User Manual

NEPTUNE PITCH ADJUSTER AND VOICE SYNTH
853
Pitch adjustment tips and tricks
With Neptune you can use the pitch adjustment effects separately or in various combinations to generate different
types of pitch effects. In this section a number of useful setups are described.
Using automation for temporary pitch correction
To get the most natural-sounding results from Neptune you can use automation in the sequencer to momentarily ap-
ply pitch correction only where it’s necessary on the audio track. The example below shows a lead vocal track which
sounds great most of the time, but has a few flat passages that we want to correct.
1. Use Neptune as an Insert Effect on the lead vocal track.
Between the middle of bar 13 and bar 15 there are a couple of flat notes that need to be corrected slightly. Between
the middle of bar 23 and bar 27 there are some notes that we want to change several semitones.
2. Create a sequencer track for the Neptune device.
3. Set the Pitch Adjust button parameter to “Off” and create an automation lane for the parameter.
This will allow you to switch on and off pitch correction automatically.
4. Set the desired Scale or click the notes you want to use on the virtual keyboard.
5. Adjust the Correction Speed and Preserve Expression parameters to values that will make the pitch correction
sound natural.
6. Activate the Formant section so that any adjusted pitches will have the original formants preserved.
7. Create an automation clip and change the Pitch Adjust button parameter to “On” between the middle of bar 13
and 15.
This will switch on pitch correction only in these bars.
In bar 23-27 we want to change some pitches several semitones. We can’t use the automatic pitch correction here
because this would correct the pitches to the closest notes in our scale and that is not what we want here. We could
create a new custom scale in another Scale Memory slot and use here, but the easiest would be to just override our
scale with MIDI notes.
8. Change the Pitch Adjust parameter to “On” in bars 23-27.
This will switch on pitch correction again in these bars.
9. Next, make sure that the MIDI Input in Neptune is set to “Pitch Adjust”.
This ensures that any incoming MIDI notes will control the Pitch Adjust section (and not the Voice Synth).
10.Place the sequencer Song Position Pointer at bar 23 and start recording on the Neptune note lane.
Record the new notes from your MIDI master keyboard at bar 23 through bar 26.
Now, pitch correction has been applied only where necessary on the audio track. In bar 13-15 pitch correction was
automatically applied using a defined scale, and in bar 23-27 the automatic pitch correction was overridden by MIDI
notes.
q If you like, you could freeze your pitch processed track with the effects - see “About “freezing” pitch adjust-
ments on audio tracks”.