony Product Comparison Sheet


It's hard to comprehend that audio is now easily manageable as MIDI notes. Direct Note Access, or as the clever marketing team over at celemony call it: DNA, is opening a door I've always regarded as closed. I thought Logic's audio to MIDI function was impressive, but ate serious ass when it came to translating any audio file with more than one note. Melodyne's ability to decipher how many parts are playing, what frequency they're at and ability to edit them clearly blows my mind and defies everything I'm used to. I can't really see myself trying to fix guitar or vocal harmonies, rather trying DNA on really complex audio sources and see how it responds. Or testing it's limits, finding glitches and exploiting whatever characteristics this program has. I do have questions on how it reacts to effected sound sources, like distorted guitars, complex synth patches and the sound of Justin's voice.

It's nice to know that Justin and I don't have to do the dozens of takes on our barber shop project (mainly from my crying). Finally we can play our modular synths without tuning them (did I ever before?). And finally people who play Rock Band/Guitar Hero may actually sound good after using Melodyne (with alcohol...... and roofies). Although it is slated to be released in Fall 2008, if you buy the plug-in version 1 for $299 now, you'll get the upgrade to version 2, which includes DNA, free. Normally version 2 will be $399.

In other 'news', the tour starts up again in a couple of weeks. It has truly been a rollercoaster and I'm exhausted. I have a few gigs left, the next one is in Paris on the 29th of April, a few other random places, finishing up in Amsterdam then it's back to Chicago in May. I want to thank everyone involved and everyone that came out so far.