Mojave Posted November 23, 2009 Share Posted November 23, 2009 I have used the new Varispeed Mode feature on Logic nine and frankly, It's not nearly as good as some cheap programs I own like the Amazing Slowdown or it can't touch what clarity I've heard on the Melodyne. I asked Logic Support and they said they were going to lab test it to see what I was talking about. Basically, you can playback music at normal speed and audio quality is great. Try using -10% and it slows down with some degradation, noticeably in the high freq area. As you take the speed down to its lowest, -50%, the audio continues to degrade severely. I seem to get to about -20% and it's reasonable but noticeably degraded. at -50% it has gurgle and artifacts all over it. Just poor fidelity audio. They don't have a solution yet, Anyone else have a settings change that will improve quality? My settings on the core audio are all at the highest possible settings just to make sure I could do everything possible, it made a tiny bit of difference but its still really gurgled and lots of artifacts and low res audio. PS. I did set I/O to it's highest but it don't see how that applies. It didn't make any difference. I/O is not the issue in my opinion but? I use 256 for lower latency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveyboy Posted November 24, 2009 Share Posted November 24, 2009 Yes, it's terrible. But, it's not supposed to be used high quality time changing. Use flex for that. It is good for temporarily slowing something down to record a hard to play track, and then speed it back up. But, beware that if you slow down the mix, record a vocal, speed it back up again, the vibrato will be faster and it may not sound good (my experience). Reaper does a great job too of time change globally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mojave Posted November 25, 2009 Author Share Posted November 25, 2009 The slowdown algorithm is not rocket science and I was expecting better but as it turned out it's the lowest on the totem pole. With as much crap like color preferences and other nonsense that is not related to actual audio, I was expecting the real effort be focused first on sound quality. Don't get me wrong, I love Logic, but the slow down "FEATURE" which was part of the big up sell as was Flex is not nearly as good as I expected and no one told me it was "Excellent" so I was not misinformed by any means. The Flexing of audio to slow it down is not an easy quick task if you want to get it clean and in tempo. The idea that a speed changed could be done well was in my mind a basis of the upgrade other then flex. Melodyne is totally on my radar for that reason. Still going to run Login out front but I would rather have a better plug in to use then the built in Logic Varispeed Mode. Just my two cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveyboy Posted November 25, 2009 Share Posted November 25, 2009 yeah, I just ignore it and use flex. I had a song (orignally done in DP) that that client wanted to speed up just the top and end and leave the middle section alone. Once I got everything in L9 and setup it was a piece of cake using flex and the conductor track. I really like it having used PT's elastic time and various other high end pt plugins prior to that. Check out Reaper for just taking mixes and experimenting with tempos (or full projects) as it works like you're describing. I never found Melodyne to do as a good a job with polyphonic stuff in comparison to (then) PT using something like x-form. But, that was on serious stuff where I was being very picky. On full mixing the Amazing Slow downer leaves some noticeable artifacts compared to Flex (but not varispeed). It's great that we have so many options though and can even complain about this stuff!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mojave Posted November 25, 2009 Author Share Posted November 25, 2009 Oh I'll get by, and yes it's almost comical that with these great software features the issue is only about this or that. I can flex my way to kingdom come but a fast on the fly slow down, is not a flex option. Just getting the slower speed to flex up an audio track to the Metronome and help me get things right is one reason I would like the Varispeed Mode to provide better audio quality. The fact is I'm using my ears to sort through the noise to find all the right places I want to flex to either fit my tempo or to change parts around that will work but need timing fixes. The Varispeed sound quality if improved would make those jobs easier, the clear audio would help. Also, I would like it to NOT effect the Metronome sound. That click should remain sharp and clear. Not blurred out. again, just Bitching my way through the program, but it's better then what I had. I still would hope there is an update that comes down the pipeline and provides better audio quality on the Varspeed. I would be very appreciative of that fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elvolcano Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 I switched a whole project onto Reaper a year or so ago just because I needed to speed it up ... it worked great and I gotta say I stuck with it as my daw of choice, I work on PT and Logic too in other studios but Reaper has some features that just aren't there on the others. I'm sure they'll all follow suit though soon ... I love the way you can just move whole sections around and copy them etc too ... just wish it was the industry standard ... bit of a new guy still I guess Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mconnelly Posted December 2, 2009 Share Posted December 2, 2009 I don't know if comparing varispeed in logic to freebie apps is really a fair comparison. Those other apps are varispeeding a stereo track while Logic is doing it with potentially dozens of separate tracks including both audio tracks and virtual instruments. Considering what a feat that is, the audio quality is far better than I ever expected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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