Elastic Audio in 8.0: Where did my transients go?

[AlexLakis]

Originally Posted by Mork_

Here it is if you want to see the difference: http://www.tinblue.co.uk/elastic_audio.htm

Wow, that's kind of scary...

[Happy_Kyne]

Hi All,

Your local neighborhood Digidesign, errr, Avid, software engineer here. I have been responsible for much of the Elastic Audio signal processing work during PT 8.x. During 8.0 XForm was indeed modified to correct for some artifacts that we noticed while doing pitch shifting listening tests. We felt confident that the algorithm was improved after making the changes that we did, over the 100 audio files that we tested with. So, I'm not sure why the experience in the field is so different. Let's get to the bottom of this. If some can provide an audio that exhibits worse behavior in 8.X than it does in 7.4, please provide this file.

Please reply back with the location of the file. FTP site? SoundCloud? Whatever. Thanks.

Mark Jeffery

[AlexLakis]

Originally Posted by Happy_Kyne

Hi All,

Your local neighborhood Digidesign, errr, Avid, software engineer here. I have been responsible for much of the Elastic Audio signal processing work during PT 8.x. During 8.0 XForm was indeed modified to correct for some artifacts that we noticed while doing pitch shifting listening tests. We felt confident that the algorithm was improved after making the changes that we did, over the 100 audio files that we tested with. So, I'm not sure why the experience in the field is so different. Let's get to the bottom of this. If some can provide an audio that exhibits worse behavior in 8.X than it does in 7.4, please provide this file.

Please reply back with the location of the file. FTP site? SoundCloud? Whatever. Thanks.

Mark Jeffery

Hey, Mark! Thanks for your reply! It's great to hear from you, and I'm looking forward to working with you to figure out what's going on here!

I posted files in the 3rd post of this thread. Please see that post for the specifics of the work flow involved (I'll repost the login info here:)

http://clients.killerpenguinproductions.com
login: DUC
pass: quackquack

I look forward to getting to the bottom of this as well. If you need me to do anymore tests/bounces/etc., please let me know. I have an hour or so before my sessions throughout the rest of the week.

Also, note that several others have experienced the same results and posted about them as well on this board. I encourage anybody who has noticed the differences between 7.4 and 8.0 to post their own files if they have the time!

[mykhal c]

Originally Posted by Happy_Kyne

Hi All,

Your local neighborhood Digidesign, errr, Avid, software engineer here. I have been responsible for much of the Elastic Audio signal processing work during PT 8.x. During 8.0 XForm was indeed modified to correct for some artifacts that we noticed while doing pitch shifting listening tests. We felt confident that the algorithm was improved after making the changes that we did, over the 100 audio files that we tested with. So, I'm not sure why the experience in the field is so different. Let's get to the bottom of this. If some can provide an audio that exhibits worse behavior in 8.X than it does in 7.4, please provide this file.

Please reply back with the location of the file. FTP site? SoundCloud? Whatever. Thanks.

Mark Jeffery

aaahhh bit level support...NICE!!! no offense DTS!!

[cyclerec]

I too have found X-form to be seriously lacking, though I'm not comparing PT7 to PT8.

I X-form quantized a strummed acoustic guitar, lazily played to a click so the original wasn't too far off the grid. The difference wasn't subtle at all. Terrible. It had lost all bass and sounded almost like a phaser was plugged in. Like under water. If this is good as it gets, I'll keep struggling in cubase which lacks the ability to work like this across multiple tracks.

THEN, I rendered it in poly. Ahhhh.... Could barely hear any artifacts at all. Very happy. Maybe I'll stick around for a while.

I chose xform first simply because I thought it was supposed the de facto standard for final mixing for all sources. I thought the rest were just for saving your cpu resources while auditioning takes before committing to final.

Edit: just wanted to add that I tried polyphonic on some slightly worse takes, and the change from original is definitely noticeable, but only in certain sections, and I think it will be good enough, especially in a mix.

[AlexLakis]

Thanks for sharing your experiences, cyclerec!

I've tried using the non-x-form algorithms in the past and have found them lacking compared to X-Form. Now, in 8.0 X-Form is even worse than 7.4 Rhythmic.

I tried out X-form in 8.0 on a couple other tracks (drums on one project and cello on another, tracked at another studio no less) and still got the same smeary transient issues. Disappointing.

Mark, I'm still here on my days off if you are up to trying to save Elastic Audio in 8.0. Hit me up at Alex at KillerPenguinProductions dot com if I can help!

[Happy_Kyne]

Hi Folks,

I was "absorbed" by a big ol' Satellite Link issue during the last 10 days. But now I'm back.

Thanks for the audio examples. Indeed, the difference is obvious. I will investigate further. Keep you posted.


Mark

[Sam H]

Is there any news on this? Has it been fixed in 8.1?

It's very very easy to hear the difference for me. Quantize some multitrack drums in 7.4 realtime rhythmic. When happy with timings save session and save another copy under a different name for use later. Now in 7.4 commit your warping by switching to xform. When that is done boot up PT8, open the copy you had saved when it was still on RT rhythmic, and commit to xform in v8.xx.

Now when I do this the PT 8 version has so many problems I don't know where to start. Transient smearing very badly, phase smearing and coherancy between tracks is terrible. It is unuseable - the v7.4 render sounds brilliant though!!! I am truely staggered this wasn't picked up in beta for v8! I have repeated so many times on both windows and mac os and always get a consistent fail.

I truely hope this has been fixed and I can get back to the future from 7.4 now :)

Any news here?

[Sam H]

Still no word on this? Total shame...

[ryanwilsonfive]

Originally Posted by Sam H

Is there any news on this? Has it been fixed in 8.1?

It's very very easy to hear the difference for me. Quantize some multitrack drums in 7.4 realtime rhythmic. When happy with timings save session and save another copy under a different name for use later. Now in 7.4 commit your warping by switching to xform. When that is done boot up PT8, open the copy you had saved when it was still on RT rhythmic, and commit to xform in v8.xx.

Now when I do this the PT 8 version has so many problems I don't know where to start. Transient smearing very badly, phase smearing and coherancy between tracks is terrible. It is unuseable - the v7.4 render sounds brilliant though!!! I am truely staggered this wasn't picked up in beta for v8! I have repeated so many times on both windows and mac os and always get a consistent fail.

I truely hope this has been fixed and I can get back to the future from 7.4 now :)

Any news here?

Agreed, agreed, and agreed. Any news on this? I'm afraid to update to 8.1, since my current setup, using 8.0.3cs2 on WinXP, is working just fine and better than ever. Anyone with 8.1 willing to comment or give this a test run for us?