Will elastic audio ever get fixed?

[TNM]

Just to double check, you are manually inserting a warp marker at start and end of clip yes?

Also do you use the shift click method to auto create 3 markers when manually moving audio?

I always do this.

[SomeOtherGuy]

No, please tell me more. I've tried everything I can thing of in the last 2 years to make EA work on piano and marimba tracks (not VI piano, but a real miced Yamaha Grand, which has a lot of real sympathetic overtones from the soundboard that make quantizing difficult). But I don't know about inserting a warp marker at start and end of clip, what does that do?

[Sardi]

SomeOtherGuy, you can’t just insert EA on a track and expect it to sound great. You need to finesse it a bit.

As mentioned above, use the warp markers and move things around. Play with the algorithm settings to make it sound more natural.

The best thing anyone can do when instantiating EA on a track is to turn the sensitivity down for the transient detection. From there add or remove what you actually need. At 100% sensitivity, you’ll have markers placed on top of note sustains and you’ll suffer the warbling effect you’re referring to.

Read the manual, watch some videos and learn how to use the tool to its full potential and you’ll be able to get MUCH better results than just slapping it on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SomeOtherGuy]

Thanks, but I'm not by any means a beginner with any of this. I'm saying I haven't heard of manually inserting warp markers on a clip when it's already an automatic function of simply enabling EA. Why manually add two warp markers, one at the beginning and one at the end of a clip? They are already generated automatically when you turn on EA. But––I'm all for learning a new tip if someone has something that works.

I also routinely set the transient section to about 95%. Usually lesser values result in some transient being undetected. Of course I've selected different EA algos based on content.

Through it all, however, EA is not as effective as Logic's Flex Time in most cases. On a rare occasion EA is better than Logic's Flex Time with certain material, but with Logic new Smart Tempo, they have taken it forward a great deal and it makes no sense to waste time fiddling around in Pro Tools, moving warp markers and experimenting around.

So my typical workflow involves keeping Logic open in the background and exporting audio to it for processing and then importing back into Pro Tools. Not an ideal situation, but it's still much quicker than fussing with EA and coming up empty-handed.

Working with the best tools for the job, no matter what they are, is the way to go until the day Avid decides to compete again in this area (which I doubt they ever will).

[TNM]

don't worry about undetected.. better to add a couple of needed ones manually in analysis view..

then in warp view you move them where they need to go.

I prefer this to over detection with rogue markers everywhere..

Well you asked to tell you more.. I am not sure exactly what to tell you.. I learned it by watching you tube videos, the first one was aligning a bass to be in time and a guitar and i just kept practising from there.

I am not saying logic flex isn't good or even great, and to be honest that's one of the best features of that DAW.. but it's fundamental problems in it's mixing engine is why i left it and went to PT in the first place.. after 20 *years* !

Elastic audio works a bit differently but with x form gets similar results. It's not as simple as just grabbing the mouse and dragging anywhere like with flex, you have to first place the markers in the correct place in analysis view.. then when you shift click one in warp view it will activate the one you click then one either side of it so you can move just that section to beat without affecting anything else. I have a sincere feeling you might be doing something wrong "SomeOtherGuy".. not a dig at you by any means..

Of course there is no graphical elastic pitch in PT.. yet.. for those who own melodyne, don't forget you can use it for elastic style edits for any audio you import in it.. it can do time as well.. you may prefer the work flow of that...you could even try the inexpensive melodyne essentials and it might do exactly what you need.

Remember:
beat detective for multitracked drums.. i have watched many videos on this and they get *flawless* results.. and elastic audio for individual tracks.

[midnightrambler]

There’s no such thing as a “flawless” result for multitracked instruments. The overall effect may be passable, but try e.g. solo’ing the overheads and you hear bumps all over the place. I had this debate on here years ago (we even swapped audio examples) and decided Beat Detective provided a far more sonically acceptable result.

[TNM]

Originally Posted by midnightrambler

There’s no such thing as a “flawless” result for multitracked instruments. The overall effect may be passable, but try e.g. solo’ing the overheads and you hear bumps all over the place. I had this debate on here years ago (we even swapped audio examples) and decided Beat Detective provided a far more sonically acceptable result.

huh?

I said beat detective for multitrack

the demos i have heard were as spot on as any other daw.. depends on how good the user is with it and patience has a lot to do with it, whether you are willing to go through the entire song bit by bit. Flawless to me means can't be heard in a mix at *all*.
I have seen plenty of example with BD where that is the case.

[Stephen Bond]

Originally Posted by SomeOtherGuy

Try quantizing an acoustic piano track in PT, and then try in Logic with Smart Tempo on, difference is stunning. PT sounds like a wow and flutter fest, on every setting you can think off. I wish it weren't true.

+1

Acoustic guitar must be the worst though!

Pro Tools is lagging behind in this respect. 10 years improvement in sound quality has passed by.

Stephen

[SomeOtherGuy]

Correct, acoustic guitar is just as hard as acoustic piano, but Logic can now do both. Pretty amazing.

[SomeOtherGuy]

Originally Posted by TNM

don't worry about undetected.. better to add a couple of needed ones manually in analysis view..

then in warp view you move them where they need to go.

I prefer this to over detection with rogue markers everywhere..

Well you asked to tell you more.. I am not sure exactly what to tell you.. I learned it by watching you tube videos, the first one was aligning a bass to be in time and a guitar and i just kept practising from there.

I am not saying logic flex isn't good or even great, and to be honest that's one of the best features of that DAW.. but it's fundamental problems in it's mixing engine is why i left it and went to PT in the first place.. after 20 *years* !

Elastic audio works a bit differently but with x form gets similar results. It's not as simple as just grabbing the mouse and dragging anywhere like with flex, you have to first place the markers in the correct place in analysis view.. then when you shift click one in warp view it will activate the one you click then one either side of it so you can move just that section to beat without affecting anything else. I have a sincere feeling you might be doing something wrong "SomeOtherGuy".. not a dig at you by any means..

Of course there is no graphical elastic pitch in PT.. yet.. for those who own melodyne, don't forget you can use it for elastic style edits for any audio you import in it.. it can do time as well.. you may prefer the work flow of that...you could even try the inexpensive melodyne essentials and it might do exactly what you need.

Remember:
beat detective for multitracked drums.. i have watched many videos on this and they get *flawless* results.. and elastic audio for individual tracks.

I though maybe you had a new tip I wasn't aware of. I've sadly already tried everything you mentioned many, many times, and it really just comes down to the quality of the algorithm. At this point in time, Logic's is better.

I also routinely use Melodyne to quantize certain audio, and while it's usually better than x-form, it still creates more artifacts than Logic.

I also use BD for audio sometimes too, it depends. At least it's just chopping and crossfading, not squeezing or expanding audio, so sometimes it works.

It just that in Logic it's so much quicker. Don't anyone think I'm saying I want to switch back to Logic, because I don't. There are many reasons why I chose to move to Pro Tools from Logic. But Elastic Audio wasn't one of them.