Elastic Audio

Elastic Audio is a specialized editor that lets you selectively change the pitch of audio material. Automated resampling or pitch shifting as well as pitch detection for monophonic signals are used.

To open the Elastic Audio effect, use:

Editing modes

The Elastic Audio Editor can be used in Relative mode or in Direct mode.

If you want Elastic Audio to always open in Direct mode, select Startup Mode Direct in the Elastic Audio menu View.

Relative Mode

Here you edit the pitch curve (automation of the change in pitch over time) as a relative pitch deviation. This is similar to the Pitch Bend controller progression for MIDI data.

Editing can be done with a free-hand curve, quantized "step" curves, or using the Curve Bend tool. The “curve smooth” parameter enables smoothing of the automation curve. This avoids too steep changes in the pitch curve during playback.

Overview of the graphic display in the "Relative" mode:

Y-axis: Displays the pitch shift in semitone steps (within a range of -24 to +24 semitones).

Orange curve: Pitch automation curve as relative detuning of the original pitch.

Dark blue line: 0 line as a reference line to the edited pitch curve.

Direct Mode

In Direct mode, the pitch is drawn directly, changes are absolute. To be able to adjust the pitch accordingly, the original pitch must be determined by a preceding pitch analysis of the audio material. This only produces meaningful results for tonal, monophonic material such as solo vocals, solo instruments, and speech.

Start the analysis function with the pitch Detection button. After analysis the VIP objects are divided into individual slice objects according to the recognized pitches. The average pitch of a slice object determines its position in the graphical representation, independent of the concrete course of the pitch curve inside the slice object.

First, all slices are selected. Click in an empty area with the Selection tool to deselect all slices. Now you can select single slices by clicking on them, select multiple slices by additionally holding Ctrl- or Shift-key.

Two handles are created on the pitch curve at the boundaries of the slice objects. These handles can be moved in order to produce an increasing or decreasing pitch characteristic, but still keeping the small changes in the basic frequency (vibrato).

Besides the pitch trace feature, this mode also provides functions for automatic pitch correction (Tune!).

Overview of the graphic display in the "Direct" mode:

Orange curve: display of the editable pitch curve

Gray line: Original pitch curve

Y-axis: In the keyboard display on the left edge of the window you can see the pitches as notes. In the keyboard view you can deactivate individual pitches by clicking on them so that they aren't used in the automatic pitch correction or in quantized drawing. The corresponding keys will then be grayed out.

Selecting Key and Scale under Edit slice object disables all pitches on the keyboard that are not included in the corresponding scale.

Flexible Controls

On the right side of the dialog are a number of flexible controls that can be opened and closed individually.

In the lowest section of the View menu in the editor, you can define which control elements should be visible in the respective mode (Relative/Direct).

ClosedView

Waveform: This turns the waveform display on and off.

1…4: Save the zoom depth and position of the current window view here. For this purpose, 4 memory locations are available via the buttons. Click a button to save the zoom depth and position. Click a button again to restore the saved zoom level. To save a new zoom level to a "occupied" button, click it with the Shift key held down.

Clicking on the button while holding down the Ctrl key restores only the horizontal position of the saved zoom level.

Keyboard Shortcut:

Save: Ctrl + numeric keypad 4 … Ctrl + numeric keypad 6

Restore: Numeric keypad 4…6

Zoom 100%: Zoom to the entire audio material of the current track.

Note: The key combination Ctrl + Alt + Mouse wheel provides simultaneous horizontal and vertical zooming.

Refresh: This updates the graphical display of the material. Length changes of objects (with the Resampling algorithm) are adjusted. When synchronization of project view and Elastic Audio is active (View menu > Horizontal > Synchronize VIP in the Elastic Audio window), the effects on the project are also displayed in the project window.

ClosedEdit VIP Object (Relative Mode)

Track selection: If objects from multiple tracks were selected when you opened Elastic Audio, select the edited track here.

Algorithm: You can choose between the modes élastique Pro, élastique Efficient, Resample and Monophonic Voice.

Detailed information about these algorithms can be found in Resampling/Timestretching/Pitchshifting.

Curve smooth: This parameter causes the entered pitch curve to be smoothed by a time constant (specified in ms).

Options: Here you will find further setting options depending on the selected algorithm.

Reset: This will completely undo any changes made to automation curves or voices of selected objects.

ClosedEdit Slice Object (Direct Mode)

Key: Here's where you can set the key of the scale. This setting is not taken into account for the chromatic scale.

Scale: Here you select the type of scale (Major, Minor, Harmonic Minor, Pentatonic and Chromatic).

Pitch contour Tune!This button quantizes the pitch of the selected slices according to the selected scale.

Contour smooth: This function sets the quantization level (lower values quantize harder). As a result, the small pitch fluctuations (e.g. vibrato) that always occur with natural sound sources disappear, creating an unnatural mechanical sound.

Average Pitch Tune!: This quantizes the average slice pitch of the selected slices. The respective sections of the pitch curve of the slice objects are shifted as a whole, thus adjusting the average pitch. Pitch variations within a slice object are preserved.

Notes:

  • Prerequisite for the automatic correction is the detection of the slice pitch (Pitch > Detection).

  • The calculated average pitch of slice objects with glissandi will often not correspond to the pitch that the human ear assigns to these slices. In this case, automatic correction of the mid pitches does not give satisfactory results. This can be remedied, for example, by removing the glissando passage by manually changing the slice boundaries (Ctrl key and curve bend tool) or by splitting the slice.

Reset: This command resets the selected slices. The gray curve then corresponds to the orange one and the slice object is reset to the original mean pitch.

ClosedHarmonizer

Use the Harmonizer to add additional voices to the object

The Harmonizer is only available in Direct mode with the algorithm Monophonic voice.

Chord: Here you can select the chord that the added voices will produce when the Harmonic Adjustment option is active.

If Harmonic Adjustment is not active, the voices will follow the key set in the Edit Slice Object section. The set chord then only serves as a guideline.

Humanize: Here you can set a "human touch" by detuning the individual voices more or less strongly against each other.

Create voices: Use this button to recreate parallel voices.

ClosedPitch

Detection: Use this button to start the pitch analysis. As a result, the absolute pitches are displayed graphically in the Elastic Audio Editor. This function is essential for further editing steps in Direct mode and must therefore always be executed first before you perform other editing operations.

Toolbar

Various tools are available for editing the slice objects and the pitch curve.

You can assign different tools to the left and right mouse buttons. The tool assigned to the left mouse button is displayed in blue, the tool assigned to the right mouse button in red. To assign, click on the desired button with the corresponding mouse button. Only the zoom tool automatically uses both mouse buttons.

Selection tool (arrow): Allows you to move slice objects, handles, or the pitch curve vertically. This modifies the pitch of slice objects as a whole. Slice objects and curve handles can also be selected. Selection frames and multiple selection with Ctrl or Shift key are possible.

Freehand drawing function: You can use the pencil tool to draw the pitch curve freely.

Drawing pen for quantized drawing: In quantized drawing, drawn line snaps to semitone steps (Relative mode) or to the notes of the scale selected at Tune (Direct mode).

With both drawing pens, press the Shift key additionally to draw a straight line. With the Ctrl key additionally held down, the slice objects are united while drawing.

Curve Bend Tool: You can use this tool to bend the pitch envelope between two neighboring handles. This changes the curve in the range between the curve handles, the handles themselves remain unchanged. The curve is bent at the clicked point. In combination with moving the curve handles at the slice object boundaries, you can thus bend the pitch curve while preserving the microtonal structures.

Scissors: By simply clicking on the curve with the Scissors tool, you create additional slice objects and curve handles. To join slice objects back together, draw the curve over the slice objects using the Pen tool with the Ctrl key held down.

Eraser: Use the eraser to reset the orange curve to the initial value at the clicked position.

Navigation tool: Use the navigation tool to move the visible section vertically and horizontally.

Zoom tool: Click with the left mouse button to zoom into the display; zoom out with the right mouse button. By clicking and dragging, you can span a selection frame, which is then zoomed into.

Numerical input of the pitch (Selection tool and Curve bend tool ): Double-clicking on a slice object, a handle or the curve opens a field in which you can enter the pitch numerically. Changes have a different effect depending on the tool; with the Selection tool active, the entire curve section is shifted; with the Curve bend tool, the curve is bent accordingly.

Playback Control

  • Reset: All pitch curves are reset.
  • Bypass: The project will be played back without the processing.
  • Stop/Play: The playback of the project is started or stopped.
  • Play Solo: Only the objects active in the Elastic Audio Editor are played.

Display Options

Grid: With this button you switch the display of the grid on or off.

Single Object mode: The maximum horizontal zoom level is limited to one object.

Synchronization mode for VIP and Elastic Audio Editor: The horizontal zoom levels and visible sections of both windows are synchronized.

Docked view mode: When this button is active, the project window is placed below the Elastic Audio Editor.

Applying Elastic Audio to Objects on Multiple Tracks.

Elastic Audio processes all the objects you have previously selected. The objects can also be from different tracks. In this case, use Track selection at Edit VIP object to select the track to be edited. The objects of the other tracks are displayed in gray in the background for control purposes.

If the option Synchronize tracks is active, in Relative mode the pitch changes of the object of the selected track are transferred to the objects of the other tracks.

Keyboard shortcuts and Mouse Wheel

Navigating with the mouse wheel

Horizontal scrolling

Mouse wheel

Vertical scrolling

Ctrl + Shift + Mouse wheel

Horizontal zooming

Ctrl + Mouse wheel

Vertical zoom

Alt + Mouse wheel

Horizontal and vertical zooming

Ctrl + Alt + Mouse wheel

Keyboard shortcuts

Play solo/stop

Ctrl + Spacebar

Play/Stop

Spacebar

Select all

Ctrl + A

Refresh view

A

Undo

Ctrl + Z

Select tool for the left mouse button

Ctrl + 1-8

Select tools for the right mouse button.

Ctrl + Shift + 1-8

Show/Hide pitch curve

Shift + Alt + P

Show/hide objects from other tracks

Ctrl + Alt + T

Direct Mode

Ctrl + Up arrow

Relative Mode

Ctrl+Down Arrow

Play cursor to the left

Left arrow

Play cursor to the right

Right arrow

Horizontal zoom in

Ctrl + Left arrow

Horizontal zoom out

Ctrl + Right arrow

Change scale tuning (Frequency for “A” concert pitch).

Shift + R

Show/hide "View"

Shift + A

Show/hide "Edit VIP object"

Shift + O

Show/hide "Pitch"

Shift + F

Show/hide "Edit slice object"

Shift + S

Save zoom snapshot 1, 2, 3

Ctrl + Numeric keypad 4,5,6

Load zoom snapshot 1, 2, 3 without vertical zoom

Alt + Numeric keypad 4,5,6

Load zoom snapshot 1, 2, 3 without vertical zoom

Numeric keypad 4,5,6