Transpose music "live"

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Lemen
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Transpose music "live"

Post by Lemen »

Hello,
I have searched but cannot find what I need. ( Not even knowing if it is possible)

I can record a song playing guitar in Ardour. Than I can play it back and transpose it one note down so it fits my voice better.

I am looking for a possibillity to play the guitar and sing the same time. So the guitar has to go down one note. ( of course I can tune the guitar down, but that is not what I want)
No idea if there is something that can do it and how.

Who knows??
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raboof
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Re: Transpose music "live"

Post by raboof »

Lemen wrote:I can record a song playing guitar in Ardour. Than I can play it back and transpose it one note down so it fits my voice better.
This is possible, look up 'pitch shifting' plugins.

The audio quality will degrade, and you might have to search around for a plugin that lets you define the interval to shift by in semitones rather than in Hertz (or do the math yourself).
Lemen wrote:I am looking for a possibillity to play the guitar and sing the same time. So the guitar has to go down one note. ( of course I can tune the guitar down, but that is not what I want)
Might be better to just play the song a note lower (or, indeed, tune down) though...

pitchshifting after-the-fact can be convenient, but I would really advise against doing it 'live' (other than to create a chorus-ish effect)
Lemen
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Re: Transpose music "live"

Post by Lemen »

I will try it out. Sad that the audio quality degrade.
In fact is that with playing the song one note lower or tuning the guitar lower a sound not always great for the sound.
I will see what happen. ( otherwise I have to take singing lessons, maybe there is hope)

Anyway:Thanks for the group-name of the plug in. ( English is not my mothertongue so sometimes is searching for those kind of things difficult)
With this search name, I found some discussions about the subject. I can start some more homework. Thanks!
ssj71
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Re: Transpose music "live"

Post by ssj71 »

If I understand right, you wish to play in one key on guitar (i.e. E) then shift it down (i.e. Eb) and record the shifted guitar while singing in the shifted key (Eb). Is that right? If so I don't think its a good idea. You won't be able to separate the acoustic signal from your guitar enough to harmonize well with the shifted guitar. You'll hear the Eb in the monitors with a faint E being transferred through your body. At least it would throw me off. I'd recommend you record the E guitar, insert a quality pitch shifter like rubberband and bounce the track to an Eb version, then record the singing.

If you insist on doing it together in real time, then use a fast, lower quality pitch shifter (not sure which to recommend, just look for one that doesn't have any latency) on a bus. Send your guitar to the recording track and the bus and monitor the bus. This way you are hearing a degraded pitch shifted signal, but recording a full quality not yet shifted signal. Then remove the bus and use rubberband pitch shifter on the track you recorded. I think that will give you satisfactory results.

Does that make any sense?

Also you might consider getting the next gauge up strings and tuning them down, that way you wont have loosey goosey string sound if thats the problem.
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Lemen
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Re: Transpose music "live"

Post by Lemen »

Yes, you understand it right.
I hoped there was a simple way.
But the fact you will feel the guitar trough the body is a good point. That will be sure disturb the sound you 'hear'

To record the song there are indeed options enough. In Ardour it is a build in possibility. ( transpose) This works.
I have tried some pitch shifters today, and raboof is right audio degrade. Sad enough to much to be usefull.

I better start transpose the song the old fashioned way.
Thanks for thinking and explaining!
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