Moderators Lee Knight Posted October 10, 2005 Moderators Share Posted October 10, 2005 There are a lot of varispeed tricks that have fallen by the wayside since PT, etc. I realize there are ways to recreate these tricks after recording, but what about... ...but what about the old trick of tuning down the recorder just enough to be able to hit that peak harmony note just out of your range? There's something very creative about performing to a detuned machine and tuning it back up for playback. Lennon and Lindsay Buckingham both were champions of this technique. PT will slow to half speed. That's not going to cut it for this trick. Does anyone have a work around? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members aerorockjax Posted October 10, 2005 Members Share Posted October 10, 2005 You mean there is no varispeed plugin? What about adt plugin that very closely emulates the adt used by Sir George Martin? I'd also be curious if any of the reverb plugins which can simulate those classic chamber reverbs sound any good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members where02190 Posted October 10, 2005 Members Share Posted October 10, 2005 If you have an external word clock, you can change the speed of the clock. However the more common fix is autotune. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted October 10, 2005 Author Moderators Share Posted October 10, 2005 Originally posted by where02190 If you have an external word clock, you can change the speed of the clock. However the more common fix is autotune. Autotune wouldn't act the same way would it? Detuning a machine and singing to it does 2 things. 1, it lowers (or raises) the pitch to make it easier or at least different to perform to. 2, it changes the formant of the recorded voice when repitched back to normal. Autotune on the master? Can you explain how it might work? Work clock sounds like it might achieve this... hmmm. I don't have an external clock, but may soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members The Chinese Posted October 10, 2005 Members Share Posted October 10, 2005 In PTHD with a sync i/o one can go on an internal VSO and vary the rate up or down 10% I think. Locking to TC becomes an issue, but If you're stand alone... -Todd A> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dave Martin Posted October 10, 2005 Members Share Posted October 10, 2005 Originally posted by The Chinese In PTHD with a sync i/o one can go on an internal VSO and vary the rate up or down 10% I think. Locking to TC becomes an issue, but If you're stand alone...-Todd A> Yep - I do this from time to time, both for notes above and below the range of the talent. The only issue is the one that we all know - the 'voice like a chipmunk' syndrome. But that happened on 2" machines, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted October 10, 2005 Author Moderators Share Posted October 10, 2005 HD? Oh... I'm a lowly LE type here. BTW, the chipmunk effect is kind of what I'm looking for. Not chipmunk specificaly, but the shift in formant. Like Lennon's odd varispeed numbers. Stawberry Fields, etc. Oh well. I won't be upgrading to HD anytime soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Def_Pearl_Pilot Posted October 10, 2005 Members Share Posted October 10, 2005 Originally posted by Lee Knight There are a lot of varispeed tricks that have fallen by the wayside since PT, etc.I realize there are ways to recreate these tricks after recording, but what about......but what about the old trick of tuning down the recorder just enough to be able to hit that peak harmony note just out of your range? There's something very creative about performing to a detuned machine and tuning it back up for playback. Lennon and Lindsay Buckingham both were champions of this technique.PT will slow to half speed. That's not going to cut it for this trick. Does anyone have a work around? Pro Tools had a time compression/expansion plug-in that will do this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted October 10, 2005 Author Moderators Share Posted October 10, 2005 Originally posted by Def_Pearl_Pilot Pro Tools had a time compression/expansion plug-in that will do this. Thanks. I'm aware of that tool and use it, and also Speed, to do a lot of what I'm talking about but... that's different. If you've ever recorded to a varispeeded machine, you know what I'm talking about. I realize this is hopelessly lo-tech, and yet, I miss it. The key, to me, is changing the speed of the track before you record to it. Then returning to the correct speed at playback. Time Compression tools won't do this. What I want, is a varispeed control plugin for the master... That's it! That's what I want! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Def_Pearl_Pilot Posted October 10, 2005 Members Share Posted October 10, 2005 Originally posted by Lee Knight Thanks. I'm aware of that tool and use it, and also Speed, to do a lot of what I'm talking about but... that's different. If you've ever recorded to a varispeeded machine, you know what I'm talking about. I realize this is hopelessly lo-tech, and yet, I miss it. The key, to me, is changing the speed of the track before you record to it. Then returning to the correct speed at playback.Time Compression tools won't do this. What I want, is a varispeed control plugin for the master...That's it! That's what I want! You're right. The TCE won't record at a slower speed. I just didn't understand your post until just now. Sorry. The clock sync idea seems like a good place to start though. Also, autotuning more then a few cents sounds unnatural to me. It could be operator error though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kiwiburger Posted October 10, 2005 Members Share Posted October 10, 2005 Lee Knight - I can relate to what you are talking about. It's a very cool effect. I use Cubase SX, so I don't know what the pitch stretching in Protools is like, but SX can do this very easily. Most DAWs have pitch shifting/time stretch algorithmns. At some point, some genius decided that when we pitch shift, we want the time to be compensated - and that when we stretch time, we want the pitch to be compensated. They've even decided that we want the formants compensated too. That's where all the digital glitchiness problems come from. It's fair enough if you just want to stretch a drum loop - but sometimes you just want good old fashioned varispeed. If your pitch/time algorithmn lets you - just turn off this compensation. E.g. If you want to transpose up a Tone, and have the playback speed faster (like varispeed), then pitch shift up a tone, and turn off the time stretch and formant shift. If you are really stuck, get a software sampler that can stream from disk. Assign the wave file of your track to the sampler - lets say to middle C. Then play it back by triggering the D above middle C. With a bit of fiddling, you can pull off all those varispeed stunts. For example: imagine a midi backing track at 120 bpm in the key of C. Burn this to a wav, and reimport this to a new audio track and mute the original. Now apply a -2 semitone pitch shift, with the compensation turned off. The track now takes a little longer to play at the lower pitch, and doesn't align up with your tempo track. Doesn't matter. Now - sing your vocal part in B flat along with this slowed down track. Then, apply a +2 semitone pitch shift to this vocal, with no compensation. It no longer matches the tempo of the guide track, so kill that. It now matches the tempo of your midi track, and is back in the key of C. With that example, you could hit a note that was a whole tone out of your normal range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 Lee, the lack of realtime varispeed in PT LE is a major drawaback... Here's one other way to get around it: Find an old Blackface ADAT machine. Heck, you may have an old ADAT deck sitting around, but if you don't you can probably pick one up for $100 - $200. You don't even need a working tape path on it... as long as it powers up and works electronically (as opposed to mechanically), it will work fine for our purposes. Feed the ADAT lightpipe OUT from the ADAT into the lightpipe in on your 001 / 002 / 002R. Set the PT LE software for "external WC sync". Now just use the pitch +/- buttons on the front panel of the ADAT machine. There you go - real time varispeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 PS Don't forget to turn all of that off when you don't need varispeed. I switch between two different lightpipe inputs to my 002, and one is from the ADAT deck, the other from my Yamaha mixer... the Yamaha is WC synced to a Lucid GenX-6 master workclock, so that (via the lightpipe from the board) serves as PT's "standard" clock around here, except when I need to varispeed or sync to something external. Anyway, just make sure you swap back to your usual master clock (PT internal or external) when you're done with using the ADAT for varispeed. They're not the greatest clocks on the planet, but for something like a varispeed part, they work fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kiwiburger Posted October 10, 2005 Members Share Posted October 10, 2005 Cool idea. I've seen some CD players that have varispeed (for DJ stuff). Maybe if they could be used as the external clock that might do the same thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted October 10, 2005 Share Posted October 10, 2005 Sure Kiwi, if they have a S/PDIF output, AND if the sample rate of the S/PDIF output of the device varies when you use the speed control on the device (I don't know for certain, but IIRC, some such devices disable their S/PDIF out when in vairspeed / pitch change mode) you could feed that into your PT LE interface, set it to external WC sync via the incoming S/PDIF and Bob's your uncle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted October 11, 2005 Author Moderators Share Posted October 11, 2005 Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe Lee, the lack of realtime varispeed in PT LE is a major drawaback... Here's one other way to get around it: Find an old Blackface ADAT machine. Heck, you may have an old ADAT deck sitting around, but if you don't you can probably pick one up for $100 - $200. You don't even need a working tape path on it... as long as it powers up and works electronically (as opposed to mechanically), it will work fine for our purposes. Feed the ADAT lightpipe OUT from the ADAT into the lightpipe in on your 001 / 002 / 002R. Set the PT LE software for "external WC sync". Now just use the pitch +/- buttons on the front panel of the ADAT machine. There you go - real time varispeed. I bow down to you sirs! You both fully understand the problem and have an easy solution. Perfect. "Realtime varispeed". Now that's what I meant to say... Thanks Phil and Kiwi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members where02190 Posted October 11, 2005 Members Share Posted October 11, 2005 You can use Autotune on the master buss to lower/raise the pitch of the track, record the vocal, then remove the autotune on the master buss, and use it to bring the vocal back in tune with the track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted October 11, 2005 Author Moderators Share Posted October 11, 2005 Originally posted by where02190 You can use Autotune on the master buss to lower/raise the pitch of the track, record the vocal, then remove the autotune on the master buss, and use it to bring the vocal back in tune with the track. Interesting! I'll try that. Thanks where... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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