gradual time stretch

[ergalthema]

I have a piano recorded with 4 mics on 4 tracks. I want to create a ritard - to gradually slow the piano down on the last couple measures.

Does anyone have a recommended technique for doing this with minimal artifacts across 4 tracks?

[filosofem]

• Make an Edit Group with those four tracks.
• Enable Elastic Audio for each of those tracks and select Polyphonic.
• Change each Tracks Timebase to Tick.
• Change the Track Playlist View to Warp.
• Change the Edit Mode to Slip.
• Select the Grabber tool and pin by holding Shift and click at the point where the rit. is to start.
• Without holding Shift, select with the Grabber tool the very end of the region and click and drag the region to the amount of ritardando required.

[filosofem]

I should add that when you do pin down the start of the rit. EA will add a Warp Marker at the point of rit. and another one beside it to the right hand side. To remove a Warp Marker use the Grabber tool and hold Alt and click the Warp Marker.

You may want to add additional Warp Markers in front of your desired rit. (left hand side) to edit the start of the rit. without effecting the ritardando itself just in case you like the performance of the new ritardando.

[albee1952]

Excellent instructions above. I will add a little advice. Right after you create your group, duplicate the playlist on one of the 4 tracks(the grouping will cause this to happen to all 4). That way, if you end up with some digital artifact from the EA, you will have the original audio available for more processing(you never mentioned which PT version you have and PT8 sometimes creates a gurgling effect that renders the audio is garbage unless you, either turn OFF EA and revert(and start over) or have a copy of the original audio for a second try.