Tapestop-like effect in real time?

[Puduku]

Hi,

I think I need some help here. I’ve tried everything I know, I’ve read everything I could everywhere, and I’ve also asked Chatgpt about it. Nothing really works as expected so far.

I’m -simply- trying to play a synth in real time, on my MIDI keyboard, that would be supposed to get pitched down according to a curve. Just like any tapestop effect would do.

But the thing is : afaik, all those plugins are waiting for a "trigger", or refuse to work if audio project isn’t playing.

Do you know a way to trigger a pitch-down curve everytime audio is being received please, even if it needs a hack? I simply want to create a synth patch that has one layer slowly pitching down through external FX processing. I can’t believe there’s no way to do such a simple thing.

Cubase/Nuendo user.

Latency is not a problem. I’m designing synths at the moment. It’s all experimentation and creativity. I don’t care if that’s granular only, I’ll try any solution. I think you understand that designing a synth patch by being forced to play in my DAW a couple of synth notes again and again and again is not going to be the most enjoyable audio experience ever.

Programming the pitch curve directly in the synth is not an option btw. I need this FX as an extra post-processing creative effect.

Thank you guys!

[zerocrossing]

Hi,

I think I need some help here. I’ve tried everything I know, I’ve read everything I could everywhere, and I’ve also asked Chatgpt about it. Nothing really works as expected so far.

I’m -simply- trying to play a synth in real time, on my MIDI keyboard, that would be supposed to get pitched down according to a curve. Just like any tapestop effect would do.

But the thing is : afaik, all those plugins are waiting for a "trigger", or refuse to work if audio project isn’t playing.

Do you know a way to trigger a pitch-down curve everytime audio is being received please, even if it needs a hack? I simply want to create a synth patch that has one layer slowly pitching down through external FX processing. I can’t believe there’s no way to do such a simple thing.

Cubase/Nuendo user.

Latency is not a problem. I’m designing synths at the moment. It’s all experimentation and creativity. I don’t care if that’s granular only, I’ll try any solution. I think you understand that designing a synth patch by being forced to play in my DAW a couple of synth notes again and again and again is not going to be the most enjoyable audio experience ever.

Programming the pitch curve directly in the synth is not an option btw. I need this FX as an extra post-processing creative effect.

Thank you guys!

Try this. Works well, and it's free.

https://kilohearts.com/products/pitch_shifter

[stoutlyric]

Cubase has FX Modulator vst that can do this. It’s the time stretch block.

[SamDi]

Programming the pitch curve directly in the synth is not an option btw. I need this FX as an extra post-processing creative effect.

I don't know, what you want to achieve, can't even judge if it is well thought out. Indeed, the best way to do it, would be in the synth, because you could do it per voice.

If you don't, you will have it as an monophonic effect. But how should it exactly behave then? You don't want it to have triggered by time grid from the DAW, but by the first note playing, which is understandable. But when should this tape stop be finished resp. released, when should it be retriggered?

You could take some effects, which are able to trigger and release by incoming audio with an audio follower, where you need to set thresholds for trigger and release points

MeldaProduction (e.g. MRhythmizer) stuff can do this. I am not 100% sure, but I think Shaperbox from Cableguys can do it also. Also I am not sure, if you can switch from LFO behavior to Envelope behavior of the curve, but I have in backhead, that it was somehow possible. And as mentioned in a post before, the Kiloheartz Snapheap can also trigger by incoming audio.

But you would have to take care then to carefully set these threshold values, which might then not neccessarily fit to what you play in the synth.

As an alternative you could trigger Fx by MIDI. Makes of course just sense, when you have MIDI data available, what seems not to be the case in postprocessing just audio material

If you just take audio material to trigger and release the tape stop effect you would need good source materila for that, means notes which are clearly separated from each other. If they melt into each other while having not some dynaimc difference, you are not able to tell the effect when to start and when to stop the tape stop cycle.

Maybe you should describe your situation more in detail.

TL;DR
Have a look on
Melda MRhythmizer
Cableguys Shaperbox
Kiloheartz Snap Heap + Tape Stop
(Devious Machines Infiltrator not sure but worth to evaluate)

[onerob]

This is free and can allow either MIDI or audio to trigger time shaping graphs.

https://github.com/tiagolr/time12

[wavesfactory]

Our Free Cassette Transport:
https://www.wavesfactory.com/free-vst-plugins

[Puduku]

Thank you so much everyone. I’m gonna try tonight.

If this was unclear, I insist on the fact that I’m designing synths at the moment. It has to be real-time so I can fine-tune the effect, but I’m not going to play live or anything, so timing isn’t going to be an issue anytime. In the end I’m going to export every single note of my patch for making different layers to program a Kontakt-like patch (actually I’m working with Falcon).

Thanks again !

[morphex]

Yum-Audio Tapestop https://www.yum-audio.com/LoFi-Tapestop

[Tj Shredder]

Did it ever came to your mind to just use the pitch bend wheel? In MPE world, the range can often be set to 96 half steps which is 8 octaves down. Combine it with an envelope to stop the anyway too low sound…

[osiris]

IL Grossbeat does this.

[Puduku]

Did it ever came to your mind to just use the pitch bend wheel? In MPE world, the range can often be set to 96 half steps which is 8 octaves down. Combine it with an envelope to stop the anyway too low sound…

Well, what I’m trying to achieve with this is :

Synth \
Synth \
Synth > Heavy sound processing > pitch bend in the end
Synth /
Synth /

The pitch bend in the end has to process the whole sound from all different layers (includes reverbs...). Sometimes the synth sound source may be a sampler.

And, I’ll try Grossbeat, thanks !