Pro Tools 11 - #22 - Elastic Pitch pt.1 - Pitch Shift with Polyphonic and X-Form Video Lecture | Pro tools Tutorial: Basics to Expert - Video & Sound Editing

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to episode 22 of my Pro Tools 11
video tutorial series in this episode
we're going to take a look at elastic
pitch it's one of the features of
elastic audio now in the previous
episodes we've talked about stretching
time mostly using the rhythmic
polyphonic and monophonic modes or you
can stretch and compress audio without
affecting pitch and then the previous
episode we talked about varus speed
where you can stretch and compress time
but also affect pitch sort of like a
turntable playback speed effect in this
episode we're going to talk about pitch
shifting Clips without affecting their
timing now you can actually use elastic
pitch with both puffy polyphonic mode
and the rhythmic mode but you can't use
it with the monophonic mode so for all
of these clips which are basically bass
and guitar whereas polyphonic 4 there's
also another elastic mode that we're
gonna introduce in this video called
xform
which allows you to do extremely high
quality pitch shifting to the point
where you almost can't hear add if you
can't tell that it's been pitch shifted
so we're gonna start with polyphonic and
we're going to work our way up to X form
so what I've got here is a full session
with drums everything in blue is drums
and we have di base 2 amped guitars and
a guitar solo at the end the problem is
that we track this whole session
everything sounds good it needs to be
mixed and and and edited but the session
sounds good the problem is that we later
found out that the key that we recorded
in which is d minor is too high for the
singer to sing in he just sounds like
he's stretching his voice beyond beyond
what his normal range would be so what I
want to do is I want to pitch shift all
these tracks down so that he can sing
the song in the key that were eventually
going to release it in so let me play a
little bit of the song or
now we're not going to really be doing
anything with the drums just at the the
guitars here so this is just a little
bit of the verse there's a little bit of
the chorus
and here's a little bit of this sort of
post-chorus riff
so it sounds good the promise again
that's in the wrong key we're in d-minor
so what we're gonna do is we're gonna
shift all of the tonal tracks the bass
the guitars and the guitar solo down to
half steps down two semitones down to
the key of C minor so we go from D down
to c-sharp down to C now sort of the
quick and dirty way to do this is to
turn on the polyphonic setting and right
click on the clip and go to elastic
properties and then from the elastic
properties window go down to pitch shift
and then type in or drag down negative
two semitones it's gonna pitch shift the
clip down to half steps now you can also
pitch shift in cents which is a smaller
a smaller unit basically there's 12
semitones and an octave and there are a
hundred cents per semitone so making
cent adjustments as making very sort of
fine-tuning adjustments so again the
original the original sounded like this
let me get that window back up the
original sounded like this just by the
way this is just the bass by itself with
our pitch shift it sounds like this so
the whole clip is now going to be down
two half steps let's go to our first
guitar here I'm just gonna turn this
imager off this is what's actually
making this beep ant over its app and
over to the left so here's the original
and after we add the pitch shift - it
sounds like this
so I'm gonna do that same thing to the
second guitar and then we're gonna do
the same thing to the guitar solo and
you can actually use the pitch shift
function with rhythmic and polyphonic
but it doesn't work with monophonic it
only works with polyphonic and with
rhythmic and also another one that we're
gonna learn later and if I said this
already but xform which is a super high
quality pitch shifting algorithm so I'm
gonna avoid monophonic because we can't
create pitch adjustments all right so
let's just see what the the guitars bass
and the solo sound like now with our
pitch shift down to two half steps
now it doesn't sound terrible that would
be good enough maybe just cutting a demo
and then maybe we could come back in and
we could re-record all these guitar
parts in the correct key maybe I could
detune the guitar and rerecord it all
the problem is I don't if you can if you
can hear it but there's a noticeable
loss and sort of the brightness and the
fullness of the tone it sounds sort of
muddy and sludgy and underwater if I get
rid of these plugins it's gonna ask me
do you want to commit or revert we're
gonna revert on all of these if you get
rid of these elastic plugins you're
gonna hear that the original is much
brighter much fuller although it was a
higher key it's almost like we've lost
some of the upper level overtones or the
overtones have been shifted down to half
steps so we sort of lost some of the
fullness in the high end so instead of
using polyphonic I'm gonna try the X
form algorithm now I'm just going to
sort of cut out a small chunk of of this
for now and I'll explain why later but
I'm just gonna work with just these
small clips for right now so let me go
ahead on the bass let's turn on X form
now X form is different than the other
four elastic algorithm elastic
algorithms in that it can only work in
rendered processing mode it can't work
in real time processing like these do
because it takes too long for the
computer to process the the pitch shift
with the X form algorithm so they can't
play it back in real time so as a result
it takes longer for X form to process
the audio when you change it so I'm
gonna choose X form on all three of
these I'm not gonna bother with the solo
right now and we can right click again
I'm gonna play the original just one of
it one of these guitars for you
I'm going to right-click again go to
elastic properties type in negative -
what's gonna happen as the clip is gonna
go gray what's happening here's Pro
Tools is processing that clip and it's
rendering a new clip in the audio the
audio bin that we can listen to this is
the only way xform will work because it
eats up too much processing power to do
it in real time so this is the result
it's it's better than polyphonic was but
it still sounds a little bit dull almost
like again if we've lost some of the
upper overtones
if you click directly on the xform
plugin you'll see this formant in button
or formats enable what this doesn't
again is gonna have to reprocess it
again what this does it actually
preserves the upper level overtones from
the original recording a little bit
better than it than it would have had
you not turned it on and that's part of
the problems like we're losing some of
the high end because the upper level
overtones have been shifted down you can
also choose a quality setting here I
recommend using maximum you can sort of
test things with low and then bump it up
to maximum so listen to this listen the
before and after so this is the the
before sort of dull and lifeless and
underwater if we turn the formant an
able option on
we can't even tell anymore that it's a
pitch shifted recording its it's
maintained its upper level overtones and
maintain the quality of the original
recording just shifted down to half
steps so I'm gonna right click we're
gonna do the same thing for the right
guitar or it goes down two semitones do
the same thing for the bass we're gonna
go down two semitones and then in on
both the bass and the second guitar we
are going to turn the formant in a
formant the naval option on and again
we're at the weight of just a second for
this to render in place and then I'll
play it I'll play these three together
and then I'll play it with the drums and
by the by the way this is the reason why
I cut this little clip out because we'd
be made waiting a long time for these to
process if I hadn't so here's these
three alone with xform
and you went you can hear it when it
goes back to the old key on these other
clips there's really no hardly any
noticeable difference in quality like
this could actually be kept we can
actually salvage these recordings just
in a lower key now and actually we
instead of having to go back and
rerecord them so let's just plays with
the the drums real quick just to see
what it sounds like
so I can't even tell I can't even tell
that that wasn't the original signal
captured off the amp with with two mics
it sounds it sounds like this was the
recording and I that we made and it
sounds like I can't like I can't even
hear any artifacts from the pitch shift
hardly any at all so it's totally
totally usable now here's the downside
of xform I want to do this whole song I
just did a tiny little clip of it if we
right-click and we again go to our
elastic properties and type type in
negative 2 for each one of these it is
going to take a long long time for this
to process all this audio so what I'm
gonna do is I'm gonna I'm gonna process
all this I'm gonna do it on the guitar
solo as well and what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna off-screen this I'm gonna wait
it's 607 right now I'm gonna wait or 608
just turned 608 I'm gonna wait I'm gonna
cut the video and we come back and I'm
gonna show you how long it takes to
process just basically three guitar
tracks three full guitar tracks and a
short guitar solo on a four minute song
it's gonna take a while so I'll be right
back alright we're back and all the
processing is done in all these clips
it's 621 right now although the
processing was done at about 6:18 619 so
it took roughly 10 11 minutes to get all
that done and you know it's it takes a
long time for it to process everything
but really I mean in the end to get the
best sound possible out of a pitch shift
like this and to not have to go back
into the studio and rerecord the song
obviously that's the best thing to do if
you know if you have the time money to
do that great go back and rerecord the
song in this case I just need the song
that sound good for the singer and have
it be in the right key you know so what
he sings that he's not gonna be singing
you know trying to sing in the key
that's too high for him but yeah I mean
that's that's not too bad I mean getting
the best quality result without having
to go back and retrack the song is
definitely a plus so let me just play a
little bit of the song play the same
spots the verse
the bridge and or the course and then
the post chorus riff
here's the the chorus
I kind of like how the low note sounds a
little bit fuller and deeper now now
that we're in C then here's the ending
riff
and then let's see how the guitar solo
turned out
yeah so not too bad you know I could
definitely use this if I wanted to maybe
I may have to mix the you know mix the
the guitar tracks a little bit
differently now in terms of EQ but this
is definitely salvageable now I don't
necessarily have to go back and rerecord
all this I probably will anyway just a
you know to have the everything be as
high-quality as possible but I don't
have to if I don't want to and then
lastly as you guys already know if you
remove the the plug-in it'll ask you do
you want to commit or revert if you hit
commit it's going to basically render
all of those all that elastic audio in
place so it's always so it'll be there
as a new file rather than being a rather
than running the xform plug-in all the
time in the next video we'll continue to
talk about elastic pitch and working
with elastic pitch and vocals so I hope
you enjoyed the video and thanks for
watching