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Chapter 11 Special 145
Note: When in doubt, Speech is a good place to start. A/B the options to compare
them, and use the one that suits a given recording best. When auditioning and judging
settings for quality, it’s a good idea to temporarily turn the Mix knob up to 100%. Keep
in mind that Pitch Shifter II artefacts are a lot harder to hear when you mix a smaller
percentage of a transposed audio to the overall signal.
In the Pitch Shifter II’s Controls View you can create your own presets, using the Delay
and Crossfade parameters. These parameters are only effective when you select the
Manual option in the Timing menu. You can also select the Auto option here—the Pitch
Shifter will then automatically create presets by analyzing the incoming signal. The
Stereo Link parameter allows you to invert the stereo channel’s signals, with processing
for the right channel occurring on the left and vice versa.
Vocal Transformer
The Vocal Transformer plug-in allows you to manipulate vocal tracks in many different
ways. If you want to transpose the pitch of a vocal line, to augment or diminish the
range of the melody, or even reduce it to a single note to mirror the pitches of a
melody—the Vocal Transformer will be your plug-in of choice. No matter how you
change the pitches of the melody, formants remain the same. You can shift the for-
mants independently, which means that you can turn a vocal track into a “Mickey
Mouse” voice, while maintaining the original pitch.
The Vocal Transformer is well suited to extreme vocal effects. The best results are achie-
ved with monophonic signals, including monophonic instrument tracks. The plug-in is
not designed for polyphonic voices (a choir on a single track, for example) or other
“chordal” tracks.
The Vocal Transformer operates in two modes: Robotize on or off.
The Robotize function is used for augmenting, diminishing or mirroring the melody.
Let’s first have a look at how the Vocal Transformer operates when Robotize is switched
off.