Poly Capo/Shift has too many artifacts an sounds bad

[jbennet3200]

No matter what I've tried the original note is very noticeable and the effects are unusuable.  With the mix at 100% i've tried 3 different ways with nothing in my signal chain but the poly shift or poly capo: My guitar plugged into my LT, going straight to studio monitors. My guitar plugged into my LT, my LT plugged into my PC and HX Edit through my studio monitors. And finally, my guitar plugged into my audio interface and running Native in Reaper. All have the same unusable sound because the original note is very noticable.

[cruisinon2]

27 minutes ago, jbennet3200 said:

No matter what I've tried the original note is very noticeable and the effects are unusuable.  With the mix at 100% i've tried 3 different ways with nothing in my signal chain but the poly shift or poly capo: My guitar plugged into my LT, going straight to studio monitors. My guitar plugged into my LT, my LT plugged into my PC and HX Edit through my studio monitors. And finally, my guitar plugged into my audio interface and running Native in Reaper. All have the same unusable sound because the original note is very noticable.

 

This is the same problem often reported by new Variax users, and the explanation is simple. You're hearing your guitar acoustically. Yes, I'm serious. We all do...all the time. The strings are inches from your ears, it's impossible not to hear them directly. And when the pitches hitting your ears directly from the instrument are the same same as what's coming out of your speakers, the acoustic sound of the guitar is easily ignored... but when the processed pitches coming from your monitors are no longer the same, particularly at close intervals, dissonance is inevitable and glaringly obvious. You have to turn up loud enough to drown out the guitar itself, and the problem will go away... and you'll likely find that you have to crank it more than you'd think to accomplish that. Also, some guitars are more resonant and thus intrinsically louder than others. Don't be surprised if you find yourself cranking the monitor volume a bit more for some guitars, compared to others.

[jbennet3200]

18 minutes ago, cruisinon2 said:

 

This is the same problem often reported by new Variax users, and the explanation is simple. You're hearing your guitar acoustically. Yes, I'm serious. We all do...all the time. The strings are inches from your ears, it's impossible not to hear them directly. And when the pitches hitting your ears directly from the instrument are the same same as what's coming out of your speakers, the acoustic sound of the guitar is easily ignored... but when the processed pitches coming from your monitors are no longer the same, particularly at close intervals, dissonance is inevitable and glaringly obvious. You have to turn up loud enough to drown out the guitar itself, and the problem will go away... and you'll likely find that you have to crank it more than you'd think to accomplish that. Also, some guitars are more resonant and thus intrinsically louder than others. Don't be surprised if you find yourself cranking the monitor volume a bit more for some guitars, compared to others.

 

I recorded riffs with just the dry signal and pitch capo and also with a full patch and its definitely loud and noticeable on the recordings.

[PierM]

5 minutes ago, jbennet3200 said:

 

I recorded riffs with just the dry signal and pitch capo and also with a full patch and its definitely loud and noticeable on the recordings.

 

Check you dont have a second path with a guitar input going through.

 

Also, you could post the preset patch over here so people can check what's going on there.

[SaschaFranck]

Weird. I don't like the quality of the PolyPitch at all (it's pretty bad IMHO), but I never had any issues with the dry signal being present, unlike I wanted it to be.

[DunedinDragon]

I just got the chance to monkey around with the Poly Capo for the first time last night for a while.  Although it can sound a little bit artificial, it seems to me to be generally acceptable certainly for a live performance.  I didn't hear any acoustic artifacts from the strings or any other issues like that.  I was playing my Les Paul through the Princeton amp model using both pick action and finger picking style through my DXR12 speaker at stage monitor volume with the Poly Capo before the amp in the signal chain.  I could easily get by with it in a pinch, at least on clean tones.  I wouldn't expect there would be any problems with a crunchier style.

[cruisinon2]

34 minutes ago, DunedinDragon said:

I could easily get by with it in a pinch, at least on clean tones.  I wouldn't expect there would be any problems with a crunchier style.

 

Which I think is really the intended use, as opposed to being a recording solution. I agree that results are OK... don't think it's any better or worse than what I get with my Variax. I wouldn't track anything with pitch-shifted effects though, at least nothing that I intended to be preserved for posterity... but live, eliminating a guitar swap, it suits me just fine, as did the Digitech Drop that I've had for years. But if I need to drop-tune in the studio, I'll do it the old fashioned way.

[donkelley]

58 minutes ago, jbennet3200 said:

 

I recorded riffs with just the dry signal and pitch capo and also with a full patch and its definitely loud and noticeable on the recordings.

Then something is amiss, sir.  It doesn't work like that for other people, and it went through beta testing and QA without those issues.

 

I wouldn't know how to start solving your problem other than something in your helix general settings of some kind that is mixing dry signal into your output path.

 

Makes me wonder if it always was mixing dry signal into your output path but you couldn't tell because without pitch changing effects it's much less obvious?

[cruisinon2]

3 minutes ago, donkelley said:

Then something is amiss, sir.  It doesn't work like that for other people, and it went through beta testing and QA without those issues.

 

 

 

"Strange things are afoot at the Circle K"...;)

[DarthHollis]

Don't assume that the Poly Capo, Digitech Drop, or any other harmonizer type effect is going to 100% replace another guitar that is tuned to what you want.  No matter how good they are they are not going to be perfect.

 

In a live situation I have used a Drop many times and forgot it was on when going to another song.  You tend to not even notice you have it on.  But in a recording environment there are artifacts that may be heard. For me it was much more noticeable with clean sounds and more complicated chords.

 

Does the Poly Capo replace the Digitech Drop? For me it does.  I will probably only use it once or twice in an entire night and I guarantee no-one will notice.  If I was going to do more songs (like 5 or more) I would probably have another guitar tuned to D standard or whatever I need.

 

If you want to compare poly effects to anything, the be all end all are Eventide products.  They are kind of considered the best in the industry.  They are still not perfect but they are amazing.  I have to think the Line 6 has gotten pretty close to Eventide quality.  Remember, the quality is not in the hardware but in the programming.  Line 6 has created an algorithm that is supposedly faster than at tracking than any other out there.  For more accurate tracking you can slow down the tracking but there is the trade off.

 

 

[donkelley]

2 minutes ago, DarthHollis said:

Don't assume that the Poly Capo, Digitech Drop, or any other harmonizer type effect is going to 100% replace another guitar that is tuned to what you want.  No matter how good they are they are not going to be perfect.

 

In a live situation I have used a Drop many times and forgot it was on when going to another song.  You tend to not even notice you have it on.  But in a recording environment there are artifacts that may be heard. For me it was much more noticeable with clean sounds and more complicated chords.

 

Does the Poly Capo replace the Digitech Drop? For me it does.  I will probably only use it once or twice in an entire night and I guarantee no-one will notice.  If I was going to do more songs (like 5 or more) I would probably have another guitar tuned to D standard or whatever I need.

 

If you want to compare poly effects to anything, the be all end all are Eventide products.  They are kind of considered the best in the industry.  They are still not perfect but they are amazing.  I have to think the Line 6 has gotten pretty close to Eventide quality.  Remember, the quality is not in the hardware but in the programming.  Line 6 has created an algorithm that is supposedly faster than at tracking than any other out there.  For more accurate tracking you can slow down the tracking but there is the trade off.

 

 

totally true. 

 

But that is different from recording his guitar through it and, in the recorded track afterwards (without the guitar's acoustic sound in the room while he plays), he hears both the transposed tuning AND the original try guitar sound.

 

He can't say if it works for him or not if the basic functionality works incorrectly on his helix compared to all other people's helixes.

[DarthHollis]

Donkelly, you are correct. If he's still hearing the original (dry) note of the guitar then something is wrong.

[theElevators]

I have been using the pitch wham effect to transpose my guitar.  It works almost just as good as the capo. It was already in full polyphony, as far as I'm concerned.  There are some glitchy sounds when the note is about to die.  The 3.0 poly capo is simply making it slightly better and slightly more reliable.  

 

 

[karlic]

Expectations are simply too high. I first started using the Kemper version and thought it was hard going. Over time you get used to playing with a slight latency and listening back to live show clips, it is perfectly acceptable in a mix.

 

Analyse it at low volume in pristine listening conditions and you will find fault with such a complex process. It is really a tool for live and does a great job to save carrying extra guitars.

[SaschaFranck]

48 minutes ago, karlic said:

Analyse it at low volume in pristine listening conditions and you will find fault with such a complex process. It is really a tool for live and does a great job to save carrying extra guitars.

 

Only as long as your chord repertoire doesn't exceed powechords and other very simple things. For any other kinds of chords it's not even decent enough live.

[DunedinDragon]

54 minutes ago, SaschaFranck said:

 

Only as long as your chord repertoire doesn't exceed powechords and other very simple things. For any other kinds of chords it's not even decent enough live.

I'm not sure what you might be referring to as not being decent.  Granted, I've only tested it (Poly Capo) briefly but I did do some Chet Atkins, Keb 'Mo and James Taylor style finger and hybrid style picking and it seemed to track just fine in spite of the chord colorations and somewhat odd chord inversions.  What specific things did you run into problems with?  I was playing those on a Gretsch Silver Eagle hollow body not a piezo acoustic or resonator style guitar.

 

[qwerty42]

Yeah, I'm pretty confused by some of the replies in this post, too. Maybe it works better for certain types of guitars? For my strat the virtual capo works great, especially for just shifting things a semitone or two. In sample clips I made and shared with friends when 3.0 first dropped, they had no idea it'd been electronically transposed.

 

If you go all the way to -12 it does start to sound a bit artificial, but a standard-tuned guitar pitch-shifted down a full octave isn't going to sound like anything we're familiar with no matter how you do it. It sounds a bit like a bass guitar, but definitely not exactly like one, and I wouldn't expect it to.

 

As for the OP, something is definitely wrong with either his patch or his playing setup. Drives me a little crazy when people post here and say 'X is bad and unusable' but then don't post their preset so others can help them.

[karlic]

1 hour ago, SaschaFranck said:

 

Only as long as your chord repertoire doesn't exceed powechords and other very simple things. For any other kinds of chords it's not even decent enough live.

 

Just give it some time before jumping on all the faults for your own sake. You will get used to it and maybe there will be some refinement in an update.

 

Alternatively, just use the other features you got free with the update and carry an extra guitar. 

[SaschaFranck]

53 minutes ago, DunedinDragon said:

I'm not sure what you might be referring to as not being decent.  Granted, I've only tested it (Poly Capo) briefly but I did do some Chet Atkins, Keb 'Mo and James Taylor style finger and hybrid style picking and it seemed to track just fine in spite of the chord colorations and somewhat odd chord inversions.  What specific things did you run into problems with?  I was playing those on a Gretsch Silver Eagle hollow body not a piezo acoustic or resonator style guitar.

 

Here's a sound example. 2 bars of an Fmaj7 chord, no pitching, 2 bars with PP on but at 0, 2 bars with PP on, transposed down by 2 semitones. Even with no transposition, just with PP switched on, the sound is downright unuseable. PP positioned as the first thing in the signal chain, medium picking strength. Guitar used is a Tom Anderson but it's like that (or worse) with each and every guitar I checked with.

HX_PolyPitch_01.mp3

[DunedinDragon]

8 minutes ago, qwerty42 said:

Yeah, I'm pretty confused by some of the replies in this post, too. Maybe it works better for certain types of guitars? For my strat the virtual capo works great, especially for just shifting things a semitone or two. In sample clips I made and shared with friends when 3.0 first dropped, they had no idea it'd been electronically transposed.

 

If you go all the way to -12 it does start to sound a bit artificial, but a standard-tuned guitar pitch-shifted down a full octave isn't going to sound like anything we're familiar with no matter how you do it. It sounds a bit like a bass guitar, but definitely not exactly like one, and I wouldn't expect it to.

 

As for the OP, something is definitely wrong with either his patch or his playing setup. Drives me a little crazy when people post here and say 'X is bad and unusable' but then don't post their preset so others can help them.

 

Agreed.  Although now that I've had a bit more time with it I have found out the default settings are not necessarily the best for clean electric guitars.  Especially the Auto EQ parameter.  That was what was initially affecting my opinion of it sounding artificial.  But like you I'm not moving the capo by a huge amount.  The one I'm most likely to use it on right now is the Keb 'Mo "Hand It Over" song which he recorded it in D on a downtuned acoustic guitar, but he clearly plays it in E on his videos which is just at the very top of my range.  Because it uses some different types of inversion on open strings I've always downtuned a guitar for it.  Now I won't have to.
 

 

[SaschaFranck]

14 minutes ago, karlic said:

Just give it some time before jumping on all the faults for your own sake. You will get used to it and maybe there will be some refinement in an update.

 

Why would I give it some time? It's unuseable for anything I do, at least the huge CPU expense it comes with (otherwise I could slap it into a delay path here and there).
And as far as refinements go, well, let's see. But why would I place any bets on that, given it has taken L6 quite long for PP to be implemented, especially given there's been plenty of "oh, we've hired some poly pitch experts just to please you folks!" talk before?

[DunedinDragon]

19 minutes ago, SaschaFranck said:

 

Here's a sound example. 2 bars of an Fmaj7 chord, no pitching, 2 bars with PP on but at 0, 2 bars with PP on, transposed down by 2 semitones. Even with no transposition, just with PP switched on, the sound is downright unuseable. PP positioned as the first thing in the signal chain, medium picking strength. Guitar used is a Tom Anderson but it's like that (or worse) with each and every guitar I checked with.

HX_PolyPitch_01.mp3 393.56 kB · 1 download

Maybe it's the difference in the algorithm used for PolyCapo versus PolyPitch.  I haven't used PP myself.  That Keb' Mo' song I referenced above uses a Fmaj7 quite a bit and I had no problems with it sounding natural.  But again that was finger picked, and I did have to make an adjustment to the AutoEQ parameter and turn it all the way off for it to sound natural.

[SaschaFranck]

23 minutes ago, qwerty42 said:

In sample clips I made and shared with friends when 3.0 first dropped, they had no idea it'd been electronically transposed.

 

Could you post them here, along with the patch used?

[SaschaFranck]

1 minute ago, DunedinDragon said:

Maybe it's the difference in the algorithm used for PolyCapo versus PolyPitch. 

 

The results are pretty much literally identical.

[qwerty42]

26 minutes ago, SaschaFranck said:

 

Here's a sound example. 2 bars of an Fmaj7 chord, no pitching, 2 bars with PP on but at 0, 2 bars with PP on, transposed down by 2 semitones. Even with no transposition, just with PP switched on, the sound is downright unuseable. PP positioned as the first thing in the signal chain, medium picking strength. Guitar used is a Tom Anderson but it's like that (or worse) with each and every guitar I checked with.

HX_PolyPitch_01.mp3 393.56 kB · 1 download

I'm only listening through cheap earbuds at the moment, and maybe I'm going deaf, but I'm not hearing--at all--what you find problematic in that. Especially on the first four bars, where it's just on/off with no shift. Sounds totally fine to me. Can you explain what's unusable?

[codamedia]

22 hours ago, jbennet3200 said:

All have the same unusable sound because the original note is very noticable.

 

Quality of the effect aside.... if you are hearing the original notes and it's NOT the acoustic sound of the instrument (you do need to play louder to get over that) then something is wrong with your path!

 

Can you share a preset so we can take a look and have a listen? 

[SaschaFranck]

10 minutes ago, qwerty42 said:

I'm only listening through cheap earbuds at the moment, and maybe I'm going deaf, but I'm not hearing--at all--what you find problematic in that.

 

Ok. Very sorry to say so, but in case you don't clearly notice what's going on there (regardless of earbuds or whatever), the two of us should rather agree that we'd not discuss this issue any further among us. If it's fine for you, fine, but let's keep it at that.

[qwerty42]

5 minutes ago, SaschaFranck said:

 

Ok. Very sorry to say so, but in case you don't clearly notice what's going on there (regardless of earbuds or whatever), the two of us should rather agree that we'd not discuss this issue any further among us. If it's fine for you, fine, but let's keep it at that.

Great. I won't discuss it any more with you. For others in the thread who aren't as dismissive, can you please explain to me what is wrong with Sascha's clip, because I'm still not hearing it, and I genuinely am very curious if there's something I'm missing.

[codamedia]

37 minutes ago, qwerty42 said:

Especially on the first four bars, where it's just on/off with no shift. Sounds totally fine to me. Can you explain what's unusable?

 

Bars 3 and beyond have some very noticeable artifacts compared to bars 1 & 2.

 

21 minutes ago, qwerty42 said:

For others in the thread who aren't as dismissive, can you please explain to me what is wrong with Sascha's clip, because I'm still not hearing it, and I genuinely am very curious if there's something I'm missing.

 

The guitar sounds pretty much the same.... but there are added artifacts that would drive me crazy on a soft passage such as this.  I hear soft thuds, dropouts, and a little warbling. Don't focus on the upper ringing notes... it's the lower notes and what is behind everything where I notice it most.

 

Where I might differ in opinion from @SaschaFranck is that in a louder environment when set in a mix I could probably live with it for a song or two, but certainly not in a solo setting.

[SaschaFranck]

 

9 minutes ago, qwerty42 said:

can you please explain to me what is wrong with Sascha's clip

 

Ok, as an explanation (before we should likely really stop this): There's "warbly" artefacts all over the place. And I really mean it - it's all over the place. At least during bar 3 (PP on, no transposition), beat 2, when notes E and F are ringing into each other, it's so obvious I wouldn't even have an idea about what to do to not notice or "un-hear" it.

[cruisinon2]

15 minutes ago, qwerty42 said:

Great. I won't discuss it any more with you. For others in the thread who aren't as dismissive, can you please explain to me what is wrong with Sascha's clip, because I'm still not hearing it, and I genuinely am very curious if there's something I'm missing.

 

What he was trying (ever so tactfully) to tell you, is that your perceptual acuity cannot match his. In other words, if you can't hear how terrible that clip is, it's because your ears suck, and that's why it sounds fine to you...

[SaschaFranck]

3 minutes ago, codamedia said:

The guitar sounds pretty much the same.... but there are added artifacts that would drive me crazy on a soft passage such as this. 

 

Fwiw, personally, I'd rather have it the other way around. Like the core guitar sound being completely wrecked but tracking and pitch shifting being great and free of artefacts. That's kinda what the HOG2 (and POG as well) is doing. Sure, you couldn't use it for any dropped tunings that way - but personally, I couldn't care less. And yes, I know it's dropped tunings most people are asking for. I'd way prefer some experimental soundscaping tool myself.

[SaschaFranck]

1 minute ago, cruisinon2 said:

What he was trying (ever so tactfully) to tell you, is that your perceptual acuity cannot match his. In other words, if you can't hear how terrible that clip is, it's because your ears suck, and that's why it sounds fine to you...

 

Fwiw, I absolutely didn't want to offend anyone - but in case people are insisting that things sound fine when multiple times, I simply can't help it but tell it how it is. And that's why I suggested to stop the discussion among him and me.
I mean, what else could I have done?

[PierM]

10 minutes ago, cruisinon2 said:

 

What he was trying (ever so tactfully) to tell you, is that your perceptual acuity cannot match his. In other words, if you can't hear how terrible that clip is, it's because your ears suck, and that's why it sounds fine to you...

 

This. :)

[SaschaFranck]

Ok - so it's my fault someone else doesn't notice horrible artefacts?

[cruisinon2]

48 minutes ago, SaschaFranck said:

what else could I have done?

 

 

That's easy: Don't bother getting into it in the first place...because the result was a predictable as this morning's sunrise:

 

"This is awful"

 

"Sounds fine to me"

 

"Well you're deaf, then..."

 

This thread has repeated itself countless times... the name of the new effect, amp model, or other feature changes, but the underlying sentiments, set in stone (if not preexisting) opinions, and conversational diarrhea that follow are the same every blessed time. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

[qwerty42]

41 minutes ago, codamedia said:

 

Bars 3 and beyond have some very noticeable artifacts compared to bars 1 & 2.

 

 

The guitar sounds pretty much the same.... but there are added artifacts that would drive me crazy on a soft passage such as this.  I hear soft thuds, dropouts, and a little warbling. Don't focus on the upper ringing notes... it's the lower notes and what is behind everything where I notice it most.

 

Where I might differ in opinion from @SaschaFranck is that in a louder environment when set in a mix I could probably live with it for a song or two, but certainly not in a solo setting.

Thank you, I appreciate that. Later today when I have something other than these throwaway earbuds with terrible frequency response and zero bass, and aren't surrounded by loud background noise, I'll take another listen.

As for you @SaschaFranck, all I can say is that based on many of your posts here in the past, you seem to be quick to assume people are trying to debate or argue with you. That wasn't my intention at all, but depending on your default stance for how the world is talking to you, you can make anything come across like that if you try hard enough. I was genuinely looking to understand what I wasn't hearing, and that's why I asked, and is also why I made the self-deprecating remark about maybe going deaf and also noted I was listening through garbage earbuds. You can either interpret that as someone being snarky and sarcastic toward you, or someone who is leaving the door open on themselves to be wrong and looking for better understanding. The one you choose says more about you than it does about me.

[PierM]

36 minutes ago, SaschaFranck said:

Ok - so it's my fault someone else doesn't notice horrible artefacts?

 

You have a problem of abuse of hyperboles man. This is making impossible for people to just have a natural exchange of opinions, about any subject.

 

"HORRIBLE ARTIFACTS". If this is is what you ear, means you cant really go any further in the subject, so just move on and ignore people who believe the effect is fine for them, unless you believe you're a benchmark for everyone. In this case, good luck. :)

[codamedia]

Maybe we should turn the heat down in here! 

What we like is subjective, our hearing is not! We all hear differently, we all have different hearing deficiencies.

 

Just because something exists, that doesn't mean someone will hear it! It's not always a the difference of a trained ear vs an untrained ear.... sometimes (more often than you think) the ears simply don't hear it! 

[SaschaFranck]

3 minutes ago, qwerty42 said:

As for you @SaschaFranck, all I can say is that based on many of your posts here in the past, you seem to be quick to assume people are trying to debate or argue with you.

 

Maybe you're right, maybe not 100% right, though.

When I mentioned the polystuff to be quite a warbling mess for the first time in the main 3.0 release thread, I was told it wasn't so and I should possibly tune my guitar properly. So I've been sending chords made of pure sine waves (it really doesn't get much more in tune) through the polystuff and the warbling was there in full glory as soon as it wasn't simple fifths or triads anymore. And yet people keep saying it's all great and it must be operator error or whatever.

 

9 minutes ago, cruisinon2 said:

That's easy: Don't bother getting into it in the first place, because the result was a predictable as this morning's sunrise:

 

Well, I posted an example. I did so before, too. I have no idea how people could still say everything is fine and dandy. But then, of course, I could stay out of this discussion entirely - just that it makes no sense. In case someone notices the less-than-shiny pitch shifting quality of the polystuff, I'll support him/her, simply because that's how it is.