Viirtual Capo comparison

[wcfieldskx]

yup, the Drop is still the best by quite a bit. IME, anyways..

 

[kabong]

That's the same video that I saw. It's what prompted me to do the experiment. I got the same results.
I know there was a comment made earlier about testing the units and found that the axefx was superior, but used in a musical format, especially playing clean chords in a finger style manner, the digitech was the clear winner. Not about technical specs, just about how it sounds to the ear. Of course this is still subjective, but listen for yourself and draw your own conclusions

 

[kmachman]

Along with setting the virtual capo to "smooth" settings i also found it better to have the source set to input 1 instead of block. These should be the default settings, maybe that would make these posts a lot less frequent.

 

[FractalAudio]

Not my video but I just watched it and I think it kind of suits the conversation here well :

Pitch Tracking is set wrong.

 

[GlennO]

Original, Digitech Drop -7, VC -7 Fast 5, VC Fast 10, VC Off 5, VC Off 10, VC Smooth 5, VC Smooth 10, Original.

There's an audible difference with both the pitch stability and the transient preservation, but thing that stands out to me is that you can get a good pitch shift with the Virtual Capo at amazingly low latency. At Fast/5 it's about 5 msecs less latency than the Drop.

 

[My name is mud]

Pitch Tracking is set wrong.

Maybe renaming “fast/smooth” to “single notes / chords” can be a nice idea

 

[kabong]

Original, Digitech Drop -7, VC -7 Fast 5, VC Fast 10, VC Off 5, VC Off 10, VC Smooth 5, VC Smooth 10, Original.

There's an audible difference with both the pitch stability and the transient preservation, but thing that stands out to me is that you can get a good pitch shift with the Virtual Capo at amazingly low latency. At Fast/5 it's about 5 msecs less latency than the Drop.

I'm not talking about the latency, I'm talking about the tone difference and the warble. All I know is I duplicated the experiment twice and changed the settings on the axefx to smooth and while it does help to a degree, it still has more warble and is less true to the original tone. And I will say it once more, this is a subjective and if you hear something different, that's awesome.... Just not what I hear.

 

[GlennO]

I'm not talking about the latency, I'm talking about the tone difference and the warble. All I know is I duplicated the experiment twice and changed the settings on the axefx to smooth and while it does help to a degree, it still has more warble and is less true to the original tone. And I will say it once more, this is a subjective and if you hear something different, that's awesome.... Just not what I hear.

What? I provided audio clips that you neglected to provide. As I said, they clearly demonstrate audible pitch and transient differences. You're welcome . I'm not sure it would have made much of a difference, but Cliff is right, that youtube video does a poor job of doing a comparison. He turned the pitch tracking control in the wrong direction .

 

[kabong]

What? I provided audio clips that you neglected to provide. As I said, they clearly demonstrate audible pitch and transient differences. You're welcome . I'm not sure it would have made much of a difference, but Cliff is right, that youtube video does a poor job of doing a comparison. He turned the pitch tracking control in the wrong direction

What? I provided audio clips that you neglected to provide. As I said, they clearly demonstrate audible pitch and transient differences. You're welcome . I'm not sure it would have made much of a difference, but Cliff is right, that youtube video does a poor job of doing a comparison. He turned the pitch tracking control in the wrong direction .

I just shared an observation of my own experience, this is not a debate. If your experience and opinion is different, good for you. Anything more would be like debating which amp sounds best. The answer ........the one that you like the most.

 

[GlennO]

I just shared an observation of my own experience, this is not a debate. If your experience and opinion is different, good for you. Anything more would be like debating which amp sounds best. The answer ........the one that you like the most.

I’m just trying to help you out by supplying the clips you didn’t upload. If you want to debate something with somebody, sorry, I can’t help you with that.

 

[App12]

…. If you want to debate something with somebody, sorry, I can’t help you with that.

He specifically said: “I just shared an observation of my own experience, this is not a debate.”

 

[Budda]

This got weird.

 

[kabong]

It most definitely did get weird, I was just sharing my own experience with my own experiment. Was just curious if anyone else had a similar experience or not. Wasn't trying to judge any clips. Oh well.

 

[GlennO]

He specifically said: “I just shared an observation of my own experience, this is not a debate.”

All I did was upload some audio to help him out by providing objective evidence to support what he's saying. I guess no good deed goes unpunished .

 

[HereToday]

When the debate portion starts, let me know. I'll come back then.

 

[kabong]

When the debate portion starts, let me know. I'll come back then.

Yep, the warble I didn't like may be exactly what someone else likes.
Makes everything more interesting

 

[guitarnerdswe]

Original, Digitech Drop -7, VC -7 Fast 5, VC Fast 10, VC Off 5, VC Off 10, VC Smooth 5, VC Smooth 10, Original.

There's an audible difference with both the pitch stability and the transient preservation, but thing that stands out to me is that you can get a good pitch shift with the Virtual Capo at amazingly low latency. At Fast/5 it's about 5 msecs less latency than the Drop.

I'm not talking about the latency, I'm talking about the tone difference and the warble. All I know is I duplicated the experiment twice and changed the settings on the axefx to smooth and while it does help to a degree, it still has more warble and is less true to the original tone. And I will say it once more, this is a subjective and if you hear something different, that's awesome.... Just not what I hear.

Yeah, the Digitech had the least amount of warble to my ears as well.

 

[GlennO]

Yeah, the Digitech had the least amount of warble to my ears as well.

I would certainly hope anybody listening to the clips can hear that! It is not just your ears . Also, see my other comment about transients. That's why I uploaded the clips: to steer this away from becoming a pointless discussion about subjective opinions, which is usually the result when somebody starts a thread like this without providing audio clips.

 

[sean.e]

What's weird is that the OP found a way to disagree with someone that actually took the time to make the OPs case.

 

[giantslayer]

Just did my standard -5 drop B but in a clean scene of a preset - I hear the warble you're talking about.

I wonder how noticeable it'd (will?) be in a band context.

It still boggles my mind a bit that people would use this live. I’ve used it for practice when the recording was a different key from what we were playing a song, and ended up deciding I prefer to modulate the music and keep my guitar natural. Virtual capo makes the guitar sound… off. A big pitch change is very disorienting when I am getting a very different pitch from what I am playing. I’ve also noticed the virtual capo doesn’t handle rapid notes well.

Not knocking the axe fx pitch shift: I’m sure these issues are to some extent inherent with any virtual capo and I couldn’t imagine using any of them in a real performance in general.