When to use EA Polyphonic, Mono, Rhythmic or Xform?

[OutbackStudios]

I've been using Elastic Audio quite a bit. It comes in handy when you need to move a transient just a tiny bit. I understand when to use Poly, Mono and Rhythmic... but when would I use Xform? What does Xform do exactly?

[Wall2Wall]

My rule:

always start with poly or mono. when got it the way you want it...always kick it to X-Form as the last step.

X-Forms removes all the artifacts. It's an offline process. Search Youtube.

[john1192]

be aware that it is a Very Slow Process .. so depending on how long of a piece you need to X-Form ize .. it could take some time ... that being said .. it sounds Good ..

i changed an entire song's Speed track by track .. took 18 hours for about 30 tracks of a 5 minute song ..

[Wall2Wall]

Originally Posted by john1192

be aware that it is a Very Slow Process .. so depending on how long of a piece you need to X-Form ize .. it could take some time ... that being said .. it sounds Good ..

i changed an entire song's Speed track by track .. took 18 hours for about 30 tracks of a 5 minute song ..

Indeed. I did it on a few major label tracks. First time when the VP came in and wanted it a tad bit faster. Track by track (73 tracks) took some time. Not 18 hours though. Maybe 5 1/2. Consolidated each track first. Then consolidated each one again after it was done rather than hitting "commit".

[albee1952]

For me, X-form has 2 advantages(and this may be system-dependent). #1-it seems to never have the ugly artifacts that mono and poly often add to the audio, and #2-it never crashes my rig(which does happen fairly often with the other modes). The disadvantage is that it renders every single move, so it burns a lot of processing time. My solution for that is to duplicate the playlist(which I always do anyway, before EA or Beat Detective editing) and then chop the audio so that I work within a clip that fits on the screen. This way, processing is only working on a small clip, instead of a 4 minute long audio file(this makes the rendering ALMOST instant)

[OutbackStudios]

So is Xform that much better? Way less clicks and pops, less "wobbly" notes and the overall tone doesn't suffer like when just using Poly, Mono or Rhythmic?

[john1192]

thats what we are saying .. no need to read between the lines ..

[elicious]

since you asked in another thread about analysis markers,
often "wobble" in trax can be dealt with by removing
offending said markers…
(without resorting to using TimeConsumingXForm)
e

e.p.s. also, always check the results after processing,
as xform does not not always sound better.
(something that changed after 7.4.)

and, usually a good workflow is to consolidate or commit after xforming
as sometimes rendered files mysteriously can't be linked,
even as your staring at them in the song folder...

[Jongilbert123]

elicious you nailed it!

Unfortunately I didnt see your comment and got side tracked by the earlier comments about "Xform" being the best, so I just moved forward not thinking.

I made the classic case of assuming something is the best because it takes longer or is the "higher end" thing, or the consensus etc...

Just ruined a really good track with Xform and spent the better half of 10 hours going back to revert to earlier poly/mono on these vocal tracks. xform sounds terrible in this case. Polyphonic is the winner.

Sometimes Xform is great, but definitely I agree "LISTEN TO RESULTS" lol.

Hard lesson learned.

[albee1952]

My 2 cents only; the only time I use Polyphonic is if I need to change the pitch. X-Form is my "go to" for most everything else because(for me) it results in the least artifacts(again, this is only my experience on my rig). Every time I try to use Polyphonic or Monophonic, it almost always results in some "gurgling" artifacts.

There are a couple of "cheats" to using X-Form:
#1-separate an area/clip that fits on the screen so it only needs to render a small piece of audio.
#2-sometimes it seems to take too long to render, and when this happens, adding a warp marker will almost always bring it back from its "confusion"
#3-In some recent builds, I have noticed the waveform snapping back after I move a marker, and clicking again on the marker should make the waveform move back where it belongs(where you wanted it)

Last tip(which actually is the "Grand #1" tip); duplicate the playlist before any EA edits(also a good idea before any Beat Detective edits as well).