Holding/Freezing a Note in DP

[gspin]

Hi everyone, sorry if this has been answered somewhere before on the forum but unfortunately my searches all pull up "track freezing" or "dp freezing" (i.e., crashes, quits).

My question is whether in DP you can take a portion of audio, say a single note or chord in a solo, and "freeze" it such that it sustains for a number of seconds. This would be something similar to what the Electro Harmonix "Freeze" pedal does. I am experimenting with scale time (and with a software called Amazing Slow Downer) which basically reduce speed while maintaining pitch but the results are a little too unnatural sounding.

I know that the obvious solution would be to re-record the audio and have the player sustain the note, but this is not an option in the case I am dealing with.

Any advice would be most appreciated. Cheers

gspin

[buzzsmith]

I'm not aware of such a function within DP. I've had moderate success with ASD, too, if you don't have to stretch too far.

And sometimes if you can copy a little of the note that you want to stretch you might try moving this new segment down and cross fading between the segments.

Tricky, and you really have to find the best part of the waveform for this to even approach "working".

If the note is really featured in the mix, this may not work at all. In the background...maybe.

Buzzy

[MIDI Life Crisis]

"What you seek is MachFive with IRCAM." ~ Yoda (Star Wars reference to follow)

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEJiH3rVFB8

[mikehalloran]

"What you seek is MachFive with IRCAM." ~ Yoda

I recently used it to make a middle chorus I wanted on a live to stereo track sound like the final chorus with a hold on the last note. The vocals and band sounded natural. Quite impressive.

There are many programs that qualify for a competitive crossgrade. I posted this in a thread in the MachFive section.

[stubbsonic]

Yes, the time-stretch function (grabbing the upper corner of the soundbite so the cursor is a fist) can sometimes yield poor results. But a quick note: FIRST- select the single note or chord, then COMMAND-Y to make it its own region, then stretch as much as needed. See how it goes.

If that fails, another good trick is the bi-directional loop. Take the sustain portion of the note or chord, and paste it onto the end of the original, where you want the extension. (Make sure EDGE EDIT COPY is enabled in the mini-menu). Now select the extension and choose reverse from the AUDIO/Apply Plugin... list. Now you can move, trim and cross fade until you get it to sound smooth. Ideally, you'll have the crossfade happing at the point where the end of the original sustain and the start of the reverse sustain are at approximately the same part of the sound.

I.e. if the overlapping Soundbites are "1, 2, 3, 4..." and "...4, 3, 2, 1" you can trim so the crossfade happens on the same "number". Depending on the type of sound, you might need to avoid the attack portion and just keep doing 3 4 the 4 3, with crossfading and fade out.

[bayswater]

Stretching the soundbite is the simplest DP function for this. Cut it so the section you want sustained is isolated, and drag the upper right corner to the right. If ASD gave you a poor result, this might too, although within DP you have the ability to stretch specific parts of the sound.

You can also set a loop in the Wave Edit window. Whether that works depends on how the sound varies during the section you want to sustain. In other audio utilities that do loops, you might have better results using things like back and forth looping, and lots of cross fading.

As mentioned, Mach Five will do it, but that's a pricey way to go if this is the only time you'll use it.