Logic Pro X - Video Tutorial 23 - Flex Pitch and Vocal Tuning Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hello this is music tech help guy
welcome to episode 23 of my Logic Pro 10
video tutorial series in this episode
we'll take a look at flex pitch one of
the new features in Logic 10 now if
you're unfamiliar with flex time I
recommend you go back and watch my other
flex time videos but flex time was a
feature that came out in Logic 9 which
allows us to adjust the timing and
quantize the timing of audio flex pitch
is really cool because it allows us to
adjust the tuning and the pitch of
individual tracks it allows you to
correct a correct the tuning and vocals
or instruments okay so to start I'm
actually have three examples for you for
this video but just to start I have a
very basic just a monophonic Cynthia and
I'm using this because it's really
simple material it's going to be really
easy to tune so let's take a listen to
what we've got going on here
you
so again just a really simple c-major
monophonic synthesis
is to change maybe a melody that's
already been recorded like this synth
lead here so to turn on flex pitch all
you do is select the track that you want
to turn on flex pitch actually don't
have to really have to do that click on
the icon up here for flex time and then
on the track that you want to affect
select the proper flex mode here we
talked about these other ones in
previous videos we're going to choose
flex pitch and it'll analyze the
waveform for transients and then it will
allow us to adjust the tuning of those
transients now you can actually edit
pitch right out in here if you hover
over these little lines here you can
pull up
or pull down the pitch of any note I
really don't like editing out here just
because it's not it's not very intuitive
so we're actually going to use the track
editor to to edit with so I'm just going
to go ahead and zoom out a little bit
here and then just double click on the
top of the region here and it'll open up
the track editor now this is what flex
pitch looks like in the track editor
it's essentially a lot like a piano roll
editor what you see is the waveform in
the background and then you see just
these individual notes that represent
the pitch of each of the notes in the
waveform so if I just double click on
the ruler up here it'll start playback
so one of the simplest things you can do
is let's say I want to take this melody
and I want to alter it in some way let's
say instead of a you might a natural
here maybe I want to make this a flat
one thing you can do is just click on
the middle of the note you'll get this
little hand here and then you can just
pull straight down or up and you can
alter the pitch of that no the other
thing you can do whoops the other thing
you can do is you can click on the piano
roll over here just click on a it'll
actually select all of the A's in the
recording so maybe I want to pull all of
them down now that they're all selected
let's pull them all down to a flat
likewise maybe I want to do the same
thing to all of my ease here maybe I
want to pull others only one II but
let's say I want to pull that down too
he flat so basically what I've done is
I've just turned a you know I major
recording into a minor recording so
let's see what this sounds like
and there we go another thing that you
can do with flex pitch is you can
actually quantize audio just like we
can't afflicts time if you hit command a
to select everything or you can just
select the notes that you want to affect
you know to select all of them what you
can do let me just make this a little
bit bigger here what you can do is you
can go to this time quantize feature
here and quantize just like you would
like we did in the region parameters up
here for flex time so it looks like our
fastest rhythm here is a sixteenth note
so I'm going to choose sixteenth note
and you'll see that all the waveforms
snap to the grid at a sixteenth note now
just like working with flex time this is
you know this is imperfect it's not
perfect we there may be some things we
have to go and fix later on but let's
see what this sounds like
Yeah right here the note was a little
bit early and maybe I want to change the
rhythm of this one here from an eighth
note to a quarter note let me go ahead
and turn the the metronome on here so
you can just have a more of a rhythmic
reference but what you can do is if you
hover over the right or left of kind of
boundary of each note you give this a
little trim tool you can actually pull
this right or left to trim these notes
there we go and so now I've got a two
quarter notes rather than this early
note and this is what used to be an
eighth note and there we go so that's
just a really basic introduction to how
flex pitch works let's look at a more
complex example
in this example I have just a vocal
melody and what we're going to do is
we're going to use flex pitch to tune
her vocals so this is what the vocal
melody sounds like right now in this
world of ruin in this world of tragedy
you've got to take what you can get
gotta give what you can live with now
obviously when you're working with
vocals there's a whole a whole other
level of complexity to trying to
determine what note she's singing you
know which which words are which
syllables are going to be identified as
transients things like consonant sounds
like s sounds and T and sounds things
like that
so there's a whole nother level of
complexity to this than what we saw with
the synth lead like wise or because of
that there are going to be certain
elements of this recording that don't
get picked up or recognized by flex
pitch so let's go ahead and just turn
flex pitch on turn on flex select flex
pitch let it do its analysis
double-click on it to open up in the
track editor let's just zoom in a bit
here and there we go
now this is a sort of thing I'm talking
about there are points where maybe she's
breathing or it's like the tail end of a
word that are just completely left out
again right here and here and so these
sorts of things are all over the place
you'll also notice that there's easels
Quigley lines all on these notes what
the squiggly line represents is her
pitch drift or her vibrato across time
now I realized it's not always
intentional vibrato you know for broto
just meaning kind of a wavering in the
pitch across time but sometimes it's
like an unintentional vibrato maybe a
pitch falling or rising another really
common thing to see is like this here at
the end tail end of a phrase pitch drops
off or
maybe at the tail end of at the
beginning of a phrase at the beginning
of a word maybe pitch kind of jumps up
so there's all these extra things that
you have to keep in mind when working
with vocals as opposed to working with
instruments so the melody where listener
we're looking at here is in the key of D
minor so one of the things that we can
do is if you know what key the vocals
are in or the melody is in you can
actually quantize pitch and this is
called a scale quantize over here so
what I can do is hit command a and then
I'm going to go over to my scale
quantize and choose D and then I'm going
to choose natural minor now natural
minor is just regular old minor there's
harmonic minor there's melodic minor as
well there's a whole bunch of other
steel scales as well so if you're
familiar with music theory and you know
what scale the melody is being built
upon you can better make the decision as
to what to quantize to so by choosing D
natural minor all of the notes are going
to snap to the nearest note in D natural
minor the other thing we can do is we
can adjust the the basically the the
pitch correction itself I don't know if
you noticed this but then even though we
we quantize the pitch to a scale some of
the notes are actually still not
perfectly seated on the correct note
here for instance this is a little bit
flat that one's a little bit sharp so
what you can do is hit command a and you
can pull up the pitch correction over
here and what this does is it pulls
notes closer to their intended targets
so let's see what this sounds like in
this world of Berlin in this world of
tragedy
you've got to take what you can get
gotta give what you can live with for
the most part that sounded pretty good
except this part right here
tragedy yep on track on trad and then
judy like the the middle part of the
word she's got these kind of scoops in
the word that are have been quantized to
looks like a here and really they should
be lowered so let's listen that one more
time
tragedy yeah and logic does recognize
that hey this is this is part of a word
this is part of a syllable here as well
and but it's just pushed them too high
so one of the things we can do here is
if you let me just zoom in a bit when
you hum when you hover over the note
you'll see that there are six guess
hotspots if you will on the note here
the middle one adjust for broto
the right is format shift the left is
gain the upper left is pitch drift the
upper middle is fine pitch and the upper
right is pitch drift again what we're
going to do with these two notes is
because they've been pulled up too far
we are going to kind of just pull them
down a little bit with the fine pitch
you could just pull them down a full
half step by clicking in the middle of
the note but I'm just gonna pull them
down this way and let's see what that
sounds like
tragedy
yeah that sounds fine another thing you
can do is if you're looking for that
kind of auto-tune sound auto-tune isn't
just pitch correction it's actually
getting rid of the vibrato in notes you
can see most of the long notes here have
this obvious pitch waver to them
and if you hit command a to select all
and then pull up on this middle bottom
hot spot here hot zone here are pulled
down rather you can lower the vibrato
amount down to zero now typically when
you lower the vibrato you're just doing
this too
of unaccessible here it's gonna sound
very robotic because we've taken any
pitch drift out of the note basically in
this world of ruin in this world of
tragedy you've got to take what you can
get
gotta give what you can live with so if
that's the sound you're going for great
you know but it's not usually the sound
I'm going for I usually like more of I
prefer more natural sounding tuning all
right so for my third example I have
another vocal example for you so for the
third example I have a male vocal up
here along with just doubled acoustic
guitar down here so let's listen to what
the sounds like well if you won't
believe in me and if you tell me just to
leave alright so just a little bit of an
excerpt from a song what I'm going to do
with this vocal is first I'm going to
tune it but then I'm also going to
create artificial backing harmonies
behind it it's another little trick you
can do with flex pitch so what I'm going
to do preemptively is I'm going to
duplicate the track I'm going to put my
snap mode in bar and make sure I'm in
relative value and I'm just going to
hold option while I drag this down to
the new track just to duplicate it so
this bottom one is going to be my
harmony track that imma creat later I'm
going to mute it for now but just for
later we're going to create harmony on
that track so for now let's just take a
look at the lead vocal here in fact I'm
just going to go ahead and solo it let's
turn on flex turn on flex pitch let it
analyze double-click on it to open up in
the track editor
somebody just zoom out a bit here Suman
a bit rather let's sit we've got here so
this is a vocal melody and E minor let's
just listen to it by itself well if you
won't believe in me and if you tell me
just to leave now just like before I can
do the command a thing pull up the pitch
correction so everything snaps to the to
the grid nice little tooth that sounds
like well if you won't be leaving me and
if you tell me just to leave all right
I'm just gonna pull a little bit of the
vibrato out not a whole lot I'm gonna
pull it down to like 70% 76% that works
just fine well if you won't be leaving
me and if you tell me just to leave
alright next let's go to our second
track here that we're gonna create
harmony with and well you know I'll keep
them both so load actually I tell you
I'll unsolo this one for now we'll come
back to it just a moment
let's choose flex pitch let it analyze
double-click on it there we go so we
have the exact same thing we had before
whoops
well if you won't be leaving me this
time I'm going to go ahead and do the
pitch correction again but I'm also I'm
going to lower the vibrato even more on
this one since it's a backing vocal now
what I need to do is I kind of need to
know what notes to harmonize this melody
to the original melody this takes a
little bit of music theory knowledge if
you don't understand scales and harmony
yeah well you're going to have a tough
time with this but if you do it could be
a really useful tool too
to create artificial backing vocals so
let me just hit command a real quick to
select everything and I just happen to
know that I want to harmonize this down
for the most part not not across the
board but for the most part I want to
harmonize this whole thing down 1/3 from
my current key so I'm going to pull this
down I'm gonna pull this whole thing
down 1/3
so basically what was an e is now a see
the thing is I want this to be quantized
still in the key of E minor even though
I'm I'm harmonizing down a third because
I want every no for instance I don't
want F natural I want F sharp I don't
want a flat up here I want a natural so
I'm going to go ahead and do a command a
I'm going to do a scale quantize to
natural minor I'm going to choose een a
chiral minor now this is probably not
going to work perfectly right out of the
box I'm probably have to do a few things
to to fix it but we'll see what it
sounds like right now well if you won't
believe in me and if you tell me just to
leave all right
the first thing I know that I want to do
is on these kind of top notes up here
won't believe in me I know that these
notes
need to be a and this e here actually
needs to be I believe F sharp let's pull
it up e and this G here needs to be an a
won't be leaving me and if you tell me
just to leave and like before
ah whoops I didn't mean to do that there
we go these notes need to be moved from
G to a as well and then the last thing I
know I need to do is the C's down here
instead of harmony harmonizing on 1/3 on
these notes I'm actually going to
harmonize on a 4th so I'm going to pull
them down to B and again there's no
cut-and-dry way to know how to do this
it part of its creative part of it is
just depending on your music theory
skills there's no like I said there's no
cut and dry way that's gonna make these
harmonies sound perfect every time you
just kind of have to play with it so
let's see what the harmony sounds like
well if you won't believe in me and if
you okay it sounds ok the problem is
it's a little froggy sounding because
when we pitch shift it down there's
obviously some digital artifacts that
are produced from the pitch shifting so
what I'm going to do is I'm going to hit
command a again and this time I'm going
to use the formant shift which is on the
lower right corner and I'm going to pull
this down now formants are essentially
the meaningful overtones in the human
voice that make bowels and vocal sounds
sound the way they sound from a
production standpoint when you lower
formants especially in vocals what
you're doing is really lowering the
overtone series when you raise formats
you're raising the overtone series of
the voice now it doesn't affect the
bottom note the fundamental so the notes
still going to be B but when you lower
the overtones it's going to sound a
little more masculine a little more deep
sounding when you raise the format's
it's gonna sound more chipmunky or more
feminine sounding so because I sound a
little froggy or chipmunking here I'm
actually going to lower the formants to
give a little more of a bassy sound to
him or a little more of a masculine
sound to it
so let's try that negative 52 well if
you won't believe it try even a little
bit more well if you won't believe in me
and if you tell me just to leave yeah
there you go all right so let's try this
out with our lead vocal and harmony
let's turn both of them on I'm just
going to pan the lead vocal a little to
the left and the harmony a little to the
Wrights usually good measure to to do
that I'm going to pull the volume up on
the lead I pull the volume down a little
bit on the harmony let's do these two
sound like well if you won't be leaving
me and if you tell me just to leave yeah
not too bad there's some weird phase II
sounds in there those things can usually
be taken care of by maybe bumping one a
little more at a time than the other or
you know maybe spreading the pan even
more so let me go ahead and do that and
just spread the panel bit more and let's
see what these sound like with our
guitars well if you won't be leaving me
and if you tell me just to leave
there we go so the little Phase II noise
you're hearing here is the breath it's
because the breath wasn't picked up as a
note and so it's essentially the same in
both recordings but for whatever reason
it's you know either behind a little bit
or it's slightly out of tune from the
original so it causes those little Phase
II issues so sometimes you have to go in
and maybe use automation to pull out
those parts or maybe just delete them
with the marquee tool or the scissors
tool or whatnot
all right so that's a flex pitch in a
nutshell in no way is this a 100%
complete tutorial on flex pitch but I
think it's good enough to get started
and start working with it my honest
opinion a flex pitch is that it's not
nearly as good as other applications and
other plugins out there used for pitch
correction for instance I actually use
Melodyne most of the time when I do
pitch correction because I find it's
more stable I find it's it's more
accurate it doesn't colorize the tone as
much as logic so flex pitch does another
good one out there is you know waves
tune I've never really used auto-tune
much I mean I have and not a whole lot
but it seems like again to me melody is
really the way to go if you want
accurate high-quality pitch tuning or
vocal tuning so but flex pitch isn't
completely useless I mean it's it's a
really good cheap way to maybe fix minor
pitch problems I wouldn't use it as them
as your main tuning program but it's
good like I said it's good for like you
know just fixing minor things but it
tends to colorize the tone of the vocals
quite a bit if you push it up or pull it
down too far so the other thing to keep
in mind is to work in small chunks you
know don't don't analyze an entire vocal
track in flex pitch if you don't need to
if there's just one phrase that needs to
be affected just cut that one phrase out
put it on its own track and just analyze
that one phrase in inflex pitch because
again if you colorize the tone of your
entire track
you're going to end up with a not as
good recording as you would normally
have had you only just flex pitch to
that one that one part and then a third
thing to keep in mind is that the
clearer toned the more the simple or
clear the timbre of the singer you're
working with the easier it's going to be
to to affect their pitch accurately
without a whole lot of tone changes
singers who are real raspy or growly are
going to be really really difficult to
to work with work on with flex pitch and
even when I use Melodyne it's really
difficult to work with raspy singers
because the program has trouble picking
up where the fundamental of their note
is and when you pitch shift them there's
a lot more overtones that you're working
with because they're voices a lot more
complex than you know a clear toned
singer I find that female vocalists who
are kind of just standard pop vocalists
are really easy to tune myself you know
as a male singer I have a pretty clear
tone tenor voice as opposed to most male
singers who have a little more rasp
especially rock and roll singer's a
little more rasp in their vocals so
they're a little more difficult to to
tune so so I hope you enjoyed the video
and thanks again for watching