Disable loop pitch shifting: no need for "root note&quo

The place for general discussion of Cakewalk Pro Audio.
deathcloset
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jun 07, 2006 4:51 am

Post by deathcloset » Wed Jun 07, 2006 5:03 am

Hello Everyone :)

Glad to see this forum. I have what is probably a dumb question - but it is annoying me something fierce.

I have some drum loops and I was wondering if there was a way to disable the artificial pitch shifting cakewalk does to them by default when you loop.

what I mean is that as I decrease the tempo - say from 130bpm down to 90bpm I want the sample to lower in pitch naturally - as though I were slowing it down on an LP.

Currently if I take a loop which is recorded originally at 130bpm and then drop the project tempo to 90 bpm I get nasty pitch shiting aliasing and I have to MANUALLY alter the pitch of the loop.

first of all this is inconvienient to have to change the "root note" every time I make a dramatic tempo change or use a sample in a tempo dramatically different than it was recorded in.

secondly, there is a loss in sample quality when this artificial pitch shifting is applied. Even when you very closely match the root note to what the sample would really be at a slow bpm, the chances that you are dead-on accurate are nill - and there is sample loss due to reprossesing by the looping pitch shifter.

I hope I have made my problem clear. It's a long explanation for a simple thing. It's annoying how this is difficult for me to convey clearly.

I just want my drum loops - which are already trimmed to loop perfectly - to not be artificially pitch shifted whatsoever. I want to disable the whole "root note" nonesense. I want the sample to simply maintain it's true fidelity - even if that means it is slowed down to sounding like a 78 rpm LP being played at 33 - or if it sounds like chipmunks drumming when I speed the tempo up to 150.

Thanks for your consideration all!


andychap
Posts: 685
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:26 pm
Location: UK

Post by andychap » Wed Jun 07, 2006 12:03 pm

Can you let us know what actual cakewalk program and version number you are using. It will help in answering the question.

Thanks

deathcloset
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jun 07, 2006 4:51 am

Post by deathcloset » Thu Jun 08, 2006 3:00 am

thanks for the swift reply :)

Sorry about leaving that info out - I'm using Sonar 5 Producer Edition.

Gracias!

andychap
Posts: 685
Joined: Wed Aug 27, 2003 7:26 pm
Location: UK

Post by andychap » Fri Jun 09, 2006 1:02 am

I have been trying to recreate the problem you have been having but not with much success. I took a loop of 140 bpm, opened the clip properties and in the groove clip properties I unchecked the enable looping box and checked the stretch to project tempo box. The loop changed to 100bpm but the root note remained the same and there was no pitch shifting.

The only discernable problem I found with some loops was if the loop have been recorded with reverb on it then the reverb tails sounded to long and drawn out.

How are you changing the tempo of the loops? Also there is a box to enable a loop the follow project pitch, that hasn't been selected by accident has it?

deathcloset
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Jun 07, 2006 4:51 am

Post by deathcloset » Fri Jul 14, 2006 5:04 am

ah, I found out how to better ask what I was trying to ask.

sorry for the confusion.

Example: when using Sony ACID if you have a drum loop and you increase the tempo, the pitch of the loop can increase with it.

This is known as "not maintaining the pitch of Beatmapped tracks when the project tempo changes".

It's basically analogous to speeding up an LP - the pitch of the drum loop on the record will increase as you speed up the LP, and the pitch will decrease as you slow down the LP (from chipmunk to darth vader, if you will).

This method maintains fidelity of the original sample.

Anytime an audio application attempts to preserve pitch it is destructive to the original sample

As far as I can tell you can set the project tempo to the original tempo of the loop (based upon the length of the audio clip). but if you increase or decrease this tempo the pitch of the looping track remains the same.

Thus if you import a loop and it's base tempo is 150, and you then change the tempo to 75 you will hear noticable audio artifacts as Cakewalk attempts to preserve the original pitch of the loop.

you can of course lessen these artifacts by manually artificially pitching the loop downwards - but you will never (or rarely at best) be able to exactly match the proper pitch to tempo ratio to assure that cakewalk is not performing artificial pitch shifting on the loop.

As far as I can tell, cakewalk does not have this functionality - but I'm a Cakewalk noob big time so maybe you guys have some insight.

Sorry for this technical problem - but I really like to maintain fidelity whenever possible: artificial pitch-shifting of even minicule amounts destroys fidelity. Allowing the pitch to naturally shift with the tempo is what I desire.

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