Record Micro Tutorial - Neptune Pitch Adjuster

Today I'll be showing you the basics of the new Neptune Pitch Adjuster in Record 1.5.
In its most basic form, Neptune analyzes incoming audio
and shifts a wrong note to the nearest correct note.
The center of Neptune is where you set the key you're in and the tonality of your scale
for example C Major or E Minor.
If you want to set up a custom scale you can turn notes on and off
by toggling the piano key buttons below.
In automatic mode Neptune uses something called "catch zones."
Catch zones tell Neptune how wide of a net to cast when looking for incorrect pitches.
If an incoming pitch falls anywhere within a particular catch zone
it will be shifted to the correct note.
If you're on the chromatic setting, the catch zones can only be as wide as one note.
Specify a scale, however, and the catch zones can be wider.
Taken to its extreme, if you activate only one note you could set your catch zone
so wide that every incoming pitch would be "caught" and shifted to one note
like this.
That's neat and all, but it sounds kind of dumb!
It's got that obvious pitched shifted sound.
This might be a good time to point out the automatic formant correction.
To those who aren't synth geeks like we are
a "Formant" is a complex term in spectral analysis that basically comes down to this:
A sound's formants are like its finger print.
The formants in your voice make it sound unique and like you.
When we crudely shift pitch, these formants get shifted also.
By turning on the "automatic formant correction" we maintain the character of your voice.
Listen again to our audio with formant correction turned on
That sounds much better.
I can adjust the formants deliberately to help create gender bending effects, if I want to.
Instead of adjusting scales and catch zones
you could turn on MIDI input and play the note you want on a MIDI keyboard.
I right click on the Neptune and create a track for it in the sequencer.
As I press a note on the keyboard
the catch zones which are used in Neptune's automatic mode disappear.
They're overridden by my MIDI input.
When I release the note, Neptune goes back to automatic mode.
I apply neptune to a variety of signal types, not just vocals.
Depending upon who and what I'm working with
I'll make some changes to the "Input section."
Fretless bass is a notoriously tough instrument to pitch correctly.
Fortunately for us, that makes it a perfect candidate for Neptune
but I often turn on the Low Frequency button to improve the accuracy in the bass range.
Alternatively, if I'm working with a singer who as a lot of vibrato
this could throw Neptune off.
Turning on "wide vibrato" will iron out these wobbles on the input side.
I can bring them back subtly or to any desired amount by adjusting the "preserve expression" knob.
For the song I'm working on, I brought in a singer specially for this recording
and he did a fine job but his pitch definitely needed a little massaging.
Here's his raw vocal line as it was recorded.
It's good but he's missing the mark a few times.
So we'll select his audio track and create a new Neptune device.
It automatically wires itself into the channel.
I'll set Neptune to the key and scale we're in,
which is C Major.
Let me play back the vocal with Neptune on
and you'll hear that all the pitch problems have been ironed out.
In order to hear the correction kicking in, I'll turn the correction speed up to 11
which will give us that oh-so-popular-on-a-boat sound.
Obviously for this track, we don't want to be on a boat
so we can dial the correction speed back down for a more natural sound.
Since this recording, I've gone ahead and produced a song with a piano,
the Reason drums refill, some Reason Bass, and I recorded my own guitar.
So here it is! The world premiere of my new track.
I'm telling you, I can't put my finger on it but this track just has a timeless sound to it.
[music playing]
Ryan (over talkback mic): No, Frank, stop! Hey, Frank, stop! Stop playback!
Frank: What?! Dude, you're totally killing my vibe!
Ryan: Uh. OK listen. You do realize that sounds a heck of a lot like Imagine by John Lennon, right?
Frank: What?! Dude, no way. His song is completely different. It's like, you know
He does it like (humming to himself). Wait a minute.
[Sighing] Wow.
Really does sound like Imagine.
[playing old style pause music]
[test tone beep]
Okay, we're back. Not to worry, folks.
I just had to make a few adjustments to my track.
I just reworked my song from C Major to C Minor.
That takes our piano part from sounding like this,
[piano playing]
to this.
[playing piano]
Much better.
I've also adjusted the midi notes of the bass
and I re-tracked the guitar for a more minor vibe.
Just one problem.
My singer's not here to re-track the vocal.
With Neptune, however, this isn't a problem.
I literally just have to change my settings from C Major to C Minor.
And Neptune takes care of the rest.
Here is my new track.
You'll hear that the vocal line is the same performance
but is sitting perfectly in the new minor arrangement.
[song playing]
We'll leave it here for today.
There's a lot more to cover about the midi input feature in Neptune
and we haven't even gotten into the polyphonic voice synthesizer and harmonizer.
We'll be looking at these in an upcoming advanced tutorial.
And of course if you don't want to use Neptune on vocals you don't have to.
You can feed any monophonic audio source into it.
You could create instant harmonies through the polyphonic voice synth
or hook up an arpegiator to arpegiate any audio track or device.
[explosion]
What was that, you ask?
That was your mind being blown just thinking of the possibilities.