Stretch markers: If fade size = 0, timing is terrible when rendering

[juliansader]

As reported in several other threads, REAPER's stretch markers often cause popping and clicking noises. An easy way to get rid of these noises, is to use a fade size of 0 (although I have no idea why this works).

Unfortunately, short fade sizes bedevil the timing of the stretched audio in-between the SMs. The following example uses sloped SMs spaced closely together, but the same happens with flat SMs and with SMs spaced farther apart.

In this image, the audio item with SMs is in the middle, and the rendered item is at the bottom:

[mccrabney]

refer also to https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=229117
where stretch markers at different modes result in different timing when glued (that is not displayed on pre-glued peaks)

[Justin]

edit: fix for this is coming soon! (the latest +dev builds in the prerelease forum...)

[awoolford]

Originally Posted by Justin

edit: fix for this is coming soon! (the latest +dev builds in the prerelease forum...)

I know this is a year old, but I am still waiting for a fix. I am now using Reaper v6.18. In project settings I have The default pitch shift mode set for elastique 3.3.0 Soloist with resample modes (Playback and Render) set for Good (192pt Sinc).

Yet I am getting terrible glitches after using stretch markers on every media track to lock an old analogue 24 track recording to the tempo. Original song was played live. The average tempo is 147BPM but there is a tendancy for the band to speed up througout the song.

So having added stretch markers on every track at the 1/4 beat of the bar using the snare and kick as the reference, then snapping the stretch markers to the grid, the timing is now perfect. But there is an audible glitch almost every time the stretch marker is passed by the cursor on nearly every track. I'm guessing it's there on the percussion tracks but of course it's not audible. But it is very audible on vocals and guitars.

I have found that zooming in on the track, there is a slope on these stretch markers. The cursor hover can either show vertical or horizontal arrows. If I use the vertical arrows to match the stretch marks on either side to the same position, the glitch disappers. I could set them all to 1.00 but at worst, they are between 0.95 and 1.05. I can see the waveform stretch underneath but whatever is happening is not audible when the track is soloed - unlike the glitches. [<Edit> Just discovered this is not a solution because setting the slope to 1.00 for all markers removed the time correction].

I really don't know what the slope is adjusting. Pitch I guess?

I have seen people refer to "Stretch marker fade size" but I cannot find a setting for this.

Needless to say we are looking a hundreds of stretch markers across every track and I'm not looking forward to adjusting each and every one by hand. Do you know a workaround for this or is there still a solution in the pipeline?

[juliansader]

Originally Posted by awoolford

I have seen people refer to "Stretch marker fade size" but I cannot find a setting for this.

You can set this in Item Properties.

Originally Posted by awoolford

Needless to say we are looking a hundreds of stretch markers across every track and I'm not looking forward to adjusting each and every one by hand. Do you know a workaround for this or is there still a solution in the pipeline?

Sadly, stretch markers are still terribly buggy. I use Melodyne as a workaround.

[awoolford]

Hi Julian,

Thanks for the update. I looked at the Melodyne website and am a little confused by the options ranging from USD99 to USD899.

Essentially for my use case, I am taking analogue 24 track recordings and stretching all the tracks with markers at every beat, trying to lock them to the tempo grid. This is largely because we are adding new material to the old recordings and quantizing. I see the flexibility in Melodyne for pitch correction and timing, but am not sure how this would relate to the Reaper tempo grid, or which version would be suitable.

I don't mind spending money, but don't want to spend it on the wrong thing. What would you recommend and why?

Regards,

Andy

[zoharsound]

Hey Andy, not sure you're still active..
the pops and clicks are indeed an issue,
i will look into Melodyne and share my experience with it
(i'm doing something similar to what you are doing)

[awoolford]

Hi Zoharsound,

Thanks for the reply. Apologies for the delayed response. Yes I'm still active. Did you get anywhere with Melodyne?

Has Cockos made any improvements to the stretch markers since May 2021? (I havent revisited this with the latest version yet).

[Wired Eyes]

I found that changing "Fadersize" to 50 and have tonal balance do it for me.
After that I never had any problems with pops.

[Reflected]

+1
stretch markers still introduce clicks, pops and timing issues.

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=278123

[Xorro]

This is a simple 60hz sinewave with stretch markers set at zero crossing. Fade size is set a 0 and preserve pitch also disabled. This is a widely used effect called tape-stop. Please fix

[Justin]

Originally Posted by Xorro

This is a simple 60hz sinewave with stretch markers set at zero crossing. Fade size is set a 0 and preserve pitch also disabled. This is a widely used effect called tape-stop. Please fix

Can you post a minimal project for that?

[skylar_battles]

I've been doing some testing as well.

Fade size 0ms seems most effected as an item with stretch markers and that item rendered don't null at all.

But even with the default 2.5 ms fade a media item with stretch markers and a that rendered file almost null, but there are random pops when the 2 files play simultaneously (one with flipped phase of course)

[Xorro]

Originally Posted by Justin

Can you post a minimal project for that?

Of course. Bottom track is a copy of the first track glued.