Speed or Pitch & Time

[kperry]

Hi all-
We're in the midst of a project which originated as PAL HD, and we're attempting to create a 23.976 HD master using the D5. However, this, of course, creates the issue of a 4.01% speed change and pitch shift. I've downloaded the demo of Pitch & Time, which seems to be achieving OK results, but I can't get the Speed demo to even preview. What's the general consensus on which is the better plugin? Pitch & Time does appear to keep phase coherency on a multichannel track pretty well, and Speed only appears to have stereo and mono modes...

[crizdee]

Hello,

I have both and pitch & time is the better for quality! and speed is better for .....? you guessed it!

Regards

Chris

[FlorianE]

Pitch'n Time is certainly nice with music.
Be careful when you use it on dialog. It tends to add a phasey, almost bathroom type of reverberation.
If you shift from within a session, you can shift music and dialog separately, and then you should certainly also try Digi's Audiosuite Shifter on dialog. With a bit of tweaking, it does better there than Pitch'n Time.

Shifting a final mix is bad news anyway. Drop the plug-ins, get the Dolby shifter.

Cheers
Florian

[Kuba Pietrzak]

yes, I also have very bad experience with Pitch'n'Time and dialogs...
the only solution that work in most cases (exept Dolby) is using any hard-disk recorder with fixed vari speed (-4%) and TC M6000 turned into pitch shift mode; that works great on dialogs, music, fx and you don not loose phase corelation...
Best regards
Kuba

[tomcat]

i have not found speed to sound good on any material i have tried. Pitch 'n Time is great, though the dx issue is something to be careful of.

[K.B.]

There was an interesting thread here a while ago about time stretching, but no definitive conclusions came out of it.


I'm intrigued by Florian's statement

Shifting a final mix is bad news anyway. Drop the plug-ins, get the Dolby shifter.

I'm working on a short film using PTLE. I have some dialog that I'd like to slow down, and (ideally) shift the pitch up a notch. I'll be going elsewhere to get a proper final mix with Dolby SR. So, should I just forget about trying to do the time stretching here with my set-up, and just get the people doing the final mix to do it with their superior 'Dolby shifter'? (whatever that may be) Going that route, I could then maybe just create a 'sample' vocal track, with all the P&T artefacts, to show what I'm aiming at in terms of timing, but leave them to do it properly on the original vocal. ?? I hope that makes sense.

[FlorianE]

I was referring to the Dolby 585 Time Scaling Processor, which is used to pitch shift final mixes. It will shift eight channels in phase, but no more than 15%. Not an effects unit. And used only after a mix is done.
So don't worry, go ahead as you planned.

Cheers
Florian

[bad jitter]

Even the Dolby box isn't perfect (used it once, +4.16% setting). It can make very bad artifacts to long sustained horn notes. We had to bypass it occasionally.

I was referring to the Dolby 585 Time Scaling Processor, which is used to pitch shift final mixes

[FlorianE]

You're absolutely right. I wasn't trying to praise the 585.
I think pitch-shifting final mixes should be avoided.
If at all neccessairy, one should only shift dialogue, leaving everything else in peace.

(As for music: the one person I know who really does have absolute pitch - a violinist - , told me once that she was never bothered with pitch errors in cinemas, being a mechanical medium; on the other hand, she finds it quite stressing to give concerts in the US because orchestras tune middle A ONE hertz higher than in Europe...)

Cheers
Florian

[minister]

a friend of mine had very good results compared to pitch 'n time, speed, and DIGI, with SoundShifter rom WAVES. he also had to do the 4% shift.

sound shifter