Varispeeding Vocals

[scottcmusic]

You know what? I think I have that video. But you guys have given me some cool stuff to experiment with. I'll have to see which timing parameter to modulate with my keyboard pitch wheel so I can play the flanger while recording this automation live.

Edited December 10, 2019 by scottcmusic

[marcL]

19 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

It's in CbB, too, in the Loop Construction window. I'll often dump a final mix in there, prior to mastering, just to do the old tape varispeed trick.

Maybe in certain cases you can (mis)use it for this application, but if you want to record a vocal track in another speed and go back to the original speed (as requested by the OP), then I do not see the usage of Loop Construction as a solution! ? And secondly Loop Construction does not preserve the natural speed - pitch relation as with real varyspeed, i.e. without artifacts! Try the "Change Speed ..." function in Audacity, then you see what I mean! ?

[Craig Anderton]

13 hours ago, marled said:

Maybe in certain cases you can (mis)use it for this application, but if you want to record a vocal track in another speed and go back to the original speed (as requested by the OP), then I do not see the usage of Loop Construction as a solution! ? And secondly Loop Construction does not preserve the natural speed - pitch relation as with real varyspeed, i.e. without artifacts! Try the "Change Speed ..." function in Audacity, then you see what I mean! ?

Read the 7th post down for the answer to your first sentence. The solution is based on using the loop construction window.

Regarding the second sentence, you can do the true varispeed time/pitch/no artifacts effect if you follow the directions that are given. You do NOT use the loop construction window to create a loop, or do stretching. Again, the 7th post down explains what you need to do.

The loop construction window can do more than construct loops, this is just one example. 

[chuckebaby]

Just give us a knob. A little dial we can click on. Call it the "Pitch module" and put it in the control bar with the rest of the surplus modules.

Next to the knob we can have a place to enter values for precise pitch tunings.

This feature would bring users together from all over the world, and if only for one moment, there would be forum peace.

[marcL]

12 hours ago, Craig Anderton said:

Read the 7th post down for the answer to your first sentence. The solution is based on using the loop construction window.

Regarding the second sentence, you can do the true varispeed time/pitch/no artifacts effect if you follow the directions that are given. You do NOT use the loop construction window to create a loop, or do stretching. Again, the 7th post down explains what you need to do.

The loop construction window can do more than construct loops, this is just one example. 

I had already read the 7th post, but just to prevent that I do misunderstand something I read it again and tried it in CbB. Yes, you can do it like that, but it is a simple pitch shift with all the usual artifacts (you can do the same thing with your premix and the menu 'Process > Transpose ...', to me that seems easier!). But real varispeed means that you change the tempo with affecting the pitch in a natural way, it is not the same like changing the pitch with an algorithm (like it is surely behind the Loop Construction view)! Well, this is my last try to explain! Sorry, that I am so insistent! ?

[marcL]

5 hours ago, chuckebaby said:

Just give us a knob. A little dial we can click on. Call it the "Pitch module" and put it in the control bar with the rest of the surplus modules.

Next to the knob we can have a place to enter values for precise pitch tunings.

This feature would bring users together from all over the world, and if only for one moment, there would be forum peace.

Sorry chuckebaby, I get your joke, but your pitch knob is not the thing we need as this is not the same as varispeed!

[chuckebaby]

25 minutes ago, marled said:

Sorry chuckebaby, I get your joke, but your pitch knob is not the thing we need as this is not the same as varispeed!

Im sorry, its no joke.

What do you think Varispeed is ?

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/vari-well-then

And how do you think varispeed is controlled ?

From sound on sound:

The varispeed control on tape machines changed the pitch of a recording, but it also changed its duration: if you sped the tape up, the pitch became higher, the tempo faster, and the duration shorter. When you slowed the tape down, the pitch became lower, the tempo slower, and the duration longer. In the digital world, independent pitch and time stretching are possible, so you can, for example, raise the pitch while maintaining duration. It's difficult to do this without altering the fidelity, however, especially with significant stretching. Tape‑style stretching creates fewer artifacts and, for some applications, the pitch/time interdependence can be an advantage.

Edited December 12, 2019 by chuckebaby

[marcL]

35 minutes ago, chuckebaby said:

Im sorry, its no joke.

Oh, excuse me, I am slow on the uptake! ? I just thought because you did not mention something about the tempo change, you meant a simple pitch change! My misunderstanding!

35 minutes ago, chuckebaby said:

From sound on sound:

The varispeed control on tape machines changed the pitch of a recording, but it also changed its duration: if you sped the tape up, the pitch became higher, the tempo faster, and the duration shorter. When you slowed the tape down, the pitch became lower, the tempo slower, and the duration longer. In the digital world, independent pitch and time stretching are possible, so you can, for example, raise the pitch while maintaining duration. It's difficult to do this without altering the fidelity, however, especially with significant stretching. Tape‑style stretching creates fewer artifacts and, for some applications, the pitch/time interdependence can be an advantage.

I like it! This describes in detail and in a better way what I tried to explain! I know exactly what this knob did on my Tascam 8-track tape recorder!

I wanted to turn the attention in this thread exactly to the meaning of the last 2 sentences of the SOS extract! This is also my experience and that's the reason why I prefer something like the resampling in Samplitude/Audacity for recording something in another pitch/tempo.

Edited December 12, 2019 by marled

[chuckebaby]

By having a control bar module, like other modules this would be a global project setting, thus controlling the pitch +/- for all tracks.

As I said in my previous comment,

6 hours ago, chuckebaby said:

Next to the knob we can have a place to enter values for precise pitch tunings

This would be perfect for adding precise pitch drops/raises and the knob itself to act as a fine tune for A = 440/ the cents value

[scottcmusic]

Or, you could arm the varispeed knob for automation.

[scottcmusic]

Whatever that producer Jaime Liddel is using in that ProTools video I posted at the top of this thread, that's what I want. Took him 5 minutes in a live demonstration to layer vocals. I was gonna say he made it look like a cakewalk, but I was forgetting where I was.

Edited December 13, 2019 by scottcmusic

[Craig Anderton]

On 12/12/2019 at 10:31 AM, marled said:

I had already read the 7th post, but just to prevent that I do misunderstand something I read it again and tried it in CbB. Yes, you can do it like that, but it is a simple pitch shift with all the usual artifacts (you can do the same thing with your premix and the menu 'Process > Transpose ...', to me that seems easier!). 

No, Transposition is different, because it changes the pitch but not the duration. The trick I described changes the pitch AND duration, exactly as described in the Sound on Sound article that I wrote, and Chuckebaby quoted. 

I know you said you tried the method in the 7th post, but if you're not getting the effect SOS describes, then something is  wrong. Maybe it's the following...make sure you follow these three steps exactly:

3. From the Clip drop-down menu, enable Stretch On/Off.

4. Move the Threshold slider all the way to the left (0%) so all the markers disappear. This is very important.

5. The two right-most fields adjust semitones and cents respectively. Do not enable the Pitch button! That will just confuse things. Cents will adjust +/-49 cents which should be enough. If not, for example if you need to make the pitch 70 cents sharp, set semitones to 1 and cents to -30. (For Chipmunk effects, set semitones to +12 .)

I won't keep on about this any further, all I can say is that I do know the effect you describe, I used it all the time back in the 60s/70s. Cakewalk really can give the true, varispeed tape effect that I used to get with Ampexes, Portastudios, etc. - although it will NOT varispeed all tracks in a project, only individual clips and premixes. Still, for speeding up a master a few per cent, or doing the varispeed effect with vocals, that's good enough.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Craig Anderton
bolded crucial points in steps

[scottcmusic]

I got a song in process that I'm going to try this on ...

Anybody got any sound clips they are willing to share?

[Craig Anderton]

4 hours ago, scottcmusic said:

I got a song in process that I'm going to try this on ...

Anybody got any sound clips they are willing to share?

Give me a day or two, and I can put something in the library on craiganderton.org, with some screen shots. I'll circle back here and post the link when it's available.

[scottcmusic]

Awesome

 

[Craig Anderton]

22 hours ago, scottcmusic said:

Awesome

All right, here's the audio example, a screen shot, and instructions. Go to the DAWs | Mixing | Mastering section of the library on craiganderton.org, and scroll all the way to the bottom for the article. 

The audio example has four excerpts: the original file, the original file shifted up 40 cents (a typical amount to use on masters), then to prove there really isn't any aliasing, transposing up 4 semitones and down 4 semitones. You can transpose up or down as far as the Loop Construction view allows; just remember that we're NOT using the Loop Construction view to create a loop.

Circle back and let us know what you think.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Craig Anderton

[scottcmusic]

Thanks Craig! Sounds very cool. I heard no artifacts ... that's for sure. The chipmunks thing was hilarious.

I think the process to do the original task now for me would be to bounce just the chorus section of my song to a WAV, then open that in a new session. Pitch transpose it like you just showed, sing my high vocal part. Then pitch everything back to the correct tempo and export just the harmony parts to my original session. This would allow me to not only hit the notes, but also have a slightly different vocal timbre for the harmonies. Can't wait to try it.

Thanks for the great demo Craig.

[Craig Anderton]

On 12/23/2019 at 11:54 AM, scottcmusic said:

Thanks Craig! Sounds very cool. I heard no artifacts ... that's for sure. The chipmunks thing was hilarious.

Thanks for the great demo Craig.

Glad it was helpful. The varispeed thing is one of those Cakewalk "hidden in plain sight" gems

[scottcmusic]

I was pondering the suggestion that we should have a tape speed knob in the pro channel of CbB ... that would be awesome. But now that I think about it, it might also be next to impossible to get it to work like in the real world. Think of all the additional tracks of audio that would come into play if you were near the end of your project before engaging the varispeed knob. Our computers these days are powerful sure, but that might be an unreasonable load to place on your CPU.

Until then, we have this great workaround.

[Craig Anderton]

I think there is  a way; Cakewalk would need to premix the tracks on which you weren't recording, mute the non-premixed tracks, and open the  premix in  a variation of the loop library window, where only the pitch control would be exposed. You could then record to your track. Closing the "varispeed" module would pitch up what you recorded, delete the premix, and unmute the muted tracks. It seems like that would take a lot of work to pull off from a software standpoint, though, and it might not be justified by the number of people who want this feature. So far, the workaround works for me!