Zynaptiq PITCHMAP: Real-Time Polyphonic Pitch-Correction and Pitch-Mapping

[Ruud Unit]

durr, just found that in the manual. I was gonna come back and fess up but then I saw you had already responded. Testing that now...

Overall, though, this is a really cool and creatively inspiring tool so far!

[Motion]

Hi Denis....congratulations on the release.I'm getting some really odd constant distortion/noise in the audio in live 8.2.7 (Lion 10.7.2), tried all the usual stuff to no avail, latency changes, host restarts etc and no matter where I put Pitchmap as insert, bussed etc).I'll try a reboot later.

The good news Pitchmap is working like a charm in Renoise 2.7

What can I say except totally amazing!!...key, transform, mode and pitch changes really seamless and smooth and I can't notice/feel any latency (although as I understand there is some there) as I shift audio around (just live synth audio and samples so far).Its hard to believe this is pretty much realtime.Incredible achievement.

[Denis Goekdag]

Hey!

Just to be sure that we didn't have any bug slipping in between the last test and the installer build, I've just re-checked PITCHMAP 1.03 in Live 8.2.7 running on Lion and it's working flawlessly --- on two different test machines.

One thing that comes to mind: are you sure you aren't maxing out the CPU? PITCHMAP does use quite some CPU, perhaps Live isn't reporting CPU overs....have you tried in a fresh & clean default Live-Set?

Write me an email via the support form and we'll walk through your setup/session to see what's going on.


--d

[Denis Goekdag]

Hey all,

it has come to our attention that our e-commerce service provider esellerate sometimes has issues to actually provide the download after purchase, bringing up a blank window instead of triggering the download

At any rate, don't worry if you run into that "feature", I'm sending out installers per email manually to anybody that purchases PITCHMAP until esellerate fixes their issues.

[BodyByStarbucks]

Outstanding Device. Music, Sound Design.... Its addicting and after 3am in LA, CA so some 'witching hour' music made courtesy of your new plug is in perfect time.
plan on purchasing

[Denis Goekdag]

Hey all! Our webserver completely hit the wall due to the high traffic....but is now back up!

[Denis Goekdag]

Originally Posted by Ruud Unit

durr, just found that in the manual. I was gonna come back and fess up but then I saw you had already responded. Testing that now...
Overall, though, this is a really cool and creatively inspiring tool so far!

Actually, the manual is missing the fact that you need to activate MONITOR on the MIDI track in Live...mea culpa!

BTW for Live users....we'll be posting version 1.04 of both the full version and the demo, which fixes an issue with the plug-in presets not showing up in Live on some systems. Also, we've added mono-mono operation. Will post when we've uploaded the new builds!

--d

[Motion]

Hi Denis

Thanks..sent some info over to support.

[BodyByStarbucks]

Thanks, Denis

[Denis Goekdag]

Just a short heads-up that Esellerate has fixed the download issues --- running smoothly now

[biomuse]

Hi just wondering what the restriction on the demo is - dropouts/noise or time-limited?

Asking because I don't have a lot of free time right now and want to know whether I should wait to download until I do, or whether I can at least get a little synapse zap for now and save the real demoing for later.

[Denis Goekdag]

The demo restrictions are 1) no saving of presets or session data and 2) the plug-in stops working after 15 minutes, requiring a re-instantiation (plus a little nag-screen ;-)).

So nothing that kills your ears, ruins the sound or forces you to allocate time that you may not have :-)

[Denis Goekdag]

Hey you gearslutz!

Version 1.04 of PITCHMAP is out, it adds mono-mono routing, a new custom installer (the previous one --- by Apple --- didn't always do what it was supposed to), as well as some minor bug fixes.
Using the new installer also results in Ableton Live users now seeing the 29 beautiful presets that are included.

And here's a new video, showing the MIDI-controlled use in Logic:



Cheers,
Denis

[BodyByStarbucks]

Denis. Thanks so much for the vid.
Again, wonderful, wonderful product!

[Loopy C]

And it really needs to be highlighted how cool the five main continuous adjustment controls are! A truly aesthetically fantastic and functional design.

My pet peeve forever has been this idea of a picture of a 3D physical 'knob', it is a poor input device in the 2D world of software (like grabbing a real knob in a rack unit with oven mitts on IMHO!).

The design Zynaptiq has come up with is a perfect marriage of visual feedback and tactile control (push/pull) for this kind of input.

Bravo Denis and Stephan

[Denis Goekdag]

Thanks, glad to hear you're digging the "trackballs"

We've just updated PITCHMAP as well as the free trial to version 1.1.0.

This update includes a whole bunch of new features and workflow refinements.

New in version 1.1.0:

• Added simple stand-alone application with iTunes library access and MIDI in support.
• Added external MIDI input for use in hosts that do not support sending MIDI to plug-ins.
• Added more mouse-over help texts.
• Added several new scales to the Transform macro.
• Added support for OSX 10.5.8.
• Added reset of main controls to default values via CTRL-click.
• Added Repeat/Visible/Custom parameter to list of persistent parameters.
• Added "60" to Lower Keyboard to denote "middle" C.
• Added mouse-over activated semitone grid and transpose values to the Display.
• Added additional Algorithm mode for increased fidelity on certain signal types.
• Added option to load/save Snapshots from/to disk as XML via shift-click.
• Added "clear all Snapshots" function via CTRL-click on the Snapshot Save button.
• Added "global" option to the Threshold parameter. This helps preserving transients on very dense material.
• Optimized detection algorithm for better performance with specific signal types.
• Fixed several minor issues and optimized general performance.

PLEASE NOTE: as we've added a bunch of new parameters, it wasn't possible to maintain backward compatibility to session data and user presets, so PLEASE make sure you bounce any critical processing to disk before updating!

We're emailing download info to users of the full version, demo users can (and should ) get the new version here.

Best,
Denis

[tele27]

Originally Posted by Loopy C

And it really needs to be highlighted how cool the five main continuous adjustment controls are! A truly aesthetically fantastic and functional design.

My pet peeve forever has been this idea of a picture of a 3D physical 'knob', it is a poor input device in the 2D world of software (like grabbing a real knob in a rack unit with oven mitts on IMHO!).

The design Zynaptiq has come up with is a perfect marriage of visual feedback and tactile control (push/pull) for this kind of input.

Bravo Denis and Stephan

How do you eliminate those warble artifacts?
Been trying to figure that out.

[Denis Goekdag]

There are several parameters that can influence the amount of "pitch-jumping" you get. There's some info in the (admittedly currently not sufficiently comprehensive) Quick-Start Guide, and we're working on a bunch of tutorial videos, but here's a quick run-down OTOH on some of the strategies to reduce "jumping":

• The Input Reference Tuning: if your recording is not centered around A=440Hz, adjusting this parameter can reduce pitch-"jumps" by a significant amount. For example if your recording was generally off-set by half a semitone, *all* pitches would be exactly in-between two grid lines and thus be pulled up or down --- the thing being that if they're *exactly* in-between, there's an ambiguity as to which pitch they "belong to", and any small vibrato etc can cause a change in correction direction.
• The Xclude Rounding Mode: this defines the correction behavior if a pitch is Xcluded either by setting pitches to be Xcluded using the big GUI keyboard or by using MIDI mapping. It's sort of a "directional tendency", and has a noticeable effect on the "jumping"-behaviour. If your input is generally tuned too low, use "up", if it's tuned too high, use "down", if it's detuned all over the place use "nearest" or "intelligent", if it is already cleanly tuned...well, also "nearest" or "intelligent".
• Try Xcluding any pitches that no notes are played on. For example if your input is in E pentatonic minor (E G A B D), Xclude F, F#, G#, Bb, C, C# and D#....this results in the recognition using broader "corridors" when deciding what pitch a sound has ( means: less "jumping").
• When correcting only a couple of pitches in a mix, you can increase the Glide parameter to smooth out the transitions on any "jumping". This works well with some sounds and less well with others, though.
• The Algorithm mode influences the recognition and it can help optimizing results to test which setting works best for any given material.
• The Electrify parameter serves to...well..electrify the sound, but ALSO controls the number of sounds tracked in the recognition, with higher values giving less tracked sounds. This is always a trade-off in real-time situations, as tracking more sounds than the signal has can result in harmonics being seen as additional fundamentals, and tracking less sounds than the signal has gives a (very cool) synthetic coloration. Adjusting this value can have a significant impact on the results, including reduction of "jumping".

HTH,
Denis

[Denis Goekdag]

Hey all,

two bits of news:

--- we've updated PITCHMAP to version 1.1.1 which adds an extra plug-in version for compatibility with Carbon-based hosts like NI MASCHINE.

--- we've spotted PITCHMAP being used to process the vocals on a dubstep remix of the Fugees by an act called Buzzerds.

http://soundcloud.com/buzzerdz/fugees-ready-or-not-buzzerds

[Denis Goekdag]

Howdy fellow Gearslutz!

We've just uploaded a fresh PITCHMAP video, showing the plug-in in a remixing situation. We're processing stems and individual tracks to create two different remix layouts, one is very synthetic sounding euro-electro and one is oriental house flavored. No additional processing/sounds used except for a little reverb and delay to blend the results into a mix, and adding one synth bass and one beat. All real-time, all PITCHMAP. Enjoy

[BodyByStarbucks]

Great vid, Denis Thank you!

atb,
kjb

[Loopy C]

Inspiring video Denis ;-)

[Denis Goekdag]

And another video: PITCHMAP processing orchestral music, completely changing the composition using just a stereo mix. This time around, we've focused on natural sounding results (though as the video was quickly made, in about half an hour for the compositional part, there's still room for further improvement...)

We show using both MIDI as well as GUI-based pitch mapping, and demonstrate how well PITCHMAP performs as straight pitch-shifter. It's actually pretty awesome for that, as it doesn't use any looped & overlapping buffer stuff at all --- so no grain-tastic rrreepeaaatting stuff.

The music used is a track called "Assimilation", produced and kindly provided by PROJECT SAM....it is one of the sound demos of their excellent SYMPHOBIA orchestral sample library.

Enjoy!

[Silver Sonya]

Incredibly exciting musical possibilities.

I got ideas.

- c

[henge]

So as a straight pitch corrector how does the algo sound compared to Melodyne on voice?

[wcb123]

Pleeeease hurry with the PC release.. I need something a cut above the Waves offerings which this looks like it will be.

[elysia]

This is an incredible piece of software.
Very powerful, very creative.
We need more of this stuff!

Cheers,
Dominik

[Silver Sonya]

Agreed.

Anyone who is a smart artist should be getting radical ideas right about now.

The artistic implications are pretty wicked.

That's all I'm sayin'.

- c

[Denis Goekdag]

Cheers for the kind words, they are very much appreciated!

Originally Posted by elysia

We need more of this stuff!

There's more coming. Visit us at the Musikmesse

Hall 5.1, Booth A91. We'll be demonstrating PITCHMAP as well as a new plug-in.

We'll also be serving excellent single malt and handing out personal discount coupons for everyone that visits us....

See you there!

[qua]

Looks fantastic!

What is the activation system? is it iLok? I can't find the info on your site.