Transpose, Pitch

[dvessels]

I am not familiar with terminology. I am hoping to record someone, (say myself), and then go back and add a 3rd & 5th harmony (by myself, that is). Using Cakewalk Home Studio how do I "slow down" the recording to allow the "transposition"?

THANK YOU!!

[bennychico11]

i'm confused...you're wanting to add harmony on top of what you've already recorded?? why do you need to slow down the recording?

[grn]

why not just record the harmony yourself on another track... instead of making the computer do all the work for you... some software allows you transpose without altering speed.

[Robert D]

Hey, the days of the varispeed control are history. We now have wiz bang plugins to do pitch transposition and harmonies. The bad news is they pretty much suck. They've come a long way with formant control and what not, but it still "ain't nothing like the real thing baby".
Most plugins have demos these days, so do a search, and try some out, but the best approach is to either sing it yourself, or find someone who can.

-RD

[dvessels]

Sorry, I bet I wasn't all that clear (blush). I want to sing harmonies that I normally can't reach by slowing down the original to lower the key. It's for people like me who have had 3 surgeries on their throat and now have a composite 2-octave range.

I hope that's clearer. Thanks to everyone who replied. To those who obviously had some info on the newer techno to do this, can you shoot me a URL of an example or something?

THANX!

[Dogman]

Does your program have the tab under plugins for transpose pitch? If so, you should be able to keep the timing the same, but transpose pitch. Not sure about your version, as I have both Sonar 5 and an old version of Music Creator.
Ed

[bennychico11]

yeah, you just want to pitch shift it...not slow it down. Maybe you're slowing down the oscillations of the pitch, but you don't want to slow down the music (otherwise it would get off tempo).

There are a ton of harmonizers out there. Lots of free ones I'm sure (http://www.kvraudio.com/)
Antares makes one I believe. They aren't really all that great though, and some of them in fact just plain suck. Many of the plugins tranpose the pitch down a fourth and then keep it down a fourth for the entire song...which obviously is not ideal for all chord changes you will be singing over.

[mshilarious]

Yeah, you can simply drop the pitch of the tune, sing your harmony part, and then raise the pitch of the harmony vocal back up to the original key. That's probably better than using a harmonizer plug, since you would be recording a new track, rather than just creating a computer-generated harmony. Try not to make the pitch shift too large, the bigger you get, the cheesier it sounds. And use the original tracks with your harmony vocal, don't use a pitched-down and then pitched-up version.

Most software has some sort of built-in pitch shift function, which can do it without changing tempo.

[LRosario]

Transposing something is re-arranging something up or down certain values based on musical scales. It's also a feature used often in MIDI sequencing.

However, in your case, you should be able to just track the lead vox track and each successive background vox track at normal speed.

If you're talking about recording at half speed, that's not usually reserved for normal tracking. That's reserved more for parts difficult to nail based on high tempos or "cheating" yourself into a higher pitch.



I think I'm a little confused on what your question is though.

[Alexbt]

You must be. I understood the question perfectly, though in my case, this is something I've already planned on doing.

Of course, this type of thing was done in the analog world all the time. Tapes could be played at different speeds. Now it digital, we can adjust pitch, but recording it slowed down into a different key will be much cleaner sounding than using a plugin to adjust only the pitch of a song.

[AGCurry]

You may end up sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks, however.

[mshilarious]

Originally Posted by AGCurry

You may end up sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks, however.

You should be OK with a third. The fifth is getting into Chipmunk territory Maybe go down a fourth instead, or just write out a close harmony part with the high and low voices swapping third and fourths as needed?

[Alexbt]

I've done a full octave before with the pitch adjustment in Logic. It doesn't sound great, but in a mix it could work, and it makes guys sound like girls.

[Robert D]

Originally Posted by Alexbt

I've done a full octave before with the pitch adjustment in Logic. It doesn't sound great, but in a mix it could work, and it makes guys sound like girls.

There's a bunch of transexuals up in SF that will be happy to hear that!

-RD

[dvessels]

My vocal range. I used to have a pretty okay one, but since some surgeries that affected my vocal chords, my range is all but one octave. If I can slow down the original recording with my original vocal, it makes it possible to reach the higher notes in any subsequent harmonies sung to the melody. Imagine playing an old 33.3 LP and sticking your finger against the outside edge of the record while it's playing. The record slows down and the key drops. This is what I seek--for the key of the song to drop into my now limited range so that I can add vocal harmony parts.

[noisewreck]

I recommend you take a look at Melodyne. You could use your DAW's pitch shifting commands, but anything more than 1-2 semitions (even then, in some cases) will start sounding funny.

Here's the link to Celemony's Melodyne: http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=cre8studio0

[dvessels]

For those who haven't already been able to tell, I'm also new to the bulletin board scene. I typed that last entry and then somehow saw all the rest of the posts. Sorry.

I have found a couple of items, Time Shifter and Time/Pitch Stretch. Transpose allowed me to just do it in another key without changing the speed. One of you picked up that I was familiar with the old analog methods.

Thanks very much to all. I am still open to all suggestions. I have picked up home recording for dummies, but I'm sure most of you know that just going through the software and attempting to familiarize myself with as much as possible.

Thanks again!!