Varispeed audio in DP

[David Polich]

Sheesh, this thread is still going on...that said, I'll add to it,
again...

No one would ever use a varispeed effect to pitch a vocal higher or
lower or tune it these days. So let's get that straight - repitching,
time stretching, and tuning audio are the province of Auto Tune and
Melodyne. Melodyne is the superior plug-in by far. Everyone I know
who does audio work uses it and long ago stopped using Auto Tune.

Here's the second point - and Harley, this is for you - if I used
Melodyne on a vocal track you recorded and just tuned a note here
and there, it would not sound like an effect. It would just sound
correct. Not that you'd need it, of course. But I've
done some metal and hard rock projects where I used Melodyne to
fix vocals, and I never told the band, and they never brought it
up. The comment was more like, "dude, my vocal sounds awesome".

I've "fattened up" metal guitar tracks with sampled guitars run
through amp simulators. I've replaced many a crappy recorded kick
or snare with a sample. I've made a metal song's chorus "bigger"
by adding a synth pad in the background to augment the guitars.
All this was done to make the recording the best that it could be,
and at no time did I care about whether it was "honest". And the
bands were never the wiser. They just thought it sounded great.

You do what you do to make the recording happen. "Well, we don't need
tricks, we're so bad-ass"...that is precisely the reason I got sick
of metal bands. It's a narrow-minded, proud-to-be-stupid attitude
that doesn't really serve the musicians themselves in the long run.
If all you will ever do is metal in your life, fine. Me, I wouldn't
have a house or any money if I had restricted myself to one genre
as a producer. Especially the metal genre.

Producers and engineers don't bite the hand that feeds. If tracks in
the tune need fixing, then they need fixing. It's great if you
are such a monster musician that your tracks don't need any help, ever.
Personally, I've never run across one track in my entire life that
didn't have an issue of some sort.

[tommymandel]

Doctor Vague: Very cool modular synth videos on You Tube!!!!!

[tommymandel]

No one would ever use a varispeed effect to pitch a vocal higher or
lower or tune it these days.

hi David,
What I did on my most recent piano/vocal master/demo was to tune the piano down to A=436 after the vocal was recorded at A=440. It wasn't what I had originally intended to do, but it made the singer sound really sweet, and since the accompanying track was MIDI up to that point, I just printed the 436.0 piano (XV-88) with the same fidelity it would otherwise have recorded at.

And I didn't tell the singer either.

[philbrown]

Doctor Vague: Very cool modular synth videos on You Tube!!!!!

Thanks! All done for fun and someday I hope to do it out live as a multimedia thing but it's a daunting challenge. My oscillators and LFO's are all varispeeded of course.

[bongo_x]

[quote="David Polich”]... Melodyne is the superior plug-in by far. Everyone I know
who does audio work uses it and long ago stopped using Auto Tune.
...[/quote]

As has been pointed out, it all depends on the circles you move in. I have exactly the opposite experience. I know very few people who use Melodyne. I bought the newest version months ago and haven’t actually ever used it, so I can’t say for sure that I won’t like for something at some point. Whenever I’ve tried it in the past it was cumbersome, time consuming and didn’t sound all that great. Auto Tune Evo, the newest version, is pretty great though.

bb

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Replace the word varispeed with pitch correction in this entire thread and (with the exception of "why isn't this included in DP?) ask yourselves again about your objections.

Is correcting a pitch really any different than not being able to execute a phrase in realtime? Is fixing one little out of tune lyric any different?

What about as an intended effect? Personally I hate the pitch correction Cher used to such great effect. (or would that make it bitch correction? LOL)

Or maybe substitute the word arpeggiator for varispeed? Same result?

Sure, they can all be used to make a less than excellent artist sound more accomplished. They can also be used for special effect and musical applications. Are Vangelis or Wakeman lesser players because they used arpeggiators? Would Hendrix be a lessor player had he not used tape loops and reverse tape effects? Should Zeppelin have removed the print thru in the lyric 'way down inside' on their recording of Whole Lotta Love?

I think not. It seems we are seeing two arguments here. 1- Is manipulating a recording valid? Regardless of what anyone thinks, it is here to stay. Get over it.

2- is it cheating to use these tools to make you sound better than you really are? Also here to stay. Get over that as well.

Once multi-tracking and DAWs like DP were on the scene, it was a new game. Wannabes became players (and I personally feel popular music suffered seriously as a result). Some masturbating 14 year old found he could do it into his Cubase rig and make a fortune with little to no talent.

Either use the tools or not. Practice until you get it right or not. Beat yourself over the head about it or not. The bottom line remains that these things are here to stay.

Get over it.

[stephentayler]

so.... little voice in the corner........ ahem.... excuse me........

we seem to have gone on a whole journey far, far away from the initial point of this topic....



AlI wanted to know is..... in DP, has anyone figured out a way (offline) to change the pitch of a soundbite that changes pitch and speed simultaneously, like changing tape speed?

It’s just a technical question, nothing to do with recording ethics or musicianship. I have not been able to find a way, and altering the PureDSP/Standard Pitch Shift/ Time Shift settings do not produce a ‘varispeed’ like result.

If someone would be able to say or prove, categorically, that it can or cannot be done, then I will be satisfied. I’m just unsure whether I have missed something obvious.

There could be a ton of reasons why this is important. Recently someone handed me some 16mm footage (digitised) from a concert in 1969 and a quarter inch tape of the concert. There was no sync, but after trying to match what I thought I was seeing (in other words, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Stevie Winwood etc...) to what I was hearing, I figured that I needed to adjust the speed of the audio. This I did by using ProTools Pitch Shift (with no time correction- which is like varispeeding a tape) and all was well...... after a bit of trial and error of course. But it worked.

I hope that makes it a bit clearer. There are people round here that do things other than just pure music recording and mixing..... sound restoration, archiving, sound art, foley, sound design.

Stephen

[David Polich]

so.... little voice in the corner........ ahem.... excuse me........

we seem to have gone on a whole journey far, far away from the initial point of this topic....



AlI wanted to know is..... in DP, has anyone figured out a way (offline) to change the pitch of a soundbite that changes pitch and speed simultaneously, like changing tape speed?

It’s just a technical question, nothing to do with recording ethics or musicianship. I have not been able to find a way, and altering the PureDSP/Standard Pitch Shift/ Time Shift settings do not produce a ‘varispeed’ like result.

If someone would be able to say or prove, categorically, that it can or cannot be done, then I will be satisfied. I’m just unsure whether I have missed something obvious.

There could be a ton of reasons why this is important. Recently someone handed me some 16mm footage (digitised) from a concert in 1969 and a quarter inch tape of the concert. There was no sync, but after trying to match what I thought I was seeing (in other words, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Stevie Winwood etc...) to what I was hearing, I figured that I needed to adjust the speed of the audio. This I did by using ProTools Pitch Shift (with no time correction- which is like varispeeding a tape) and all was well...... after a bit of trial and error of course. But it worked.

I hope that makes it a bit clearer. There are people round here that do things other than just pure music recording and mixing..... sound restoration, archiving, sound art, foley, sound design.

Stephen

Change the pitch and speed simultaneously like a tape machine? Easy - any sampler will do that.

1.Record the audio you want to re-pitch into DP.
2.Export the soundbite onto your desktop.
3.Load that file (either .wav or .aif) into Kontakt 4 or Mach 5 or whatever, by dropping it on to a single key (C3) on the virtual keyboard (well, that's how you do it in Kontakt).
4. Set the range of the sample to go from MIDI note 1 to MIDI note 127 - all the way across the keyboard.
5. Playing above C3 will result in an increase in pitch and speed. Playing below middle C will have the opposite result.
6. Assuming your sampler is launched within DP, or running on an external machine and routed via MIDI, simply create a MIDI track, assign it to the sampler, play the notes until you find the pitch and speed you want.

That's how I would do it.

[mrbillet]

There could be a ton of reasons why this is important. Recently someone handed me some 16mm footage (digitised) from a concert in 1969 and a quarter inch tape of the concert. There was no sync, but after trying to match what I thought I was seeing (in other words, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Stevie Winwood etc...) to what I was hearing, I figured that I needed to adjust the speed of the audio. This I did by using ProTools Pitch Shift (with no time correction- which is like varispeeding a tape) and all was well...... after a bit of trial and error of course. But it worked.

Stephen

Your ears will be more sensitive than your eyes to speed changes, I think. Are you also considering altering the speed of the film footage? After Effects has the ability to tweak video playback speed as does the latest Final Cut Studio.

Seems you could utilize markers and drag visual hit points to match the audio beats. I've had to do something similar when cutting between free-running cameras. I had to break each camera's footage up into pieces and time align them in Final Cut Pro with tiny clip speed playback tweaks. I think they have better tools for that than I had in Final Cut Studio 1.

-Ian

[stephentayler]

That was just one example ..... I have Final Cut Pro and SoundTrack Pro, have used them for speed change, and as I have mentioned already in this thread (and others), I do use MachFive or ProTools to change speed. I know how to manipulate audio, I've been doing it since 1975, using whatever kit I have at my disposal. I have been somewhat of an expert at 'flying in' audio to synchronise unsynchronised recordings whilst manipulating the tape or sampler speeds in real time .... too many stories to go into here......

The only question was ever.... can DP do it simply and natively?

Thanks for all the insights anyway.

Warmest best wishes to all.

Stephen

[tommymandel]

ST, you mean like this screenshot?

http://imgur.com/G5vNq.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

or rather this one?

http://tinyurl.com/2f9sz62" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[James Steele]

Replace the word varispeed with pitch correction in this entire thread and (with the exception of "why isn't this included in DP?) ask yourselves again about your objections.

Is correcting a pitch really any different than not being able to execute a phrase in realtime? Is fixing one little out of tune lyric any different?

What about as an intended effect? Personally I hate the pitch correction Cher used to such great effect. (or would that make it bitch correction? LOL)

Or maybe substitute the word arpeggiator for varispeed? Same result?

Sure, they can all be used to make a less than excellent artist sound more accomplished. They can also be used for special effect and musical applications. Are Vangelis or Wakeman lesser players because they used arpeggiators? Would Hendrix be a lessor player had he not used tape loops and reverse tape effects? Should Zeppelin have removed the print thru in the lyric 'way down inside' on their recording of Whole Lotta Love?

I think not. It seems we are seeing two arguments here. 1- Is manipulating a recording valid? Regardless of what anyone thinks, it is here to stay. Get over it.

2- is it cheating to use these tools to make you sound better than you really are? Also here to stay. Get over that as well.

Once multi-tracking and DAWs like DP were on the scene, it was a new game. Wannabes became players (and I personally feel popular music suffered seriously as a result). Some masturbating 14 year old found he could do it into his Cubase rig and make a fortune with little to no talent.

Either use the tools or not. Practice until you get it right or not. Beat yourself over the head about it or not. The bottom line remains that these things are here to stay.

Get over it.

Duh...

I'm over it. And as I said if someone is using a studio trick to make it sound like he can play an instrument proficiently when he can't, then he's welcome to do so but I don't have to give him the same respect I give a player who paid his dues and can play his parts. That's all I'm trying to say. Those players wont play live anyway, because they'd fall flat on their faces.

For example... Michael, your a skilled pianist. I am certainly not. Now if I released a record with me on the cover sitting at a piano and it was full of piano pieces that I imply I have played and it gets out publicly that I slowed everything down to play it as well as step recorded and edited... It was all a VI with all sorts of massaging done to the MIDI... Are you going to have a lot of respect for me?

This thread is going the same way the last one did, and I think we decided that "intent" was an important factor. I have songs that I'm working on where it might be nice to have a guitar solo that just burns and is faster than I'm capable of playing. If I want that, the only option that is right to me is to hire someone who can play it and give them credit. What does not ever enter my mind is slowing it down and recording it at a slower tempo so that when it's up to tempo I sound like I'm vastly better than I really am. But that's in part because of the genre I play in and the expectations of fans of that genre that guitar solos aren't faked. It's a matter of integrity. Not to mention that I'd have to play it live at some point.

I'm surprised that this sort of thing I'm describing is controversial or considered stupid or pig headed. Because it's a metal thing? What about jazz? Would Pat Metheny slow down a track to fake out listeners and play a part he couldn't play in real time? I don't think metal is the only genre that has this mindset or ethic.

[tommymandel]

Hi James, and a Happy 4th of July to you, my Country Gentleman. (or Gentle Countryman )
When you said

it might be nice to have a guitar solo that just burns and is faster than I'm capable of playing.

it made sense to me, but I want to point out that sometimes a player who is struggling to express his passion or a musical idea, and is just on the edge of being able to pull it off, for me anyway, is more burning than someone who's sat up in his room for a week to learn a killer riff, and waits for the perfect spot to throw it in. Just my feeling on that issue. Maybe you agree?

[James Steele]

Hi James, and a Happy 4th of July to you, my Country Gentleman. (or Gentle Countryman )
When you said

it might be nice to have a guitar solo that just burns and is faster than I'm capable of playing.

it made sense to me, but I want to point out that sometimes a player who is struggling to express his passion or a musical idea, and is just on the edge of being able to pull it off, for me anyway, is more burning than someone who's sat up in his room for a week to learn a killer riff, and waits for the perfect spot to throw it in. Just my feeling on that issue. Maybe you agree?

I understand what you're saying and if one is just on the edge, that to me is different than "no way in hell I can play that." On top of it, if that person has to play live, and they commit to and are able to play the part on the recording by the time they start performing, than no harm done I suppose. I guess that's like bidding on an eBay auction because you know you'll have the money on a day or two. But if you best come up with it.

I have said earlier in this thread that there's an overemphasis in rock/metal on playing fast and some players seem to play fast for it's own sake. That's why my eyes glaze over when I hear people playing a zillion notes but saying NOTHING musically. It's good to have it at the ready, but overuse will numb a listener. My example of a guy who just plays beautiful leads is David Gilmour. I sometimes get teenage kids write to me through my MySpace and Facebook and they all want to play fast. They'll ask me to watch their YouTube videos and give them advice. Often you'll see a kid just producing a copious volume of notes with a near total disconnect in terms of musicality... creating tension then resolution. I gently counsel them to try singing an idea and then set about learning how to play that idea on the guitar. I also point them to Mr. Gilmour and his solos in "Time" or "Comfortably Numb" or Alex Leifson's solo in the middle of La Villa Strangiato. There are many more examples of "taste" but those spring to mind and influenced me when I was a teen.

[tommymandel]

I couldn't agree with you more James, and thanks for going into it in detail. Clarified