Elastic Audio really this bad??

[Thenewexhibit]

Hey, everyone, I just tried using Elastic Audio (all algorithms, but mostly monophonic) on a vocal for timing and it sounds absolutely horrible. I was quite shocked at how bad it sounds actually.

Thing is, on my old setup of my Macbook Pro with Pro Tools 12.5.2, it used to work fairly well and you could get a way with a lot!

But now, I'm on my new system of a Mac Pro Trashcan and Pro Tools 2020.12.0 and I unfortunately wouldn't consider ever using it again haha maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but I was quite shocked at how bad it was. And I'm not doing anything crazy; BPM at 67 and moderately quantizing to 1/8th notes. I used to be able to stretch a lot more but there's weird glitches at the beginnings/doubles and strange behavior for barely stretching. If you start a phrase on the beginning of the stretch too, the whole phrase plays in weird pitched up and down sounding weirdness. Is this normal??

As a heads up, I got rid of all of the analysis markers and started fresh. Tell me it was a weird glitch on PT 2020.12.0 that got fixed in the next update?? haha

[albee1952]

Indeed, for me, the mono and poly options often add a digital gurgling effect that is awful but X-Form usually sounds plenty good. If you are able to select X-Form, use that for best sound quality. I have read that some people will do their edits in mono or poly, then change to X-Form and then render(disable EA and Commit).

The big drawback of X-Form is the time it takes between an edit(which makes the audio go off-line while it renders the change in real time). The best work around here is to cut the audio into chunks that fit the EDIT window. This has 2 benefits; 1-it takes much less time to render the changes as you are working on a clip that is several seconds long(instead of a 4 minute clip). And 2-you don't accidentally move things that are off-screen(where you can't see). I tend to use the option that locks the warp markers on each side of the marker I am moving.

BTW, if you have Melodyne, that also does a very good job of manual time adjustments(better than X-Form, but more tedious)

[GregX]

I was looking at using Elastic Audio for time adjustments on vocals because Melodyne introduces random, evolving phasing even on non-adjusted sections that is audible, and visible with tools like iZotope Insight Lissajous meter and Voxengo Correlometer. I had tried the X-Form with a time-aligned EA section, but it did not produce most of the vocal, just a few notes and left large gaps for most of the song. I was wondering if this was because I did not EA pitch align the vocals.

I was going to time-align with EA/X-Form and manually de-ess the comped six-part harmonies, and then use Melodyne at some notes, deleting the other notes in Melodyne so that it reads from Pro Tools for those sections. When you delete a note in Melodyne, that stops the random evolving phasing sound until the next pitch corrected note. I wish I could do the whole thing in Melodyne, but the algorithm is very noticeable, decreasing dynamics and causing audible robotic phasing, to my ears. Hopefully I can figure out how to make X-Form work.

[albee1952]

Hmm, I'm confused as I have never had Melodyne do bad things unless I tried to make it do something really radical. Of course, if you play a Melodyne'd part against the original, it will phase like hell, and will do mild phasing against the source with Melodyne(after doing a "Commit up to This Insert"), but that's never been an issue as I would never play the 2 files together anyway. Maybe describe in the utmost detail what you are doing as maybe someone can spot a flaw

[brianjanthony]

Its late my brain is shot... but are you having artifacts in Melodyne on S and Ts and etc like that? Which version of Melodyne? Inside PT or Standalone? I helped beta test and have been using for more than a decade. There are tools within melodyne and techniques to remedy that sound. Also, timing issues have been an issue in some builds. (This was a bugaboo I think when I was a tester on md3). Anyways, message me or find me if you need a hand.