Elastic audio drum editing, is x-form broken in PT8!!???

[Sam H]

I have been doing this same process since elastic audio came out. Group drums, enable elastic in Rhythmic mode - real-time, make adjustments until happy with timing, set algo to x-form, wait for a long time - then be extremely happy with result.

When PT8 came out and I updated, my process simply doesnt work anymore - its all the same and great until I render in x-form. I still wait a bloody long time, then when it is done rendering I listen and all the transients are mashed, phase is smeared all over the place and shifts around like a dodgy junkie.....the transient issue is really bad as i hear a weird sound before the snare like the sound of a stick swinging through the air just prior to each hit. This sound is never there when in rhythmic mode. only then the cymbals sound like dogballs....

Even transients I never even touched with the evil hand of warp are screwed....

Now....

If i take the same session at the stage where I have made all my corrections in rhythmic algo, over to PT 7.4.2 (yep i went back there) and switch/render to x-form in good ole 7.4.2 then my drums come out sounding perfect!

I cant find any info about this in my searches....i am confused here as surely if things are as bad as I hear my drums in PT8 there would be people screaming blue murder all over the internetz no!!!???

Anyone else find that xform in PT8 on MT drums is definately broken, if its user error then where am I going wrong here that didnt used to trip me up in 7.4?????

Cheers

Sam

[sowby]

Instead of using x-form, I would just use EA as normal, then when you want to commit your audio, select all and consolidate all regions. This will render the EA. You can then disable EA on all those tracks.
Another way is to use EA as normal, then when you disable EA on all the tracks, it will give you an option to Revert or Commit.
Personally, I try not to use EA at all, too many issues. If any editing is needed, I still do it manually.

[Sam H]

Thanks for your reply mate...

Problem is x-form really kicks the ass of the rythmic algo sonically, and I need to use lots of elastic as some stuff comes my way quite badly recorded and played and i need to mix it quick and to a budget these days.....I am extremely quick at quantizing drums in EA now and my new machine means x-form is too long to render anymore really...

I am more interested as to why it works in 7.4 and not in 8? Does no one out there render to xform with their drums??? Or can anyone say it is different on their machine? I have had this across 3 different machines on OSX and Winxp/7 now. It really sounds miles ahead of the other algo's....so i am going back to live in 7.4 till this seems sorted

[ryanwilsonfive]

i never used elastic audio in 7.4, but i will say that 'x-form' in 8 hasn't been killing me. i used 'x-form' the other day to pitch shift and noticed a difference between that and the other algos, but i've tried it on drums and didn't notice a huge difference. not enough for the amount of time it takes to render. for best results, i use 'rhythmic' on anything with a hard attack/obvious transients, like kick, snare, toms, and use 'polyphonic' on overheads, hats, etc. it sounds the best in my opinion. doing everything in 'rhythmic' almost always sounds like a streaming lo-fi mp3 being played from a sony minidisc walkman, while i'm swimming under water on a hot summer day.

[AlexLakis]

Sam, I just upgraded to 8.0 at my editing rig at home, and I've noticed that X-form sounds TERRIBLE compared to 7.4. The difference is clearly audible. I'm doing some tests with the same session in 7.4 today at the studio and should hopefully get some time to post my findings by tomorrow.

EDIT: Posted my findings in this thread: http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?t=273219

[sw rec]

The last time I used X-form, it actually ADDED a beat, giving me one stand-out 5-beat measure.

[Sam H]

So has this been at all officially recognised by Digi/Avid/Whoever?

At this time I am really telling any studios I work with not to move off 7.4.2 - as elastic audio x-form is totally fubar'd in v8. I haven't tried 8.4 yet - almost cant be bothered unless someone can point me to where it says this BUG has been fixed.

I really am amazed more people arent up in arms about this - and even more so that this hasnt been confirmed by the team making PT....

Because of this PT8 is bloody useless to me anyways....