Elastic Audio - Is it just going on my nerves (somehow)???

[LIQUIDAETHER]

Hello.

So i upgraded to PT 7.4cs3 and played around with Elastic Audio on a multitrack drumsetup to find out that it definetely is not what i expected (or what people told on other forums) . Haha. I tried to slide the drums by hand, i tried the ominous workaround to quantize a multitracked drumset without phase issues and all that just to find out that EA is ****ing around with my beloved room and overhead mics more than i am willing to tolerate (Beat Detective of course leaves the phase intact, but is not really an option since it makes the performance too many times lifeless in my eyes). But : For editing vocals, bass and even heavy guitars this is THE thing. Has anyone of you similar feelings about EA?

Regards.

[NobleWordz]

The thing bugs the hell outta me. I can never get it to work right. Gonna have to bite the bullet and start reading.

[LIQUIDAETHER]

Originally Posted by NobleWordz

The thing bugs the hell outta me. I can never get it to work right. Gonna have to bite the bullet and start reading.

I read quite a lot about it but this did not make me any wiser. Hehe. I am waiting for the DIGI videos on editing multitracked drums. Funny that it takes so long for them to upload the videos. Haha.

[Oroz]

I've had great results quantizing drums with Elastic Audio. What's your procedure? What I've been having trouble with is electric guitars, when I try to lower the tempo they tend to sound weird at times and although I tweak all the parameters nothing seems to fix those weird sounds sometimes. I must say that on a particular song I had great results speeding up the tempo (by a couple of BPM's), it needed a little tweaking on a couple of tracks but at the end it save the day because the song wasn't feeling right at the original tempo. I guess EA is material dependant, working great on some and not so on others.

[LIQUIDAETHER]

Originally Posted by Oroz

I've had great results quantizing drums with Elastic Audio. What's your procedure?

My procedure so far was trying out everything i could imagine doing with it.

The main thing i did was to set the tracks to 'Rhythmic' first, let PT analyse them and then start editing mostly bar by bar moving hits to the grid or just "by ear". This worked kinda great on the first listen, but the phase on the room and overheads was wobbling afterwards. Then i played around with the EA plug-ins and their settings - setting the tracks to X-Form really improved the whole thing but in the end it was not THAT good as expected.

So what is your procedure? Looking forward to get new insight from you.

Regards.

[Oroz]

Originally Posted by LIQUIDAETHER

My procedure so far was trying out everything i could imagine doing with it.

The main thing i did was to set the tracks to 'Rhythmic' first, let PT analyse them and then start editing mostly bar by bar moving hits to the grid or just "by ear". This worked kinda great on the first listen, but the phase on the room and overheads was wobbling afterwards. Then i played around with the EA plug-ins and their settings - setting the tracks to X-Form really improved the whole thing but in the end it was not THAT good as expected.

So what is your procedure? Looking forward to get new insight from you.

Regards.

The first thing I do is group all the drum tracks then set them to "Rhythmic". After that I like to tab to the first transient and cut there so I can work on a region that I choose which usually are longer than one bar. I also cut at the end of each region that I'm working on. Do a search , there's a lot of information regarding this topic that might help you.

[LIQUIDAETHER]

Originally Posted by Oroz

I also cut at the end of each region that I'm working on. Do a search , there's a lot of information regarding this topic that might help you.

Give me a hint on what to search. Just searching for elastic audio wasn´t too successful...

Regards.

[Oroz]

Originally Posted by LIQUIDAETHER

Give me a hint on what to search. Just searching for elastic audio wasn´t too successful...

Regards.

I like to go to Advanced Search. I typed Elastic Audio and came up with this threads:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/searc...archid=9375345

Do you group all the drums together before quantizing drums? Do you still have problems?

[Tony Shepperd]

After hearing two of you blasting 7.4, it's a little hard to give advice.

But here we go:
Use the warp markers and designate what you what to be a constant.
EA moves things around by the warp makers.
So if you have warp makers for snare you can then copy those markers into the overheads and room.
Now you should have some consistency in what they are all looking at (analyzing).

One other note, 7.4 really does work very well.
You just have to know how it works to get the most benefit from it.

[zakco]

There has been several helpful threads on the DUC about this topic. Steve MacMillan in particular is really knowledgeable about EA.

Personally, I've never been able to get REALLY phase coherent results out of multimic sources using EA. I've followed steve's instructions to the word and although it got better, I still can hear artifacts and phase sloppiness.

For drum editing I still prefer Beat Detective. There is of course a limit to how far you can push things, but at least it maintains phase coherency and punch...

For mono sources, EA is amazing. So good it freaks me out sometimes...

-Z-

[rockstar_josh]

I think it takes some practice and information to get EA to work for you. When I first got 7.4 I thought the EA was crap, but it's really just a lack of info on my part. I keep plugging away and find it getting more and more useful. It seems to be a very powerful tool, but I'm very far from a skilled audio manipulator, so my learning curve will probably be slower than a lot of folks.

[Mike Brown]

I love EA... it has cut my time editing drums / other things into a 10th of what it used to be.

IMHO rhythmic sucks. I use polyphonic always.

[psycho_monkey]

Personally, I can't find a way to work super-quickly, as some people are claiming. Not saying they're wrong, but when I follow their instructions, I end up with phase problems too.

So - I split it into sections, and manually move and delete warp markers until there's only one per event. I find that you can't delete from irrelevant tracks - that causes phase smearing. I have to manually make sure there's a marker across all tracks. Then - when you quantise, it pulls everything to the right place (or it misses, and I manually correct it).

If you do all that, it takes almost as long as BD (well it does for me - difficult to say how long exactly 'cos my old G4 slows it right down! by the end of a song it's 3s to move each marker) but there's no phase issues.

As for poly vs rhythmic - always use rhythmic for drums because it preserves the transients.

Mayor - I'd be interested in hearing how you use EA to edit drums, and some before+after tracks, to see how it affects the audio.

[Mike Brown]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

Personally, I can't find a way to work super-quickly, as some people are claiming. Not saying they're wrong, but when I follow their instructions, I end up with phase problems too.

So - I split it into sections, and manually move and delete warp markers until there's only one per event. I find that you can't delete from irrelevant tracks - that causes phase smearing. I have to manually make sure there's a marker across all tracks. Then - when you quantise, it pulls everything to the right place (or it misses, and I manually correct it).

If you do all that, it takes almost as long as BD (well it does for me - difficult to say how long exactly 'cos my old G4 slows it right down! by the end of a song it's 3s to move each marker) but there's no phase issues.

As for poly vs rhythmic - always use rhythmic for drums because it preserves the transients.

Mayor - I'd be interested in hearing how you use EA to edit drums, and some before+after tracks, to see how it affects the audio.

Sure, ill try to mock something up tomorrow morning on my home system.

My method is very similar to this videos YouTube - Using Elastic Audio in ProTools 7.4 except for I do it on drums, and I group them all. I also listen through (pressing left arrow and then down arrow repeatedly to keep the screen near the playback head so I can see what is going on) to make sure there is nothing weird going on. Usually the quantizing to 16th takes care of most of the problems but with some styles of music it is not possible.

I check everything to make sure it sounds good (moving/adding warp markers).

You guys render in x-form right? I find that I hear a lot more artifacts on playback before rendering in x-form and then X-form really clears most of it up.

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by Mayor999

You guys render in x-form right? I find that I hear a lot more artifacts on playback before rendering in x-form and then X-form really clears most of it up.

no, x-form doesn't preserve the transients either.

I'll have a watch of that video..cheers for that.

[Mike Brown]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

no, x-form doesn't preserve the transients either.

I'll have a watch of that video..cheers for that.

Um... i am not sure what you mean by "preserve the transients" other than what the digimarketing team says. I mean that is what the decay knob does on the rhythmic setting, but I still don't think it sounds better than polyphonic... and rendering in XFORM makes a huge difference no matter what algorithm you are using.

So i did 3 bounces one untouched, one quantized in rhythmic and one quantized in polyphonic. Decide for yourself.

The quantized ones are a bit tighter on the fills.. and I think the rhythmic one MAY (it may just be my mind playing tricks on me) be a little bit more artifacty than the polyphonic one... X-form however clears it up quite a bit (i didn't have time to sit and watch it render... I just did this quick in-between sessions...)

[Mike Brown]

This may fix the Rhythmic low end weirdness that I hate, but even after trying this quick I still like polyphonic....

Digidesign | Support | Elastic Audio Plug-in v7.4r2 Beta

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by Mayor999

Um... i am not sure what you mean by "preserve the transients" other than what the digimarketing team says. I mean that is what the decay knob does on the rhythmic setting, but I still don't think it sounds better than polyphonic... and rendering in XFORM makes a huge difference no matter what algorithm you are using.

So i did 3 bounces one untouched, one quantized in rhythmic and one quantized in polyphonic. Decide for yourself.

The quantized ones are a bit tighter on the fills.. and I think the rhythmic one MAY (it may just be my mind playing tricks on me) be a little bit more artifacty than the polyphonic one... X-form however clears it up quite a bit (i didn't have time to sit and watch it render... I just did this quick in-between sessions...)

I mean that "rhythmic" leaves the initial hit intact, and stretches the decay of the region. the others stretch the section equally.

Which means that in theory, rhythmic should preserve the attack of a region more, hence the reason it's more suited to percussive sounds.

Will have a listen to your examples later and comment then.

[Mike Brown]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

I mean that "rhythmic" leaves the initial hit intact, and stretches the decay of the region. the others stretch the section equally.

Which means that in theory, rhythmic should preserve the attack of a region more, hence the reason it's more suited to percussive sounds.

Will have a listen to your examples later and comment then.

Yeah i understand what the manual says, but upon listening it doesn't quite accomplish that any better IMO. Ill keep playing with the beta though...

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by Mayor999

Yeah i understand what the manual says, but upon listening it doesn't quite accomplish that any better IMO. Ill keep playing with the beta though...

Well, with just a quick listen, I noticed the rhythmic handles the hi-hat better in just before the fill at around .10 - the polyphonic one flams that bit quite noticibly.

For most of it, there wasn't much to choose between them for me, listening to MP3s in my home studio.

Both messed up the kick at the start of the ride section - sounds very odd compared to the original (appreciate you only did this quickly).

just watched the video - doesn't really explain anything other than basic quantising. Doesn't show how to really quickly edit multitrack audio ( ie where there's multiple analysis markers per hit).

[Mike H]

Please let me ask a dumb question.

I just upgraded to PTHD 7.4 and I have not yet tried EA at all.
The main reason I upgraded was to have the use of EA for changing the tempo of drum loops to the session tempo.

However, after reading this thread, I am getting a headache just thinking about tackling EA.

In addition, it has been suggested to me that I need to spend the $ to purchase X-Form if I really want good quality results with EA.

In contrast, I have used Serato's Pitch 'n Time before to change the tempo of tracks, and it was very easy to use. I had no experience with it, and in a few minutes I was using it with no problems. The results were very good, to my ear, even when I changed the tempo of all the tracks in the mix (needed because the studio tracking was done at the wrong tempo).

(BTW, I also used Speed for the same task, so I could compare the results. Again, very easy to use. For that particular mix, I preferred the results from P'nT. Maybe another mix would be different...............I don't know).

My dumb question is this:
If EA is this difficult to use, wouldn't I be ahead to just buy Pitch 'n Time and use that? The cost is less than the cost for X-Form.
Does EA (with X-Form) yield so much better results that it is worth the hassle?

I have no bias toward any of the company's involved............I absolutely love using Pro Tools HD...........I just want good sounding tracks and minimum hassle.

Maybe EA is a lot more powerful and can do more than P'nT.
But all I want to do is change tempo on drum tracks (not a stereo drum mix..............I will be using multitrack drum loops).
Occasionally, I will use it on other individual tracks, never the mix.

Again, maybe a dumb question, so forgive me.
I am probably overlooking something here.

[sardi]

Originally Posted by Mike H

In addition, it has been suggested to me that I need to spend the $ to purchase X-Form if I really want good quality results with EA.

Whoever suggested that to you doesn't really know much about ProTools. Bad advice.

X-Form is actually part of Elastic Audio. It has 4 different algorithms included, X-Form being one of them.

Your best bet with Elastic Audio is to use one of the other modes to get things in sync, then switch the algorithm to X-Form when you're and use that setting as most of the times, it will give a better result - please note MOST of the time.

The reason to work this way is that X-Form takes AGES to process so the tweaks are quicker to do with say Polyphonic then switch to X-Form when you are happy with the edits.

But yeah - DON'T buy X-Form if you have PT 7.4 - unless you want it as an AudioSuite plugin.

Best.

[Mike H]

Originally Posted by sardi

X-Form is actually part of Elastic Audio. It has 4 different algorithms included, X-Form being one of them.

OK, got it...................I got X-Form as part of the 7.4 upgrade and I don't have to buy it (unless I want to use it as an AudioSuite plug-in). thumbsup

Your comments still make it sound like EA is hairy to use, so I still have the same question:

Would I be able to get equivalent results much faster by using Pitch 'n Time to change the tempo of drum tracks?
I didn't have any problems when I used PnT before.
Just not clear to me why EA is so much more difficult to use.
With PnT, as I remember I just played each track and it generated the new file at a different tempo...........done, no big problems.

Are all the problems associated with trying to use EA to determine the amount of tempo change that is required?

In my case, I know the tempo of the drum track and I know the tempo of the session................so all I need is for the program to execute the needed tempo change.
That would be easy with EA..................correct?

Not trying to get us off track, here...................just trying to understand.
Sorry for the diversion.

[sardi]

I can't see anywhere in my post where I alluded to Elastic Audio being difficult to use. You seem to be wanting reasons to justify your choice to not use it.

To be perfectly honest, Elastic Audio is extremely SIMPLE to use. It really is. Within 30 minutes of upgrading to 7.4 I had pretty much sussed out how to use EA to tighten up performances and even use it creatively.

PnT is fine if all you wanna do is Timestretch a whole loop, but if you wanna be able to quantize individual hits.... forget about it. It's not what its designed for. PnT has a great algorithm for stretching and pitching whole files but it's nowhere in the same league as EA for tightening up performances etc.

Id go an have a look at some of the videos on Digi's site to better understand what EA is all about.

Best.

[Mike H]

Originally Posted by sardi

I can't see anywhere in my post where I alluded to Elastic Audio being difficult to use. You seem to be wanting reasons to justify your choice to not use it.

I'm not referring to your comments, but rather to other comments in this thread.
And chill out, man...............I'm not arguing against EA, just trying to understand it. tutt

I want to use EA.............I don't want to have to pay for another program when EA is available to me.
As I said, I upgraded to 7.4 so I could use it.
I just want to be sure it is easy to use......................I don't have time to waste on this particular activity.

But in any case, I won't comment any more.
You answered my question:
- Changing the tempo of a whole file is easy.
- The challenges that other guys are having with the program has to do with fine tuning segments of a file.

That's all I was trying to understand.
I'll check out the videos.
Thanks.

[s.d.finley]

Conforming drum loops to session tempo in pro tools is a piece of cake.

[sardi]

Originally Posted by Mike H

I'm not referring to your comments, but rather to other comments in this thread.

Really? You typed this after you quoted me.

Originally Posted by Mike H

Your comments still make it sound like EA is hairy to use, so I still have the same question:

Originally Posted by Mike H

And chill out, man...............I'm not arguing against EA, just trying to understand it. tutt

Im extremely chilled. My post doesn't show anger by any means. :(

Originally Posted by Mike H

I want to use EA............ I just want to be sure it is easy to use......................I don't have time to waste on this particular activity.

This is the thing I don't understand. Don't take this the wrong way, but if you didn't want to waste time, you would have tried the EA stuff out and come to the same conclusion that I did that it's a piece of cake to use and implement for the tasks you are trying to achieve. I'd say you wasted a hell of a lot more time over the few days you kept typing questions on here rather than trying it out for yourself - considering you had already purchased it.

I'm all for helping people out - been doing it for the better part of the last 10 years. I just don't understand why some people don't test it for themselves and see if it's exactly what there after. It's so easy to do that these days with demos etc etc.

Originally Posted by Mike H

But in any case, I won't comment any more.
You answered my question:
- Changing the tempo of a whole file is easy.
- The challenges that other guys are having with the program has to do with fine tuning segments of a file.

Exactly. If all you wanna do is conform loops to a different tempo, you can do that so easily with EA.

Again, best of luck. I didn't mean to offend you. I was merely trying to help. :(

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by Mike H

I just want to be sure it is easy to use......................I don't have time to waste on this particular activity.

If you spend a couple of hours working out how to use elastic audio (or anything else for that matter), and find out either a way to save you many hours in the future, or that you really don't like it and it doesn't do what you need it to do, that's not time wasted in my opinion.

Either way, you have to do your own dirty work (or research as some call it) to find out what works for you. There's no short cuts.

[Mike H]

Originally Posted by sardi

Don't take this the wrong way, but if you didn't want to waste time, you would have tried the EA stuff out and come to the same conclusion that I did that it's a piece of cake to use and implement for the tasks you are trying to achieve.

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

Either way, you have to do your own dirty work (or research as some call it) to find out what works for you. There's no short cuts.

Anybody else wish to criticize my lack of work ethic?
Geez, what is the world coming to?

FWIW, my approach at gearslutz is to ask questions of the many experts BEFORE I get the software/hardware and start digging into it.
To me, that's one of the great benefits of gearslutz.............get the expert opinions first. This has invariably saved me tons of wasted time working with software/hardware that won't work for me in the long term.

Unfortunately, I have taken the other approach many times in the past, putting in many hours of testing, only to have someone say "Why are you wasting your time with that? You'll get a lot better results with xyz."

For example, I have another post where I ask for advice on the best bass loops vendor. Seems to me asking first, before I start working with different vendor loops, make a lot of sense.

So, I plan to continue to ask questions first, then dive in, then ask more detailed questions when I have the product.
If you think my question is dumb, then please just ignore me.

I have been around gearslutz for over 5 years, have lots of good friends here, and believe I conduct myself in a positive manner. This is the best forum on the Internet, period. And I bust my butt in the studio almost every day. So please, no lectures from the PC police on my work ethic.............you know zip about my work ethic.

If I somehow offended some of you by my style in asking the questions, my apology.

Particularly my apology to LIQUIDAETHER for the diversion of your thread. I should have started a separate thread. I won't post in your thread again.

Now, let's move on and make some music.

[Oroz]

Wow! X-Form really works great. Guitars was what sometimes gave me problems with EA, I just edited a couple of acoustic guitars with X-Form and everything went great. It takes longer to process but for some material that doesn't sound good on the other options (polyphonic, monophonic, etc.) is worth the wait. Thanks for the tip .