Refocus on Pitch Shifting

[contigoni]

I'm still having major problems with a song that I did a considerable amount of pitch shifting work on, not only some minor pitch corrections to the lead vocal, but creation of a harmony part from that vocal.

Initial discussions on some of the pitch shifting bugs seem to have tapered off into the distance (and some of it was in more general topics), but I've gotten a little more information on this one song that keeps crashing DP at a precise point during playback, so I'm starting this new topic in hopes that a catalog of the bugs can be created and will get to MOTU's attention for an update.

Here's what I wrote in another thread about problems I'm having with this one song:

I'm having completely incomprehensible problems with 4.6 in Tiger latest. The first was when pitch automation just wouldn't play back in a song the next time it was opened, even though it was working fine last the song was closed. Then that song started crashing DP every time I tried to open it even though nothing more had been done to the song since it had been working fine.

I dd more pitch editing on an earlier version of that song and everything was working last time I worked on it. Then last night I tried to play it for somebody. Ha! First, when I opened the song Altiverb complained that it couldn't find the impulse response, then I opened Altiverb and it said there were no impulse responses at all. (Nothing had changed on my system.) I played the song anyway, and about halfway through all audio stopped playing back, but DP appeared to be still playing the song. Then there was a sudden sound that sounded for all the world like a rattlesnake tail, and DP crashed.

I just opened the song again today. No complaint from Altiverb, all impulse responses appearing now in the menu. (?) But when I played the song back, exact same thing: halfway through there was sudden silence (counter, wiper, everything still going), rattlesnake tail sound, DP disappear-o.

I've gotten a chance to go back in and study the tracks of that song/version now, and I discovered that there are sections of the lead vocal where no pitch information shows at all. None. Right around where the thing keeps crashing DP, there's one "note" (sung word) that has a pitch graphic, surrounded by other audio information visible on either side of it that shows no pitch information at all.

Today I made a copy of that track, selected it, and chose "Merge Soundbites," hoping that would force DP to reanalyze it all and put the pitch info back into place. DP thought about it for a few seconds and abruptly left the building.

That's all the new information I have on this at the moment, but it sort of brings me to a separate, but possibly related (????) thing I just encountered the other night with a completely different song that was created in an earlier version of DP and that I opened in 4.6.

I have the Background Processing window set to open for everything, and while DP was analyzing the audio files, it gave several bright red error messages on some of the audio files, something completely uninformative, like "Unexpected Error" (ain't they all), and a string of numbers. Never saw anything like this before. The song still plays back fine and I've been mixing it. But it sure is a nagging concern now.

I don't want to go off on a tangent, and I would like this topic to focus on possible bugs in the new pitch editing function because I think it's a marvelous thing if MOTU can just get it working stably and predictably. But I'm wondering how much the basic analysis and handling of audio files was changed in order to build in this pitch editing capability, and if it is having anything to do with these strange error messages--or if my audio files really are suddenly corrupt somehow!

<small>[ August 08, 2005, 10:54 AM: Message edited by: contigoni ]</small>

[contigoni]

Some newer information on the Eternally Crashing Song:

I've been going back opening some earlier saved versions of this pitch editing excursion, and have found one (several saves back) that plays at the accursed spot without crashing DP. In doing so, I noticed that in the one that works, DP's Background Processing window showed a very long list of fades and crossfades that it was analyzing. Earlier, though, when opening one of the versions that consistently crashes DP, there was a significantly shorter list of fades and crossfades being analyzed. Yet AFAIK, there should be the exact same number file-to-file.

I still have a few versions to keep narrowing down on to see exactly where it all went south, and I will watch the BG Proc window to see if this apparent wide difference in fades and crossfades being analyzed holds up in the crash/don't crash versions.

But whatever I find, every one of the now-crashing versions was at one time a non-crashing version. Unless gremlins stole in during the night and decided to vandalize the cross-fade information on the later few versioins, I can't make any sense of why those suddenly became corrupted simply by being opened again.

EDIT: I found the exact saved version where the crashing of DP set in. (It was the next one after the version I'd found that successfully played.) However, the Background Processing window showed apparently just as many fade-ins, fade-outs, and cross-fades as the one that played successfully, so what I had at first though might be some clue now seems not to be. I'm not going to open any more of the crashing versions right now because I'm finger-down-my-throat sick of crashing and restarting DP. I'll try to get around to opening some of the three saved versions that now crash DP and see if I can isolate anything, but I gotta get away from the crashes for a while.

<small>[ August 08, 2005, 11:50 AM: Message edited by: contigoni ]</small>

[contigoni]

More Pitch Editing Crap:

So I went back to the last version of this particular song that didn't crash DP, have spent hours now doing more editing to it, including some more pitch editing.

I wanted to see what I had done in one of the sections of the song in an earlier version (that I'd had to abandon because it started crashing DP), so I did a "Save" and a "Close" from the file menu, then opened one of the versions that had been crashing DP just to see what had been done in one of those pitch-edited track that I wanted to recreate, then closed that file without playing, and re-opened the one I had just been working on.

ALL pitch data (graphic indication of pitch) was MISSING from several soundbites that I had last been working on when I had saved the file before closing!!! Nothing I did would get it back, and those soundbites play now just regularly, with the pitch changes I had made eradicated.

I tried duplicating the track. Did nothing. I tried copying the offending soundbites. Did nothing. Still no pitch information to edit. And nothing whatsoever going on in the Backgroud Processing window.

This is complete crap. This is just "Amateur Night at the Coding Vocational School."

Now I can't edit the pitch at all in this key section that I had been working on. I'm fed up, and shutting down.

<small>[ August 08, 2005, 09:26 PM: Message edited by: contigoni ]</small>

[pcm]

Just a guess, but I think maybe the project document is corrupted. I'd create a new one, and the "LOAD" the soundbites into it. That might yield a stable project.

[contigoni]

Thanks pcm. I'll give that a try at some point. Asimov had the Robot Laws. I think the first law of programming should be "Thou shalt not corrupt thy own files."

But maybe Lenny Bruce already said it best: "Don't sh^t where you eat."