Celemony Software GmbH is a German

music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

company that specializes in digital audio

pitch correction Pitch correction is an electronic effects unit or audio software that changes the intonation (highness or lowness in pitch) of an audio signal so that all pitches will be notes from the equally tempered system (i.e., like the pitches on a piano ...

software. It produces Melodyne, a popular audio pitch modification tool similar to

Auto-Tune Auto-Tune (or autotune) is an audio processor introduced in 1996 by American company Antares Audio Technologies. Auto-Tune uses a proprietary device to measure and alter pitch in vocal and instrumental music recording and performances. Auto-T ...

, although the program itself is a manual tuning software.

History

Celemony was founded in October 2000 by Peter Neubäcker, Prof. Dr. Hildegard Sourgens and Carsten Gehle. It is based in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. In 2009, Melodyne won an MIPA Award for Most innovative product. In 2011, Celemony released Capstan, a stand-alone audio restoration software that eliminates wow and flutter from digital recordings. In October 2011, Celemony and

PreSonus PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc. (often known and styled as PreSonus) is an American manufacturer of professional audio equipment and software, used to create, record, mix, and master music and other audio. This includes their line of digital aud ...

introduced

Audio Random Access Audio Random Access (commonly abbreviated to ARA) is an extension for audio plug-in interfaces, such as AU, VST and RTAS, allowing them to exchange a greater amount of audio information with digital audio workstation (DAW) software. It was dev ...

(ARA), an extension for audio plug-in formats like AU and VST that permits to exchange data between them which is supported by several DAWs.

Melodyne

Three years before Celemony was founded, Peter Neubäcker was working on a research experiment with sound. This experiment later turned into the Melodyne pitch correction product. Melodyne has become a tool which is used by a large number of professional record producers worldwide to tune and manipulate audio signals, typically a singer's vocals. Melodyne also has facilities for time-stretching, rebuilding melodies. It can also be used to aid the creation of backing vocals from an existing lead vocal. The first public viewing of Melodyne was at the Winter

NAMM Show The NAMM Show is an annual event in the United States that is organized by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), who describe it as "the industry’s largest stage, uniting the global music, sound and entertainment technology commun ...

in 2001 and it has since won various awards. As of May 2020, the current release is Melodyne 5. The most important new features of Version 5 relate to the correction of intonation on vocal tracks. The

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

now detects the presence and extent of the unpitched (noise-like) components of the vocal sound as well as breaths, which it then processes separately from the pitched components. The volume balance between the pitched and unpitched components can be adjusted. New possibilities for dynamic contouring are afforded by the Fade Tool and the Leveling Macro, as they too work on a per-note basis, even with polyphonic audio material. With the Chord Track (and the Pitch Grid configured accordingly), recordings and samples can be adapted to the harmonic structure and chords of songs. Artists who use the software include

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, bandleader, and composer. Hancock started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. He shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he hel ...

Björk Björk Guðmundsdóttir ( , ; born 21 November 1965), known mononymously as Björk, is an Icelandic singer, songwriter, composer, record producer, and actress. Noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona, she has de ...

Coldplay Coldplay are a British Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer Will Champion and creative director Phil Harvey (manager), Phil H ...

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and activist. He rose to fame as the original lead singer of the progressive rock band Genesis. After leaving Genesis in 1975, he launched ...

and

Thomas Newman Thomas Montgomery Newman (born October 20, 1955) is an American composer and conductor best known for his many film scores. In a career that has spanned over four decades, he has scored numerous films including '' The Player'' (1992); '' The S ...

. It is also used in classical music for the pitch analysis of speech. Composer Jonathan Harvey and

IRCAM IRCAM (French: ''Ircam, '', English: Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music) is a French institute dedicated to the research of music and sound, especially in the fields of avant garde and electro-acoustical art music. It is ...

engineers used Melodyne to extract melodic material for his composition '' Speakings''.

Direct Note Access

Polyphonic note separation & manipulation

Direct Note Access (DNA) allows independent manipulation of individual notes within chords and polyphonic recordings. Originally announced at Musikmesse Frankfurt 2008 to be released at the end of that year, it was later postponed to Q1 2009, then finally released on 16 November 2009 as part of Melodyne editor. On 14 January 2016, Celemony integrated DNA into their multitrack software Melodyne studio (version 4).

Grammy Award

Celemony received a Special Merit/ Technical Grammy Award at the

54th Grammy Awards The 54th Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 12, 2012, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles being broadcast on CBS honoring the best in music for the recording year beginning October 1, 2010 through September 30, 2011. LL Cool J hosted t ...

in February 2012 for "contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field."

References

External links