Small time stretch on vocal warps, leaves artifacts

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mbfrancis
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06 Jan 2019

Happy New Year, everyone, hope all are well.

I'm having a weird problem with time stretch on a vocal. I've recorded a song at 104, but after adding drums, I'd like to bump the tempo to 106 in sections. Easy right? Reason's time stretch is pretty great and I've never had problems (exception: acoustic piano), especially with such a minor tempo change.

Yet...the time adjusted vocal comes out weird, warbled, phased. If you don't mind please d/l the clip here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/94uyb3z572ode ... x.wav?dl=0

The first half is at 104, the second at 106. Any idea what's going on?

Before you ask, yes it's set on "Vocal" time stretch. There is processing (EQ, De-Ess and Compression), but that's just emphasizing the artifacts. Also, the vocal track is a stereo bounce of multiple tracks comped, not sure if that should matter, but FYI.

Any help appreciated!
Producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. I make indie pop as Port Streets, 90s/shoegaze as Swooner, and Electro as Yours Mine.

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Boombastix
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06 Jan 2019

Have you tried bounce the 104 clip to disk and then bring it back in, stretch to 106?

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mbfrancis
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06 Jan 2019

Boombastix wrote:
06 Jan 2019
Have you tried bounce the 104 clip to disk and then bring it back in, stretch to 106?

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Nope, but I will -- why do you think that would work?
Producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. I make indie pop as Port Streets, 90s/shoegaze as Swooner, and Electro as Yours Mine.

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guitfnky
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06 Jan 2019

weird...at first I thought maybe it was a stereo thing, so I listened on headphones, one ear at a time, and it’s definitely still there in both L and R channels.

is it possible for you to bounce your comped track as a mono file and just add your stereo processing on the backend (to the bounced track)? not sure if it will help, but you can at least rule something out if it’s still coming out with artifacts.

also, I’d make sure your stereo effects aren’t set to dual-mono modes (if that’s even an option)—at least until you can narrow down the root cause.
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Boombastix
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06 Jan 2019

mbfrancis wrote:
Boombastix wrote:
06 Jan 2019
Have you tried bounce the 104 clip to disk and then bring it back in, stretch to 106?

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk
Nope, but I will -- why do you think that would work?
In case you try to process pitch and time at once, might be better to do it in two steps. Easy to try.

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mbfrancis
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06 Jan 2019

guitfnky wrote:
06 Jan 2019
weird...at first I thought maybe it was a stereo thing, so I listened on headphones, one ear at a time, and it’s definitely still there in both L and R channels.

is it possible for you to bounce your comped track as a mono file and just add your stereo processing on the backend (to the bounced track)? not sure if it will help, but you can at least rule something out if it’s still coming out with artifacts.

also, I’d make sure your stereo effects aren’t set to dual-mono modes (if that’s even an option)—at least until you can narrow down the root cause.
Thanks for response...the WAV file I posted is mono, and I'm hearing it. It only warbles when time-stretched.
Producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. I make indie pop as Port Streets, 90s/shoegaze as Swooner, and Electro as Yours Mine.

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eusti
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06 Jan 2019

You could try to do the stretching in another program to see if another algo handles this scenario better... Maybe try audacity or what else you have available... Or ask other members if they can give it a shot...

D.

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mbfrancis
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07 Jan 2019

eusti wrote:
06 Jan 2019
You could try to do the stretching in another program to see if another algo handles this scenario better... Maybe try audacity or what else you have available... Or ask other members if they can give it a shot...

D.
I have S1', so I might do that, or post here raw. But it doesn't make sense, why is it happening? Ugh...

Thanks everyone.
Producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. I make indie pop as Port Streets, 90s/shoegaze as Swooner, and Electro as Yours Mine.

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guitfnky
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07 Jan 2019

mbfrancis wrote:
06 Jan 2019
guitfnky wrote:
06 Jan 2019
weird...at first I thought maybe it was a stereo thing, so I listened on headphones, one ear at a time, and it’s definitely still there in both L and R channels.

is it possible for you to bounce your comped track as a mono file and just add your stereo processing on the backend (to the bounced track)? not sure if it will help, but you can at least rule something out if it’s still coming out with artifacts.

also, I’d make sure your stereo effects aren’t set to dual-mono modes (if that’s even an option)—at least until you can narrow down the root cause.
Thanks for response...the WAV file I posted is mono, and I'm hearing it. It only warbles when time-stretched.
not sure why my first response to this didn’t post, but anyway...

what I meant is, the point at which you bounce to mono could potentially affect the end result. I’m assuming your original vocal track is mono—and that the stereo you’ve got is due to processing that mono track through stereo effects.

if you bounce the mono track through effects to a stereo track *before* you do the time stretch, you’ll get one result.

if you time stretch before you bounce the mono track to stereo, you’ll get a different result. (also, this should be the standard process for doing it if you want the cleanest results.)

personally, I wouldn’t recommend doing any processing to the track until you’ve identified and sorted the issue with the artifacting.
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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mbfrancis
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07 Jan 2019

OK, so when I bounced the raw vocal file to disc, brought it into a new session at 104, and then sped it up to 106, it sounds fine. Weird. Works, but why doesn't it work in the original session. huh.

Thanks for all the help.

UPDATE: Joined the original audio file (lots of chops for volume automation), bounced to disc, cretaed a "DUB" track of the original vocal and dropped in the bounced audio file, and it worked fine. Huh.
Producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. I make indie pop as Port Streets, 90s/shoegaze as Swooner, and Electro as Yours Mine.

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WeLoveYouToo
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08 Jan 2019

what guitfnky said.

time streching vocals is an incredibly complex process, the software has to basically shorten or widen the 1st harmonic and then process the formants so as to keep them sounding like you and not a chipmunk. the algorithm for this is tailored to how the human voice is recorded, so never do any processing prior to pitch and time processing. record vocals at the highest fidelity you can, edit time/pitch, then bounce to the tracks fidelity.
Last edited by WeLoveYouToo on 08 Jan 2019, edited 1 time in total.

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