Need suggestions to bump up tempo of FINAL mix by 2 bpm

[sage691]

Is there any decent software program that could do this "time stretching" WITHOUT altering the sonic quality level of the mix ?

If so, should I even attempt this myself before mastering ? Or will a great mastering engineer have the software that I can't afford to do a better job of it anyway ?

Is tempo alteration by 2-4 bpm (without altering pitch) even possible without screwing up the sound of a great mix ?

I'm asking because this is one area I know very little about, but this track is important and would sound better 2 bpm faster. I did a time stretch using Peak, and it REALLY DESTROYED THE SOUND QUALITY! But the bounce of the tempo was RIGHT ON at 2 bpm faster.

What options are out there ?

Sage

[Mike Chav]

you may be better off varispeeding and dealing with the sllight pitch change as opposed to time comp/exp.

[drBill]

It depends on your definition of "destroyed". If you mean, will you be able to discern a difference. Yes you will. Will anyone that hears it know? Probably not. In my experience, Pitch N Time does the best job, but it's hit and miss. Sometimes a pitchchange or timechange is awsome with very few artifacts and other times it's fairly ugly. I suspect is has a lot to do with the transients and upper harmonics. Good luck. I don't envy you. I dont' even like sample rate conversion - much less time compression/expansion. Oh, BTW, faster is usually less noticeable than slower. I would give the mastering engineer both the unaltered and time compressed versions and let him choose. He's probably gonna hate you though.....

[GreatDivideStud]

Yo Sage,

There is always some sonic compromise when time stretching. If it makes the song groove that much better then, of course, it's worth the sacrifice.

I've had success with serato's pitch n' time. Waves has their own version that I own, but have not used yet. Digi has a new free plug in for this sort of thing. The TC 6000 also has an upgrade with this feature, but it's not necessarily better or worse than the plug ins.

Recently, a client came in with a cut we did years ago that needed to be sped up for a re release. We ended up using the TV track with Pitch N' Time maybe 5 BPM. He then resang the lead vocal and I added another layer of guitar. Sounds like ass, but it grooves!

Anyway, you can demo all the software and see what works for you. Let us know.

Best,

Jamie

[chadly]

+1 for Pitch n Time.

If it's gonna be able to be done, PnT will do it.

[thejook]

For such a small adjustment, I'm with Varispeed.

[sage691]

Thanks everybody!

I've used Pitch N Time before with individual tracks, and achieved great results in the + or - 3 bpm range. I could tell no difference in sonic quality at all.

But I'm looking to speed this track up by 2 bpm, and I'd prefer to do it to the entire mix rather than re-tracking the song. We got some really great performances that would be next to impossible to do over.

I just wanted to know if the top mastering engineers do this kind of thing very often, and if they have better tools than the average PT system to do it ? If so, then I'll just do it during the mastering process.

The song sounds great; it could just have been a little faster now that I listen to it in retrospect. At 2 bpm faster the groove is absolutely addictive. It's mind boggling how a mere 2 bpm bump in tempo can make such a noticable difference!

Sage

[GreatDivideStud]

Unless something new has slipped past me, they don't have better tools for this. Again, the TC 6000 is what many mastering guys have, but I don't think it's an improvemnet over P n T.

Best of luck,

Jamie

Originally Posted by sage691

Thanks everybody!

I've used Pitch N Time before with individual tracks, and achieved great results in the + or - 3 bpm range. I could tell no difference in sonic quality at all.

But I'm looking to speed this track up by 2 bpm, and I'd prefer to do it to the entire mix rather than re-tracking the song. We got some really great performances that would be next to impossible to do over.

I just wanted to know if the top mastering engineers do this kind of thing very often, and if they have better tools than the average PT system to do it ? If so, then I'll just do it during the mastering process.

The song sounds great; it could just have been a little faster now that I listen to it in retrospect. At 2 bpm faster the groove is absolutely addictive. It's mind boggling how a mere 2 bpm bump in tempo can make such a noticable difference!

Sage

[danasti]

Originally Posted by sage691

What options are out there ?

Sage

Get some plates done and press it on vinyl.

Record it back through your favorite outboard and adjust the tempo.

Now you have the speed you want. 2 - 4 bpm won't be very audible AND you get the wonderful sound of vinyl.

[drBill]

Sage, another thing that I have done that works well is before the mix, do a multi-mode (or whatever the new PnT calls it) tempo compression of all the individual tracks. Adjust your mix (the mix will of course be shorter now) and re-bounce or record to your mastering deck. I have found that PnT's artifacts are much less noticeable when doing individual tracks as opposed to the final 2track mix. When I have a client that wants to speed up or slow down sections, I always do it on a stereo reference mix cause they don't know what they want and will go back and forth for hours. THEN, when they finally figure it out, I go back to the individual tracks and compress/expand as necessary and then do the final mix. That will make it almost transparent. Almost.....

Question - what bpm is the tune at currently? A 2bmp compression at 60bpm is a lot more noticeable than a 2bpm compression at 144bpm.

[lemix]

Record to a two track pro deck..adjust VSO for desired payback speed.
Pull pitch back to original with an Eventide box..
Get paid, have a couple of pints..

best of luck,

[doubledecker]

Prosoniq Time Factory is very,very good.
Try and see what happens

[londontown]

2bpm from 60 to 62bpm will have a lot more effect on the sound than 160 to 162...or am I being an idiot?

definitely voting for Pitch and Time amongst the plugs to do this...though it all depends on the mix itself.

Anybody tried X-form in 7.2?

[demonfuzz]

No need to press dubplates if you got access to Rane's Serato (sorta same as Pitch'N'Time).
I had a similair situation where we had to slow down a track.

Save it to a WAV file.
Load it up into Serato,
Pitch it up/down on the turntable/CD player (or inside Serato software itself) to where you want it.
Play it back into your recorder.
Yes there will be a slight pitch change, but +/- 2 isn't gonna destroy the song in all cases (depends on you of course).

I pitched down -4 & it sounded fine, recorded it back in to ProTools.
We couldn't really hear any negative sounding artifacts, other than yeah it sounded a little lower in pitch, but we were ok with that in our case.
Didn't even use a fancy converter from the Rane mixer to the PT 002 inputs.

If you wanna save the Pitch, you could use a CD player like the Pioneer CDJ, the pitch control is actually pretty slick & does a good job maintaining original pitch untill you start hitting the extreme +/- settings.

I've actually started using Serato alot more in Recording/Mixing applications.
Recently did an EP & instead of sequencing the tracks on the computer, we faded in/out tracks "DJ" style so the EP sounds like a continuous mix. Came out real real dope.
Recorded that 2-track mix into Soundforge & added the CD Track markers in CD Architect.
Done deal.

[sage691]

Originally Posted by drBill

Sage, another thing that I have done that works well is before the mix, do a multi-mode (or whatever the new PnT calls it) tempo compression of all the individual tracks. Adjust your mix (the mix will of course be shorter now) and re-bounce or record to your mastering deck. I have found that PnT's artifacts are much less noticeable when doing individual tracks as opposed to the final 2track mix. When I have a client that wants to speed up or slow down sections, I always do it on a stereo reference mix cause they don't know what they want and will go back and forth for hours. THEN, when they finally figure it out, I go back to the individual tracks and compress/expand as necessary and then do the final mix. That will make it almost transparent. Almost.....

Question - what bpm is the tune at currently? A 2bmp compression at 60bpm is a lot more noticeable than a 2bpm compression at 144bpm.

This sounds GREAT! Thanks drBill ! This sounds like the answer I have been looking for. The track is at 120 bpm. I think if I EQUALLY use PnT on all the individual tracks, it will probably be totally unnoticable to me or anybody else just speeding things up by 2 bpm. I've done it before with vocals and piano, sometimes as much as + or - 4 bpm, and I could not notice an unpleasent difference or loss of quality and "human-ness".

But the overall mixes, especially if complex like my stuff is, tend to start sounding alien and unnatural even at 2 bpm. Something happens that I cannot quite explain, but it really makes your skin crawl when you hear what it does to a beautifully powerful, 3 dimensional, great sounding mix of a song. It almost seems to want to "implode" or invert the energy of the track.

I think this may be the solution because the final mix will still be analog without any digital post manipulation, which is what it should be to retain the sonic integrity and character.

Wouldn't want to ruin a perfectly good song that people are already grooving to anyway.

Sage

[Ben Digital]

Serato Pitch&Time,http://gearslutz.com/board/images/smilies/thumb.gif

[Andrew Kinsey]

Or you could allways use a CDJ or Turntable, unlike time stretching, these only speed or slow down material, they do not squash or stretch it. Pitch changes will occur but depending on the type of music your doing it wont make much difference, the Pioneer CDJ800 & 1000 compensate for this though.

[drBill]

Originally Posted by sage691

This sounds GREAT! Thanks drBill ! This sounds like the answer I have been looking for.
Sage

I've done it this way with orchestras & room mics and had good success. Much better than doing a final mix. Then, at least the reverb, delays, chorusing, EQ, etc. is not being pitch shifted and time compressed. In this case, less is certainly more. Good luck and let us know if it works out satisfactory for you.

[TonyBelmont]

Melodyne...

[Sqye]

just shoot some h.

then EVERYTHING will feel at LEAST 2 bpm faster

you could distribute downloadable h w/ the files, so the entire market could get that 2 bpm faster kinda vibe, like u.

[RhOdEz]

Another vote for Prosoniq Time Factory - you should really check it ,it's right tool for that job

[RoundBadge]

Pitch 'n Time will be fine for a 2 bpm speedup..
no prob..I do it all the time for clients on movie.. tv and radio mixes.
unless you really WANT to run your stuff through more conversion for varispeed

[3rd world order]

i'd use ableton live for this... its really staggering how well this app works for time/pitch stuff. a lil tweaky, and you'd have to do it track by track to optimise the algoritm for each type of track (drums, texture, etc) but i really dig it... also, stay away from live's mixer.. just render each track and blow it back into protools or whatever you're using.

you can also add/subtract swing from track with live... blow in drum loops and change the swing on JUST the hi hat.. etc.. mindblowing what this app can accomplish

[tomdarude]

tony said it!


Celemony Melodyne 3