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Old 04-03-2021, 09:09 AM
Headless Folkie Headless Folkie is offline
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Default Pitch control on digital multi-trackers

Greetings all,

The example below doesn’t actually have a guitar part (acapella sea shanty), but it recently reminded me of something I’ve been missing since the old cassette-based Porta-Studios. Since everything I do is solo, way back then when I wanted to sing along with myself (or play both sides of a 2-man skit), I would use the pitch control to get some differentiation between my voices on the separate tracks. eg. - record the lead vocal track, speed the tape up a bit, and record what would later be a ‘bass’ track when the speed was returned to normal, then slow the tape down and record what would be a higher vocal. This made it sound like there were legitimately different voices rather than 'clones,' and in the ideal scenario, I was also able to use this trick to hit harmony notes I couldn’t otherwise.

Jump ahead a few decades and I was trying to do the same thing with this song on GarageBand, and I cannot get it to work. After watching countless instructional videos about pitch and formant adjustments, ‘enable flex,’ and changing the tempo, well the pitch and formant changes -even small ones- sound unnatural, and changing the tempo -even if I have all tracks selected- only affects one track and puts everything out of sync. I tried to find the capability on the Spire app as well, but no luck. (Changing the playback -and I assume record- speed is a piece of cake with Audacity, but I’d prefer something with mobile as well as desktop capabilities.)

So, any suggestions? Am I missing something obvious in GarageBand (that apparently the instructional videos also missed), or do you know of another application that has both mobile and desktop versions and has a nice simple universal pitch control like the old Porta-Studios?


Thanks


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  #2  
Old 08-01-2021, 04:49 PM
casualmusic casualmusic is offline
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Hi Headless Folkie

An internet search for "vocal processor" or "best vocal processor" will point you to devices made by Boss, Roland, TC-Helicon, etc that will do "pitch shift" and/or "harmonizer". There are options for live performance and for studio performance.

Cheers.
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Old 08-02-2021, 07:49 AM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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Hi Headless Folkie,

I haven't had need to do that, but in Reaper it's easiest to perform a common operation on tracks by selecting them and then applying the "group tracks" feature. Grouping would allow adjusting the pitch, speed, or stretch commands on the entire group.

I don't use Garageband, but there's nothing "odd" about the resulting playback when slowing down or speeding up the track(s) when using Reaper.

You can remove grouping later if desired.

I would think that any DAW would have that capability. I often track on a Zoom R24 but have never had need to try pitch change when using it.

Last edited by Rudy4; 08-02-2021 at 07:56 AM.
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Old 08-02-2021, 11:57 AM
Gordon Currie Gordon Currie is offline
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This is one of the things that analog audio could do easily that cannot be replicated as easily in digital audio.

Good luck in your search, but I think you'll need to throw a lot of $$$ at the problem to be able to recreate your former workflow.
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Old 08-02-2021, 12:32 PM
Headless Folkie Headless Folkie is offline
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Thanks for the responses folks,

I don't know that a vocal processor would be of use to me in this context (apart from the added expense), in that I'm not trying to alter my voice during recording, but I'm trying to temporarily alter the existing tracks I'm adding my vocal to. I have a limited range between highest and lowest notes I can hit, but if I lay down a vocal and then speed it up a bit when I add another vocal, I CAN sing a low 'harmony' to that temporarily high track (or slow the original down and sing a high harmony to that low track). And then when I reset things back to the original speed, it sounds more like three natural vocals than manipulating the input via software (which I tried with GarageBand and a couple of others).

It's essentially a less extreme "Alvin and the Chipmunks" manipulation (and it was SO easy to do on the old PortaStudio - which is why I'm leaning back towards a physical recorder option if one exists at the low price end). By way of example, here are a pair of clips from songs I recorded on the PortaStudio way back when - one, a 'Gospel Chorus' for a comedy sketch we were doing at the time about a disgraced televangelist, and the other, an acapella break during an adaptation of Ron Hynes', "Sonny's Dreams."



I might have to have a look at Reaper - with a quick look at the PDF manual, it looks like it might do what I thought GarageBand was going to be able to do (and it still makes so little sense that GarageBand DOESN'T do this, that I think I must be missing something). But while GarageBand would allow me to select multiple tracks and change the speed during playback, as soon as I went to record, it would only 'speed shift' one of the previous tracks - completely abandoning alignment with the others. (And I've found all kinds of 'software recorders' that will let me adjust playback speed during mixdown, but not while recording additional tracks.)

Thanks again for the suggestions. It's genuinely appreciated.
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  #6  
Old 08-02-2021, 02:48 PM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Headless Folkie View Post
Thanks for the responses folks,

I don't know that a vocal processor would be of use to me in this context (apart from the added expense), in that I'm not trying to alter my voice during recording, but I'm trying to temporarily alter the existing tracks I'm adding my vocal to. I have a limited range between highest and lowest notes I can hit, but if I lay down a vocal and then speed it up a bit when I add another vocal, I CAN sing a low 'harmony' to that temporarily high track (or slow the original down and sing a high harmony to that low track). And then when I reset things back to the original speed, it sounds more like three natural vocals than manipulating the input via software (which I tried with GarageBand and a couple of others).

It's essentially a less extreme "Alvin and the Chipmunks" manipulation (and it was SO easy to do on the old PortaStudio - which is why I'm leaning back towards a physical recorder option if one exists at the low price end). By way of example, here are a pair of clips from songs I recorded on the PortaStudio way back when - one, a 'Gospel Chorus' for a comedy sketch we were doing at the time about a disgraced televangelist, and the other, an acapella break during an adaptation of Ron Hynes', "Sonny's Dreams."



I might have to have a look at Reaper - with a quick look at the PDF manual, it looks like it might do what I thought GarageBand was going to be able to do (and it still makes so little sense that GarageBand DOESN'T do this, that I think I must be missing something). But while GarageBand would allow me to select multiple tracks and change the speed during playback, as soon as I went to record, it would only 'speed shift' one of the previous tracks - completely abandoning alignment with the others. (And I've found all kinds of 'software recorders' that will let me adjust playback speed during mixdown, but not while recording additional tracks.)

Thanks again for the suggestions. It's genuinely appreciated.
FYI...

Since I was curious about how easy this was to do, I pulled up a session in Reaper, pitch shifted the playback up 10% and recorded another harmony vocal.

No problem, and it recorded just fine. I reset the pitch to normal and the new vocal harmony stayed where it was supposed to be.

I thought I might have to group tracks, but there was no need to do that.

I don't understand why someone would think that this is something that a digital recorder would have difficulty with. All the audio manipulation is tons easier in a DAW and I would never think of going back to a hardware solution to doing something that's child's play in the digital domain.

As I said before, this is nothing special and I'd think just about any DAW would be able to do it easily. I do know that Garageband and Audacity have limited features, so you might need a different DAW.

I also had a Tascam 4 tracker years ago and pitch shifting was easy, but the quality of the recording was bad enough that I quit using it and migrated to a Roland VS recorder when they came out. The VS had a whole different set of baggage that came along with it.

An interesting side note is that several years back you couldn't GIVE AWAY the Tascam cassette-based recorders. I was just about to throw it out and my friend told me to check ebay because these were in high demand. Sure enough, and I got a few hundred for it. I don't understand the whole "lo fi" thing, but I'm glad I got rid of it. There wasn't enough weight to it for use as a boat anchor...

Last edited by Rudy4; 08-02-2021 at 03:02 PM.
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Old 08-03-2021, 08:20 AM
Headless Folkie Headless Folkie is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy4 View Post
FYI...

Since I was curious about how easy this was to do, I pulled up a session in Reaper, pitch shifted the playback up 10% and recorded another harmony vocal.

No problem, and it recorded just fine. I reset the pitch to normal and the new vocal harmony stayed where it was supposed to be.
Just so I'm clear about "...stayed where it was supposed to be," when you recorded the second vocal at the 10% higher speed/pitch, and then reset to normal, did the second vocal also came down in pitch (like recording at a higher speed and then slowing the tape down) or did it stay at the pitch that it was recorded at after resetting the original track to it's original pitch. (In other words, are they moving up and down together in pitch the way they would on parallel tracks on a tape deck?)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy4 View Post
I also had a Tascam 4 tracker years ago and pitch shifting was easy, but the quality of the recording was bad enough that I quit using it and migrated to a Roland VS recorder when they came out. The VS had a whole different set of baggage that came along with it.

An interesting side note is that several years back you couldn't GIVE AWAY the Tascam cassette-based recorders. I was just about to throw it out and my friend told me to check ebay because these were in high demand. Sure enough, and I got a few hundred for it. I don't understand the whole "lo fi" thing, but I'm glad I got rid of it. There wasn't enough weight to it for use as a boat anchor...
I just handed off my PortaStudio this spring. I hadn't used it in decades, but I have a problem with throwing away fully functional items. Then a friend's brother, who had had the same unit years ago before his died, found some old tapes that had never been mixed down and asked if he could borrow mine for the project. "Borrow? I said, "You can have it." Problem solved.

Thanks for doing the 'test drive' on my behalf.
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Old 08-03-2021, 08:46 AM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Headless Folkie View Post
Just so I'm clear about "...stayed where it was supposed to be," when you recorded the second vocal at the 10% higher speed/pitch, and then reset to normal, did the second vocal also came down in pitch (like recording at a higher speed and then slowing the tape down) or did it stay at the pitch that it was recorded at after resetting the original track to it's original pitch. (In other words, are they moving up and down together in pitch the way they would on parallel tracks on a tape deck?)



I just handed off my PortaStudio this spring. I hadn't used it in decades, but I have a problem with throwing away fully functional items. Then a friend's brother, who had had the same unit years ago before his died, found some old tapes that had never been mixed down and asked if he could borrow mine for the project. "Borrow? I said, "You can have it." Problem solved.

Thanks for doing the 'test drive' on my behalf.
Yes, the added vocal lowered in pitch exactly like the originals. "Stayed where it was supposed to be" meant that the pitch relationships of all tracks, original and the one recorded at the higher pitch, all kept the same relationship.

In other words, Reaper responded exactly the same as if you were using a analog recorder that had a variable pitch control.

Again, I don't think this has anything to do with Reaper, but would most likely be the same process for any DAW.
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Old 08-03-2021, 11:24 AM
Headless Folkie Headless Folkie is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy4 View Post
Yes, the added vocal lowered in pitch exactly like the originals. "Stayed where it was supposed to be" meant that the pitch relationships of all tracks, original and the one recorded at the higher pitch, all kept the same relationship.

In other words, Reaper responded exactly the same as if you were using a analog recorder that had a variable pitch control.
Perfect thanks. Time for me to download the 60-day trial (and try to coax my addled brain into writing something new that needs 'backing vocals').

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy4 View Post
Again, I don't think this has anything to do with Reaper, but would most likely be the same process for any DAW.
...and I'm still not convinced that I'm not missing something obvious in GarageBand - but after two weekends spent reading articles and watching instructional videos that had me thinking it was possible but never actually showing how it was done (and all my attempts ending in failure), I gave up.

Thanks again for the suggestion and the testing on my behalf.
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Last edited by Headless Folkie; 08-03-2021 at 12:31 PM.
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  #10  
Old 08-03-2021, 01:04 PM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Headless Folkie View Post
Perfect thanks. Time for me to download the 60-day trial (and try to coax my addled brain into writing something new that needs 'backing vocals').

...and I'm still not convinced that I'm not missing something obvious in GarageBand - but after two weekends spent reading articles and watching instructional videos that had me thinking it was possible but never actually showing how it was done (and all my attempts ending in failure), I gave up.

Thanks again for the suggestion and the testing on my behalf.
If you can pitch shift only a single track then you should be able to render a basic mix of your tracks and import that back on a new track. You could then mute the other tracks and add your new part using only the temporary rendered track.

The "out of sync" problem sounds like you might not be using the correct monitor or record settings to address latency. Reaper, as well as other DAWs have settings to automatically offset a new recorded track to match the latency of your system setup.

I'm not a Garage Band user so I can't offer any specifics to address that.

The stand alone recorders such as Zoom take care of latency automatically so you don't have any when doing overdubs. That's one of the reasons I prefer to do audio capture with my R24.
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Old 08-03-2021, 06:22 PM
Headless Folkie Headless Folkie is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy4 View Post
The "out of sync" problem sounds like you might not be using the correct monitor or record settings to address latency. Reaper, as well as other DAWs have settings to automatically offset a new recorded track to match the latency of your system setup.
In this case, by "out of sync," I'm not meaning an entire track being a few fractions of a second off, but that if I sped up a group of tracks (let's say, temporarily turning a 1 minute song into a 50 second song) and then tried to record the 'destined to be low harmony' track to the higher speed tracks, only one of the selected tracks would keep to that modified 50 second length while recording, and the other track(s) would instantly reset to the original one minute length, and so the various tracks would 'stretch' out of sync with each other.

Drove me crazy.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy4 View Post
The stand alone recorders such as Zoom take care of latency automatically so you don't have any when doing overdubs. That's one of the reasons I prefer to do audio capture with my R24.
And I was leaning heavily in the recorder direction too - not even for latency reasons, but for me, that physical interface is just more intuitive (and familiar). Then transfer the files to the computer to finalize. If only they made an R24 (or even an R8 for my needs) with a good ol'fashioned Pitch Control dial like the analog days...

Ah well, fingers crossed for Reaper.
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