quote:

Originally posted by starboy what's your point? are you suggesting you can't pull off a crazy transition, off key mix, or lift using proper track selection?

maybe not the way you intended.

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I sometimes use it. It's really a mix by mix situation.

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i use master tempo all the time.

doesn't make too many problems for me.

Maybe it is the type of music I am usually working with (psychedelic trance, a notoriously "overproduced" i.e. heavily compressed genre), but master tempo usually sounds terrible. The sound canvas is usually so full to begin with that the little slices are very noticeable, at least to my ears. I avoid it like the plague, and just try to mix within 2 BPM if I'm going harmonic.

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox To speed a track up without changing the pitch, it has to chop little bits of sound out - it tends to do this quite well, but sometimes it'll chop the start of a beat off, or a chunk just before a beat (making the beat sound like it's hitting a bit sooner) which makes it sound like it's not quite in time - but these edits will be balanced, so for every slightly early beat there'll be a slightly late beat, so overall if you've got the tracks at the right pitch they'll stay in time - it just might sound a bit rough along the way. Unfortunately with the current technology around, this is something we have to live with (the processor power needed to do that kind of processing is phenomenal as it is, to improve that processing it would require even more). If you're finding it hard getting the tracks matched, try beatmatching with master tempo switched off then turn it on before you mix the track in. Personally I don't bother with master tempo - I know it takes a bit more thought, but keeping an eye on the tempos of your tracks to make sure it's not pitched too far out (within 3 bpm tends to be a good rule of thumb) to be out of key tends to be the way forward. Ironically, you can only rely on master tempo to sound fine within about 2%, within which your tracks will be near enough to each other to sound in key anyway!

really nice post. thanks for the info

i too have never really noticed any problems with master tempo... it's only once you go past +-3 to 4% on the pitch when i start hearing distortions.

I've noticed severely distorted basslines when using Master Tempo, so I've stopped turning it on.

I don't like it. I think a while ago there was some thing about club managers in Ibiza getting annoyed at some of the dj's using it because the sound was average.

I've never used it before.

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Here's an article that describes the algorithms used to accomplish changing the tempo without altering the pitch. It's much more complex than just "cutting bits" out of the original sound:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_...ch_modification

Programs like Ableton let you select a few different algorithms.

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox I'm surprised no one's come up with a dedicated high-quality pitch shifting unit yet, seeing that theoretically you could make a bit of hardware perform much better than a high-spec PC (if you tailor it for the right kind of multiply operations etc)... might have to have a go myself

That becuase it's incredible difficult to do in real time without distotion or devation from the original sound, especially with zero latency.

Ryan075 is right, various methods are used, but you often loose the beat and/or tightness of the groove esoecially when it is a full sounding track (as per basilisk's psytrance). The harmonics just get so badly messed up.

It does work on minimal tracks, but the benefits to be had are less because there is not a lot going in the track.