Pitch shifter for vocals.

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
h3rtz
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by h3rtz » Thu Aug 27, 2015 4:11 pm

There's a soundtoys plugin that can do that thickening trick in realtime. Quite cpu hungry though. Cant post link due to beijing military parade internet blockade. No idea what they have against soundtoys...

Edit: got it anyway. Ha! http://www.soundtoys.com/product/microshift

owlmerlyn
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by owlmerlyn » Thu Aug 27, 2015 5:14 pm

h3rtz wrote:There's a soundtoys plugin that can do that thickening trick in realtime. Quite cpu hungry though. Cant post link due to beijing military parade internet blockade. No idea what they have against soundtoys...

Edit: got it anyway. Ha! http://www.soundtoys.com/product/microshift
Aah cool. Looks great. Only probs is it still requires an iLok for activation... grrr

owlmerlyn
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by owlmerlyn » Thu Aug 27, 2015 5:16 pm

jlgrimes wrote:Ableton's Chorus is a pitch shifter as well (or at least it indirectly produces a pitch shifting effect). What it actually does is modulate the delay and when you do that it causes pitchshifts. You probably can experiment with that using a high modulation amount at 100% wet to see what it sounds like.

There is a way to get the Delay to behave this way by right clicking as well.
I have tried with the chorus, but I am just not getting the effect. Either cos I don't know what I am doing or because the way it functions doesn't really create this effect.

Using the delay for this... how?

owlmerlyn
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by owlmerlyn » Thu Aug 27, 2015 5:18 pm

oddstep wrote:Another option is to use grain delay with 0 feedback and minimal delay time
I am trying to picture this in my head. Does grain delay have a pitching option? And btw, is grain delay an M4L device? I have never used it before

oddstep
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by oddstep » Thu Aug 27, 2015 8:22 pm

It's a standard device. Yeah pitch is one of the control

owlmerlyn
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by owlmerlyn » Mon Aug 31, 2015 1:22 pm

oddstep wrote:It's a standard device. Yeah pitch is one of the control
I did find it when I put my mind to it. Thanks for the heads up...

owlmerlyn
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by owlmerlyn » Mon Aug 31, 2015 1:43 pm

Guys, thanks for the feedback so far

Ok, so some feedback..

I tried the following:
  • - The Grain Delay
    - Chorus Fx
    - Copying the audio twice and micro-tuning
I haven't upgraded to M4L 7 yet, so couldn't try the Pitch Shifter device. Its gonna have to wait a week or two.

My feedback is as follows.

For both the Grain Delay and Chorus FX I got close to where I wanted. But not quite. The grain delay, especially, hardened the sound. So whilst it added to the sound it was a hard "thickness" rather than "richness". I tried quite a few subtle changes to the settings but just couldn't quite get what I was looking for. But one can definitely use it for micro-tuning. Maybe I just wasn't using it right.

The Chorus similarly did add some depth to the sound. I removed the modulation and kept very short delay settings, in the hope that some pitch shifting would occur whilst delaying. However, I could never quite get away from the "chorus" sound. It wasn't a true micro pitch shifting sound.

So the technique that has worked best so far, is copying the audio. It pretty much gave me exactly what I wanted. Would love to compare to what an Eventide would do, but so far so good.

FYI. I copied the main audio track twice and created a group out of the three tracks. Why group? Because I found I needed to apply the same EQ and reverb to all three tracks, otherwise the tone wasn't quite right. So I copied the settings I had for the main voice to the group inserts. Then I tuned the audio on the two extra tracks +5 and -5 using the "complex" warp setting, and panned hard left and right. Lastly I dropped the "thickening" tracks about 12/13 db's below the main voice. Had to play around to get sit them just right, but -12/13 seems about correct. This gave me the closest to what I was hoping for... creating a liveness to the main vocal that helps it stand proud.

Anyway, thanks people, and hope my experience helps others

mholloway
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by mholloway » Tue Sep 01, 2015 4:16 pm

Hey -- check the ableton website, if you've got Max 4 Live a TON of new Pitch-shifting plugins were just released yesterday, totally free. They are made by Cycling 74 and are meant to show off new capabilities of Max 7. Looks like Live finally has some good pitch-shifting options! (well, via Max anyway).
my industrial music made with Ableton Live (as DEAD WHEN I FOUND HER): https://deadwhenifoundher.bandcamp.com/
my dark jazz / noir music made with Ableton Live: https://michaelarthurholloway.bandcamp. ... guilt-noir

owlmerlyn
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by owlmerlyn » Wed Sep 02, 2015 11:52 am

mholloway wrote:Hey -- check the ableton website, if you've got Max 4 Live a TON of new Pitch-shifting plugins were just released yesterday, totally free. They are made by Cycling 74 and are meant to show off new capabilities of Max 7. Looks like Live finally has some good pitch-shifting options! (well, via Max anyway).
I will, thanks for the heads up. I need to upgrade to the latest version in order to use the new M4L devices, so will get to it on the weekend, probably. I hope the quality of processing is good on them. But if they work as advertised it will be very exciting.

owlmerlyn
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by owlmerlyn » Wed Sep 02, 2015 11:55 am

owlmerlyn wrote: FYI. I copied the main audio track twice and created a group out of the three tracks. Why group? Because I found I needed to apply the same EQ and reverb to all three tracks, otherwise the tone wasn't quite right. So I copied the settings I had for the main voice to the group inserts. Then I tuned the audio on the two extra tracks +5 and -5 using the "complex" warp setting, and panned hard left and right. Lastly I dropped the "thickening" tracks about 12/13 db's below the main voice. Had to play around to get sit them just right, but -12/13 seems about correct. This gave me the closest to what I was hoping for... creating a liveness to the main vocal that helps it stand proud.
PS, a soundengineer friend came past yesterday and suggested two additional tweaks. We delayed the left and right (6ms on left, 8ms on right) using Abletons manual track delay and added extra reverb on the "thickening" tracks. It reduced some low mid honkiness and brought the main vocal out more

oddstep
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by oddstep » Wed Sep 02, 2015 1:12 pm

great tip!

H20nly
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by H20nly » Wed Sep 02, 2015 2:56 pm

owlmerlyn wrote:FYI. I copied the main audio track twice and created a group out of the three tracks. Why group? Because I found I needed to apply the same EQ and reverb to all three tracks, otherwise the tone wasn't quite right. So I copied the settings I had for the main voice to the group inserts. Then I tuned the audio on the two extra tracks +5 and -5 using the "complex" warp setting, and panned hard left and right. Lastly I dropped the "thickening" tracks about 12/13 db's below the main voice. Had to play around to get sit them just right, but -12/13 seems about correct. This gave me the closest to what I was hoping for... creating a liveness to the main vocal that helps it stand proud
this is about how I usualy do it. I've found, like you, that a lot of other methods don't do the vocal justice. My only significant variation to this is that I often use a separate vocal take or two in tandem.

*bookmark* - to try some of the other suggestions

Angstrom
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by Angstrom » Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:18 pm

I also duplicate the track and then use editing, effects / EQ to reduce any unpleasant artefacts. But then, I'm a micromanaging control freak. So there's that.

owlmerlyn
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by owlmerlyn » Mon Sep 07, 2015 11:28 am

H20nly wrote: this is about how I usualy do it. I've found, like you, that a lot of other methods don't do the vocal justice. My only significant variation to this is that I often use a separate vocal take or two in tandem.

*bookmark* - to try some of the other suggestions
Yes thanks for that, I do that too, normally on the chorus. The two different ways of "doubling" achieve different results so its a matter of what you want at that point of the song.

For me the micro-tuning on the same vocal just gives it more "command" in the mix, allowing the production to be cleaner because you don't have to support the vocal as much with other instrumentation. Its subtle but powerful. Whereas singing the same part twice (or three times) thickens it nicely for choruses etc.

I am looking forward to trying the M4L pitch shifting devices. Hopefully the results are as advertised

owlmerlyn
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Re: Pitch shifter for vocals.

Post by owlmerlyn » Mon Sep 07, 2015 11:33 am

Angstrom wrote:I also duplicate the track and then use editing, effects / EQ to reduce any unpleasant artefacts. But then, I'm a micromanaging control freak. So there's that.
Haha, you and me both. But seriously, I have yet to find a plug-in that does this really well (not forgetting that perhaps my skills might be at fault). But so far the manual method has given best results. Great results, even.

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