PT8 and pitch changes with xForm, EA, Pitch Shift...

[acacia]

Has anyone else had trouble dropping the key of a song by 1/2 step with Pro Tools 8? I had a customer come through today who in the past has had me transfer 2" multi track recordings, remix them and then drop their key for performance tracks with great results. Today I had three songs to do and couldn't get a single one to shift -1 semitone without major issues below 200 Hz. I tried everything from Speed to xForm, EA -99 cents... you name it. Individual bass gtr, Cello or upright, bari sax, trombone... or stereo mix tracks are all junk! I've not had a chance to try other things but I thought I'd drop this thread to see if anyone else has had an issue. Thanks in advance!

[hummerZ]

pitch shifting without affecting the time element always artefacts. often as a thump, thud, or garbled sound in the lower frequencies. but it sounds like you already know that!

this doesn't explain why you were able to pull it off in the past without problems though... I think serato pitch 'n time sounds pretty good, out of the options i have.

if your client is ok with the tempo difference, you'll certainly have better results if you "varispeed," that is, resample.

if that's not an option, you could also try out the izotope pitch shifting that is available as a part of Wave Editor (a handy little program, for many reasons) which you can demo for free at http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/waveeditor/

good luck.

[acacia]

Thanks hummerZ! Ya, I'm aware and used to minor issues but what happened Friday was way beyond what would be expected or even reasonable.

[BaileyBass]

Originally Posted by acacia

Has anyone else had trouble dropping the key of a song by 1/2 step with Pro Tools 8? I had a customer come through today who in the past has had me transfer 2" multi track recordings, remix them and then drop their key for performance tracks with great results. Today I had three songs to do and couldn't get a single one to shift -1 semitone without major issues below 200 Hz. I tried everything from Speed to xForm, EA -99 cents... you name it. Individual bass gtr, Cello or upright, bari sax, trombone... or stereo mix tracks are all junk! I've not had a chance to try other things but I thought I'd drop this thread to see if anyone else has had an issue. Thanks in advance!

Are you saying that you were able to do this previously? "with great results".. using what? If you were using PT8, then perhaps a Preference-database cleaning is due? SB