I recently purchased Celemony Melodyne Editor for my home recording studio after having been blown away by what I read it could do. It can do things that not long ago I would have told you were impossible.

The really groundbreaking feature is that it’s the first product with what Celemony is calling “DNA” (Direct Note Access.) This allows you to edit polyphonic material note by note.

The best way to explain what I’m talking about might be with an example. Let’s say you have a recording of a guitar playing a C chord. The chord is made up of the notes C, E, and G. In the past you could change the entire chord up or down (to a C# chord for example) but you could never “reach into the chord” and change individual notes. With this software you can do that. You could (for example) change the E to an Eb and turn this C chord into a C minor chord.

If you’re anything like me, then you’re probably already sold on this. You can buy it on Amazon.com or GuitarCenter.com now. What’s it cost? About $300. Considering what you can do with this (including of course, old fashioned monophonic pitch correction – and I think it works better than Auto-Tune for that) I think that’s a bit of a steal.

It can be used as a standalone program or as a plugin with your DAW (VST, AU, RTAS.)

The limits to how this software can be used are really only made by the limits of your own imagination. I’m overflowing with so many different ideas of how to use it that it’s hard to decide which way to use it next.

It can be used to correct performance mistakes of course, that could save an otherwise perfect take (marred by one bad mistake) from having to be redone. But what I’m most excited about are the more experimental possibilities. Now I can take just about any sample of just about anything and refashion it into something that will work with whatever I’m working on.

If you want to learn more about the Melodyne Editor you can go to Celemony’s official website here (they’ve got some cool demonstration videos.)