Big Ben saved my butt today!

[ToddS]

Great story.

[Rep]

Originally Posted by Rick Sutton

Gotta love the Apogee Big Ben. Besides keeping my digital gear singing along smoothly the VSO feature pretty much saved my butt today. I used to reach for the VSO on a regular basis when I was on 2" but when I moved most of my work to a Mix Plus system about 4 years ago I didn't have a way to VSO and fell out of the habit of reaching for it. Have an HD system now and today when the usual digital pitch shifting tricks just wouldn't solve some vocal problems the vocalist asked if I could just pull the track down a half step and she thought she could adjust and we could solve a couple of tough issues. My first thought was "oh crap, this isn't analog and i can't do that anymore" and as soon as that thought passed I remembered that I could use the Apogee's VSO> DUH! Sometimes I forget that it's even there. Things went so well and the client was so ecstatic with the results that we backtracked and re-did a lot of the parts and vocalist and client went away very happy.
It almost felt like the "good old days".

why didn't you just Re-DO the Take ?... Since she was there and all .
... I could see that if it was days latter.
A Retake with clean Vox , instead of Pitch shift , would be sonically tighter/Superior Quality/ take...thumbsup
Unless the singer cant cut it no matter how many Takes !

[De chromium cob]

Originally Posted by Rep

why didn't you just Re-DO the Take ?... Since she was there and all .
... I could see that if it was days latter.
A Retake with clean Vox , instead of Pitch shift , would be sonically tighter/Superior Quality/ take...thumbsup
Unless the singer cant cut it no matter how many Takes !

Sounds like thats what he did.

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by Rep

why didn't you just Re-DO the Take ?... Since she was there and all .
... I could see that if it was days latter.
A Retake with clean Vox , instead of Pitch shift , would be sonically tighter/Superior Quality/ take...thumbsup
Unless the singer cant cut it no matter how many Takes !

Maybe my fault for not giving you all the details, but we're not as clueless as might be thought. This track was recorded months ago as a male/ female duet and the client wanted to try a new female vocalist. Most of the female parts were in support (bgv's) to the male part and not only did the VSO solve a pitch range issue but also gave us a timbral change that was advantagous.

Rep, we had tried the vocal takes many times and it was the wrong key for this singer. If I'd have suggested that we needed to redo the entire backing track, well, that would have been as welcome to the client as a turd in a punch bowl. Sometimes the wrong way is the right way. You gotta be flexible, son. That's why I was praising the Big Ben. It gave me back some flexibility that I had missed during my Mix Plus years.

[Rep]

Originally Posted by Rick Sutton

. This track was recorded months ago .

... I was hoping that was the case ... carry on ... thumbsup