~1.5 db High Frequency Loss in Flex Pitch Relative to Melodyne

[sunbrother]

If you do an identical edit in Flex Pitch and Melodyne, there's a 1.5 dB reduction above 8khz. This leads to audio coming out of it sounding less bright.

To keep the test simple, I took a whole vocal and pitched it up or down exactly 8 cents in both Flex and Melodyne by lassoing every detected note.

After that, I used dual EQs to listen to below 8khz and above 8khz. When comparing the levels, the levels of 8khz and below were identical, but at 8khz and above, Flex Pitch was ~1.5dB quieter than Melodyne. Lest someone think Melodyne is bright, Flex Pitch also has less highs than the original track.

I think this adds a number to a lot of forum posts over the years I've seen of people saying they tried Flex Pitch and Melodyne just sounded better. Logic reached out to me for additional info but so far they haven't opened my Dropbox link.

Edited October 15, 2023 by sunbrother

[sunbrother]

Someone from the Logic team downloaded my project file so that's a nice development.

[skillzmcgavern]

What sample rate(s) are the audio files/project?

[sunbrother]

Tested in 96khz, 48khz, and 44.1khz

if anyone else could test using my method that’d be cool too. I used a bright female vocal I recorded at my studio in 48khz.

Edited October 20, 2023 by sunbrother

[skillzmcgavern]

I'm interested and plan on investigating/verifying this myself, but I avoid using Flex Pitch when possible because I've found the artifacts more and more noticeable as the years go on. I'm more interested in the artifacts of Flex Time, even though I use it in small amounts without much reservation. Definitely would prefer Melodyne when/if I need/can afford it. I have found Flex Time much better since recording audio at 96k but haven't done actual testing yet.

[sunbrother]

There are other artifacts that are worse imo but considering they happen with Flex Time as well, I decided to focus this test case/report on the loss of high end which is unique to Flex Pitch.

Melodyne is overall better but I would love to just use Flex Pitch

[Lonvc1]

I have always noticed this with flex pitch. I too prefer flexpitch.

Melodyne, when doing drastic edits, sounded weird in the past so haven't tried in a few years to see if they rectified the issue. 

[sunbrother]

I think Melodyne works a lot better overall but for quick short edits Flex Pitch would be preferable, considering Apple broke ARA support. Nothing's perfect, though. Right now it's a transfer/bounce-in-place workflow for Melodyne vs a separate track and High Shelf boost workflow, at least until they fix this.

Edited November 6, 2023 by sunbrother

[sunbrother]

Apple’s been downloading my project file from the Dropbox link a few times. That’s encouraging.

if anyone else runs across moments in their audio where a small adjustment trips up Flex Pitch and sounds measurably worse than Melodyne, try to make a tiny little example project of just that moment. They seem to want to improve it.

[Lonvc1]

On 11/15/2023 at 2:55 PM, sunbrother said:

Apple’s been downloading my project file from the Dropbox link a few times. That’s encouraging.

if anyone else runs across moments in their audio where a small adjustment trips up Flex Pitch and sounds measurably worse than Melodyne, try to make a tiny little example project of just that moment. They seem to want to improve it.

Really hoping that this is a promising sign. Have been considering leaving logic because of this. With no melodyne  ara integration and flex pitch that acts up and can add a great deal of distortion/saturation at times, logic is beginning to make less sense. Would love to see them address this.

 

 

[sunbrother]

14 hours ago, Lonvc1 said:

With no melodyne  ara integration and flex pitch that acts up and can add a great deal of distortion/saturation at times, logic is beginning to make less sense. Would love to see them address this.

Same. For a small bit of pitch correction Flex Pitch would be the fastest if it sounded better. I don't have time to sit down and come up with an equivalent test case for all the problems with Flex Pitch like distorting breathy vocals, weird noises during time stretching, clicks, and all the other spots where it underperforms Flex Time (Mono) or Melodyne. I'm sure they'd look into it if they had one, but that would take more work than this test because this is so easy to see/hear.

I used this whole situation as an opportunity to get better at using Selection Based Processing with Melodyne, Auto-Tune, or Pitch Correction (although, like many parts of Logic, it has a few bugs of its own). I feel like it's faster than a full multi-transfer workflow when a vocal is mostly there, but it's probably because I'm only using it here and there.

That being said, so many things in Logic or 3rd party plugins just don't work well in Native yet, I'm back to using Rosetta anyway, which enables ARA. ARA is great when working with someone who benefits from Melodyne on significant portions of their performance.

Edited December 4, 2023 by sunbrother

[Lonvc1]

I wonder if Flex Pitch is going to get a major overhaul soon. A sibilance tool like in melodyne would be great.