[linux-audio-user] Acid for Linux ? - Pitch shift

[Gerasimos Grammatikopoulos]

On Tuesday 10 December 2002 20:12, Mark Knecht wrote:

> Acid has the ability to shift samples by known amounts, so that if I have a
> bass line in C, I can shift it up a major 4th to F and it will fit into the
> sound quite easily. This function in Acid works pretty well over a limited
> range, say +/- a major 6th, but starts to fall apart pretty badly at an
> octave, in my experience. (It depends a lot on the library.)

I think that what actually happens is that the said effect is not aware of the 
sound's "color." So while you can change the "root note" you can't port that 
exact "feeling" to an octave above (lowering pitch is also affected though 
more resistant to this side-effect). More often than not you end up with 
squeeking sounds and awful distortions... However sometimes it still makes 
sense to pitch-shift an entire octave and this is usually the case with 
artificial, "geometric" sounds (like some - but not all - 303s). 
Unfortunately I lack the theoretical notions to explain why this happens or 
how to avoid/amegliorate the problem as well as lacking any programming 
skills (perl is nice for administering a box but nowhere near the efficiency 
required for "real work" :-P). 

I agree that the most powerful and flexible solution for both a 
"beatmapper/tempo editor" and a pitch-shifter would be the LADSPA plugin 
idea. Sure, the "paintbrush" would be gone but that's not ACID's paradigm, 
just the implementation they chose. You could equally do the same convenient 
job by simply being able to define in the host app from where-to-where the 
sample is audiable plus a beat-offset to set it right (the extreme 
convenience of Acid being that you can start the specific track from any 
point and not just the start of the loop as well as only playing a loop 
partially like say just a kick of the entire drumbeat).