Hello! I have a question about pitch shifting audio clips. So, I describe my situation.
 
For example, I have an acapella, which I chop up to many small pieces. Now I want to pitch up/down some of the pieces to create a melody / be in tune with my song. It's very frequently used technique in EDM and electronic music in general. So, to do this task I activate Stretching in Loop Construction window or in Clip -> Groove Clip Properties, enter the amount of pitch shift in the Pitch field and it sounds really weird. For example, if I pitch it up 7 semitones I listen my sample almost twice, there are so many strange artifacts. I tried to set treshold from 0 to 100%, it doesn't help. Just the artifacts are different. For sure, Sonar uses some timestretch algo which is super light for CPU, but when I render things down I still hear all this artifacts in the final file. Maybe I'm doing something wrong and there is other way? Process -> Transpose -> Transpose audio is not working for me, pitch envelope in Loop Construction is not helping either - same artifacts.
 
Another thing, is it possible to disable timestretch of audio files and just 're-pitch' them. So, when I go down by few semitones audio starting to play slowly, when I go up - faster.
 
I used Cubase a lot, and if I there are no any audible artifacts, and besides I can choose from a lot of different algo's from the drop down menu. If I need just 're-pitch' audio without timestretching there is simple super light on CPU sampler track, which automatically map the sample all over keyboard. So maybe I missed something and there is the way to achieve it fast in Sonar without using resource hog samplers (like HALion or MachFive)?
 
Thank you.
 
 

Try bouncing the clips, making sure an appropriate algorithm is selected:
https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X2&language=3&help=AudioSnap.23.html
 

Yeah... what Steve said. If you have artifacts after bouncing try another Offline Render algorithm.
 
Also I'm not sure why the Loop Constructor would cause artifacts with only pitch shifting but maybe if you want to explore that further read up on editing the autogenerated splits the LC uses for stretching and ensuring that they (the splits) are landing right at the start of the transients (because the auto detection is usually off). That however, I think, should only affect time stretching... but maybe your are time stretching as well? That of course is for Groove Clips/Loops though which is different than the DSP Transpose function.
 
I have had good results when pitch shifting material with the DSP "Process > Transpose" function when changing the tuning on fully mixed material (like when I'm working on a cover song and want to transpose to another key). It has always provided pretty good results. Maybe you are doing it on stereo clips and that is screwing it up somehow? In which case maybe split the stereo clip(s) to mono and apply the tranposition to the mono clips separately? No idea if that will help as I've never run into that scenario but perhaps. Also make sure you are only bouncing/rendering the audio and not applying other effects from the FX Bin(s) or the Prochannel or whatever (unlikely but perhaps you have a reverb/stereo effect or something screwing things up).
 
HOWEVER you may, and should, try using Melodyne for these transpositions because it is yet another high quality pitch editing option and by all accounts better than even the other two options mentioned. Again always render after adjusting pitch with Melodyne and try different algos if you are still getting artifacts.
 
Now here's the thing... you mentioned going up 7 semitones. That is kind of pushing it when it comes to pitch shifting. I've done it (using DSP Transpose) without any actual artifacts BUT it still inevitably sounds at least a little bit odd. The type of material/sounds will affect how well these pitch shifting processes work. Something relatively simple and clear will likely respond better than something that is frequency rich/complex.
 
I still think with some experimenting and patience you should be able to get some useable results but really, if at all possible, try to create/use audio that does not need to be mangled to such an extreme to fit your tune.
 
Alternatively if you find another program provides better results for specific work like this then it's relatively simple to perform the pitch shifting (or other tasks) in that other program and simply import it into Sonar. I do this with Reaper and complex time correction because I find Reaper is easier to use for time correction than Audiosnap/slip stretching in Sonar.
 
Good luck.

stevec, it's better when I bounce them, but still not as good as Cubase, for example. Please be aware that I'm talking not just about timestretching, but a pitchshifting also.
 
Beepster, of course I know that pitchshifting on the high values sound 'strange'. However, in the modern electronic music it is desirable effect, for example, when you chop the vocal and start to play with small chunks of it, pitch it up and down and convert them basically to the lead instrument. I checked out all of your suggestions - thank you very much for them, but for my workflow it's not working. Just imagine, I have a phrase which I cut out to 10 different small pieces. I start to mangle with them, move around, pitch shift, try to create some melodic pattern. It's HUGE PITA to do offline rendering or using Melodyne all the time when I want to do this kind of pitch shift. Basically, from what I learned, there are always two working solutions right now:
1. Load vocal phrase to the sampler with slice function as well as time stretching (Kontakt, MachFive or HALion) and try to do it via MIDI.
2. Try to imagine final melody in my mind, chop up the vocal sample to the small pieces, move them around, bounce these pieces to one file and load up melodyne just for pitch shifting. But it's counter productive, because if I decide to move the pieces to different places I need to re-melodyne it.
 
The best thing will be if Cakewalk decided to do proper real-time pitch shifting with selectable algorithms like in Cubase, Live, Reaper, etc. Now it's show stopper for my workflow and I concider to postpone my research with SONAR and stay with Cubase, despite of clip fx, pro channel, smart tool and overall GUI are look amazing. I understand that my request will help to minority of SONAR users, because there are mostly guys, who are making acoustic stuff and simply don't need that type of functions, so I guess it won't happen soon ;(
 

Ah. I see. Well, and I don't think anyone can honestly dispute this, is that for that time of real time workflow SONAR may simply not be the tool for you. It CAN do these things and do them well BUT it's certainly not as efficient and user friendly as other programs that are (and/or have tools) specifically geared toward this time of EDM time/pitch shifting work.
 
I can only imagine that Cakewalk would love to (and hopefully is) working on new features to cover this market but currently it is not specialized in that way. It's more of a Jack of All Trades DAW and only master of some. However the fact you CAN do almost anything with Sonar thus makes it a "master" in the regard makes it a good all around creative tool for artists.
 
I'd say don't totally abandoned SONAR because I still think it could be a huge benefit to you but more in the sense that it would a great toolset to do prep work and/or create extremely high quality audio files/samples to be used in the more "real time" EDM DAWs (because of it's effects and instruments suites and mixing capabilities).
 
Then after you've used your other programs to create your performance from all those files you could pull it back into Sonar for some hardcore mixing (which Sonar does quite well IMO and it is a rather pleasant mixing environment to work with).
 
As far this statement...
 
Beepster, of course I know that pitchshifting on the high values sound 'strange'. However, in the modern electronic music it is desirable effect, for example, when you chop the vocal and start to play with small chunks of it, pitch it up and down and convert them basically to the lead instrument.
 
I apologize for making assumptions but this is the first time I've seen you post so I was just trying to be thorough. I am indeed aware that the odd sounds resulting from pitchshifting can and is used as a creative effect. Just making sure that wasn't the problem you were hearing/experiencing.
 
Cheers.

Beepster, thank you. I don't want to be rude at all, if I offended you, I'm really sorry about that! My main purpose was to clarify things :) All the best!

It's cool, man. I figured it was just a language thing.
 
We good, bro.
 
Greetings from Canada.

kresbeatz
Another thing, is it possible to disable timestretch of audio files and just 're-pitch' them. So, when I go down by few semitones audio starting to play slowly, when I go up - faster.

Yes, I do this all the time for "tape varispeed" effects. It's described in "The Big Book of SONAR Tips," or read the column I wrote about doing this in X3 for Sound on Sound magazine.

just to mention - MAutoTune from Melda is in the free bundle - can be a good tool in your pitch toolbox