"auto-tuning" a bass line.

[Hull]

I have a sample of a bassline from an old recording I've had on tape. Due to the age of the tape, there's a bit of distortion as far as pitch goes and the bassline is off key. I was trying to match it up with a synth line and found it difficult due to the riff being off key.

After recording the riff digitally, I was able to repeat a single note and run audio out to a 1/4" cable to an instrument tuner. I was able to bend the pitch of the sample a bit more accurately.

I'm wondering though (for the future) if there's a way to do this within Ableton (for better accuracy and a faster, more elegant workflow).

Anyone with experience in this?

Thanks!

[Cezband]

You could just try using an auto-tune on it - I know that they're usually used for vocals but I don't see why it shouldn't work just as well for a bass as long as the notes are reasonably clear. There's a freeware VST called Gsnap that I use, which is pretty effective. There's also a free one called Kerovee, they're both very similar although I think Kerovee leans more towards that horrible warble auto-tune shit if you max out the settings. They can both be used quite subtly though so the re-tuning isn't noticeable.

[agent314]

Is it evenly out of tune? i.e. is it all detuned by the same amount?

If that's the case, you could just play with the pitch envelope of the clip until it's in tune with the rest of your stuff.

[seattletruth]

autotune has an instrument mode.

[Hull]

Agent314 - Yes, it's out of tune evenly throughout the clip.

I tried autotuning it, with a little bit of success. What I like about Antares Autotune (not sure if there are other versions, that's the one I use), is that it gives me a pretty accurate read on the notes with the midi keyboard. That's a big help adding a synth line to it.

Thanks for the suggestions!

[Hull]

I found an additional tool that has helped resolving the problem of the out-of-tune bass line - After auto-tuning it, I used the Widi VST plugin

http://www.widisoft.com/

to generate a midi file. Writing a synth line on top is easy now, as I can see the bass line laid out in midi.

[tw1nstates]

melodyne

[Saxer]

melodyne

absolutely +1