Turtlerock Forum

Hey Forum.

Working on a feature film at the moment, that is being edited at 25 frames and second, but will be slowed down to 24 frames per second for it's cinema release.

Because the film will end up slower, we are going to slightly speed up some of the tracks used, so that they will sound "normal" when they are slowed down slightly.

Basically the workflow is this:

Assign audio track a frame rate of 24 frames per second.
"Conform" track to play back at 25 frames per second, this will increase the speed and pitch of the track by 4% (roughly one semi-tone).
Pitch shift the track back down to it's original pitch (but at higher speed).

Edit with the faster track.

When the edit is finished, conform the finalised edit from 25 fps to 24 fps - this will mean that the film is 4% slower, but that the music is now playing at it's correct speed, but all audio is now 4% lower in pitch.

Pitch shift the entire project up by 4%, so that all music is heard at it's original speed, in it's original pitch.

For those of you following at home, this will mean that some fairly well known songs will be getting pitch shifted up by a semitone, and then down by a semitone.

What is the best, highest quality way to do this?

Is the Pitch Shifter in ProTools HD any good? Is there something better?
It's for cinema release, so needs to be pretty flawless.

Thanks,

Simon "Smash" Ashby.

If you are speeding up and slowing down directly relative to actual time then can you not just use varispeed? That will be by far the best as it's just altering the playback speed not trying to stretch or compress the time. If you get what I mean.

not a nice problem to face....
My only suggestion (like Myles) - is to use varispeed.

I find the best sounding pitch shift process on a multitrack session is to varispeed 1 DAW to the new speed/pitch, and record/transfer multitrack audio to another DAW that is recording at normal speed.
This process sounds the best by far.
(Exactly the same process we use to do with 24 track tape machines when faced with the 24/25 frame dilemma)

When using pitch shift programs on multiple audio tracks, I find all of the tracks have similar sounding digital artifacts. No matter what software I have used.

Good luck!

Is it not possible to lay the music tracks in to the final product rather than going through all that rigmarole and degrading the signal? Drop the music in, change the speed, do the edit, change the speed back, delete and replace the music.

In this day and age, I'm very confused as to why the speed change is required at all? Software limitation I guess?

nah, the final product will be running slower so the sync will be out.
By 4%
......

It also means for every minute of music, they are getting an extra 2.5 seconds for free!
I would ask for more cash.

Soundfirm used to use an Eventide for it, but I never liked the end result.
The only way to come close to good is the 2 systems like Chris suggested.
Even then the feel will be changed because of the tempo drop.
If we could all just use the same frame rate for everything the world would
be a happier place.

We're actually speeding up the music prior to dropping in the edit, so when the edit gets slowed down for cinema release, it will actually end up in the original tempo

Simon "Smash" Ashby

Try / buy all the pitch shift programs, or use varispeed.
Varispeed will sound better.