hint for use of flex audio tool ?

[Eggu]

I think Mulab has no real built in flex audio functions as some loop focused daws have. (functions like pitch shift without changing length of track, or change length without pitch shift, analyzee harmonics or root key).

Any proposals which plugins or external tools (freeware ?) should be used,
e.g. pitch functions in wave editor (e.g. audacity) ?

[bpblog]

well, for pitchshifting, there are various plugins available. mda detune for example. but for timestretching... i dont know, and am also rather interested in this.

[TheGuysanIdiot]

I think this thread will generate a lot of interest so I will add to this thread also.

MU.LAB does not yet have time stretch.

The ideal solution for now would be a freeware/cheap VST plugin that could be loaded into a MU.LAB rack slot. If any one knows of such a beast please let us know. There may also be an offline tool somewhere on the interweb.

In the meantime these are workarounds I use. Rewire to a host that does have time stretch or load your audio sample into the other host then convert it to the new tempo and then import sample back to MU.LAB.

The industry standard if that is the right term is Zplane Elastique. This is built into hosts like, Ableton Live, Reaper, FLStudio, Acid Pro, Cubase 4 and XT2.x. Go to the Zplane web site and read all about it. Just put Zplane Elastique in Google search.

I am sure Jo will address time stretch/pitch stuff at a later date, he may choose to add Elastique or write his own (he is clever after all).

If you want to recycle drum loops see Jo's tutorial as this can get the tempo changed for drums.

OZ

[bpblog]

yeah, well for offline timestretching, i use Audacity. but being able to timestretch/fit to tempo inside mulab would be awesome.

[TheGuysanIdiot]

[bedroomproducers] - Just tried Audacity as offline solution:

a) MU.LAB - did two bars (120 BPM) drum track and a two bar bass line. Mixdown both separately.

b) Audacity - did, Effect > Change Tempo > BPM from 120 to 150 and exported the two wavs.

c) MU.LAB - imported the two wavs set BPM to 150 and made multiple copies CTRL + DRAG.

Well I nearly fell of my chair. Sounds good enough to me. I have had Audacity for years and never used this facility.

A very nice and cheap offline solution.

OK. Anyone know of a VST plugin for real-time time stretch?

OZ

[Eggu]

Up to now Audacity is the best and cheapest off line solution I know.

Also found this free command line tool:
http://www.surina.net/soundtouch/
but I've no experience with this tool.

[bpblog]

there's this plugin developed by Sknote called Traks. they describe it as a 'time-sctretching VSTi'. i remember testing it rather quickly a long while ago, but without much success. maybe someone else will do better? here's the link:

http://www.sknote.it/download.htm

[TheGuysanIdiot]

[Eggu] - tried the command line utility not for me probably more for the developer types.

[bedroomproducers] - tried the VSTi not for me looks like mono only I think.

Further look at Audacity against my rewired/import export Elastique hosts.

In general the Elastique can be pushed harder before the audio sounds odd and that is why it is a pay for item and it is very good indeed.

The big surprise to me is Audacity if you do not push it too hard it is surprisingly good.

My findings for Audacity are:

- Original drum loop 120BPM sounds OK until 144BPM (20% tempo change).

- Original drum loop 120BPM sounds OK until 108BPM (-10% tempo change).

Using clean drum loops or bass lines etc with no effects works best. Your ears are the best judge push the tempo until the audio sounds odd then back it off a bit.

Anyway keep looking and I am happy to try anything. Some of the utilities mentioned so far in this thread are worth trying and they may fit your own style.

OZ

[bpblog]

another find... the free version is mono, stereo is payware. cheap as chips though. stwETCH by whiteLABEL:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/3774.html

[TheGuysanIdiot]

OK…

After trying some "other" methods of time stretch and comparing it to Ableton Live 8 Elastique implementation.

This is not a review just my opinion for what it is worth. Ableton Live for me has the best time stretch that I have personally seen.

My 120BPM sample dropped into Ableton > press play > change tempo up to 400BPM and anywhere in between and maybe beyond and the sample plays perfectly - awesome.

To be honest to address time stretch for MU.LAB it would indeed need time stretch built-in and maybe follow Ableton as the way to go. It does seem that other developers out there are writing their own code for time stretch routines and maybe Jo can do this also.

Time stretch is something I can do without for now as I mainly use MIDI and VSTi and tempo change is not a problem and if I needed a sample converted I would use my copy of Live.

BUT

If you do not have another DAW with Elastique built-in to rewire or import/export samples then Audacity offline and not pushed too hard letting your ears be the judge would be a nice solution.

Please keep the thread running as someone out there may have another method or solution, but for me I think I have reached the end of my road on this one.

OZ

[robenestobenz]

As another alternative, scuzzphut's Rubberizer front end for the rubberband library by Chris Cannam is pretty good. Audacity doesn't run on my PC any more, but rubberizer is quite a bit better from memory.

[TheGuysanIdiot]

[robenestobenz] - For me the (offline) Chris Cannam command line utility rubberband.exe is great.

I could not resist checking this out.

For me the command line utility is extremely powerful and flexible. Once you get your head around how the switches work it is wonderful.

If you go to the command prompt and type "rubberband -h" you get the help on the command.

I used the (uppercase) -T switch for tempo changes.

One simple example that I did is this:

a) Original sample was (drum.wav) 120 BPM and I wanted it to be 180 BPM

b) A bit of mathematics now, 120 x 1.5 = 180.

c) Therefore "-T 1.5"

My command line would be:

rubberband -T 1.5 drum.wav drum180.wav

Try it out for yourselves and spend some time with the "-p" "-T" and "-c" switches.

The results are very impressive indeed. It is that good I will probably use this myself from time to time saving me having to load up Live for sample conversion etc.

(I respect the works of all software developers and these are just my personal views for what they are worth. You should always try applications yourself and decide what suits you best.)

OZ

[robenestobenz]

Yeah i've been getting some very good results with it. The handy thing about scuzzphut's plugin frontend is that you can render from within the plugin which will then give you an icon you can drag straight into an audio track. The only pain is it doesn't include any clean-up function, so each time you render another file is left on the drive.

[TheGuysanIdiot]

[robenestobenz]

I looked at the GUI again and it looks like:

a) The "Crisp" knob maps to the "-c" command line switch (0 to 5)

b) The "Pitch" knob maps to "-p" command line switch (-12 to +12)

c) The "Time" knob maps to the (lowercase) "-t" command line switch (0.0040 to 2.000)

There is also a command line uppercase "-T" that I talked about to change tempo. My head is hurting now. It looks like I can use the GUI for changing "-t, -c, -p" changes but I would still need command line for "-T" tempo changes. The command line would be good for batch changes to many samples of one tempo change to another, say all 120BPM files converted to 180BPM, obviously would need a bit of BASIC programming or command line batch file writing.

Either way both together makes a fine set of tools for stretch, tempo and pitch changes.

The combination of the two is great.

OZ