How crippled is the demo?

[Jeff Brown]

Hi,

I just got Vielklang to run in Reaper (I still can't get it to work in Ableton). In the Harmonization Settings area, there are three boxes: Automatic, Edit and Live. Only Automatic seems to be working -- when I click on the other two, nothing happens. Is this intentional, or a bug? I'm trying to determine whether Vielklang is a satisfactory solution for detuning the individual strings of my guitar in real-time. If it always requires loading an audio file, that won't work for me, because I need real-time.

I'm hoping the "live" setting will let me adjust on the fly, and moreover will let me detune chromatically rather than having to stick to a scale. I envision giving Vielklang commands like, "Raise the pitch of the top two guitar strings a semitone", etc. But the demo doesn't seem to be willing to let me try it out.

Please let me know if there's some way I can demo real-time chromatic detuning. I'm hoping I just haven't understood the demo.

Thanks,
Jeff

[Flea]

Hi Jeff,

vielklang always works offline, i.e. the audio must be analyzed first. The live mode means that you can play the harmonization "live" with a MIDI keyboard. So, obviously it doesn't meet your requirements for live harmonization.

cheers
tim

[Jeff Brown]

Wow. Thanks for that -- I never would have had any idea.

I guess I'll have to buy Reaper, then -- it's got a plugin that shifts pitch in real time, using Zplane's algorithm. Unfortunately I can only use it from within Reaper ... so I guess that's what I'll do ...

[Flea]

Hi Jeff,

you should check the latency first, as elastiquePro in reaper (and everywhere else) has quite a significant latency which might interfer with playing guitar live.

cheers
tim

[Jeff Brown]

Oi, you're right. It's like a quarter-second lag. That won't work.

I see on the downloads page that there are a bunch of demos available for windows, but only Vielklang is available for mac. Is there a for-pay VST from Zplane (or anyone else) available for the mac that does real-time low-latency pitch shifting? I'd hate to have to buy a windows computer (and another audio interface) just to do this.

[Flea]

Hm, we don't really have low latency pitch shifting algorithms here. For the realtime stuff you might check antares harmony engine or mu-technologies.com.

cheers
tim

[Jeff Brown]

I'm a huge fan of businesses that are willing to recommend their competitors' products when they see that their own won't do what a client is looking for. If you work for Zplane, Tim, thank you for caring more about the music than the money.

And if you don't, thanks still for the recommendations! I'll try them out.

[Flea]

Yes, I'm from zplane (actually one of the owners ). And I definitely have no problem pointing someone to other companies' products if that's what someone is looking for - if it fits your needs you have to decide for yourself though.

cheers
tim