pitch analyser?

[califauna]

Hi,

Hmm. Dont even know how to describe exactly what Im looking for, but I'll give it a go.

I need a plugin or software of some type which can alalyse an audio track (mp3 etc) and tell me the track's absolute pitch.

Im doing some 'harmonic mixing' of songs, and using filters to filter out instances of particular notes (ie certain pitches which can be heard in the song), and Im finding that tracks are usually slightly differnt in their absolute tuning. Ie one track might be in A minor with the notes at 220, 440, 880 Hz etc, and another track might be in A minor, but everything is 5 cents higher.

This is causing me big headaches. So, I need software which can analyse tracks and adjust the 'pitch' down or up or tell me the absolute pitch of the track so I can do it. As Im doing this live I cant stop to analyse the tracks manually.


Anyone with any ideas, or if anyone could shed some light on why this might be, please let me know. I can understand why in the case of live music, but I would have thought producion studios would be very exacting in the tuing of instruments etc. SOmetimes tracks in the same key vary by almost half a semitone (50 cents).


Thanks.

 

[highfigh]

Hi,

Hmm. Dont even know how to describe exactly what Im looking for, but I'll give it a go.

I need a plugin or software of some type which can alalyse an audio track (mp3 etc) and tell me the track's absolute pitch.

Im doing some 'harmonic mixing' of songs, and using filters to filter out instances of particular notes (ie certain pitches which can be heard in the song), and Im finding that tracks are usually slightly differnt in their absolute tuning. Ie one track might be in A minor with the notes at 220, 440, 880 Hz etc, and another track might be in A minor, but everything is 5 cents higher.

This is causing me big headaches. So, I need software which can analyse tracks and adjust the 'pitch' down or up or tell me the absolute pitch of the track so I can do it. As Im doing this live I cant stop to analyse the tracks manually.


Anyone with any ideas, or if anyone could shed some light on why this might be, please let me know. I can understand why in the case of live music, but I would have thought producion studios would be very exacting in the tuing of instruments etc. SOmetimes tracks in the same key vary by almost half a semitone (50 cents).


Thanks.

I think Cubase has a pitch controller and if that has it, most of the other recording software would, too.

 

[jostenmeat]

Hi,

Hmm. Dont even know how to describe exactly what Im looking for, but I'll give it a go.

I need a plugin or software of some type which can alalyse an audio track (mp3 etc) and tell me the track's absolute pitch.

Im doing some 'harmonic mixing' of songs, and using filters to filter out instances of particular notes (ie certain pitches which can be heard in the song), and Im finding that tracks are usually slightly differnt in their absolute tuning. Ie one track might be in A minor with the notes at 220, 440, 880 Hz etc, and another track might be in A minor, but everything is 5 cents higher.

This is causing me big headaches. So, I need software which can analyse tracks and adjust the 'pitch' down or up or tell me the absolute pitch of the track so I can do it. As Im doing this live I cant stop to analyse the tracks manually.


Anyone with any ideas, or if anyone could shed some light on why this might be, please let me know. I can understand why in the case of live music, but I would have thought producion studios would be very exacting in the tuing of instruments etc. SOmetimes tracks in the same key vary by almost half a semitone (50 cents).


Thanks.

I'm just curious, what kind of music, how old are the recordings, and who is performing them? (I mean the extreme examples, comparatively.)

With early (classical) music of the Baroque era, A=415 for example.

For I don't know how many decades, some orchestras of the world have tuned to a different A (but always higher, for brilliance). I know there were some that went high as A=444 back in the day, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if some have gone higher since then.

I have a couple of older recordings with some extremely sudden pitch shift, and I think it must be a damaged master or something, I dunno (forgive me, as I understand little of the recording process). I think of a certain track or two on Iberia as performed by Alicia de Laroccha for example (I love this recording, nevertheless).

 

[califauna]

Regular modern chart music. When I come back across one ill reply again. If you look at any 2 song sthough they usually have some variation. I guess thats to be expected , its just sometimes more than I expected.


Ive just downloaded an alternative copy of one song I had to check and its excatly the same. I am doing that to check if its just some of my mps are bad quality or something.

 

[highfigh]

Regular modern chart music. When I come back across one ill reply again. If you look at any 2 song sthough they usually have some variation. I guess thats to be expected , its just sometimes more than I expected.


Ive just downloaded an alternative copy of one song I had to check and its exactly the same. I am doing that to check if its just some of my mps are bad quality or something.

Is this newly recorded music or was it originally recorded for vinyl? If it was recorded for vinyl, they would often to vary the tape speed to make it fit on a record or give it a different "sound". If it was originally a digital recording, they altered the pitch to change the sound but they can change the speed without altering the pitch.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

hmmm, Auto-tune ??

 

[califauna]

wow Auto-tune looks promising! If it can adjust pitch as the audio is played (not sure the technical term for that) and so when when used as a plugin, it could be perfect. looking for a demo now.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

 

[highfigh]

wow Auto-tune looks promising! If it can adjust pitch as the audio is played (not sure the technical term for that) and so when when used as a plugin, it could be perfect. looking for a demo now.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Any hip-hop song, or a Cher song from about '98 has it. It's the effect du jour, lately.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Any hip-hop song, or a Cher song from about '98 has it. It's the effect du jour, lately.

Auto-Tune wasn't designed to make one sound like a retarded robot, but to fix pitch on not-perfect voice (unable to take the right note in the song)

In this use, everyone today, except few small indie band use it.. let me repeat - ALMOST EVERYONE who sells music nowadays.

Cher, T-Pain etc - use auto-tune in it's side function - to distort the pitch

 

[jostenmeat]

Auto-Tune wasn't designed to make one sound like a retarded robot, but to fix pitch on not-perfect voice (unable to take the right note in the song)

In this use, everyone today, except few small indie band use it.. let me repeat - ALMOST EVERYONE who sells music nowadays.

Cher, T-Pain etc - use auto-tune in it's side function - to distort the pitch

Are you sure it's distorting pitch, and not "tone" the way a distortion pedal for guitar would? Honest question, as I don't listen to that stupid junk, and I don't even get to hear TV commercials, but . . . when I hear it, it always seems to be diatonic to me, I mean, not even chromatic. Distorting pitch = what to you?

Even if chromatic, the OP wouldn't be off by 5 cents or 50 cents, but, maybe you ARE right, and there are "microtonal" types of distortion. I'd like to hear a pop example though (because I am reluctant to believe the pop stations would play the stuff).

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Are you sure it's distorting pitch, and not "tone" the way a distortion pedal for guitar would? Honest question, as I don't listen to that stupid junk, and I don't even get to hear TV commercials, but . . . when I hear it, it always seems to be diatonic to me, I mean, not even chromatic. Distorting pitch = what to you?

Even if chromatic, the OP wouldn't be off by 5 cents or 50 cents, but, maybe you ARE right, and there are "microtonal" types of distortion. I'd like to hear a pop example though (because I am reluctant to believe the pop stations would play the stuff).

To sing in tune auto-tune modifies the singer pitch (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune)
The guy who invented this software algorithm started as research scientist for geophysical industry working on computer based seismic data interpretation.. aka predict earth quake or .... bad vibration in singer voice (also a wave)

http://www.antarestech.com/about/history.shtml

 

[jostenmeat]

To sing in tune auto-tune modifies the singer pitch (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune)
The guy who invented this software algorithm started as research scientist for geophysical industry working on computer based seismic data interpretation.. aka predict earth quake or .... bad vibration in singer voice (also a wave)

http://www.antarestech.com/about/history.shtml

Yes, obviously* the device modifies pitch. I am sure it has the capability to modify pitch to any gradation, even just a cent, or perhaps even finer than that. My point was that I've never heard it modify pitch to anything else outside of the 7 notes that belong in the diatonic key of the tune itself (or at least the key it's in for any given moment), when I hear it during a commercial or in passing or whatever; as recorded material.

Now it says that auto tune above will adjust to the nearest semitone. I suppose the implication is for live performances, where if the performer was SO OUT of tune to be over 50 cents out of tune, that you could now have a note that does not belong in the present key so to speak. (Sure, there are altered tones in different music, such as the "blue note", or a raised 7th in a minor key in classical music but that is due to voice leading, and nevertheless I hope my point is just clear enough.)

So I guess that's why I ask for what distortion of pitch really meant. I guess I was implying that if you played any of the 7 notes of a given diatonic scale, that you're not exactly "distorting" pitch. If I had a toy xylophone that was perfectly in tune with its own key, and gave a toddler some mallets, he would randomly modify pitch depending on which keys he hit, but none of those notes would be "distorted" by however many cents, be it 5 or 50, etc. Whew!

Nutshell: even if AutoTune has the capability, I have never recalled hearing its use in such a way that would give the OP the problems he now has.

 

[califauna]

Is this newly recorded music or was it originally recorded for vinyl? If it was recorded for vinyl, they would often to vary the tape speed to make it fit on a record or give it a different "sound". If it was originally a digital recording, they altered the pitch to change the sound but they can change the speed without altering the pitch.

Its recently recorded music.

 

[highfigh]

Its recently recorded music.

Major label, or independently released? If it was an independent, you may be able to contact them to get unaltered music files (if they changed the pitch post-recording).

 

[califauna]

Major label, or independently released? If it was an independent, you may be able to contact them to get unaltered music files (if they changed the pitch post-recording).

It has to be done in "real time" (I think is the term). What I mean is, as the song is played I want some kind of plugin (of the host app which is playing the song) to recieve and analyse the audio channel and and adjust the pitch accordingly if it is not quite bang on.

Hope is fading for autotune becasue it seems to be designed for pitch corecting solo instruments of vocal lines only, not all of the audio in a channel.

In terms of processor power I imagine this would be a mammoth task!

By the way, Auto-tune also does also use diatonic scales.

 

[jostenmeat]

It has to be done in "real time" (I think is the term). What I mean is, as the song is played I want some kind of plugin (of the host app which is playing the song) to recieve and analyse the audio channel and and adjust the pitch accordingly if it is not quite bang on.

It exists, whether as software/hardware, but I don't know what it's called. Someone I played music with back in the day had a device that he'd used to slow down the music, yet it could maintain the original pitches of the track, so that he could pull out jazz and rock solos from mega blazing freakazoid guitarists.

Sorry I can't help you more, but I'd bet good money what you want is out there. I would hit up forums intended more for studio recording engineers rather than audiophiles, but when you find what you need, please post back? Thanks, and good luck.

 

[califauna]

It exists, whether as software/hardware, but I don't know what it's called. Someone I played music with back in the day had a device that he'd used to slow down the music, yet it could maintain the original pitches of the track, so that he could pull out jazz and rock solos from mega blazing freakazoid guitarists.

Thanks for the help so far. Will post back. Just to clarify, I need the plugin to adjust the global pitch, as in the frequency of notes, ie tonality of the music, rather than the master tempo / pitch lock function.