Pitch 'n Time Studio Plug-In General Discussion

Talk about Pitch 'n Time Studio Plug-in.

using P&T for pal conversions and film pullups/downs

boink 4:48 PM - 12 March, 2007
I use p&t to convert ntsc audio on film projects to match pal video. the problem i hit is that its very hard to find and match the in and out points of the film, mainly because many films either start or end with silence, thus it usually takes 4 or 5 tries to get it right, which is very time consuming, considering i have 8 tracks of audio, each 2 hrs long. is there a way, or could a possible future feature be a setting specifically to do pull ups/pull downs to and from 24p, ntsc, and pal?

for those who are wondering why i dont just use the pull up/pull down feature in pro tools:
ptools does pull up/pull downs via custom sample rates (47952 instead of 48k, etc) thats fine when im doing an analog transfer, however if i wish to remain in the digital domain, any device i try to lay off to gets freeked out when it sees a non 48k signal.
boink 10:19 PM - 12 March, 2007
just to add to this, i finally got this to work... for anyone who wants to do this, if you set pitch to varispeed, and set the output percent in the tempo section to %104.270938, you'll get a pretty accurate fake of a film to PAL pull up. the actual percent needed is %104.2709376, but p&t rounds it up to .279038... over a 2 hour film that %.0000004 made me a quater of a frame early.

what a fun day
Serato, Forum Moderator
Goran 11:27 PM - 12 March, 2007
Hi,

Pitch 'n Time Pro can time-stretch to any length. If you choose "Samples" as units, and stretch by "number of output samples", you can be sure you'll be sample accurate. True, the value displayed in percentage box is rounded to 6 decimal places. The percentage will still show up as 104.270938%, but you are actually stretching to the correct length.

Goran
soundtracks 1:28 AM - 17 May, 2007
This would indeed be a handy feature, adding a frame rate mode to the already existing percent, sample mode etc. I have used PnT to stretch (not varispeed) fx and music stems (not dialogue, but I havent tried the new V mode yet) on films destined for PAL, or coming from it. I do disagree with boink, however; pull ups and pull downs can be done in PT staying in the digital domain, and there is a menu for it, that lists source and destination rates, and what the percentage is. And you do end up with a pure 48k file that plays nice with digital laybacks.
So i'm not sure if adding it would be an efficient use of Serato's time. I'd rather get more/improved algorithms (thank you for V). We all know the numbers, just plug them in. Using samples is a great idea (Goran) if you know your destination length in samples, think i might try that next time. Boink, perhaps stretching your printmasters/stems from pop to pop would be a way to cut down on your time consumption. If you don't have them, then someone's head should roll at the post house that is giving you your picture.

Cheers!
Serato, Forum Moderator
Goran 3:18 AM - 17 May, 2007
I suppose a simple idea would be to add "presets" for some common conversions -- Assuming that for the purpose of pull-ups/downs, you would always use an invariable resampling ratio.
soundtracks 1:47 PM - 17 May, 2007
yes that is an idea........i thought I saw it in the old 1.0 (2.0?) manual way back, but never fully explored it. if i need to do a frame accurate stretch, I use the serato with the trimmer tool in grid mode in PT so that the tail pop is right on the money.....set the grid for your destination length. Still wary about radical dialogue stretches (PAL) as it applies to sync......but lookin forward to testing the V mode!!!!!!

Kevin
Serato, Forum Moderator
Goran 10:28 PM - 17 May, 2007
By the way, if you're gonna be using TCE (trimmer) tool with Vocal mode, on ProTools versions 7.3 or less, you need to do it via a workaround ---> serato.com
On future versions of ProTools this will not be necessary.
soundtracks 4:05 AM - 18 May, 2007
True, I do have 7.3.1 on both my ProTools...this is most helpful.

Which mode (a/b/v) is active when one uses the trimmer tool currently, without a work around?

And how would you describe a and b modes yourself. I believe I have found A is usually better on melodic, or mainly sine wave material, and b is better on percussive material. Or it could be vice versa :)
Serato, Forum Moderator
Goran 1:48 AM - 19 May, 2007
The "factory default" mode is A. And essentially what the workaround does is ensure that a different default (user default) is loaded when TC/E opens the plugin.
You're right, B is for more percussive material, and A for harmonic material. V should be best for "sine wave" material, i.e. monophonic (which could easily include other instruments beside voice)