Melodyne Uno is a single and easy-to-use edit window. Volume command, transport controls, tempo selection (time signature, click volume and stretch controls) appear in the upper part of the window. When the time-stretch function is active, not only the bar/time ruler but also the date itself expands and contracts as you click on the Tempo box and drag the mouse pointer, respectively, downwards or upwards. Finally on the right, we find correction macros buttons, to access the correct pitch and quantize time parameters.

Just under the upper part, we find the Time Ruler, displaying time in bars and beats or seconds, and the "Notation" section. This latter displays notes in conventional notation on a G clef single stave. The Stave icon toggles the notation display on and off.

The main window vertically displays the Note Ruler that identifies the tonality (C, C#, D, D#,...) and horizontally displays time. Please note that when the "Snap" button is selected, blobs snaps to the nearest degree of the selected scale. The sounds are represented by "blobs". Their thickness is indicative of their amplitude, so each blob displays the amplitude envelope of the note to which it refers. We can either display or not separation lines between the blobs.

First steps in editing audio

Pitch recognition functions are often poor in many softwares. It's not the case with Melodyne Uno, and it's even its main trump. The software can analyse audio samples with infinite precision and very few mistakes. I have loaded different files - contemporary instrumental music with a complex notation - and I have encountered no pitch recognition problem. Time and rhythm analysis recognition is equally impressive. On loaded files, I have met no problem, even with complex rhythms.





In "normal mode", audio editing is so intuitive, simple and effective that there's no need to write a long explanation. The edit mode allows you to simply move up or down sound blobs to change their pitch. You can also stretch blobs to modify the duration. The result is immediate and the sound quality is really good.

Expert Tools



The "View" menu displays the "Expert Tools". These five advanced functions are the two pitch and stretch functions already mentioned above, and three others : the Edit formants tools, the Edit Amplitude Tools, the Note and Segment separation tool. Each tool is multi-function and gives you a powerful set of editing options, including several parameters. Here again, simplicity is obvious, even for Expert Tools. For example, to modify the amplitude of a blob, you only have to select the Amplitude Tool, and click on a note, and drag upwards, it becomes louder; downwards, softer. Tools for editing formants, and tool for editing transition between formants, are particularly easy-to-use, as we can see on the following screenshot. And of course the audio result is convincing.




In conclusion

It seems difficult to give a neutral point of view on a software which is one of my favourites and to find drawbacks to it. However there's no user's manual in other languages, for example French as it was announced.

During this review, the software was totally stable on both the Built-in Audio and on the Digidesign Core Audio Manager. Melodyne Uno was particularly reactive on a G5 PowerMac. Because I was curious I installed it on a G3 iBook to edit formants in the sun in my garden. On this configuration Melodyne was able to load a 6.30-minute sound file in less than 4 seconds and was perfectly stable.

Melodyne Uno analysis engine seems to be as powerful as Melodyne's. It has been great pleasure to work on such a purely musical, powerful and intuitive software. Melodyne Uno allows any experimentation with a perfect sound result. As an electroacoustic and contemporary music composer, it was the software missing in my set of softwares. Today it is part of it as much as some other major softwares.
About the author: clouvel
Electroacoustic music composer @ sound designer


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