Annoyingly Flat Vocalist

[williamconifer]

Greetings,

I am working on a remixing project using Acid3pro, SF 5.0, & Fruityloops 3.4. Because of the crappy original recording I can only use 1 chorus in my remix, I recycle it so it appears twice now in my remix. Unfortunately there are 2 parts in the chorus where the singer winds up and belts out some long sustained notes. 1/3 third of each of those notes go flat (just a little bit). Multiply this times 2 and it's just annoying enough to ruin the professional sound I have created.

Can I use the SF pitch shift process to tune those little segments up? If so, how do I go about this? Is the Anteres pitch shifter specifically designed for this? What options do I have? Since this is just an obsessive hobby for me I really don't want to spend any more money on expensive pro software just to deal with some periodic flat vocals.

Any thoughts are welcome

jack

[AlChuck]

You can do it by "hand," or try processor like AutoTune to give ou more control. The cool thing about AutoTune is it can detect when a note slips relative to the contextual scale tones and fix those that are most egregious while leaving evrything else alone... with the pitch shifting in SF you have to figure how how many cents to shift the picch by so you have to do more work yourself.

I have a DirectX plug called RBC Voice Tweaker that does the same basic job as AutoTune and cost alot less. Seems to work pretty well, but I haven't tried AutoTune itself and compared them head-to-head on the same program material...

See http://www.thedirectxfiles.com/

[Track Rat]

Autotune is the beast when it comes to fix-a-flat. I don't like to use it in auto mode, but prefere to use it only on the part's that are out of tune. You just highlight the passage in question, select manual mode, scan it and it then shows you a grid with keys to the left and a scan of the passage showing you the pitch in time. You can draw over the section thats out of tune to what you'd like it to be and render it. You can also tweek it as to how agressive you want it to be. It won't turn you into one of the three tenors but you can fix-a-flat.

[williamconifer]

Thanks AlChuck for the Voice Tweak tip. I tried the lite version and I was able to fix the flat. I just needed to re-adjust the selected area if the auto tune wasn't pitching just right.

But here is what I ran across that I need feedback on: You have to have a mono signal for Voice Tweak to work. So I used Sound Forge's Channel Converter (I think thats the name) to convert Stereo to mono, 50% ea channel, no fader. (actually I tried all the stereo to mono setting). What I got was a mono signal with alot of mid-high to high freq phasing that's a to harsh. The origional vocal was recorded with stereo mics and are panned for a nice natural stereo effect. There is minimal differance between the left and right channels, but enough of a difference for the combined sound to sound crappy.

Question: Should I just delete one of the channels and then pan the other to the center?

Any other ideas?
jack

[Queue]

split to two mono files, process each separately then rebuild the stereo track?

Queue

[williamconifer]

Actually come to think of it maybe I don't have to deconstruct the two stereo signals. Maybe I could select only the offending section in the left channel, apply flat fix then do the same to the right channel. I would imagine that both channels should stay in phase. The pitch correction is very slight (3-4 cents).

What do you all think of this? Are there any odd artifacts that might arrise? Is there any "rebuilding" needed if I do it this way?

Thanks for the question Que! Some times a question is better than an answer.

jack

[barefoot]

You can try Pitch Bend in Sound Forge. It allows you to draw an envelope. If you're only tweaking a small amount the sound quality should remain pretty good.

barefoot

[Yadi]

Does anyone know anything about OB Tune. It seems like a great deal at $49 since its powered by the Antares engine. Opinions?

[cloudchamber]

Auto-tune has a free demo that works about 15 times before it wants money. You could probably fix that flat note for free.

[Gnick]

Originally posted by Yadi
Does anyone know anything about OB Tune. It seems like a great deal at $49 since its powered by the Antares engine. Opinions?

It's basically the Auto-Tune automatic mode with a new pretty wrapper. It works exactly the same, as far as I can tell. The manual even reads almost exactly the same -- basically someone did a search and replace on the Antares manual...

[Yadi]

LOL...just another "limited" edition eh? I can't tell you how many of those I've collected in so-called "bundles". Does anyone know where to get a demo of OB Tune or Antares for that matter? I've looked around but haven't seen any demos.

[Fangar]

Originally posted by williamconifer

Any thoughts are welcome

jack

Implants?

=)


Sorry


Fangar

[williamconifer]

Originally posted by Fangar


Implants?

=)


Sorry
Fangar

I'm not sure how that would look, considering the vocalist's name is Sergio. *chuckles*

jack

[Fangar]

Uh, Yeah.... I see. Sergio? That would take some work. Maybe Antare Autotune would be better. =)

Fangar