I have recorded two different hammered dulcimer players...each recording multiple albums over the years.  They did come in a couple hours early just to let the instrument adjust to the climate in the studio before they tuned.

They are a fun instrument to record.  A few of the albums were original music...some were gospel albums...some were traditional mountain music songs.  All were a blast to work on.

mike_mccue

yorolpal


Sounds like that dulcimer player needs to take at least half a day off...the day BEFORE the session...and tune the heck up;-)

That might seem like a valid perspective, but in practical terms it's not so useful.

The reality is that a good sounding Hammered dulcimer is a high strung and light weight creature that, though it remains in tune with it self, is always sort of drifting up or down with changes in temp or humidity or both.

It's almost as hard as tuning a piano... and both require respectful silence when the tuning is taking place... so it's not like we expect someone to tune up at home and show up ok nor do we expect to make the time to provide a silent space to do it onsite.

It's no big deal... and usually string bands just tune to them as a practical compromise.

If you are making a recording, it's nice to have a quick way to get great results while letting the strings players make best use of their instruments by asking them to tune to concert pitch so that their fret intonation is as good as it can be.

all the best,
mike

Dulcimers. The new standard by which DAWs are measured.

I did not have to buy one, got THIS ONE for free. It's for Kontakt (which lacks Varispeed IIRC )

mike_mccue


I'm guessing the sales dude told you to use drum-a-gog and replace all the hammerings?

Nope. ARC revels that is not necessary.

yorolpal


What are these instruments that can't be tuned or are near impossible to tune that you speak of?

Any geetar I get near 

And who the heck plays them?

Straummy
 

Varispeed might be old hat to a tape whirring round but in the digital domain it's a fairly new thing.
 
I benefit from Varispeed using tools that are capable of it and there are many benefits, tuning an instrument that is in a different tuning isn't anything I've used it for though.  Pitch shifting can be easily done in stuff like Audacity with reasonable success for example which is available for free. 
 
Where 'varispeed' comes into it's own for me is when I want to record a phrase which I'm not capable of playing at the required tempo so I can record it slower and then increase the tempo to fit.  Also it's useful for the disassembly of a complicated part when you just want to hear something at the right pitch but at a slower speed.  Also frankly there are times when I've got a take down but realise the actual song could be improved by nudging it a few BPM either way, no problem all the audio and midi stay in sync.  Being able to make subtle tempo changes between verses and choruses also becomes possible.
 
True varispeed in a digital DAW is not an insignificant thing to include as it either involves developing your own technology to do it or licensing stuff that already exists both avenues are not without relatively large costs.  There are tools that already do the job well, I use them daily so really to warrant that cost there must be an adequate return on the investment of incorporating it.
 
So who wants it in Sonar? 
 
 
I kinda get the frustration around the excuses and workarounds though, there's at least one workaround provided here by someone that wouldn't dream of following his own recipe when he has other more effective options available to him.  That kind of irks me too, it kind of smacks of keeping folk ignorant to the fact there are some really good solutions out there already.
 
It's that old, old thing though there's never been one DAW that does it all, they all have strengths and weaknesses and it's still a case of marrying them up to get the best working relationship you can.
 

SteveStrummerUK

Jonbouy


Where 'varispeed' comes into it's own for me is when I want to record a phrase which I'm not capable of playing at the required tempo so I can record it slower and then increase the tempo to fit.  

I simply must gave this magical enchanted tool...
 
 
I too could then appear to be a guitar god of some repute
 
 

Exactly, played at 80 bpm it sounds like a viennese waltz at 150 it's a shred...
 
Hank Marvin does Van Halen...lol

I don't really get the tuning thing though as if you are using some traditional instrument in an ensemble piece the other musicians would be playing in a key that suits, no?
 
How do these guys turn up and play anywhere otherwise?
 
I'm baffled by that one.  It must be a legendary Nashville thing that I've not come across before. 
If it's out of tune then a pitch shifting application like V-Vocal IS what you need.

bapu


WTH are Jonbouy and Straummy doing up at 3 Am?

Who are you, the Police?

Jeff Evans


Studio One has got a great pitch transposing algorithm. Any audio event on a track can be pitched up and down 2 octaves folks. Yes + 24 or - 24 semitones and it all sounds great so it can be done. And it is also very easily put back too with no side effects. You are NOT processing the audio in any way. Yes you get the chipmunk effect etc but that is what happens with tape too. It transposes much more than what Craig is suggesting in Sonar only being a semitone as useful. 

In this situation the timing remains the same but that is easily stretched too if you want it to be and it does that very well too. But in fact it is rather better to leave the timing alone and alter the pitch instead.

This is a far cry from all the complexity that Mike has started this thread with. It does not have to be that hard and it is not in Studio One. Just alter the transposition, do your thing, put it back and transpose the new track up or down to match the original pitch of the music. Simple as that.

Just to clarify - the only reason I mentioned a one semitone shift with Sonar for my voice or for the guitar is because artistically speaking, with transposing my voice up any more it ends up sounding like a little girl, and transposing down further with guitar makes it muddy.
 
The audio transposition algorithm in Sonar is very effective with wide stretches. In one of my advanced workshop videos, I created a 12-string guitar and Nashville turning by processing a guitar's hex outputs with Sonar's transposition algorithm. The sound was totally convincing, and it required octave shifts. I can't recall if I showed my 18-string guitar trick where I add in lower strings transposed down an octave for bass, but that's way cool too.
 
I've done this both with Studio One Pro and Sonar, in fact when I demoed the 12-string and Nashville tuning techniques at PreSonuSphere last year, I got a standing ovation because it sounds so cool .
 
However, there are some significant differences between the two. The SOP algorithm is real time, whereas the one in Sonar is offline. Sonar's algorithm has better fidelity/quality, but the tradeoff is you have to appply the processing. With SOP, you get more artifacts, but you don't have to wait. The other difference is Sonar transposes in semitones, while SOP can also do cents. 99% of the time for what I do (I don't record dulcimers!) semitones handle what I need. 
 
I still think that in Mike's scenario of using Sonar, a zPlane elastique plug-in on the master bus is the simplest solution. Tune master out to out-of-tune instrument, record, insert zPlane in recorded track, change pitch by equal and opposite amount. Done.

Oh, and just to add a little levity...varispeed was what made tape flanging possible back in the 60s. My band had sessions booked right after Hendrix when he was recording Electric Ladyland, so the times often spilled over and we used the same flanging setup Jimi did. You had to have a 60Hz sine wave oscillator going through a power amp that could deliver 117V to the capstan motor, and we used a big ol' tube Macintosh power amp for that.

However................

It was not difficult to burn out a capstan motor (which were beaucoup $$$) if you went too far out of range in terms of frequency, so you could only slow it down so much. We were good boys - only burned up one of them. Jimi was, shall we say, a little harder on them.

So it's all solved then?

I see Anderton that if you are limiting any transposition to a semi tone for reasons of sounding normal then I agree. But it can also be interesting to transpose instruments out of their normal range and witness the tonal change and perhaps use that as part of your arrangement.

The fact that Studio One can do the transposition instantly is a boon. It allows you to try out keys and things very quickly. Saves time quickly putting all your music up or down for the purposes of an overdub as well and resetting back so fast. The quality difference it must be pointed out is not major as it still sounds great in Studio One even when transposed a fair way. 

Also you can play the resultant file in real time as part of a performance and manipulate the transposition. The way I have my digital mixer connected I can record all that as well. 

You don't even need Melodyne that much either. You can simply separate an out of tune note and make that a separate event and then tune that accordingly using the cents window instead. Saves time too. 

But the discussion as always gets one thinking about how to do these types of things in your own software. It got me checking out all the pitch and time stretching options in my DAW. I didn't know about that little speed up and slow down window though, quite cool. (keeps pitch correct but speeds up or slows down audio events by very small amounts if needed)

yorolpal


Ok...then what does before they TUNED mean?  Does it mean before they didn't tune?  Doesn't tuning mean that at the end of the process they were IN TUNE?  Or does it just mean they were kinda close?  I'd love to come to a session and tell the other players...hey, listen I just can't get this here instrument in tune...so you fellers just deal with it...ok?

Now...one instrument that comes to mind that does fit your sketchy metaphor is a steel drum.  But it still fails because the slight out of tuneness is what gives it it's character and other players are still in standard tuning on most sessions that use them.

All the "FX" uses of varispeed are valid and useful reasons to add it to X1 or 2 but tuning...at least to moi...seems specious.  No biggie, just my thinkin, ol pal.

Yeah, I can see your point here. There are instruments whose 'tuning', if one can use that phrase, is such that it lends support to the other instruments. I'm also thinking of, say, Gamelan based instruments mixed in with our 'standard' ones....

mike_mccue


It seems like a lot of folks react to requests for Varispeed by offering suggestions or comments about work arounds and different ways to get similar results.

When I read most of these suggestions or comments I get the impression that many people, probably the people who have never used Varispeed, don't seem to understand why, how, or when Varispeed is a great benefit to a musician and their recording technician.
 

From many of the responses it seems some get it and are offering "workarounds" as you say, but many aren't really getting what you mean by Varispeed as they continue to talk about pitch shifting and fitting to tempo without altering pitch etc. 
 
For those who have never used Varispeed, Varispeed affects BOTH pitch and tempo simultaneously by essentially "doing nothing" to the actual sound except changing the speed of playback which therefore affects the pitch as a result. As such there is little or no stress on the CPU and no odd pitch-shifting artifacts, there is no "processing" involved. Setting aside decades of analog gear, Varispeed has existed in computer-based wave editors since long before audio DAWS even existed. Back when a computer could not play two audio tracks simultaneously or even calculate a "simple" reverb in realtime as it had to be rendered before auditioning, Varispeed functioned just fine.
 
A good example is Goldwave audio editor, introduced in 1993 which had Varispeed:
http://www.goldwave.ca/about.php
 
In fact, the best "tape slowing to a stop" (or speeding up) I ever heard was using a Varispeed function instead of a pitch-shifting algorhithm. For what it's worth, Goldwave still lists as feature 6 in the Features list as "Variable Speed Playback".
 
In practice this may be more difficult to adapt to a DAW though. Somehow the engine would have to adapt the Varispeed to the Tempo internally - the DAW cannot continue "thinking" it's playing at 160 BPM when it may now be at 156.23 BPM. Not saying it can't be done but it's not as simple as using Varispeed on a wave file in an editor that is not linked internally to a tempo and therefore possibly VSTi's with dozens of envelopes controlling parameters while they have to compensate with delay-compensation and blah, blah, blah.
 
So, I'm with you, I could see this being useful, and fun!, but I do question how difficult it might be to implement it in a DAW. I noticed someone claimed Reaper has Vraispeed, but having never used Reaper I have no idea if it uses true Varispeed or whether it affects tempo while maintaing pitch. As others have suggested you could always do a quick mix and throw it in a another program but I realize it's one more unnecessary step you'd prefer to avoid.
 
Coming from my own selfish perspective, as much as I get you, I'd rather see the issue with third party VST's like Waves , Reaktor - alot of plugins that require more than a standard stereo input pair - dealt with. And the the Staff view tweaked. And then the ability to change the Fader throw height as having a three-inch throw sucks and I don't feel like dragging a controller everywhere (Audition can have the Faders the height of your screen if you like). Etc. etc. Varispeed would probably be a little further down my list than yours, simply based on my own needs.