Why is timestretch so important for you people?

[Sage]

Imagine these scenarios:

Pro: You hire a session musician to come in per hour and lay down some tracks, hire some back-up vocalists as well. Maybe a Bass player. A drummer would be a big deal. Any one of these. Then a week later you want to gradually increase/decrease parts of the song. Without decent timestretch you would have to pay them twice. Of course if you are a pro you probably own other tools to do this, but it would be nice to have it all in T.

This is certainly a valid concern, but I would argue that you serve the music better by re-recording at the new tempo. No matter how good your timestretch is, it's not going to be as good as the real deal. Like I said, I'm not a big "fix it in the mix" kind of guy.

Of course, I realize that money doesn't grow on trees, and so the best solution isn't always affordable. But I tend to believe there's an easy way, and then there's the right way.

Me: My 2 year old son wanders into my 'studio' and wants to sing, so record him singing something at 90 BPM, just randomly. Later I want to use this in a tune @110 BPM. T won't let me do this, but it would with decent timestretching will. Live for instance is super simple in this regard, dealing with audio is incredibly easy (though I would hope T's eventual implementation of a new algorithm is better than Live's).

I just can't imagine ever needing to do this, myself. And even then, it would be a rare occasion. I do understand the draw, I'm just saying it's not really something I need.

[haydxn]

it's just like being able to resize images in photoshop or something like that. sometimes you have something that is almost perfect for what you want to do, but it's just the wrong size.

sometimes it's pretty much impossible to recreate the exact same piece at the right size, and for these occasions you have no other choice but to stretch it. loops are not the only thing that benefits from timestretching, just as stretching a graphic to the right size is not only required for putting BONES' head on the image of a child. there are many and varied uses and it's a very important tool in sound manipulation. to consider it as solely a loop aid is to be naive to a whole array of audio processes that exist for our creative uses.

[braj]

it's just like being able to resize images in photoshop or something like that. sometimes you have something that is almost perfect for what you want to do, but it's just the wrong size.

sometimes it's pretty much impossible to recreate the exact same piece at the right size, and for these occasions you have no other choice but to stretch it. loops are not the only thing that benefits from timestretching, just as stretching a graphic to the right size is not only required for putting BONES' head on the image of a child. there are many and varied uses and it's a very important tool in sound manipulation. to consider it as solely a loop aid is to be naive to a whole array of audio processes that exist for our creative uses.

Well said!

[headquest]

I would certainly like to be able to record audio along with a simple MIDI drum track, and then - for example speed up the chorus by a small amount using a tempo ramp. Audio in Tracktion ignores tempo changes/ramps.

Incidentally, although Future Music have awarded T2 with their Platinum Award, and even though they said little specific about the improvements from T1 to T2, they DID find space for a whole paragraph explaining just how bad Tracktion's timestretch is - and even promised to provide evidence of it on the cover CD .

As I commented on this forum a couple of months back, I think that Mackie made a significant mistake not getting this sorted in the v2 update, and with the increased exposure T2 will get, I think there will be a lot of negative comment about this oversight in the media and continuing complaints load and clear on the forums.

[Lunch Money]

I disagree--

Imagine: they are fully aware of how bad the timestretch is, and are steadily working on it and/or trying to license a good algorithm. As it turns out, this would theoretically push the release of T2 back to September.

Wouldn't you rather have 2.0 now, and 2.1 with improved timestretch in September?

Greg

[haydxn]

yeah, whilst i fully acknowledge the usefulness of timestretch, and how it can be incredibly important for a number of reasons, i'm not in any way angry about it not being implemented in T2.0

sure it'd be super, but what's the point in being cross? they have stated that it's something they're looking to improve, and it'll be smashing when it happens. i'd rather have the new features sooner that wait just for timestretch.

i hardly use timestretch anyway but it winds me up to think that people consider it just for loops. every now and then it's the only way out!

[Lunch Money]

I wouldn't use 'timestretch' for drum loops anyhow. Beatslice is where it's at.

[ModuLR]

As I commented on this forum a couple of months back, I think that Mackie made a significant mistake not getting this sorted in the v2 update, and with the increased exposure T2 will get, I think there will be a lot of negative comment about this oversight in the media and continuing complaints load and clear on the forums.

if everyone here had to wait for a timestretch algo to be implemented in T2, the lemmings would be hurling themselves off the cliffs by now and drowning at sea...

[pHz]

I wouldn't use 'timestretch' for drum loops anyhow. Beatslice is where it's at.

true greg ... and T2.n needs a built in transient slicer too !!!

(only half kidding)

its often forgotten i think that this IS only tracktion 2 and not tracktion 5 ... for a version 2 sequencer i think T2 will be incredibly powerful and intuitive in the context of other apps of similar development age ...

... the stetchy audio tools WILL come im sure - we just need to step back from being tracktioneers sometimes in order to appreciate exactly what we DO have already ...

/me jumps down from soapbox

slainte rob

[headquest]

The point I was trying to make before is that this should have been a priority earlier. Sure, it would be an even graver mistake to delay T2 at this stage while a better timestretch is implemented... but I feel this is something that had been loudly and frequently requested by long-term Tracktion 1 users - including me - which should not have been overlooked. Let's face it - there are some features in T2 that frankly are less important to the majority of users, and which I don't recall anyone ever requesting. Perhaps some of those other things shold have been held back for 2.1, rather than releaseing something now where there is basically a "broken" feature that everone will latch on to.

Regarding the Future Music review, the Platinum Award was partly down to an overall score than included 10/10 for "ease of use" and another 10/10 for "value for money". This is why Tracktion compared favourably against Cubase, Logic, Sonar et al.

BUT... and its a big but... Tracktion 2 only scores 7/10 for "quality of results". And when you read the review in full you will see that the timestretch is the only thing that they criticise in terms of quality - for which no less than 30% of the score seems to have been deducted. That's how bad they think it is - and as I said before they even say to readers: "See the examples on the CD and you can form your own opinion", which is a bit harsh when you consider that the CD is there to show off what's good, not illustrate what sucks!!

[Mr. Tingle]

I reckon sequencers that come with lots of great plugins get a high score for quality, I mean it not like the 0's and 1's get dirty or something.

[braj]

I reckon sequencers that come with lots of great plugins get a high score for quality, I mean it not like the 0's and 1's get dirty or something.

I reckon sequencers that come with crappy time stretching get low points for bad quality, because those o's and 1's are mangled. I don't think you can blame the quality review on T's lack of high-end plugs. Imagine doing a test tune with all supported features of each sequencer. If you actually used T's timestretch in a song, it would be embarrassing.

But I think that just illustrates how excellent T is: it overcame even that obvious limitation to garner high praise. Fix that issue and T would really worry the big boys.

I personally think they should change the name of T's timestretch until it gets fixed to something like 'the mangler' and put a nice Mexican wrestler mask on it. At least that way no one would expect it to timestrech audio with high quality results.

[headquest]

I personally think they should change the name of T's timestretch until it gets fixed to something like 'the mangler' and put a nice Mexican wrestler mask on it. At least that way no one would expect it to timestrech audio with high quality results.

[IIRs]

perhaps we could just make it the pants tool?

[SaviorNeeded]

I agree with pHz--in fact, I think I even said the same thing a few weeks ago: everyone else is at version 4 or 5 or 6. This is Tracktion's first major upgrade. Think how nuts we'll be going when T5 is coming...!

BTW, at my age, ANYTHING that stretches is good.

Tom