Tin ear or Protools bug?

[Terry Wetzel]

I've held off posting this problem but I'm so fed up with it I am at my wits end so, here goes. Yes, I'm 76 years old and I am well aware that hearing problems can result with age. However, I have my ear canals professionally cleaned twice a year. Hearing tests I've undergone do show some loss above 8Khz. I am experiencing an issue that I believe is related to PT's 12. The current song I'm working on Has a Piano, 2 guitars and electric bass. The intro has each playing the same note,(D sustained). The notes are sustained for 8 beats, (8, 1/8th notes) in unison, for 2 bars. As I listen I can hear the notes go flat! I use equal temperance tuning on guitar. The bass is tuned to A440 with a Peterson strobe and the Piano, a Yamaha,DGx500, Is at 000 mid scale,(neither - or +). Now, is it possible that the progression to flat sounding is a result of linear recording?
I know this may seem ignorant to a learned musician but I am self taught so please don't hold back educating me. Here's looking forward to some education!

[john1192]

Originally Posted by Terry Wetzel

I've held off posting this problem but I'm so fed up with it I am at my wits end so, here goes. Yes, I'm 76 years old and I am well aware that hearing problems can result with age. However, I have my ear canals professionally cleaned twice a year. Hearing tests I've undergone do show some loss above 8Khz. I am experiencing an issue that I believe is related to PT's 12. The current song I'm working on Has a Piano, 2 guitars and electric bass. The intro has each playing the same note,(D sustained). The notes are sustained for 8 beats, (8, 1/8th notes) in unison, for 2 bars. As I listen I can hear the notes go flat! I use equal temperance tuning on guitar. The bass is tuned to A440 with a Peterson strobe and the Piano, a Yamaha,DGx500, Is at 000 mid scale,(neither - or +). Now, is it possible that the progression to flat sounding is a result of linear recording?
I know this may seem ignorant to a learned musician but I am self taught so please don't hold back educating me. Here's looking forward to some education!

hey Old man .. i am chasing you in age but always nice to see you here ... been awhile ..

are your instruments in a controlled environment or in ambient air / outside air ?? i say this because i do not have AC and being near the ocean i get swings from Sharp to Flat fairly quickly .. minutes !!!

could humidity be an issue there is Sweaty Goergia ??

just a thought ..

cheers john

[albee1952]

Hmmm, best I can suggest is, bounce it to mp3 and email it to me so I can have a listen. I could also transfer it into Melodyne and see if it shows drift

BTW, I was going to call my first studio, "Deaf Guys audio, our loss is your gain"....

[Carl Kolchak]

Have you tried muting individual instruments, one at a time, and seeing if that changes the result?

Depending on how worn in (or more accurately, how worn out) the strings on the guitar, perhaps more so than on the bass, that can effect how well they maintain pitch over the duration of a sustained note.

Another likely candidate is the musician, bending the strings slightly - it might be a case of one instrument actually going sharp, giving the impression that everything else is going flat.

If you rule those out, instrument set-up can also effect pitch - a floating bridge on a guitar with a whammy bar can cause notes to go flat. A pickup set too high (or too powerful a pickup) can exert a small magnetic pull on the strings, causing chorusing, or pitch drift. Intonation issues may mean the instrument is technically in tune with open strings, but as soon as it gets played anywhere else on the fretboard, it goes out of tune relative to other instruments.

But it could be none of the above - I've noticed similar apparent pitch drift, due in part to non-complimentary voicing between Bass & Piano, and also due to the different envelopes causing notes to decay at different rates, and having some undesirable effects.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[soybalm]

In Pro Tools, check to see if you have Elastic Audio on. It would be near the track view settings. I've had piano tracks slightly drift or pick up an artifact by having Elastic Audio on and the track is set to "tick" format instead of "sample".
Also, if you have light strings and/or the guitarist is hitting the strings hard, you will hear the pitch descend as the chord fades.

[Terry Wetzel]

Thanks soybalm.
This might be my problem as I usually have all my fracks set to ticks with elastic audio on instead of samples. I don't recall why I do that. What is the proper or standard method? Should samples be the way to go? Thanks.

[Terry Wetzel]

Thanks Carl.
In my case it possibly be an all of the above situation! My guitar strings are 10's and I do have heavy hand! I try to change strings for a new set at first sign of lower strings loosing tone.

[Terry Wetzel]

Thanks Dave. Love your sense of humor! As to melodyne, I bought their essential version to try it out. soon after they changed it to melodyne single track. Then I bought my new rig and went 64 bit. I tried to contact them because I wanted to upgrade, I think it's Ver #4 now. no luck! Have you heard about the new Waves pitch correction plug? I think it's for vocalists only,(?), but they claim it works for live performance and studio. On sale for 49 bucks right now. I am interested.

[Terry Wetzel]

Thanks John.
Everything is an issue in Sweaty Georgia! But yes, I do keep my instruments in an air conditioned environment and I keep Diadario 2 way humidity pouches in all my guitar cases.

[Top Jimmy]

Terry, I once had similar weirdness in LE8 on a PC. I had recorded a vocalist and in mixing, I made 2 dupes of the vocal track to try out different plugins and settings that I could quickly step through. After getting different plugins setup on each track I listened to them in the mix. The first two played just fine while the third one was most definitely flat. I could find no cause for this but a reboot made the problem go away.