Can you Tune software instruments.

[Lov2sing]

Hi everyone. Just to give some background. I was going through some of my old Refills and I came across a bass sound that I use to use, but now when I play it, it sounds out of tune (according to my tuner). My question, is there a RE that allows one to tune software instruments to a correct pitch?

[DaveyG]

You don't say what the sound is but you don't need an RE to tune it. If it is a synth preset then tweak the osc frequency in the synth. If it is a sample then tune it in the sampler.

[turn2on]

You can trial Drop’n’Lift RE, or May be Polar to repitch samples or melodic part of instrument. Drop’n’Lift can do this with various creative ways with additional variants of repitching (+/-24 semitones).
You not said what you have with your bass: note line (you can change notes), or rendered sample..?

[challism]

You can trial Drop’n’Lift RE, or May be Polar to repitch samples or melodic part of instrument. Drop’n’Lift can do this with various creative ways with additional variants of repitching (+/-24 semitones).
You not said what you have with your bass: note line (you can change notes), or rendered sample..?

Can't Turn2On Ghammy also do this? Purhaps Drop N Lift can hold the note steady (locked in), while Ghammy is more of a free flowing concept? I've got both. I love and recommend them both. There seems to be a lot of cross over between them, though. Sometimes it seems like I can do the same thing with one that I can do with the other. I get that Ghammy has that awesome granual effect and it can also split the signal and create harmonic intervals (very cool). Also, it seems that Ghammy is capable of microtuning, while Drop N Lift is locked to semi tones (unless I'm mistaken).

Yes, and as DaveyG said, the instrument itself should have a tuning function. And don't forget about the pitchwheel. You can adjust that to taste (using automation lanes, you can lock it to certain values, making it capable to do microtuning).

And if you are talking about MIDI information feeding into the instrument, you have a variety of Player choices there, too. TonicMint A/B Transpose being the free option. I

[guitfnky]

DaveyG has the best answer, here. as long as the instrument has a fine tuning function, that’s the easiest way to go that will result in the best sound, assuming it’s not a rendered audio track already.

if it is, I wouldn’t recommend using an RE for something like this, especially something like the ones that have been mentioned—unless you’re deliberately looking for something to color the sound. the mentioned plugins are great, but they’re not meant to be transparent. it sounds like what you’re after is just to tune the existing sound to the correct pitch without altering its character.

if it is a rendered audio track, assuming the instrument is uniformly out of tune (i.e. all notes are shifted the same number of cents out of tune), an easy way to do this is to manipulate the tuning in the clip settings to compensate. this will sound more natural than using an RE.

[Lov2sing]

Thanks guys. I never thought about going inside of the Refill and fine tune it. Being it’s a sample it should have those abilities. What I am finding that maybe the Sample was already out of tune and they either did not notice or did it for effect. Either case thanks for all the good advice.

[challism]

Thanks guys. I never thought about going inside of the Refill and fine tune it. Being it’s a sample it should have those abilities. What I am finding that maybe the Sample was already out of tune and they either did not notice or did it for effect. Either case thanks for all the good advice.

Are you talking about one of the SoundIron devices that are included in Reason? I've read some reports that some of the samples are out of tune... don't remember which one, but I'm thinking it was Pangea.

Edit: never mind, I just reread your post... you mentioned bass sample in your old refills.

[Lov2sing]

Thanks guys. I never thought about going inside of the Refill and fine tune it. Being it’s a sample it should have those abilities. What I am finding that maybe the Sample was already out of tune and they either did not notice or did it for effect. Either case thanks for all the good advice.

Are you talking about one of the SoundIron devices that are included in Reason? I've read some reports that some of the samples are out of tune... don't remember which one, but I'm thinking it was Pangea.

Edit: never mind, I just reread your post... you mentioned bass sample in your old refills.

So if it were Pangea what would be your approach to putting it in tune?

[challism]

Are you talking about one of the SoundIron devices that are included in Reason? I've read some reports that some of the samples are out of tune... don't remember which one, but I'm thinking it was Pangea.

Edit: never mind, I just reread your post... you mentioned bass sample in your old refills.

So if it were Pangea what would be your approach to putting it in tune?

If my memory serves me correctly, I think it's just a few of the samples in Pangea that are out of tune. So, for example maybe all the samples are in tune except for D3 and G4, hypothetically speaking here. You could go about tuning them a number of ways. A few off the top of my head would be: 1) automating the pitch wheel or even the built in tuning knob for every instance of those notes in the song. This won't work if you are playing a chord, though, as it would pitch shift every note in the entire chord. What you could do to work around this is to create a duplicate instance of Pangea that has the tuning corrected via tuning knobs, and anytime in your song where you would play a D3 or G4 (as per the example) you would play them on the 2nd instance of Pangea, and never on the 1st instrument. 2) Another method would be resampling the notes that are out of tune and tuning them, then playing them back either via a sampler or sequencer audio lane, anytime the song uses the D3 of G4 (as per the example). 3) You could also resample the entire range of notes for the voices that have issues and load them into a NNXT and save that. Then just scrap the Pangea altogether, and use your NNXT. 4) Use a Player like Delta to filter out the troublesome notes and route them to a corrected instance of Pangea. 5) Dont use Pangea; find something else to use instead. We have endless choices for instruments these days.

Some overly-complicated workarounds, for sure, but workarounds none-the-less. I haven't experienced this issue with Pangea... I'm still not sure if it is Pangea that has this issue. I think it is. But I quite like Pangea and Klang (don't care for Humana at all). If I did come across this issue, I'd probably do the pitch-shifted 2nd instrument workaround and send the troublesome notes to those instruments. Easy enough, especially with a Player like Delta.

[Lov2sing]

So if it were Pangea what would be your approach to putting it in tune?

If my memory serves me correctly, I think it's just a few of the samples in Pangea that are out of tune. So, for example maybe all the samples are in tune except for D3 and G4, hypothetically speaking here. You could go about tuning them a number of ways. A few off the top of my head would be: 1) automating the pitch wheel or even the built in tuning knob for every instance of those notes in the song. This won't work if you are playing a chord, though, as it would pitch shift every note in the entire chord. What you could do to work around this is to create a duplicate instance of Pangea that has the tuning corrected via tuning knobs, and anytime in your song where you would play a D3 or G4 (as per the example) you would play them on the 2nd instance of Pangea, and never on the 1st instrument. 2) Another method would be resampling the notes that are out of tune and tuning them, then playing them back either via a sampler or sequencer audio lane, anytime the song uses the D3 of G4 (as per the example). 3) You could also resample the entire range of notes for the voices that have issues and load them into a NNXT and save that. Then just scrap the Pangea altogether, and use your NNXT. 4) Use a Player like Delta to filter out the troublesome notes and route them to a corrected instance of Pangea. 5) Dont use Pangea; find something else to use instead. We have endless choices for instruments these days.

Some overly-complicated workarounds, for sure, but workarounds none-the-less. I haven't experienced this issue with Pangea... I'm still not sure if it is Pangea that has this issue. I think it is. But I quite like Pangea and Klang (don't care for Humana at all). If I did come across this issue, I'd probably do the pitch-shifted 2nd instrument workaround and send the troublesome notes to those instruments. Easy enough, especially with a Player like Delta.

I have delta and will play around with it. Thanks again.

[Lov2sing]

I guess my real thought would be to sound designers, to add a way to correct the tuning within a sound. I thank you all for the responses you gave, and if I cannot get one of your workarounds to work for me, I will create a sound that I know will be in tune. The refill I was trying to use was a sampled Warwick bass and it sounds really good until you try to play it along with a piano sound. I also wish for a v-neck aluminum Kramer bass refill but who has that old bass. It had sustain for years because of the design.
Thanks again.

[jam-s]

So if it were Pangea what would be your approach to putting it in tune?

... 5) Dont use Pangea; find something else to use instead. We have endless choices for instruments these days.

6) Beat Reason Studios with a stick of solid bugreports until they fix it.

[challism]

. I also wish for a v-neck aluminum Kramer bass refill but who has that old bass. It had sustain for years because of the design.

Legend has it a bass player from an LA hair metal band is still sustaining a low E string note he slapped in the mid 80s.

... 5) Dont use Pangea; find something else to use instead. We have endless choices for instruments these days.

6) Beat Reason Studios with a stick of solid bugreports until they fix it.

ha ha.. you are going to be beating them for a LONG, LONG time.

[mcatalao]

So if it were Pangea what would be your approach to putting it in tune?

If my memory serves me correctly, I think it's just a few of the samples in Pangea that are out of tune. So, for example maybe all the samples are in tune except for D3 and G4, hypothetically speaking here. You could go about tuning them a number of ways. A few off the top of my head would be: 1) automating the pitch wheel or even the built in tuning knob for every instance of those notes in the song. This won't work if you are playing a chord, though, as it would pitch shift every note in the entire chord. What you could do to work around this is to create a duplicate instance of Pangea that has the tuning corrected via tuning knobs, and anytime in your song where you would play a D3 or G4 (as per the example) you would play them on the 2nd instance of Pangea, and never on the 1st instrument. 2) Another method would be resampling the notes that are out of tune and tuning them, then playing them back either via a sampler or sequencer audio lane, anytime the song uses the D3 of G4 (as per the example). 3) You could also resample the entire range of notes for the voices that have issues and load them into a NNXT and save that. Then just scrap the Pangea altogether, and use your NNXT. 4) Use a Player like Delta to filter out the troublesome notes and route them to a corrected instance of Pangea. 5) Dont use Pangea; find something else to use instead. We have endless choices for instruments these days.

Some overly-complicated workarounds, for sure, but workarounds none-the-less. I haven't experienced this issue with Pangea... I'm still not sure if it is Pangea that has this issue. I think it is. But I quite like Pangea and Klang (don't care for Humana at all). If I did come across this issue, I'd probably do the pitch-shifted 2nd instrument workaround and send the troublesome notes to those instruments. Easy enough, especially with a Player like Delta.

Man, Tuning is overrated!

Anyway, I'd commit what you're doing to audio and tweak the tuning in Pitch editor. If you have multiple lines (an harmonic thing) just explode it into n audio tracks, take care of pitch, group and apply inserts in the group (or use melodyne DNA if you have it in the case of an instrument you don't control).

Also... Pangea has samples of world instruments. If the original was detuned the dev might have left it as is for the sake of realness. A little bit of dissonance in this kind of instruments is normal imho. But because of autotune et al, we've been weary and wearier of dissonances (and that's actually a bad thing because dissonance is part of music and sound).

[challism]

Also... Pangea has samples of world instruments. If the original was detuned the dev might have left it as is for the sake of realness. A little bit of dissonance in this kind of instruments is normal imho. But because of autotune et al, we've been weary and wearier of dissonances (and that's actually a bad thing because dissonance is part of music and sound).

Good point about Pangea being samples of world instruments. That's what I like about it.

Also... down with Autotune. Boooo! It's done more damage than it has done good, IMO.

[DaveyG]

Also... down with Autotune. Boooo! It's done more damage than it has done good, IMO.

Haha. Do you ever reflect on the irony that devs are striving to make a more human-sounding AI singer whilst producers and engineers are striving to make real singers sound like Munchkins?

[challism]

Also... down with Autotune. Boooo! It's done more damage than it has done good, IMO.

Haha. Do you ever reflect on the irony that devs are striving to make a more human-sounding AI singer whilst producers and engineers are striving to make real singers sound like Munchkins?

Yeah, that's pretty funny. Same thing goes for trying to breathe some life back into a quantized track (Enlightenspeed's Humanizer is pretty useful for this). Between Autotune and quantization, music has lost so much of its humanity. Note to self: use more sloppy drum hits.