OK! I Bit! I Upgraded to SONAR X3 Producer I think I may be sorry!

I was chugging happily along with X3 Studio until I found out about Transposing and Formant Scaling. It turns out, that's supposedly a feature only available in X3 Producer.   That compelled me to pay the $149 upgrade price>   had to buy it  not later that  today 22 May 2014.  
 
I am probably doing something wrong but Formant Scaling "don't work no good". In fact I can't make it work at all! Whats is the wisdom of the forum folks (or Cakewalk folks) have to say about this problem.  
 
As I have been seeking a solution I find that others have had similar problems and have skirted the problem by using something called V-Vocal whatever that is!

Are you a new Sonar user or did you own previous versions (like X1/X2)? If you own a previous version I believe you can yank V-Vocal from those versions using the Custom Install feature then scan for it in X3.
 
I am not certain though. I think I saw it in my list of effects but I installed X3 over top of X2 and X1.
 
And what the heck is "formant scaling"? The googles do nothing.

Yes it melodyne you want, but you will have to upgrade from the version included in x3 to get any benefit, but it will do all you want, well worth it a must have tool and any audio you open up in melodyne can be dragged to a midi track as midi, in polyphonic and melody and drum, this alone is a deal clincher.

CakeAlexSThere is a formant tool in melodyne at least in the editor version...

 

Subjacent...Yes it melodyne you want, but you will have to upgrade from the version included in x3 to get any benefit...

Since "upgrading" to X3, I've I've only used Melodyne once now to do a quick shift of some notes - But I haven't even looked around at the interface for a formant shift.  

Are you guys saying the light version doesn't have a formant tool like V-Vocal does--?

---I need to point out that Cpkoch upgraded to X3 Producer because he thought there was a formant editor he'd be getting.  Now the advice to him is to pay a few hundred more to get the full Melodyne?

Hopefully, Cpkoch, you did have an earlier version of Sonar, so that V-Vocal is available to you - in which case it would just be something you hadn't noticed.  But your post makes me think that X3 Studio may have been your first Cakewalk purchase, in which case, you won't have V-Vocal since it was replaced by Melodyne when Cakewalk switched companies they're doing pitch-shifting business with.

But - Formant editing with V-Vocal was/is extremely helpful.  If a vocal note has been shifted beyond 1/2 step in either direction, the formant has to be shifted at least a little bit in the opposite direction i.e. a pitch is pushed higher, then the formant has to be brought down to compensate.  V-Vocal is a very good tool for that.  Time shifting is also available and very capable on its separate tab in the GUI.

I rarely need any of those kinds of tools, so since getting X3, I've only done a couple of tiny shifting edits, once using V-vocal out of habit, once using Melodyne  - I haven't really explored this light Melodyne.  So, I don't know  - Are you guys saying it doesn't it have a formant tool, or a time editing tool like V-Vocal?

Randy

i dont usually have call to use formant scaling, but I have transpose hot-keyed to perform quick pitch shifts and have definitely notice that more often than not it is greyed out regardless of which algorithm i select. i will check it out later today. 

Beepster
 
 
So the option you used in the X1 Advanced vids to turn your hex pickup guitar tracks into a virtual 12 string? And it no longer works?
 
 

IIRC the Formant option for transpose didn't work in X1 either. In any event I've been continuing to use the technique described in the video in X3, and you'll be happy to know the virtual 12-string, Nashville tuning, and 18-string guitar sounds remain as wonderful as ever .
 

 
That is a little... uh, hate to say it... crummy. Even if it's based on 32bit they could have left it in and instead maybe put a popup warning saying it might cause problems. I know Cake is trying to avoid people having glitches/crashes by stripping out 32bit stuff but some of those things are really useful and did work more often than not. Like VC-64 thingie.
 

 
The Prosoniq pitch transposition algorithm wasn't a plug-in, it depended on a library so there's no way it can work in a 64-bit OS. It's conceptually similar to why 32-bit ReWire wouldn't work under a 64-bit OS...it's not something you can bridge.
 
To further complicate matters, Prosoniq went dark. Zynaptiq acquired their intellectual property a few months ago, but I have no idea whether they plan to update the pitch shifting algorithms. iZotope and zplane have pretty much locked up that market in Prosoniq's absence. I did talk to Denis from Zynaptiq at Frankfurt and asked them to at least consider updating the Orange Vocoder... 
 
As to the VC-64, I'm a huge fan of that plug-in and asked CW why it had not been updated. Sadly, it seems the developer (it wasn't coded by CW) has disappeared. CW has tried repeatedly to contact him about updates or obtaining the rights, to no avail. They would love to bring it up to date but they can't do anything without the rights to reverse-engineer or re-engineer it. Meanwhile I'll keep using it as long as its functions, with the understanding that's it's getting pretty shaky under the hood...
 
 

Ah... so it's a different feature being discussed. I'm still a little foggy as to what exactly formant scaling is. I'm familiar with the words and I know I've crossed this term before but I am totally drawing a blank as to what exactly it is. Something to do with manipulating the pitch/quality of chords? :-/
 
I'll have to rewatch the vid to see which function you actually used but I think it was just "Transpose" which apparently is something different. I'm sure Melodyne or VV could easily do those as well (on monophonic material).
 
I remember you posting about the disappearance of the VC-64 author. Makes you wonder what happens to people and realize there are flesh and blood humans behind a lot of this stuff and not necessarily some faceless company.
 
Maybe if the Baker's have time they could build a type of "sandbox" type area for 32 bit stuff where you could use all the old plugins, render them and then return to 64bit mode. I really have no idea if such a thing is possible but if it is I'd bet if Sonar had that option it would draw a lot of customers with ancient VST catalogs over to our side.
 
Cheers.

I believe Craig's initial reply covers it. This function uses the MPEX library which is still part of the 32bit SONAR Producer. The documentation needs to be updated to make it clear the function is not available in 64bit SONAR. If this is an important feature install the 32bit version of X3 Producer.

Beepster
 
I remember you posting about the disappearance of the VC-64 author. Makes you wonder what happens to people and realize there are flesh and blood humans behind a lot of this stuff and not necessarily some faceless company.
 
 

Indeed, and we should appreciate those people...at one point Cubase fell behind in terms of its audio engine, and people were complaining on forums. What they didn't know was Mark Badger, its main architect, died unexpectedly at an early age from a congenital heart disease. Of course Steinberg got it sorted out eventually and carried on, but in an industry this small, losing just one person on a team can have a huge impact. In the case of the many one-person shops, it's the difference between something existing and something not existing.
 
I did a seminar in Denmark that was very well-received, and the person who put it on stressed how he wanted to have me back as soon as possible. I never heard from him, and thought maybe I'd offended him in some way but he wouldn't reply to my emails. I saw someone who had been at the seminar at NAMM, and asked how our mutual friend was doing. "You didn't know? He died in a car crash shortly after you were there." 
 
Life is short and unpredictable. Enjoy the ride.