Two for one today! Making up for no videos last weekend! In this video I answer a common question on the channel about Flex Pitch vs. Melodyne, and demonstrate with audio examples. Don't forget about the SKAA giveaway! Links below: SKAA GIVEAWAY - bit.ly/skaamthg SPLICE AFFILIATE - bit.ly/splicemthg ACCUSONUS AFFILIATE - bit.ly/accusonusmthg CHECK OUT MTHG ON SOCIAL MEDIA! Patreon - www.patreon.com/musictechhelpguy Facebook - facebook.com/carneyj Twitter - twitter.com/youtubemthg Instagram - instagram.com/musictechhelpguy Website - www.carneymediagroup.com
@QLYDE The quality of the pitch correction in all versions of melodyne is the same. The toolset you get varies. The assistant version will be fine. It has all of the main editing tools, but leaves out the polyphonic editing function. So for vocal tuning it'll work just fine.
Workaround on the flex pitch artifacts. Keep the original audio. Make a copy track. Fix the few parts that need fixing. Bounce in place. Put back into original track. Or buy melodyne.
Idk why people give so much shit about flex pitch, it's still a great and viable option imo being super easy to use and user friendly for beginners in vocals editing. And I'm pretty sure Apple has been improving their algorithm so it'll eventually get there on par with melodyne. One thing that can't be denied is its cost-performance outplays many of its market competitors on so many levels. (Seriously, you get a full fledged super powerful DAW with all the essential and creative stock plugins / sounds you need to be making good music for 200, whereas spending 400 bucks on a single plugin...?)
When you played them back to back, the Flex Pitch almost sounded like she had a bad cold. I don't know if that's the artifacts or it's all the lost transients. But either way, you've convinced me I need Melodyne.
@@ChristianIce Which version are you using? Most of my edits aren't severe so will I be solid enough with basic melodyne or should I just shell out the $$ on the pro version? From what I hear, melodyne is soo much smoother them flexpitch which I use all the time.
@@RobOnekea To be honest, I don't even remember. I have it installed for more than 6 years, so I guess my version is pretty old, but I've never felt the need of upgrading it.
I’ve only just started using Melodyne and it is insanely powerful and easy to use. It’s so easy and fast to make changes. It’s easily one of the most powerful, flexible and intuitive tools I’ve ever used. I love Logic but Flextime really is not in the same league. And the Melodyne version I’m using does differentiate between the note and non tunes portions of a vocal. 🤷🏻♂️ Must be a new feature I guess.
Noticed that when I got into Recording/Mixing 8 years ago. Thought it was my older iMAC. Today I’m running Very powerful MAC & the Flex Pitch artifacts still were present. Then switched to Melodyne ... just as Josh explains, totally difference between the two. Thank you for all your great in depth Videos. GA
Man, where were you last year when I needed this video. I blamed my computer, myself, and god above for the extra hours Flex-pitch cost me in the studio. It’s a horror show and you are being too kind. It’s utter crap. Melodyne is far superior. If Apple has half a brain they would buy Melodyne and include it into the next iteration of Logic to lure pro tools and Ableton users into the fold. Great vid. Thanks
Studio One bought a license to integrate Melodyne with their DAW, instead of trying to developer their own thing. Smart move. Would be nice if apple did the same.
Anything to get rid of flex pitch. But while we are on the subject I found that the entire flex family of functions created more problems than they fixed.. I might not be working them correctly to see them in their glory, but I preferred the old Logic X before Flex.
Apple should also include a set list maker function for Logic so that you can play projects in order.. Fluqe.com has a program but Apple could Make a better on I think.
@@MusicTechHelpGuy I left Logic years ago to use Ableton/Bitwig for composition and S1 for mixing; S1 has been killing it for audio mixing/editing and the Melodyne integration is super sweet.
Obviously flex pitch isn’t perfect but if you know how to use it well enough, it will get the job done. Not everyone can afford to buy a $500 plugin. Flex pitch is good for those just starting. Obviously melodyne is way better, but that’s to be expected when it’s $300 more than the DAW itself.
I’ve been using Melodyne for several years and it keeps getting better with each revision. Highly recommended! Great comparison video. Thanks, I love your channel.
I like using flex pitch over melodyne when I’m working with many tracks at once (like stack of backing vocals) It’s much faster to just zoom in to exact track and adjust than it is to have a bunch of plugins open. I have also found that often when I hear clicks an artifacts when I’m working with flextime, they don’t end up making it into the bounce. Don’t know why.
is the artifact issue maybe a cpu usage thing? Do clicks and pops go away from a cpu issue once bounced? Im asking bc I know making a bigger buffer can take away clicks and pops due to cpu issues,showing its not a genuine track issue but a cpu playback issue. I dont know however if clicks and pops left from a cpu issue when listening in the DAW goes away once bounced if you chose to never change the buffer. I would assume it could go away since the clicks are related to cpu processing in real time.
I find this is the case for a lot of things in Logic. It is often working fine, it just makes you feel like it's not when listening live. Same happens for automation delay and other things
I used Reason 10 for tuning on a raspy male vocal rock track recently and it came out so clean with no artifacts that nobody could tell that any post-processing was done at all. It doesn't do polyphonic sources like Melodyne can (individual note on a guitar chord etc) but for vocals and even mono instrument (cello) stuff, it works like magic, and much easier/straight-forward than Melodyne (and more simple to use than LPX Flex Pitch too!)
Great video. Issue with Melodyne is that the tuning drops quite often when moving from one computer to another. It's highly unstable - and i've spent hours with the Melodyne folks to no avail.
For electronic dance music producers - the alleged advantage (if you can hear it) of Melodyne over Flex Pitch may be a moot point. In fact, dance music bangers love some saturation and noise. lol. Always grateful for your excellent videos. Thank you.
When I clicked on this video I REALLY hoped for it to be the other way around, but my fears were only confirmed even more.. Flex Pitch is nothing compared to Melodyne, at least when it comes to transparency and making vocals sound natural after editing. I want Melodyne so bad, but just can't afford it :( And thanks for a great video, as usual! :)
After watching this video, I bought Melodyne assistant (the next step up from the basic version). It is $250 to buy outright but I found the biggest thing you get from more expensive versions of Melodyne is the ability to edit polyphonic material. (Pianos, etc.) If you’re only using it for vocal tracks, I would argue Assistant does everything you’d need it to do and more, with a much lower cost of entry, and still the same Melodyne quality.
Great Comparison. It addresses the issues I have with pitch flex very well ... actually I was thinking about Melodyne. Got the test version after watching your video and will definitely go for it. Thanks !
Brilliant! Thank you. Those clips and entry noises are so evident in Pitch Flex by comparison. Melodyne is perfect. It's not hard to use. You just need to understand the sound of a natural voice. Keep up the great work!
You are helping a beginner here; after a bit, I was able to hear the slight distortion/saturation in Flexpitch as well. Trouble is, you apparently used the high-end version of Melodyne; I'm going to start with just the lowest (Essentials?) version that comes with Mixcraft.
Thanks so much for making this! I was on the fence about buying Melodyne essentials (which I'm doing because of the issues with Flex Pitch you discussed) and this comparison made my decision an easy one :)
I just got Melodyne today. Thanks for the clear direction. Flex Pitch leaves too many anomalies. Clicks, pops, warbles. Sad. There is a lot to like about Flex pitch except the final sound. I hope Logic gets it right one day.
I have Melodyne (Editor) and I really dig it, but to my (lackluster) ears the difference really isn't that noticeable, especially in a mix, and doubly-especially not listening through monitors. My ears are pretty screwy though, I have tinnitus and other hearing problems so it's probably just me. I think flex pitch is a great add-on for a DAW that has so many amazing features with flex just being one of them, and the entire DAW costs significantly less than the upper versions of Melodyne. One great feature for Flex is you don't have to print it and re-print when you want to do certain changes and such. I know Melodyne now supports ARA which should solve this, but it's super buggy at the time I write this. I will continue using Melodyne though, just so I can justify my purchase :)
Thanks for this excellent video. I'm a Melodyne user, and agree that its signal processing is excellent. But, either through its own poor quality or some glitch in its interaction with Logic, it has thrown away all of my work several times, costing me many hours. Occasionally the ARA mode will simply refuse to see certain passages, or lose them later, and there's no way to force Melodyne to reanalyze. I'm very unhappy with the product, and wish that flex pitch were better.
What version of Melodyne are you using? In version 4 and earlier, the Melodyne data was stored in a separate folder on your computer, so if you moved your project it would lose the melodyne data. A pretty nasty design-flaw. However, In version 5 they made the data move with your project. So it's been less of an issue for me lately. Just as a good measure, I usually bounce in place my audio after making melodyne edits, just for this reason. ARA is definitely not perfect either. I actually don't use ARA much, unless I need to copy and paste tuned sections (multiple choruses, etc).
Same here. My issue with flex pitch is that it introduces unnatural flanger-like "wobbly" sounding artifacts into the vocals. Out of the blue, a word or syllable will sound as if sung twice, and in other parts, it sounds as if a small but noticeable vocoder or robotic effect had been applied to it. Do you know if these issues have been addressed or fixed in more recent versions of Logic? Which version of Melodyne do you use and which variant (essential, assistant, editor, or studio)?
I've gotta say Flex Pitch has reached the point where its moved past a lot of these issues, at least when you're not pushing it to the extreme. Don't know how good melodyne is at the extremes, but I've had no problems with flex pitch since the last couple logic updates.
I came to this video because im getting sick of the flex pitch tool for this very reason. After 3 years of use I still get the same static and loss of quality. I dont even know how much melodyne costs but im about to check. Great video.
Just downloaded a trial version of Melodyne, Flex Pitch has stuffed up so many of my vocals, weird stuff happens, clicks pops, dropouts, glitches.... my studio mate swears by Melodyne, time for me to have a crack at it..! Thanks for the great video!
I used FlexPitch on my friends vocal tracks, working on some cover songs. For the most part, it worked fine, but it's when I started hearing the "pops' and artifacts when you edit and break two notes up that concerned me. I thought the pops might have been in the recording, but nope, it was Logic Pro FlexPitch adding it. And then after seeing some youtube videos of others complaining about the same thing, I realized it was the FlexPitch. That is unacceptable if you want to sound professional. Now, I am using Logic Pro 10.4.7, which is an older version from 2019. I can't update anymore, as my Mac Pro computer is too old. So I can't speak for the newer updates. Was it fixed? But nonetheless, I tried Melodyne instead. And was shocked how transparent it sounded. I could bend the original vocals to completely different keys, and it sounded natural. No pops. Completely clean. if you do any kind of auto-tuning or music production for clients, FlexPitch is unacceptable.
Melodyne wouldn't have a successful business if DAW pitch correction was any good... it's a shame we need it at all. I personally use it to thicken out vocal parts or sketch out/add harmonies, biutI have the advantage of working with a fantastic vocalist ✊️😊 cheers from U.K 🇬🇧 x
You know I don't mean to be contrary, but I liked the flex pitch examples better. I could hear more breath, more sibilance. It just sounded more natural to me. I have fought these battles in my own songs and I love melodyne. So, just sayin'.
The weirdest thing about Flex Pitch is that it sometimes worked absolutely flawlessly for me. It actually sounded even cleaner than Melodyne and I found it easier to use. So I spent a lot of hours tuning the vocal of a song with it. Until one day, I opened the same project and the whole thing sounded like shit. Terrible artifacts, much worse than in this video. Was devastated, nothing I tried could fix it. So many hours of work wasted. This was back in 2014, and I feel like Flex Pitch's quality improved overall with updates. But it's still damn unreliable.
I'm thinking it's a good idea to bounce the flex pitched track after you've finished correcting, that way it can't change after opening a project like you stated.
Wow dude thanks. The only time I liked Flex over Melo was at the very end, I think the "natural harmonic dist. crap" actually blended the two vocals kind of nicely. But it definitely wasn't transparent, and those dang pops and clicks do piss me off in my own sessions. I hope Logic 11 has a new and improved Flex Pitch.
@@danray919 For vocals I would definitely recommend Melodyne assistant or higher, since Melodyne essential doesn’t have tools for pitch modulation or pitch drift, for example.
Just a lay person when it comes to this, have been mixing some choir videos of late using flex pitch only. Frankly, I really couldn't hear much difference between the two in your examples. There was a slight difference on occasion. BUT, I have found that flex does introduce some weird artifacts sometimes.
Flex Pitch is a little better than Melodyne in that it can do more things quickly. I like Melodyne though, I use it occasionally for some specific advantages it has over Flex Pitch.
The flex pitch sounds so awful there are so many artifacts and just eww, I’ve had melodyne for a while now so I’ve forgotten how much I hated having to use flex pitch and how much time I wasted trying to fix the artifacts
flex pitch works good for me but some of the time it will mess up my vocals and i have to re-record good takes because of it but once i get a take where it’s clear and good with flex pitch then it’s a good thing to have
Thank You! Now i see i have to go back to Melodyne. It’s sound better and flexpitch sounds much more artificial. And I’m tired that to lose more time with problems, blobs and blebs. I have to care my nerves too. I wish, melodyne would be more easy to use.. with handles and better time alignment. RIP Flexpitch.. you was a bad friend
Do you have any experience with Revoice Pro 4? Im currently deliberating between Melodyne or Revoice as its time to step up from Flex Pitch. Thanks (great vids as always btw, amazing content)
While flex pitch version has some weird artifacts, the melodyne version sounds filtered and has lost some transients in the treble range, that's what i was hearing, that's maybe the difference between the two.
When I was in music school we studied microtonal and atonal music quite a bit. Although it would give you more options, I think that some times limiting an instrument or voice to 12 tones, or really even diatonic music helps make melodies sound great. My brain was never wired in a way to actually enjoy microtonal music. But I’m sure it’s possible in Melodyne. I think I’d rather hear it on an instrument rather than voice though.
@@MusicTechHelpGuy There are lots of scales and tunings options in Melodyne. They can be used for microtonal scales and non-Western music as well as sound design and all sorts of experiments. It’s so powerful! Perhaps you could explore Melodyne’s Scale Editor and make a video about it?
Something really weird at bar 109 on both but Melodyne a clear winner here I'd say. Not sure about the claim of the "professional" quality of the original recording
My opinion is that the difference is not enough for the additional premium cost of melodyne. But granted apple needs to work to improve the articrafts sounds which i have had them aswell. But i dont recommend paying for melodyne unless u already make thousands from your music. Save your money and buy 1 apple stock and you’ll be able to afford a melodyne for free...in a couple of years if you still want it. But In time flex pitch will catch up and you’ll be glad u weren’t reckless with your money. Time will fix those issues with flex pitch just wait and see. Just make sure u call apple and complain Lol.
What version of melodyne do you reccomend on a budget? I wanna be able to edit my vocals properly without having to sell my organs on the black market :)
rome8180 studio lets you use melodyne on multiple tracks and be able to edit them next to eachother and integrations like that. It makes it soooo much easier to align harmonies and doubles with your lead vocal. You also get the polyphonic editor which I haven’t found too useful. I would recommend melodyne assistant instead of essential because essential leaves a few key features like pitch drift control or something like that I don’t remember off hand. Definitely essential would be better than flex pitch cause you don’t have to worry about the artifacts and weird noises and stuff
Buy the Essentials and in a while, they will offer you a very reasonable upgrade path. I started with the mono only Essentials and two or three upgrades later (over a few years) I am at the Editor version 5 (one of the upgrades was from v4 to v5). $99 dollars every couple of years worked for me and I could get to understand Melodyne incrementally in the process. Obviously, there’s no guarantee they will always work this way but they probably will.
And you didn't even mention the timing issues flex pitch creates. I think one day flex pitch will be a great thing. It's not yet though. Until then, it's melodyne for me.
I recorded a celloplayer with seperate vocals that I want to tune but found out that the cello was tuned to 443 Hz not 440. How can I calibrate Logics Flex Pitch to tune to correct frequenzies?
