Elastic Audio sonic quality

[Mark Dann]

Originally Posted by holden

I suspect the main problem with EA is a built-in assumption that transients are discrete events when for instruments like a strummed acoustic guitar they are in fact a sequence of events — The transient starts when the pick touches the first string of the strum and ends when it passes the last. What I think is happening with EA is that the algorithm is preserving only the first part of the transient and smearing the rest of it into the stretch/shrink. You can also hear and see evidence of this with electric bass where EA often considers the transient to start where last note was stopped rather than when the next note was initiated. Consequently when I use mono EA with electric bass I have to go through and check/correct all the analysis markers prior to corrective actions.

A good theory, and possibly true, but explain why I can cut up an acoustic guitar track using tab-to-transient, then use the TC/E tool (using Waves Soundshifter) to shift transients onto the grid, and I get no artifacts. It's night and day better.

If EA could use Waves Soundshifter (or any of the other choices the TC/E tool allows), it would be a glorious day.

[Dizzi45Z]

I will also throw my vote in for either improvements on current polyphonic algos or open it up to use other algorhythms. I think it sounds fine for drums, but it is awful for guitar and piano. I too have tried everything with it.

[pmklein]

I was all hyped up at first about EA. It can do some AMAZING things. But I would have to agree that if you fix an entire track with it, the track can have a "demo-ish" or "loop-sounding" quality to it. Even if there are relatively few artifacts. It's hard to explain.

[fasttraxx]

Originally Posted by Captain Crunch

I too have Speed, and while I LOVE SoundToys plugs, this is the only one of theirs that doesn't rock me, at all.

I find SoundShifter to be very clean on whole mixes (unmastered), and pretty great on drums, as long as you're not going too far. I haven't actually tried EA for that yet...And PnT sounds really chalky to me on drums. Generally I feel like PnT is one of those gems of a bygone era (like Autotune), which set the bar high long ago, but then has been riding on that initial momentum ever since without keeping up with the competition.

Well said, much agreed.

[Shan]

Originally Posted by BDWillis

It takes about as long (or longer) for me to tweak the markers, run EA & then "clean up" the garbage in an EA processed track as it does to just slice 'n dice the way I always have. And sonically, there is simply NO comparison.

+1 on the EA workflow comment. Working with EA is painfully slow. Shortcut keys for the common tasks are essential. All the mousing around with the current EA workflow can be reduced greatly with key commands that we don't have.

Shane

[Sevenlights]

I find that EA does sound pretty bad on acoustic guitars specifically. So what I normally do is set all my own markers get rid of all the junk, put up with the "poly" setting artifacts until I like the timing and process with x-form. If I'm very careful with my marker placement I can get an acceptable results until the processing get better.

[italianguitar]

hi everybody, yes PT8 works great with drums,bass and rhythmical instruments.I does have still some problems with the "coda" of the sound of acoustic guitars,keyboards and pads....Personally I believe that for a professional result you should ask the musicians to play better and better untill you have a very good result....then you can easily move bits and bobs where needed using warp and moving every single note...it takes time but you get the good sound.
Another trick I often use is to record long codas for every chord of the song from guitarist-pianist and all the instrument which I think they will not work using EA...think the last chord of the song....I make 3 of those, long, medium and short.
I can import those "codas"later into the track to adjust the lenght of the chords I edited with EA with no great results.I put just the end of the chords and I then fade it as needed.
cheers from london
enrico

[fasttraxx]

Originally Posted by italianguitar

hi everybody, yes PT8 works great with drums,bass and rhythmical instruments.I does have still some problems with the "coda" of the sound of acoustic guitars,keyboards and pads....Personally I believe that for a professional result you should ask the musicians to play better and better untill you have a very good result....then you can easily move bits and bobs where needed using warp and moving every single note...it takes time but you get the good sound.
Another trick I often use is to record long codas for every chord of the song from guitarist-pianist and all the instrument which I think they will not work using EA...think the last chord of the song....I make 3 of those, long, medium and short.
I can import those "codas"later into the track to adjust the lenght of the chords I edited with EA with no great results.I put just the end of the chords and I then fade it as needed.
cheers from london
enrico

Making long, short, medium chords is a great idea. Like you said, it would be better if the musicians just played them correctly, but I find most musicians I work with want me to fix everything. I tell most people I am an editor now, instead of an engineer.
EA has some bugs, but the plugin has something to do with the quality.
I use Waves, and Xform, but Xform takes foooooorrrrreeeeevvvvveeeerrr.

[Premo]

This post is sorta old, but for anyone with SLOW XFORM 8cs3 speeds X-Form up and makes it more stable.

Fixed: Low memory situations and potential crashes when using X-Form Elastic Audio Plug-In along with many audio regions on a track (Item #112644)

• With several hundred audio regions on a track, switching to X-Form as the Elastic Audio algorithm may cause low memory errors and lead to a crash.

Fixed: Slow preview and render speed with X-Form Elastic Audio Plug-In (Item #112958)
Preview and/or rendering performance with X-Form on Elastic Audio tracks is improved in 8.0cs3 (compared to 8.0).

X-Form.dpm (v8.0cs3) — only if you have X-Form plug-in already installed (optional purchase)