Let's also add that Varispeed would allow one to:

1. Create harmonies they couldn't otherwise sing (pitch the track down 2 steps for a moment, sing the harmony along with the now pitched-down track, pitch everything up)
2. Create cool effects just due to timbre changes. Example: The "In My Life" piano solo. That odd sound is a grand piano that played the solo an octave lower, then sped up and pitched up an octave. It created that weird honky-tonk tone.
3. Smooth automatable varispeed would allow for cool pitch bending effects. A good example is the intro string part to The Flaming Lips "Race for the Prize," those sliding strings are all done with a tape varispeed.

Anyway...building something like this in Sonar would open up a bunch of creative possibilities, or at least, allow them to occur more fluidly (than say having to bounce a mix, pitch, etc.). No reason to be against it...  

Zappa would approve.

I have to say I was surprised and dissapointed that X2 didn't have the feature considering all the talk there has been about it over the years.

It can't be that big of a deal to implement.  I have an 8 year old DX plugin that is 628KB in size that will work in a pinch, but doesn't support x64.  While it's not of the calibur of other DAW's implementations obviously being 8 years old and free to boot, it does show it could be done in Sonar with out too much difficulty.

Dan

I agree with Mike's comments.  One classic technique is to put an A-440 test tone on a tape and then use varispeed to tune the recording to a fixed instrument, like a piano, marimba, or bell.  Tunig after the fact works, but it makes recording painful.  Also, there are times when I want to add a little speed to a recording afterwards.  (This can be done to the full mix in other tools, but i would prefer to do it during the mix.)
 
To funkybot's point, I sometimes create a guide track with a piano or guitar transposed and mute everything but the transposed track and the drums.  Then the singer performs the harmonies in tune to the guide track and they are transposed later with Melodyne.  This is a lot of trouble if you just have one or two notes in the harmony part that are slightly out of range.

yorolpal


What are these instruments that can't be tuned or are near impossible to tune that you speak of?  And who the heck plays them?

Er..... my guitars and me.....

Varispeed requires a workaround, but I use varispeed with Sonar a lot for vocals and the workaround isn't all that difficult. There are two main approaches for 64-bit systems.

Semitone variations are easiest. Create a premix of your tracks, and use the Tranpose DSP to transpose the premix. For example:

Transpose the premix down one semitone and sing along with it.
When done, transpose the vocal up a semitone for that "pop" sound, and delete the premix.

The transpose function sounds quite good unless you're transposing by huge amounts. I also use with guitar - pitch the premix up a semitone, play along, pitch down for a big, heavy guitar sound.

For finer transposition, open the premix as a groove clip but don't stretch to tempo. You can then use the Clip properties to adjust the tuning in cents. Same procedure as above - adjust tuning to the out of tune instrument or whatever, record, convert the new recording into a groove clip and transpose up by an equal amount. With such small amount of transposition, the audio quality is quite good.

If dealing with Groove clips is too messy, you can insert a pitch shifting plug-in like zPane's elastique for pitching down the premix and pitching up the new track.

FastBikerBoy

yorolpal


What are these instruments that can't be tuned or are near impossible to tune that you speak of?  And who the heck plays them?

Er..... my guitars and me.....

+Bapu

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Yes, it would be convenient to have Varispeed. But Sonar doesn't, yet there are solutions. I have the "out of tune instrument" issue so rarely I can't even remember the last time that happened, so I use the semitone transposition as an effect. It certainly doesn't take five minute to render a track, and no strobe tuner is required. And zPlane's plug-in can go on the master bus if you don't want to take the time for a premix, and it pretty much does everything you want to have done. Sure, it's extra money for the plug-in to solve your problem - but aren't all plug-ins like that ?

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