Automating Pitch?

[HalfBlood]

Does anyone know of any plugin or program in general which allows you to freely manipulate playback speed, not necessarily with time correction.

I'm working on a song where the singer ends the verse with a long drawn out note. I would like to make the reverb pitch upwards in the background.

In any case this is something I've been looking for for ages. Just a plugin with a knob which gradually shifts playback time or pitch as you would do with a record.

Any ideas?

[tannoy]

My 1st thought would be to scrub the part, print that to another track and to fade it in...but maybe that's not what you wanted...which leads me to the question:

Does this post make any sense ?


Anyways, maybe there's a more sophisticated way for that issue out there.


Marco

[HalfBlood]

Yes, the scrubbing trick would be fine but how do you go about it within a software? What software exists that does that and allows one to record the manual (mouse) scrub? Even if the plugin wasn't able to record the automation, I could get away with using a plug-in which records anything coming out of the track, but I still need to be able to "gracefully" vary the pitch with a fader or something similar.

I'll give you another example: I might for instance want to record a long-lasting chord from a guitar, vary the pitch up and down hitting the notes I want by ear to give it a drowsy wonky effect. In this case scrubbing or an LFO on the pitch would be no good. One would need a gradual (not in semitone steps and not with two "fine" and "coarse" knobs) pitch shifting fader which one can automate. Or it could also just change the playback speed and therefore not keep the length of the file the same.


The only thing that disturbs me is that if this were possible, the plugin would be reading the file before or after the song position marker is reading the same point in the song and that kind of strikes me as something that might require the file to be pre-loaded within the plugin, and I have no idea if that is possible but if it is it's tits and would be great but sounds difficult.

Anyway, does anyone know of any plugin that does something like this?

[otek]

If you simply want to pitch up the reverb, the pitch bend function in Sound Forge would do what you need. SF even allows you to draw a very exact curve for how you want the pitch bend to behave.

Record the reverb into your DAW, export the recorded file, do the pitch bend and fly it back in. No need for varispeed - which in DAWs, is a rare breed.

Hey, that rhymes! :D


otek

[tannoy]

Maybe one of these (http://www.sadglad.com/pitch.html) plugs can help.

Or this one. (http://www.braindoc.de/vst/PitchShifter_v1.0.0.zip)



As for recording scrubbing (the thing itself should be available within your DAW), I think you could go the output-bus to input-x way to record it - maybe it's possible with some DAWs to record/route the signal directly to a new track as well.


Marco

[David Aurora]

i used to use a plugin called pizcer or something like that for this trick. made by jk audio. freebie that works through pluggo.

You can find it here (http://www.sonoria.pl/jk/pluggox.html)

[HalfBlood]

Wow, that was a lot of input.. I think I just spent 1 hour browsing plugs, found some completely mad and crazy stuff in the midst of it too.

I'm gonna check the soundforge thingy for the pitched verb, that will definitely do the trick..

instead for this: "I'll give you another example: I might for instance want to record a long-lasting chord from a guitar, vary the pitch up and down hitting the notes I want by ear to give it a drowsy wonky effect.

... I guess I'm gonna have to shove the whole audio file into some sampler with a pitch bend control...

[otek]

Here are a couple of random pitch bends done to a snare reverb, using the Sound Forge pitch bend algorithm.

Because you can draw exactly which curve you want the pitch bend to make, I find this tool gets the job done very easily.

It doesn't sound like varispeeding tape, but then again, nothing really does except for varispeeding tape.


otek

[otek]

I'll give you another example: I might for instance want to record a long-lasting chord from a guitar, vary the pitch up and down hitting the notes I want by ear to give it a drowsy wonky effect.

This was kind of fun. :D


otek

[HalfBlood]

Well that's certainly better than Cubase has!

So you did that by drawing a curve... gonna go have a look at this program. And people have been telling Fruity Loops and Ableton Live have something similar which I have to check out.

[otek]

You should probably consider putting a "reverb on the reverb" for the application you mentioned in your original post. To my ears, when you pitch the reverb you lose the illusion of size. So if you apply a reverb onto the pitched reverb, you may restore some of the three-dimensionality to the sound.


otek

[tannoy]

Well that's certainly better than Cubase has!



I'm not so sure about that....sorry for bringing this up so late to the thread, guess I didn't get what you were up to due to too much weird substances (kidding!!)....or just because I was too lazy to think about it any deeper.:Thumbdown:

You can slap me now.


ThankU.


Anyways, here's the deal:

If you work with an older version of Cubase (up to VST/32 5.2) you can't do it in the way otek described it without Wavelab. The snippet I've attached was done with Wavelab 3.04 (and it is in no way so beautiful done as otek's, but it shows the catch).

Highlight the section of the track to which the pitchbend should be applied - choose 'effects' --> 'pitchbend'. In the appearing window the highlighted section appears and you've got the possibility to draw a curve for the pitchbend 'over' it.

If you're using Cubase SX 3 / Nuendo 3 or higher (don't know exactly about the minor versions of SX), the described function is already implemented. Choose 'audio' --->'effects'--->'pitch-shift'--->choose the right tab (don't know what it's labeled like in the english version, maybe 'envelope'). In the appearing window you are able to draw the pitchbend-line.

Works as offline-process in both cases, you can take a pre-listen before changes are done.


Hope this helps,

cheers,


MarcoTooLateAsAlways

[otek]

If you work with an older version of Cubase (up to VST/32 5.2)

I've gone on record before saying I'd rather be tied down and receive a Tabasco enema.

The "varispeed" in the clip sounds really good though. Probably more natural than Sound Forge.


otek

[tannoy]

I've gone on record before saying I'd rather be tied down and receive a Tabasco enema.


:lol:

Burn, baby, burn....


Ok Ola, let me think about it....no, Tabasco enema isn't an option.

So I've got to admit that:

I'm actually working with Cubase VST/32 5.2 + Wavelab 3.04.

You can ban me now.

Don't be ashamed of what you're working with...if it does the job, it's alright.:grin:


Marco.

[HalfBlood]

Das ist wirklich wunderbar! I hadn't noticed that little envelope thingy there..

Thanks to both of you!

[tannoy]

Das ist wirklich wunderbar!

:)

You're welcome!

[Mitch]

I had to do something similar and instead of looking for a plugin I simply called a buddy who also has pro tools and I recorded the scrubbing on his computer. I didn't have much time to look for a plugin. I am curious about the answers of this thread.

[gilligan204]

Wow, that was a lot of input.. I think I just spent 1 hour browsing plugs, found some completely mad and crazy stuff in the midst of it too.

I'm gonna check the soundforge thingy for the pitched verb, that will definitely do the trick..

instead for this: "I'll give you another example: I might for instance want to record a long-lasting chord from a guitar, vary the pitch up and down hitting the notes I want by ear to give it a drowsy wonky effect.

... I guess I'm gonna have to shove the whole audio file into some sampler with a pitch bend control...

I believe Digital Performer allows you to automate pitch. Also Melodyne would help you.