Best way to tune single wave Audio File in Logic Pro X?

[Liney]

I'm looking to pluck single wave samples from audio files that I've recorded (for instance, of me going 'Aahhhhh'), for use in Absynth 5. I'm fine with selecting the single wave and saving it as a new file. My question is, what is the easiest and most accurate way to tune that wav to a specific note. And can you actually tune a single wave, or would I need to copy and paste it several times first in order to get a longer audio file?

I'd also like to do it destructively - to do this would I need to tune it and then bounce it to a new file (I'm using Logic Pro X)?

Many thanks in advance.

[BertKoor]

I'm fine with selecting the single wave

Count the number of selected samples (or readout from the DAW) and then refer to the tool MusicCalc mentionned in my signature. If you know the sampling rate & number of samples, it can calculate the note number.

Mind you, with low sampling rates and/or high pitches you can't get close to rounded note numbers due to the rounding to integers.

[Liney]

Many thanks Bert. That's not only very helpful, but also rather interesting!

Having calculated the existing pitch, though, won't I still need to tune it if it is not already perfectly in tune to a particular note?

[BertKoor]

Having calculated the existing pitch, though, won't I still need to tune it if it is not already perfectly in tune to a particular note?

Usually it works like this: you already have a WAV of a waveform, just a single cycle. It has a length, say 400 samples. If it was recorded at 44.1 kHz, then that would be an A. But if it was recorded at 48 kHz then it was inbetween a B♭ and B.
You'll have to tell your sampler what exact note the sample represents. For an A it would be closer to the exact note if you had 401 samples instead of 400. If you loop 400 samples, that would be a frequency of 44100 / 400 = 110.25 Hz. That's 3 cents sharp of the ideal frequency of 110 Hz. But 401 samples would give a frequency of 44100 / 401 = 109.9751 Hz. Now it's 0.4 cents flat, so still not ideal.
Any good sampler will give you the option to specify at least in cents how much off the ideal frequency the sample is. So it will interpolate the sample and when playing an A of 110 Hz it will indeed be exactly 110 cycles each second, stretching your sample of 400 or 401 long to an average of the ideal 400.909 samples length.

Does that make sense and/or answer your question?

[Liney]

Yes, that makes perfect sense, thanks Bert. I guess the next step is I need to dig into Absynth 5 (which I'll be using) and see to what extent it allows you to specify the initial frequency of my sample wave. I do actually have dedicated software samplers, but at this stage I'm interested in using just single waves for subtractive synthesis as you would with an old school analog synth (except the waves will be more complex than square, triangle etc).

Many thanks for your help!