Pitch shifting on EB16 effects board

Hey guys, recently just got an EB16 effects board for my XL.

As I've changed the speed of my sample to suit my BPM, it's evidently changed the pitch of the sample.
So I thought I'd be able to go in to the effects board and pitch correct it so it sounded like the original pitch of the sample.

It seems as though it alters the pitch but also plays the sample pitched sound as well.

I hope this makes sense...

I'm in the MOD > 'Pitch shifter' effect on the EB16.

My question is, does the pitch shifter only work properly when the sample hasn't been sped up or slowed down?
That's pretty shit, I was hoping it would be there to change the overall pitch of the sped up or slowed down sample...

How do you guys pitch correct when you've messed with the 'tempo' of the sample to suit the bpm?

Cheers

Time stretch, auto chop, or manual chop.

You have to think of the EB16 as an external effects unit. It does NOT do time stretching.

The pitch shift does not act as an insert, just like the eq will not act as an insert. this means it won't affect the direct signal you are feeding the effect from.

basically, you have a dry signal (your sample) and you have an FX Card. you have a mixer that controls your direct signals (main Mixer window) and you have a send in the FX SEND mixer window, which governs how much signal you send to your EB16 FX card.

Technically you CAN use the EQ or the pitch shift like it is an insert, by turning down your direct sample in the main mixer window whilst keeping the FX send levels up. But I wouldn't recommend this, as FX units of this calibre are not meant to be anything more than atmospheric tools. the quality of the EB16 is not great, but definitely useful in the background.

I think the general purpose of the Pitch Shift (and EQ) are for adjusting and fine tuning characteristics of the reverbs and delays. IE adding a low pass and/or high pass filter to the reverb or delay to make it sit better in the mix, or take out top end in the resonance of a reverb on a snare hit. the pitch shift could be used for altering the pitch of the signal being sent to a reverb or delay to make it act almost like a harmony, or something to that effect.

What your looking for is time stretch, which I believe IS on the XL. Although its so slow and cumbersome its basically useless. Your better off doing any time stretching before you sample and chop, so it all fits before you get it into the XL. most daws have infinitely more powerful time stretching tools.

The other option is to do the auto chop thing on the XL. Which basically takes a loop you have sampled and truncated to 2 or 4 bars or whatever, and chops it into equal parts i.e. 4, 8, 16, etc etc. You define how many chops you want.
Once its chopped it goes on the pads in sequential order. If your doing fine enough (8th or 16th note) chops, and you make a sequence with everything played where its supposed to be (or not!), you should be able to go in and fine tune the pitch of your samples if need be without affecting how locked in you have it too much.

Ultimately its a blunt force tool for time stretching with less time stretching artifacts.
If you don't want to auto chop, do it manually. It will be more accurate and you will have more control of what your working on.

The time stretch on the XL does work and is good, providing you don't expect too much from it.
Using it for more than minor tweeks to your sample will result in unwanted artifacts in the sound and a ridiculously long time processing.
You shouldn't really be trying to make something fit more than a few semitones or maybe 5% stretch. It's just not powerful enough.

Modern software does it much better and quicker.
If you want to try something out quickly, I suggest you search for AKAIZER and download it.
It's very easy to use. Gives you instant control over both timestretch and pitch, and it's free. It's also a standalone program rather than a plug-in.

Again, if you push the sample too far it will start to sound more and more unnatural but, because it's instant you can quickly work out whether your stretch or pitch shift is going to work or not.

yeah exactly what those guys said... but to add to that... in the MFX 1 and 2 where you are doing those things... in the furthest right box (where you can turn on and off the various different fx types) when you push open window you can then choose to turn off the direct signal which essentially bypasses the normal volume mixer and you then only control that pad's volume by the fx send.... this is a bit faster.

You basically need to do that to use the filter part as well or else you might get some phasing..

also in the filter section, turn down that depth to 0 for that phase mod section of the filter if you dont want to have that in there.


Another tip to use when you are doing all that and you find there is a loss of volume or maybe you forgot to record the sample as loud as other things... you can use the distortion/overdrive effect and crank it but keeping the threshold low enough so it doesn't distort. it's a bonus volume knob in the same area so you don't have to hop around as far.

IMO the technique the OP mentioned can be used (to a specific degree of course). As often the result depends on the sample itself, how much it is manipulated and if you mind a few artifacts. On a drumloop this will kill transients (I guess the pitch shift use fixed window size so the attack of some drumhits are in between the crossover. If you know what I mean )

I made a quick demo of how the pitch shif of the EB16 sound. For me....I could live with +2 semitones in some cases. But much more when it comes to downpitching cause in my ears downpitching got its own nice character.



peace

Oh and yes, turn off direct signal on the Effect Mixer Menu (FXedit -> cursor on mix and OPEN WINDOW button) you wont have to turn down the volume in the Pad mixer by doin that. And also turn down Dist/EQ and Reverb on that menu. Only Mod/Echo Level should be turned up to 99 (for this time. routing FX to other FX is the next lesson )

Thanks for the replies.

@viacom: I'm using chopped samples as you mentioned with the manual chopping. But when I lower pitch, evidently it slows down the sample, I wanted to avoid this.

I know about the time stretching feature, I've used it many times, and does work in my favour if done in small changes.

But time stretching isn't wasn't I was after, it was specifically pitch and was hoping to skip the time stretch by just going down an octave or two using the EB16.

I got my answer though I had to turn direct signal off and lower the level of the Dist/EQ & Reverb. I think I'll try and time stretch the sample before chopping and assigning to pads, as this seems like it'll be more effective.

I've really gotta spend some more time on this board though, it seems quite simple with basic functions, but you can really **** your shit up. I can see it being very effective if used correctly.

The AKAIZER proggie I used to have. Except I canned it once I learnt it didn't crush your sounds to 12 bit, which is the reason I got it for, to mess with. Someone said it could do that, but I couldn't see any options of doing that.

@mr_debauch: Nice tip with the distortion, I'll end up using that. I hate recording to low in volume!

Thanks for that demo peterpiper some crazy sounds at the end there haha. dope

I tried the same method on one of my own beats but with one of the reverb features. Very nice. Thanks!