Increasing pitch/tempo issur.

[Terry Wetzel]

Good morning. After a lot of trying I was finally able to increase the tempo of a song without changing the pitch of the melody. However, there are now noticeable artifacts,(I think that is what you call it),in the vocal. The instruments sound fine at the new tempo. I am still in Pro tools 9 running on a Windows 7 machine. This was only a slight tempo change, 2 bpm. I am annoyed with the results. How is it that this feature is advertised as a solution if a tempo change is necessary? I assume someone will respond telling me to re record the vocal at the increased tempo but that should not be necessary as a work around. Anyone-?

[albee1952]

Exactly HOW did you make the change? This is what I do and the results are usually fine, and oddly enough, the thing that suffers first(or the most) is bass guitar. I'll lay it out in steps as I think that will make the most sense.

Step 1-open the session and go File>Save As and name it something like "songname_faster".(so the original is untouched, just in case)

Step 2-Hold the Alt key and change any track to TICKS mode(holding Alt will make the change to all tracks)

Step 3-Enable Elastic audio on all tracks(use Rhythmic for drums/percussion, Polyphonic for keyboards/guitars, Monophonic for bass and vocal)

Step 4-Assuming no tempo changes within the song, got to time 00:00:000. Go to the Tempo line at the top and double-click on the flag showing the song tempo/BPM. In the new window showing the current/old tempo, type in the new tempo and hit enter(if it WAS 110 BPM, type 112 or whatever you need). Once you hit Enter, the new tempo should have made all audio/midi/instrument tracks stretch(how obvious this looks will depend on how far out your zoom setting is).

Play it back and see how it sounds. With a small change of 2-4 BPM, things SHOULD be sounding fine. At this point, Hit SAVE. You can disable and commit the Elastic Audio processing on each track. If you have X-Form as an option(under Elastic Audio algorithms), you could switch to X-Form BEFORE you disable/commit and that MIGHT result in fewer artifacts(using X-Form will take a lot longer to render so wait for all the audio to come back from being in grey before doing anything else. Maybe go make lunch and come back later). Having said that, I stretched a song yesterday by 5 BPM, using the Polyphonic algorithm and it sounded fine(but it only had 2 acoustic guitar tracks, a vocal track and a click(recorded from a drum machine).

Another option; download the demo of Serato Pitch 'N Time. Consolidate all audio tracks so they all start at 00:00:000 and end at the same time. Highlight all the audio and go to the Audiosuite menu and open Pitch 'N Time(might be in the PITCH subcategory or the OTHER subcategory). Type in the original tempo and the desired tempo in the appropriate boxes on the plugin and hit RENDER. Serato is a really good sounding plugin for changing either tempo or pitch and the free demo is good for a week or two(plenty of time to process a song).

[Terry Wetzel]

Thanks Dave for the very detailed instructions. I've never used X form so when I do I'll be patient. When you say "disable and commit each track before selecting X form," are you saying to take each track off of Elastic audio before clicking on X form? Do I leave each track ,("Polyphonic, Rhythmic, etc." ) as is? Finally, I'm not understanding the term and use of the word "COMMIT"! If you recall I am still stuck with PT's 9 so does commit mean save as or what? I just want to be sure that we are singing from the same hymn book.

[albee1952]

Nope. Whatever algorithm you start with, switch it to X-form first. THEN switch to NONE and Commit. You might also visit youtube and watch a couple of videos on using Elastic Audio, just to help "burn" some of it into the brain bucket(this "getting old" crap isn't for sissy's)

[Terry Wetzel]

Thanks Dave. I'll take your advice and check out Youtube. I've learned quite a bit there but it seems that most videos are either Mac or more recent versions of pt's I'll let you know when and if I succeed. (I'm sure you wont sleep well until you know!)

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by Terry Wetzel

Thanks Dave. I'll take your advice and check out Youtube. I've learned quite a bit there but it seems that most videos are either Mac or more recent versions of pt's I'll let you know when and if I succeed. (I'm sure you wont sleep well until you know!)

In the case of Elastic Audio, there's no difference between PC and Mac

[[email protected]]

Sometimes when a line is too high for my vocalist, I dial the whole project down in elastic audio a half or whole step so they can hit the note. Then when I lift it up to the actual key of the song, their voice gets that 'mickey mouse' tone. Are there any tips for mitigating this?

Chris

Protools 10

[Terry Wetzel]

Thanks Chris. My point in posting this was to find out how to go about changing pitch, not necessarily tempo, which I already know how to do. As you say, it would put the key of the song lower or higher to enable a singer,(me in this case), to be more at ease as far as hitting the higher notes. I have abandoned even attempting the method that albee so helpfully described because the results for vocals sounds ridiculous, silly and just not useable unless one is looking for ridiculous and silly sounding effects! My advice, for what it's worth. Make sure the song is recorded in the proper key to begin with.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by [email protected]

Sometimes when a line is too high for my vocalist, I dial the whole project down in elastic audio a half or whole step so they can hit the note. Then when I lift it up to the actual key of the song, their voice gets that 'mickey mouse' tone. Are there any tips for mitigating this?

Chris

Protools 10

About the only chance you have of "fixing" this is to change the formant. Melodyne, Autotune and Soundtoys Little Alterboy can do that, but go easy with it. If you are only pitching up by 1-2 semitones, a slight fomant shift will probably make it sound okay. Beyond that, it would be best to get a singer that can hit the notes