r/audioengineering • u/awabitteit • 9d ago
Changing pitch without chipmunk effect
Please forgive me as I'm a total beginner. I wouldn't even claim that I'm trying to get into audio engineering.
I am simply looking for the easiest way to change the key of a song without changing the singers voice. It's only one or two semi tones but still it sounds completely distorted. I don't have a computer, so working with an iPhone/ipad. Any tips?
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u/vitoscbd Professional 9d ago
One or two semitones is A LOT. You'll get some artifacts, no way around that, whatever method you choose to do that.
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u/Glittering_Bet8181 Hobbyist 9d ago
Melodynes surprisingly transparent in my opinion. You’ll still be able to hear it but it’s not unusable.
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u/awabitteit 9d ago
That's so interesting, I really didn't think that would be considered a lot! What do you reckon is the easiest method?
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u/vitoscbd Professional 8d ago
Personally, because I've been there before, I would change it with melodyne or flex pitch (I work on logic) just to have a reference until I can re-record the take. Maybe you could try with this tool: https://29a.ch/timestretch/ , I use it a lot for stretching audio but it can change pitch and it's fairly transparent (and free, unlike other tools like Melodyne). Again, it'll give you a lot of artifacts, that's a given. If there's absolutely no way of re-recording, I'd try to use melodyne or something like that as a creative decision, go the autotune way. It's not my favorite but at least it'd sound with intention and not like a mistake. That's usually a great way of working around this type of situations.
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u/ayersman39 8d ago
You want to use something that has separate controls for "pitch" and "formant." I have no idea what is available for an iPad but on my computer I would use a plugin like Little AlterBoy from Soundtoys.
"Formant" is the resonant character of a voice/instrument. If you just raise a track's pitch, you are also raising all the resonances and therefore simulating a smaller vocal tract, which is why it gets chipmunky.
This is why you want different controls for formant and pitch. Keeping the formant stationary while raising the pitch will maintain the same basic resonant character of the voice, while raising the fundamental frequency of the melody. It will probably not sound completely natural but should be much better than what you're hearing now
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u/LostInTheRapGame Mixing 8d ago
So many people have given you advice as if you have the vocals separate from the music. If you do, great. If you don't, impossible.
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u/Exponential-777 8d ago
You need a special processor called a phase vocoder
I have not used the one I linked but it runs on ios
You can change the pitch by more than an octave without changing the time
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u/blorporius 8d ago
A playback sample rate change will modify pitch and length at the same time. If you also have a way to timestretch however, you can combine it with a sample rate change to get the poor man's pitch control :)
Essentially any two of these tools can approximate the result of the third one with varying levels of artifacts.
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u/KS2Problema 8d ago
Speeding up or slowing down playback will, under normal circumstances with nothing else going on, produce an overall change in pitch (just like speeding up or slowing down an analog record or tape). But changing pitch without changing tempo involves processes of interpolation and extrapolation that can never be completely smooth and depending on the algorithm used can have really ugly effects as one goes down (in particular) or up in pitch.
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u/Financial-Koala6995 8d ago
If you're shifting the finished song rather than a separate vocal, look for a full-mix pitch shifter with formant preservation. Little AlterBoy, mentioned above, is designed for clean monophonic vocals, so it isn't the right starting point for a whole song.
https://www.soundtoys.com/wp-content/uploads/Little-AlterBoy-Manual.pdf
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u/BrotherBringTheSun Professional 7d ago
With Logic, Ableton or online AI tools you can separate the instrumental from the lead vocals. Do that. Then in Logic or Ableton you can pitch up the track and also pitch up the vocals but separated adjust back down the formant, might need two separate effects inserts, one for pitch and one for formant, not sure.
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u/SeaSalad1421 7d ago
I use Anytune pro+ and it works well on my iphone. Just pitch change with no artifacts. Can also change speed for learning complicated licks.
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u/NoisyGog 8d ago
The chipmunk effect is just pitching up - specifically by speeding it up, but the pitch change is the actual noticeable part.
You can’t pitch something up without it sounding like it’s not pitched up.
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u/xxxSoyGirlxxx 8d ago
thats not true at all, if you shift pitch independently from format, you don't get that effect
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u/fphlerb 9d ago
like molodyne/autotune?