Old 10-24-2019, 07:48 AM   #1
kirk1701
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Default Reapitch issues

Okay,

So the cat's out of the bag, I'm working on a cover of Layla. I know, I'm insane.

I have noticed that a lot of the original's mojo is due to the pitch. To match that pitch, I added Reapitch to my master buss and pitched it up 1 semitone and 50 cents or so.

I got some strange artifacts, though. The high end went completely bananas. The chorus slide guitar notes were being chopped in half, like a string harmonic that failed.

Obviously, varispeed would be the effect on the album, but I've already tempo mapped my project to that track, so I don't want to change the speed.

How to change pitch without losing notes or changing speed?
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Old 10-24-2019, 11:39 AM   #2
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Don't use a pitch shifter on the entire song. There's no need, and it makes its job a lot more difficult.

Apply pitch shifting only to the parts you need to. Drums and piano won't need it. I assume drums will sound fine with no pitch shifting, and think of how much less work the pitch shifter will have to do without all that sound washing over everything.

Piano can be shifted easily in the MIDI itself by transposing the notes in the MIDI editor. That will sound most natural.

That leaves bass, guitar and vocal. If the bass was MIDI, just transpose the MIDI notes like you'll do for piano.

So for the parts you recorded acoustically: it's best to use pitch shifting on mono sources, one at a time. Gate any background noise that's obvious first. Give the pitch shifter a fighting chance to do its job. Then pick the algorithm and settings that make sense for the particular part. Your settings of ReaPitch will vary from track to track because the sources will sound better with different algorithms and settings.

The best thing would be to re-record any parts you can at the pitch you prefer. Failing that though, treat each mono track individually with an instance of ReaPitch, and the MIDI can be shifted in the MIDI editor (and drums don't need shifting at all).

Perhaps you want the pitch of the MIDI parts shifted to something slightly off from a perfect division of pitch. I'd say do this first: shift the MIDI as close as possible by solely transposing the notes. Match your pitch shifting on the acoustically-recorded tracks to that MIDI. Then you can apply a slight pitch shifting to the MIDI and audio: pitch shift the acoustically-recorded parts that little bit more, and add a pitch shifter to the MIDI parts' audio output to shift it that little bit more. And don't shift the drums since that's not necessary.

Avoid having any pitch shifter on a track or bus with reverb or modulation/delay effects. That comes last. Pitch shifting should be done on tracks that are bone dry, with as little noise as possible. The pitch shifting can then do its best for the particular source, and you won't have to be concerned with how it affects anything in the background of the track which might not take the pitch shifting well (with those particular settings for the intended source).
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Old 10-24-2019, 03:42 PM   #3
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Good notes again!
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Old 10-24-2019, 06:56 PM   #4
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ReaPitch is crude. It's more of an old school pitch shift plugin meant to be used live and where the results - fidelity/artifact-wise - don't matter.

If you pitch shift in item properties, Reaper uses Elastique Pro. The classic linked pitch/time 'veri-speed' mode is truly lossless. The separated pitch or time adjustment (the 'DJ tricks' mode) lets you go pretty far and still sounds transparent.

So, you going for an authentic recording session tribute there by recording the coda section in a lower key and then pitching it up to match the rest of the song?
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Old 10-25-2019, 08:29 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by serr View Post
ReaPitch is crude. It's more of an old school pitch shift plugin meant to be used live and where the results - fidelity/artifact-wise - don't matter.

If you pitch shift in item properties, Reaper uses Elastique Pro. The classic linked pitch/time 'veri-speed' mode is truly lossless. The separated pitch or time adjustment (the 'DJ tricks' mode) lets you go pretty far and still sounds transparent.

So, you going for an authentic recording session tribute there by recording the coda section in a lower key and then pitching it up to match the rest of the song?
Good to know!

And yes, I am going for an authentic 1970 experience, which is why I was limiting my mix tools to emus of gear that would've been available in the day.

I think I need to rethink my entire process. I didn't factor in that the album track itself was sped up. I'm not a moron. It just slipped my mind. It doesn't sound sped-up to me. It's just the song.

So I'm going to have to pitch the album track down and adjust the tempo map to that. That's probably why I had so much trouble with the tempo to begin with. There's portions of the first verse that shift from 113 to 119bpm in a very short space. It sounds really weird.

This is good. I should've canvassed you guys back in June!
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Old 10-25-2019, 08:39 AM   #6
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Yeah, that end section was a jam in a lower key. They sped it up to match the song so they could edit it together to create the arrangement. It doesn't just jump out initially but once you notice, you can't un-hear it.
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Old 10-25-2019, 08:44 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by serr View Post
ReaPitch is crude. ...

If you pitch shift in item properties, Reaper uses Elastique Pro.
ReaPitch also has the Elastique modes available.
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Old 10-25-2019, 11:00 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by serr View Post
Yeah, that end section was a jam in a lower key. They sped it up to match the song so they could edit it together to create the arrangement. It doesn't just jump out initially but once you notice, you can't un-hear it.
I did know that. The first section is noticeably higher pitched as well. They probably had to split the difference between the two sections. I don't mind it, actually. It gives the whole thing a sense of urgency that really works for the subject matter.

I just didn't factor this in when I created the tempo map.

I recorded the two sections in separate rpp files, fyi.

So here's the plan:

a. pitch/speed down the original track to roughly the same pitch as my tracks.
b. tempo map the track at that speed/pitch.
c. fit my tracks to new tempo map.
d. varispeed project(s) to album speed/pitch.

Hopefully, this will give me something of the same urgency as the original. I'm always caught somewhere between a legit cover and a full-on recreation. I always seem to fall short of both.
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Old 10-25-2019, 11:07 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenakios View Post
ReaPitch also has the Elastique modes available.
Yes it does. I used them. Didn't work super well.
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