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> Ircam Ts Thoughts And Questions
JT3Jon
post Sep 23 2014, 09:48 PM
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Playing around with this for about 30min now on a variety of material and first off, make sure you adjust the settings for your audio material (i.e. monophonic, polyphonic, etc) but just as importantly make sure you adjust the oversample rate as needed. I was comparing TS straight pitch shifting vs the Waves Soundshifter which I got on sale recently, and at first I was very disappointed in TS and all its artifacting, but simply upping the oversample solved this problem.

It seems in general I can make TS sound as good as Waves SoundShifter (which IMO is the BEST pitch shifting plugin I've used), but you have to be very carful with the FO max settings as this makes a HUGE difference in the sound. I also like the ability to change the formant which I find helpful in bringing back some of those overtones that seem to be lost when pitching down more than -3 semitones.

Plus TS has awesome time stretching as well! I wish there was some way though you could make it beat related instead of multiples of the file. For example, it would be cool to tell it I have a loop at 120bpm and I'd like to make it 130bpm. Right now this is impossible which makes it frustrating to use in a musical context. Perhaps this might be possible in an update? Comparing extreme time stretching (anything over double IMO) vs the Free PaulStretch, PaulStretch wins hands down. It seems I cannot get TS to not sound glitchy when stretching that large, even on sources that do not have heavy transients. Maybe there are settings I'm missing?

BTW, I find the manual very poor. Sure, it explains in one or two sentences what each knob is suppose to do, but I must admit I'm not an audio scientist, so most of it is over my head. It would be helpful if the manual just went into more detail, or gave examples of when or why you might adjust specific parameters. I also watched the two videos I could find on youtube and both were interesting, but not very good in actually explaining the product. Hopefully someone at IRCAM might be willing to do a video showing what the different knobs do to actual material, and give specific examples of when and why you might adjust parameters. Its easy enough to just move knobs and hear what they do, but with a tool like this it might be helpful to hear from the actual developers of why they were included, what their purposes are, and maybe some real world examples of their use. A primary example is the use of the spectrogram. I find it very odd this is even included at all, as unlike izotope RX, it seems you cannot select anything in the spectrogram, nor does it seem to update at all when you actually pitch shift the file, or adjust the formant, etc. So why is it even there? Just for looks? Same with the musical data, etc. If these dont update as you make changes in the plugin, I dont really see their usefulness, other than to make the plugin look cool? smile.gif

Of course, the biggest disadvantage is that its a stand alone app and not a plugin. Anyone know if a plugin version is in the works?

Must admit I'm still undecided on picking this up. Will have to demo it more. Anyone know exactly how long its on intro price for $99? IRCAM website says through mid October, but I believe Dont crack say its only through Sept 30th?
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Alistair MacDona...
post Sep 24 2014, 10:11 AM
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Some lovely features, but I'm disappointed that the only external control is via MIDI. Yes, MIDI! I want to control this from Max or from Lemur or Touch OSC with more than 127 steps. I tried from Max and it works, but smooth, gradual transitions aren't possible over long ranges - e.g. gradual time stretch shift because it's stuck with MIDI (please tell me I'm wrong somebody...).

And yes - why the spectrogram? Why all the options? It looks like someone at IRCAM has just taken Audioscuplt and chopped it to implement part of the functionality into this standalone. Why not add some of the filtering functions?

The manual needs some work (finish the translation, use photos from a Mac set up in English for the English manual. Annotate the pictures...) One important typo - to enter/exit MIDI mapping click control-SHIFT-m (not control-m).
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Nick
post Sep 24 2014, 12:50 PM
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QUOTE (JT3Jon @ Sep 23 2014, 10:48 PM) *
Playing around with this for about 30min now on a variety of material and first off, make sure you adjust the settings for your audio material (i.e. monophonic, polyphonic, etc) but just as importantly make sure you adjust the oversample rate as needed. I was comparing TS straight pitch shifting vs the Waves Soundshifter which I got on sale recently, and at first I was very disappointed in TS and all its artifacting, but simply upping the oversample solved this problem.

It seems in general I can make TS sound as good as Waves SoundShifter (which IMO is the BEST pitch shifting plugin I've used), but you have to be very carful with the FO max settings as this makes a HUGE difference in the sound. I also like the ability to change the formant which I find helpful in bringing back some of those overtones that seem to be lost when pitching down more than -3 semitones.

Plus TS has awesome time stretching as well! I wish there was some way though you could make it beat related instead of multiples of the file. For example, it would be cool to tell it I have a loop at 120bpm and I'd like to make it 130bpm. Right now this is impossible which makes it frustrating to use in a musical context. Perhaps this might be possible in an update? Comparing extreme time stretching (anything over double IMO) vs the Free PaulStretch, PaulStretch wins hands down. It seems I cannot get TS to not sound glitchy when stretching that large, even on sources that do not have heavy transients. Maybe there are settings I'm missing?

BTW, I find the manual very poor. Sure, it explains in one or two sentences what each knob is suppose to do, but I must admit I'm not an audio scientist, so most of it is over my head. It would be helpful if the manual just went into more detail, or gave examples of when or why you might adjust specific parameters. I also watched the two videos I could find on youtube and both were interesting, but not very good in actually explaining the product. Hopefully someone at IRCAM might be willing to do a video showing what the different knobs do to actual material, and give specific examples of when and why you might adjust parameters. Its easy enough to just move knobs and hear what they do, but with a tool like this it might be helpful to hear from the actual developers of why they were included, what their purposes are, and maybe some real world examples of their use. A primary example is the use of the spectrogram. I find it very odd this is even included at all, as unlike izotope RX, it seems you cannot select anything in the spectrogram, nor does it seem to update at all when you actually pitch shift the file, or adjust the formant, etc. So why is it even there? Just for looks? Same with the musical data, etc. If these dont update as you make changes in the plugin, I dont really see their usefulness, other than to make the plugin look cool? smile.gif

Of course, the biggest disadvantage is that its a stand alone app and not a plugin. Anyone know if a plugin version is in the works?

Must admit I'm still undecided on picking this up. Will have to demo it more. Anyone know exactly how long its on intro price for $99? IRCAM website says through mid October, but I believe Dont crack say its only through Sept 30th?



Hello JT3Jon,

Thanks for giving your first impression of the ircam Lab TS and your helpful suggestions.

The adjustments by BPM has already been listed in the improvements as well as by increments of seconds, especially for those people working in Post who need a 30 sec spot to be shrunk to 28 sec.

It is early days for the TS and it will have a long life ahead of it where all the suggestions will be added to make it as useful and easy to use as possible.

So keep your remarks, comments and suggestions flowing in, it will help with the 'tuning'.

The DontCrack site has been updated to say the promo will run until Mid-October like the info on the ircam site.

Please keep experimenting with it and telling us what you think of the TS.

Best Regards,

Nick
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musiclee
post Sep 24 2014, 01:26 PM
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QUOTE (Nick@DontCrack @ Sep 24 2014, 07:50 AM) *
Hello JT3Jon,

Thanks for giving your first impression of the ircam Lab TS and your helpful suggestions.

The adjustments by BPM has already been listed in the improvements as well as by increments of seconds, especially for those people working in Post who need a 30 sec spot to be shrunk to 28 sec.

It is early days for the TS and it will have a long life ahead of it where all the suggestions will be added to make it as useful and easy to use as possible.

So keep your remarks, comments and suggestions flowing in, it will help with the 'tuning'.

The DontCrack site has been updated to say the promo will run until Mid-October like the info on the ircam site.

Please keep experimenting with it and telling us what you think of the TS.

Best Regards,

Nick
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musiclee
post Sep 24 2014, 01:30 PM
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Nick or anyone

Can I dial in a percentage instead of a time?

All I usually want to do is speed up by 5-10%

In Protools elastic audio I punch in 95% or 105%

Can I do same with TS?

I don't want to calculate 5% of 1 min. 23 seconds manually
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Nick
post Sep 24 2014, 01:43 PM
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QUOTE (Alistair MacDonald @ Sep 24 2014, 11:11 AM) *
Some lovely features, but I'm disappointed that the only external control is via MIDI. Yes, MIDI! I want to control this from Max or from Lemur or Touch OSC with more than 127 steps. I tried from Max and it works, but smooth, gradual transitions aren't possible over long ranges - e.g. gradual time stretch shift because it's stuck with MIDI (please tell me I'm wrong somebody...).

And yes - why the spectrogram? Why all the options? It looks like someone at IRCAM has just taken Audioscuplt and chopped it to implement part of the functionality into this standalone. Why not add some of the filtering functions?

The manual needs some work (finish the translation, use photos from a Mac set up in English for the English manual. Annotate the pictures...) One important typo - to enter/exit MIDI mapping click control-SHIFT-m (not control-m).


Hello Alistair,

Today it is MIDI only, your transpositions are what range and duration? If it is just a couple of semi-tones 127 steps might do? but I sense you want to do more that that....

Thanks for pointing out the typo, I will report that back so that it gets changed.

Best Regards,

Nick

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rgonski
post Sep 24 2014, 08:46 PM
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Firstly - thanks for another bit of terrific software from France and IRCAM. Quality of sound is exceptional!

Reading through the manual:

There are numerous references to 'Fonction' - it should be 'Function'

In Section 1/2 - Record Audio Live - it should read 'Select Record in the menu 'Edit' (not 'File')
In Section 1/3 - (Soundflower Recording) First line and a half are still in French

In Secton 2, re: Saving Projects - would probably be clearer if the entry in the file menu said 'Save Project'

Section 3/2 is very confused - e.g.:

On/off Analyser View: Opens the analyzer window, includes a resizing option
mouse cursor in a bubble.
On/Off Analyser view: show/hide the instantaneous spectrum.






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zyzygis
post Oct 3 2014, 02:30 AM
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Great quality transposing and stretching, but I would like to see some better interface features, especially envelope drawing in the waveform view for both tempo and pitch adjustments. Ability to change the colour of the waveform, and also importing and exporting of embedded tempo information in the audio files would allow for better work flow integration with DAWs, and also give the user the option to view the analyser window with beats / bars as well as minutes / seconds and allow the option for snapping of envelope to beats / bars or mins / secs.

This post has been edited by zyzygis: Oct 3 2014, 02:34 AM
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Nick
post Oct 6 2014, 11:11 AM
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QUOTE (zyzygis @ Oct 3 2014, 03:30 AM) *
Great quality transposing and stretching, but I would like to see some better interface features, especially envelope drawing in the waveform view for both tempo and pitch adjustments. Ability to change the colour of the waveform, and also importing and exporting of embedded tempo information in the audio files would allow for better work flow integration with DAWs, and also give the user the option to view the analyser window with beats / bars as well as minutes / seconds and allow the option for snapping of envelope to beats / bars or mins / secs.



Hello zyzygis,

Thanks for your suggestions.

There have been other people asking for the envelope drawing in the waveform view for both tempo and pitch adjustments, as well as the option to view the analyser window with beats / bars as well as minutes / seconds.

The next step after the release of the Windows version, will be a plug-in version that should take care of the Work flow integration with DAWs.

Please send us other comments-suggestions that you feel will help the product evolve.

Best Regards,

Nick
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Nick
post Oct 14 2014, 10:38 AM
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QUOTE (warinwarin @ Oct 12 2014, 10:44 AM) *
zyzygis has posted an amazing comment about that...........


Hello warinwarin,

Yes, it was very helpful.

Best Regards,

Nick


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