Any word on pitch shifting updates/improvements for cleans & bass?

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Ugly Bunny

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Hey guys; I started playing bass in my band a year or so ago and had to switch from my FM3 to the HX Stomp for the reliability of the pitch shifting. The Fractal pitch shifter can't seem to do cleans or bass well. It's fine for overdriven guitar, but it's still really warbly on clean chords and even monophonic notes for bass.

Just wondering if anyone has any insight as to whether Cliff and the team are working on improving it for the III, FM9, and FM3. I ended up recently switching to the QC since both the Pitch Shifter and the Transpose funtions work brilliantly for clean guitar (even though technically, NDSP claims they're both monophonic algrithms) and bass.

The problem is, Fractal gear is superior in just about every way (except UI) but having a pitch shifter that's so far behind the mark is untenable.

Every update, I see news of deep amp improvements, but Fractal  already has the best sounding/feeling amps - I really just need a pitch shifter that's up to current standards of tracking and latency, like those on the Helix and QC. Hell, even the original "Simple Pitch" that's been on the Helix since the beginning, sounds/feels better for bass than the pitch shifter on the Axe III (never mind the FM3...).

I promise I'm not here to bitch and moan - I genuinely think Fractal is the absolute best in EVERY OTHER way, but his one bugbear is preventing me from being able to use  just my Fracal (I don't want any additional pedals, like the Drop, or to use the Stomp as my pitch shifter). I picked up the QC last week and for me, it's perfect, but for my guitarist, the QC isn't quite hitting the mark EXCEPT the pitch shifting is excellent. His FM9 Turbo sounds/feels better, but we play about a third of our set in some kind of drop tuning and we control presets, scenes, and pitch shifting via MIDI (through OnSong on our iPads transmitting via Bluetooth to MIDI dongles plugged into our various devices).

I'd just be stoked to know this is being worked on still. It's very possible I'm alone in this desire and everyone else is fine with it the way it is, but it's just not up to par with the other top units right now and I'd love to go back to my FM3 (or even move up to the FM9) - but I can't until the pitch shifting is improved.
 
What kind of things are doing on bass with the pitch shifter that the Axe fx/FM has trouble with? Can you give some specific examples ?
 
Maybe what you need is a stand alone pitch shifter pedal to stick in front of the Fractal. A few years back, I bought a fuzz pedal because I couldn’t get what I wanted from the Fractal. I also have an external tuner I like and a midi clock pedal to set the tempo for songs as I go through a setlist.
 
It's a bass guitar. 5 strings, according to the profile pic. No one has pitch shifting for bassists nailed on any of the modelers. Haven't tried the QC because barf. With a 5 string, you can transpose all over the place. Unless you are doing songs in drop F or something that probably isn't going to happen in coverband land?
 
there was just a thread on this sometime this week, but it looks like it disappeared?

another bass player here, and yeah I would very much enjoy an update to this functionality in the future. Fractal is by far the best in class in my experience, but I find the pitch/detune/octave really wobbly and unpleasant sounding in some scenarios on bass guitar.

I have a 5 string bass when I really need better fidelity for recording, but I use my 4 string a lot more, and use the Fractal to turn on an octave down patch, or to drop the pitch of my strings to BEAD instead of EADG. It's actually remarkably decent, but there are certain parts of the fret board that just sound off, so I end up rewriting stuff a lot to try to avoid those. It really struggles on the G string especially I think. There is a seasick chorus type detune warbling type effect that can happen on some notes, and it's pretty jarring when it does.

an external pedal seems like the way to go here for now, but as a future refinement to the software, I would love that too!
 
What kind of things are doing on bass with the pitch shifter that the Axe fx/FM has trouble with? Can you give some specific examples ?
Literally anything. Downtune a half step and play an open G chord on an electric guitar on a clean preset. Downtune a half step and play a single note on bass. You’ll see what I mean.
Maybe what you need is a stand alone pitch shifter pedal to stick in front of the Fractal. A few years back, I bought a fuzz pedal because I couldn’t get what I wanted from the Fractal. I also have an external tuner I like and a midi clock pedal to set the tempo for songs as I go through a setlist.
Nah. Need it all in one unit. I’ve used the Drop, I’ve used the Stomp as an external pitch shifter, but I really need a single unit that can do it all - and I want that unit to be a Fractal since the best amps, cans, drives, and time-based stuff is in Fractal. This is, Helix can do it. QC can can do it- Fractal has the potential to have the best one on the market, I believe, if they’d actually just try.
It's a bass guitar. 5 strings, according to the profile pic. No one has pitch shifting for bassists nailed on any of the modelers. Haven't tried the QC because barf.
They all have pitch shifting nailed for cleans and bass EXCEPT Fractal. Like I said, even the most primitive “Simple Pitch” on Helix works well for bass, and many agree that Helix’s Poly Capo is the best of the bunch for guitar. IMO, the QC has the best pitch shifting; best tracking and extremely low latency. BTW, my main bass is a Fender Jazz - my pic just happens to be my favorite bass that I own :)
I agree that the pitch is the black sheep. But in the end detune your guitar it is better.
Yeah, I definitely wish this were a practical option. But we’d be tuning every other song lol.
 
Literally anything. Downtune a half step and play an open G chord on an electric guitar on a clean preset. Downtune a half step and play a single note on bass. You’ll see what I mean.

Nah. Need it all in one unit. I’ve used the Drop, I’ve used the Stomp as an external pitch shifter, but I really need a single unit that can do it all - and I want that unit to be a Fractal since the best amps, cans, drives, and time-based stuff is in Fractal. This is, Helix can do it. QC can can do it- Fractal has the potential to have the best one on the market, I believe, if they’d actually just try.

They all have pitch shifting nailed for cleans and bass EXCEPT Fractal. Like I said, even the most primitive “Simple Pitch” on Helix works well for bass, and many agree that Helix’s Poly Capo is the best of the bunch for guitar. IMO, the QC has the best pitch shifting; best tracking and extremely low latency. BTW, my main bass is a Fender Jazz - my pic just happens to be my favorite bass that I own :)


Yeah, I definitely wish this were a practical option. But we’d be tuning every other song lol.
You seemed to quote everyone except @md1234 who actually provided a suggestion...;)
 
The virtual capo is monophonic and tracks to a low F on a bass in standard tuning. If that doesnt work for you, you will need an alternative way.

Change your set so that you have the downtuned songs together. Many touring bands already do this.
 
You seemed to quote everyone except @md1234 who actually provided a suggestion...;)
Wasn't needed. If someone - ANYONE - thinks I, the ugliest of Bunnies, who has made dozens of posts about the pitch shifting, both in praise of and in criticism about, and who has spent thousands of dollars on different modeling units to see which has the best, has not simply tried adjusting the settings in the block, then I'm not sure what's left to say lol!

The virtual capo is monophonic and tracks to a low F on a bass in standard tuning. If that doesnt work for you, you will need an alternative way.

Change your set so that you have the downtuned songs together. Many touring bands already do this.
It might track, but it doesn't track well enough to work for a professional band setting. And yes, I've found alternative ways BECAUSE Fractal's pitch shifting doesn't work for me; as I stated above, I went to the HX Stomp rig a little over a year ago (maybe 2?), and have recently switched to the QC. But I keep trying my Axe Fx III and FM3 after every other update or so to see if the pitch shifting has improved. But nope. And, as stated, grouping downtuned songs so we can just tune the guitars (or switch guitars) isn't an option, unfortunately, since we make setlists based on flow/energy/pacing/vocal difficulty, and since we both have units with excellent pitch shifting (guitarist recently switched to the QC as well, from his FM9, due to the pitch shifting), we don't need to worry about it. But, again; if I had my drothers, I would have all the awesomeness of a Fractal unit, but with pitch shifting that's actually up to industry standard (I repeat: for bass guitar or clean guitar; for overdriven guitar it's fine).

Basement hacker here - seems to track well with minimal artifacts for me on Ax3 - is this an issue I'm just not hearing that much of due to some hearing issues / low standards / limited ability ...?

Same DI (Single Notes) >, No Pitch, Capo@-1, Capo@-3 (tracking @ 5):




I'm sorry, but I could immediately hear the warbliness in the first downtuned example. Another symptom of the artifacts is that it sort of sounds like it has a little micro slapback delay on it. Also, this was single-note examples on an electric guitar; when I'm asking for improvements for bass guitar and clean guitar (try strumming a chord when you're downtuned on a clean preset). Now, granted, in a full band setting, or even if you had a background music for your examples, it probably wouldn't have been too noticable, if at all.

Anyway, folks, I guess I've got my answer. Maybe folks who use or need pitch shifting are just not the same demo as folks who use Fractal gear. I guess I once again have to accept that. That said, I still do have hope, because when I was playing guitar a few years ago, just about the time I gave up on the FM3 ever getting a better pitch shifter, Cliff silently released it in an update and it was drastically improved from before. I suppose if I was still playing guitar, it would have been sufficient (I think we only played one or two songs that had clean downtuned guitars), but not for bass.

Anyway, I'll go back into the hole I crawled out of since it's clear I'm once again the only person on this forum who has any criticism of the pitch shifting. I'll keep my finger on the pulse, though, and maybe it'll eventually become a priority over... what was it again? "Low frequency intermodulation distortion?" :D
 
It is hard to beat a trusty digitech for that purpose. Although in my experience chords start to struggle at 4 semitones from pitch using the whammy dt. I also noticed that the more pedals in between your amp/modeler and whammy dt, the more latency is experienced.

Best is to have the digitech drop either in front of the fractal or in the loop.
 
How come Line 6 is the only company with a polyphonic pitch shifter or capo? Is it that hard to program or does FAS, NDSP, etc just think it’s not that important?
 
How come Line 6 is the only company with a polyphonic pitch shifter or capo? Is it that hard to program or does FAS, NDSP, etc just think it’s not that important?
NDSP and Line 6 have absolutely STELLAR pitch shifting. In the QC, both the Transpose block and the Pitch Shifter block sound stellar for bass, clean guitars, or overdriven guitars (note: FAS already sounds great for overdrivin guitars, since the artifacts are hidden). I think FAS just doesn't think it's important. I'm the only one for LITERALLY years complaining about it - or, hell, even talking about it.

It is hard to beat a trusty digitech for that purpose. Although in my experience chords start to struggle at 4 semitones from pitch using the whammy dt. I also noticed that the more pedals in between your amp/modeler and whammy dt, the more latency is experienced.

Best is to have the digitech drop either in front of the fractal or in the loop.
Yeah, but then you have to power it, run signal cables, introduce the additional A/D conversion latency, and it doesn't work with MIDI. One of our songs (Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun") is tuned up 75 cents, and the Drop doesn't do that. With the Helix or QC, I can just program all of our tuning changes into scenes and it just works.

As much as I love the QC (and tolerated the HX Stomp), I still don't think anything beats FAS for guitar tone, time-based effects, drives, routing, or MIDI. I wish nothing more than to be able to just use my FM3 for bass - but the pitch shifter is its only weakness, IMO, and instead of fixing that, the team is working on "low frequency intermodulation distortion," "cathode follower algorithms" or whatever lol. That's great; it's fantastic and exactly what makes FAS amp models the best of the best. But why not devote a little time to an immediately usable, practical application? I'm POSITIVE Cliff could make the best built-in pitch shifter on the market, but I guess when only one person seems to notice or care, and when everyone else is so willing to buy a Drop or even go to the competitors (throw a Stomp in the FM3's loop) it gets brushed off and never even makes any priority list. When they did update the pitch shifter a couple years ago to make it better than it was (after much complaint by your truly), it never even made the release notes! It was like pulling teeth to get FAS to admit they did update the pitch block - and it wasn't even on this forum. I was happy as a clam - because I was playing (mostly overdriven) guitar. It was only when I switched to bass when I realized it was still the weakest one of all the top modelers.
 
Its not think that I dont think its important, its that I downtuned my guitars (and the fun that comes with that). That was 2 years and change after making an EP at home using the axe3 pitch shifting on my first solo attempt.

Iirc Norma Jean runs a digitech drop for downtuned songs live.
 
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