Anybody have new EM mag? DP pitch correction overlooked?!

[James Steele]

Hi all! Does anybody have the latest EM mag. My subscription lapsed, but I'm thinking of going and buying a copy at a newstand as I was talking to a friend tonight and heard something interesting. Apparently there was some sort of pitch correction shootout and from what I wast told they were comparing plugs like Auto-tune, Melodyne, etc. and then the reviewer described doing pitch correction in DP, but in the context of using the SPECTRAL EFFECTS!!! No mention of DP's built-in pitch correction at all, as if this person reviewing it didn't even KNOW DP's pitch correction was even there!!!

From what I heard, it made it sound like DP is weak in this area, when in fact arguably Digital Performer has the best pitch correction capabilities BUILT IN AND INCLUDED in the app. I'd like to know if someone has read this and if this is substantially true?

[Tim]

You let your subscription lapse for a good reason.

[James Steele]

Okay... I want to be fair about this because I haven't read it first hand. And I went to the EM web site to investigate myself but I can't read the whole article without subscribing to the site. From the first two paragraphs it reads as a PLUG-IN comparison, which is fine I guess. I mean DP's pitch correction isn't a plug-in, but basically if you have DP you don't NEED a plug-in.

Because I can't read into the article I wouldn't know DP was even related to this article. EXCEPT if you go here:

http://emusician.com/current_issue/

You will see the following in the online article index:



So a screen shot of DP is involved. You can tell that's Digital Performer so DP is referred to in the article. Now look closely. Even though it's very small... you can see that in the screen shot they have the Spectral Effects window open. There's the little pink ball and the corner of the "checkerboard room." The SPECTRAL EFFECTS window!! Did they completely miss DP's pitch correction? The fact that they'd show this screen shot and not DP pitch correction would lead readers to assume DP has no such function built-in. You wouldn't think the author would miss it.

For the sake of completeness... here's a screen grab of the first couple paragraphs of the article.



I have to pay $5.95 to read the rest. How about they pay me $5.95 and I'll let them know that they can go to the Sequence Editor, click on the drop down menu and choose "Pitch" and something really NEAT will happen! Hmmmm... I see an interesting letter to the editor taking shape right now in Cambridge. Can't believe this went to print. And Homer Simpson went "Doh!!"

[James Steele]

Just to help out EM... here's a screen shot that might be more useful for the article:

[Matcher]

LOL...let's hope they apologize for such an unprofessional article in the next issue.

[wheever]

I let my sub to EM lapse back in the early '90s after the 231st consecutive cover story about "Getting started with MIDI."

Sheeeesh. We need a mag called "ADVANCED Electronic Musician!"

[jlaudon]

I subscribed about 4 months ago, and am still waiting for my first issue. I had forgotten all about it. time to chase up somebody over there.

IMHO, SOS and recordingmag are by far the best music mags for project/home studio people. Used to get Keyboard and EQ (way too much like Keyboard mag) as well, ok for articles about people and a few reviews, but not much to help you get the job done.

[Kubi]

You're right. Not only does he completely overlook DP's built-in pitch correction, he does indeed bring up Spectral Effects as a tool to

"transpose isolated notes in a similar fashion (although the process will be tedious.)"

He clearly wrote the entire article using DP as a host (every example is DP), and not a mention of DPs extensive pitch-correction capabilities. Lame.

[npatton]

How do you miss that? It, along with V Racks, was the HUGE deal with the 4.6 update. Not to mention the "Pitch" option in the sequence editor.

I hope they give the correction more than a little box at the bottom of the editorial page...

[BobK]

If the article's stated purpose is to compare plug-ins, then he has an excuse for not mentioning DP's pitch correction. But I agree - that would be lame. Absurd.

I've used DP's pitch correction on vocals, electric upright bass, soprano sax, and tenor sax, to correct intonation problems and an occasional wrong note. These were in relatively-exposed contexts in acoustic music, and it worked very well. (Couldn't get it to work on flute, however, due to high level of harmonics.)

I think I take it for granted how easy it is to use - no plug-ins to instantiate, or re-launch every time you want to make an edit. MOTU deserves props for this, as far as I'm concerned, even if it's not as powerful as the high-end apps devoted solely to pitch correction.

[Kubi]

If the article's stated purpose is to compare plug-ins, then he has an excuse for not mentioning DP's pitch correction. But I agree - that would be lame. Absurd.

That argument doesn't hold up, because he actually goes into detail on how to use Spectral effects to transpose single notes, even mentioning how it's tedious to do that. Which in a round-about way implies that DP has no pitch correction function at all. I'm sure it's negligence, not malice, but it's very destructive to MOTU nonetheless. I hope they tear EM a new one as we type...

[James Steele]

I think it sounds like it was a major "oopsy!" and the author didn't even know it was there. Otherwise, why mention doing the same thing by selecting a note at a time and using spectral effects?

[Mr. Quimper]

I hope they tear EM a new one as we type...

I'm assuming that readers are just as able to send in their comments as well.

[BobK]

Edit: Never mind! (Thanks for fixing that, James!)

[James Steele]

Quote attribution fixed.