AUPitch pop – any suggestions?

[Robert Neil]

Hmm just tried applying it to the non mixed-down sequence and it sounds horrendous, all cuts have minor explosions…

Time to experiment with SoundtracK ?

[Robert Neil]

And just tried putting the 4% speed shift (ie length of clip) on after the pitch shift, again made it sounds even worse…

[Jeremy Garchow]

1) When I tired to do this, I had no luck with FCPs tools.
2) Have you rendered the effects?

[Robert Neil]

Hi Jeremy

Yes, everything was rendered, but I did remember that a couple of the effects I used were not originally 48000Mhz (though surely they should have been converted in the audio render files?). I’m having a lot more luck going back and forth in Soundtrack. An AIFF of the whole timeline (exported from STP) is a lot more stable than my original audio tracks in FCP.

However I am having trouble settling on the right settings for the pitch shift.

What is the cleanest and easiest way to handle this, between FCP and STP? I see promising things in STP but have never used them: there’s the 4% audio pulldown setting in prefs, but how to apply this? There’s also time shift and pitch shift II, as well as the STP implementation of AUPitch, which is a lot better in that program…

[Jeremy Garchow]

To apply the pulldown/pullup in STP, open the project tab and you can apply the 4% there. That should get you to 24.0. Then use Cinema Tools to conform to 23.976.

Jeremy

PS what format are those files that aren’t 48k? They aren’t mp3s are they? if so, that’s the problem

[Robert Neil]

“PS what format are those files that aren’t 48k? They aren’t mp3s are they?”

/looks guilty…

Moving swiftly on, having eliminated the pop problem…

The project pulldown setting in ST yields perfect results, but how do I get the now correctly timed and pitched audio out of there? When I try to export a stereo AIFF it reverts to the original timing and pitch.

(Not sure I need to go to 23.98, I am having this audio transferred to film, straight 24 fps right?)

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Robert Neil] “(Not sure I need to go to 23.98, I am having this audio transferred to film, straight 24 fps right?)”

Yessir. 24.0.

Wait, you like the sound of pulldown? It just slows it down, no? You can do that in Cinema Tools.

[Robert Neil]

OK, I’m finding it easy to get my head around what needs to be done, but pretty hard to get the result I need – i.e. a clean and wholesome stereo AIFF at the right length and pitch to match to my video files (in this case I am outputting numbered TIFs at 1920×1080 to be played back on film at 24 fps, having been shot on HDCam at 25 fps).

Do I have the following right?

I can do the change of duration in a couple of ways: in FCP I can do a speed change to 96%. In STP I can select the -4% pulldown option in project settings (though this seems to affect playback only, I haven’t figured out how to export a file that retains the pulled-down duration.) OR in STP I can use Time Stretch (or whatever it’s called) to get the audio timeline/clip to its required length. which is the best, and how the heck do the latter two work?

I can do the +4% pitch shift in a few ways. I can use AUPitch in FCP or in STP. The results in both programs seems to be pretty crappy – voices sound a bit unnatural, music has odd things going on. If one did use AUPitch can anyone give advice about how to use the other parameters in the clip (Smooth, etc) to improve results? I can use Pitch Shift II in STP. But how do I know what setting to use to get a precise +4% shift?

I’ve been googling and having a poke through the manuals but no cigar so far… Cinema Tools I have never opened, and hope to be able to fix this without bringing a 3rd program into the equation.

What’s to stop me sending the 25p timeline to Compressor and asking it to convert to true 24 fps (not the 23.xxx NTSC 24p), video and audio and all?

Or should I stop going round in circles and sleep on it?!?!?!

[Jeremy Garchow]

I honestly could not get anything to work in a quality that I was happy with with FCS tools. I tired all the methods you have proposed. I was hoping you would figure something out. So I just lived with the pitch change. No one will know the difference expect you 😉 It takes two seconds to convert from 25 to 24.0 using Cinema Tools. First duplicate the movie, then open the copy in CT. Click the conform button and change it to 24.0 and you will be done.

Jeremy

[Jf Leduc]

Hi, I know this is a late answer but it may help someone else.

I have done this many times, always successfully, because I shoot 25p and produce both PAL and NTSC 24p DVD,s from my material all the time.

First, export all your sequence as 1 big Quicktime self contained movie, but make sure you use the “mixdown” command first (Sequence >Render Only>Mixdown).

Create a new FCP Sequence that matches your movie’s settings at 25p. Put your clip in the time line, double click it, go Tool>Conform 25 to 24.

Go to audio filters, use AUPitch. In it’s control, only modify the first and put it at 80. Render your audio and listen to parts where a woman speaks or where there’s music. It should all be perfect. If it isn’t, play with it between 80 and 96.

80 is the one that produces perfect results for me 99% of the time. I have used 96 only once with special experimental audio fx tracks that just screwed up at any less than that.