Melodyne offers, thanks to PSS Polyphonic Spectrum Shaping, an entirely new approach to sound design, ...as Melodyne knows, thanks to DNA, not only about the individual notes in a recording, but also the partials they are composed of. And it’s these partials that you can now edit. You open the Sound Editor in a separate pane. It acts upon the currently selected track. If you have more than one track open in the Note Editor at the same time – here the guitar, there the vocals – the Sound Editor follows your note selection. The Sound Editor is based on an analysis of the harmonic spectrum. The Melodic and Polyphonic algorithms provide it with the information it needs. The other algorithms do not, which is why the Sound Editor is grayed out for sounds using the Percussive or Universal algorithms. So take, for example, a vocal track. Open the Sound Editor, and select, to begin with, the ‘EQ’ workspace. You then have an extremely powerful equalizer with bands a semitone wide. You can reshape the spectrum at will assisted by macros with different principles of operation. The bouncing balls serve as an analyzer, so you can see how your changes affect different pitches. The EQ workspace alters the entire track. That’s what EQs do. Melodyne, however, can do much more, as you can now edit the overtone structure of each individual note. And do so even in polyphonic recordings. In the ‘Harmonics’ workspace, the bars represent partials: the fundamental and overtones. I boost in the guitar part, the second partial. That affects then the second partial of each individual note. Whatever its actual pitch. That's a wholly new form of sound design. Moreover, with instruments covering a wide range, separate settings are possible for the upper and lower registers. In practice, you'll probably edit in both the EQ and the Harmonics workspaces. Their effect on the overall sound is cumulative. That's why you edit all four bar graphs much the same way: resizing one or multiple bars... controlling all bars remotely with the four macro sliders... and shifting the formant spectrum globally, or within a specific range. Two further controls in the Sound Editor work independently of the Harmonics workspace. And they have a comprehensive effect on the overall sound without moving any bars. First, it’s the ‘Emphasis’ slider: This emphasizes the extent to which each note's timbre differs from the average timbre of the track. By doing so, it makes the peculiar character of each note more pronounced. The instrument becomes more ‘present’, more solo-like. Or the reverse: its peculiarities are toned down. The playing seems more subdued, more like an accompaniment. The ‘Dynamics’ slider governs level variations within the note. With it, you can reveal details, such as how piano strings vibrate in sympathy when the sustain pedal is held down. Or you can make the quiet parts still quieter, thereby increasing the dynamic range. Just like with a compressor. But with Melodyne, for each note individually. Even in polyphonic audio. And Melodyne can do still more: In the ‘Synthesizer’ area of the Sound Editor, you have three envelopes per note: one for the amplitude, an envelope for formants, and one for the intensity of changes made to the spectrum. In effect, a dynamically triggered Wet/Dry control. And here at the bottom you can morph continuously from the original sound to a synthesized version. That's the end our whistle-stop tour. Now a few important operating details. When you resize bars, the overall level is balanced. No need to be afraid of drastic changes, then. What's more, there's a make-up gain control for manual compensation. With a multiple selection, it's where you begin dragging that determines whether all the overtones are altered by the same amount or whether a hill or valley is created. With a double-click, you select an overtone and all its octaves. With Shift, you can add further overtones. The horizontal line within – or above – each bar, indicates its original value. You can see, therefore, at all times what changes you have made. The bar to the left of the fundamental plays a special role. Sound components can reside there too: generally room resonances that you might wish to reduce. If you have made different adjustments to different tracks – one so, there, perhaps, so – and then wish to edit both tracks together, the Sound Editor reflects the average value of both tracks. Any changes you make now, of course, affect both tracks. You can check out the precise impact on either track individually at any time. Now to the individual macros.
First ‘Harmonics’, ‘Hi’ and ‘Lo’: ‘Brilliance’ affects the upper partials more than the lower ones. This makes the sound brighter or duller.
The vocals here, for example. The ‘Contour’ of the spectrum is defined as the variations from partial to partial. You can increase these differences … or reduce them. At the left-hand extreme, the original contour is inverted. With ‘Odd/Even’, you can attenuate either the odd- or even-numbered partials. With the Comb, you create gaps in the spectrum. Here, you determine the width of the thinned-out areas. And you can shift the resulting comb-pattern horizontally. Now to the EQ's macros. The first two work as with the other spectra. The third slider, however, not only attenuates every other band but also all frequencies foreign to the tonality of the song. To the left, it's the other way around. The ‘Comb’ slider thins out the harmonic spectrum in a sequence determined by the circle of fifths: the first notes eliminated are those furthest from the tonic. At the rightmost extreme, only it and its octaves remain. You determine which note should be considered the tonic with this slider. Fine adjustments to the macro sliders – and bars – can be made by holding down the ALT key. Reset individual sliders or bars with Command-click. The ‘Reset’ command in the menu, on the other hand, applies to all the macros and all manual editing – though only in the current workspace. You can reset all editing in all workspaces in one go here. Now to the envelopes. These affect each note and they are triggered by the note separations. You shape the envelopes like this: The ‘Attack Level’ decays to the ‘Sustain Level’ at a pace you can adjust. Down here you can zoom to see a longer interval of time. Before ‘Sustain’ comes the ‘Hold’ phase. You prolong that here. And for it, too, you can set a level. You can switch the envelope off here or reset it by Command-click. You shape the Formant envelope the same way. It is then added to the current formant settings in the spectrum. You draw the third envelope the same way, but its effects are different still: With a horizontal line half-way up the graph, you hear one-to-one the adjustments you have made to the spectrum bars. Lower the horizontal line, and all effects of your editing are reduced until, eventually, the original sound is heard. In principle, it's like a Wet/Dry control – except that the control range extends beyond ‘Wet’. Your idea here, obviously, is for the Wet/Dry ratio (and therefore the effect of all bar-chart editing) to be controlled dynamically. The ‘Emphasis’ and ‘Dynamics’ parameters are the only ones not governed by the envelope. So far, everything is based on the original recording. With all your various edits to the harmonic spectrum, of course. But still you’re working with the original instrument. But with Melodyne, it's also possible to completely resynthesize an instrument. The tone color is largely determined by the changing amplitude of the overtones indicated by the bouncing balls. As you move the ‘Magnitude’ fader to the right, you reduce this movement. At the rightmost point, the levels are static – as with the oscillators of a synth. With the second resynthesis control, you can bring the phase angle between the overtones into sync. Now nothing remains of the original sound and you can give it a totally new character using the bars, macros and envelopes. With the Sound Editor, you can implement a concrete sound design idea or just go where the mood takes you. Want to do something radical with the guitar sound? Try making haphazard changes to the sound spectrum. A fresh experience guaranteed every time.
Just like a random generator. Once there, you make more deliberate changes. Or pull all the bars right down, so that the whole track falls silent, and begin rebuilding from the bottom up. Or you can use as the starting point of your sound design the spectrum of another sound. Here, I open the piano, copy its harmonic spectrum, go back to the guitar, paste… and I have a totally new point of departure from which I can then, naturally, explore further.
