Double Bass Software for analyzing intonation

[jheise]

Hi all,

I'd like to know if somebody knows of a piece of software that does the following:

I'm recording myself solo (e.g. playing a scale), feed the recording into the app/plugin whatever and can visually see, which notes are out of tune in one step. (e.g. colorize the wave)

I'd like to do this as an intermediate step between practicing with training wheels/crutches (recordings, drones whatever) and relying completely and confidently on my ears, and for consistency.

Just recording myself and listening back is fine but if I practice the whole "vomit"-cycle for 45mins - even though it's not primarily an intonation exercise - listening back for 45mins and making notes about my intonation is really stretching it.
I think in that case having visual feedback by a tool might not be considered a shortcut.

I have not much experience with recording software so I don't know what's out there.

 

[mikewalker]

What can Melodyne do?

 

[Anthony White]

My answer to your actual question is 'no'.

But one of the keys of responding to feedback is that feedback must be timely. It's not very helpful if I record myself, discover that I was out of tune five minutes, or even one minute, or even really one beat ago, and then going back and fixing it.

So suggestions that I have used:
- if you want to see visually when you are out of tune, why not use a chromatic tuner? Instantaneous feedback, you can respond to it right there (Lauren Pierce recommends this in some of her teaching, and there is no arguing with her playing).

- A loop pedal (I stole this from @flatback and it's genius). Run a mic or a pickup into a loop pedal, into a powered monitor or an amp, and you can listen back to phrases that are as long or short as you want, without much of the messing about that comes with recording yourself. Tap the pedal to start the recording, tap it again and playback is instantaneous.

- I like drones best of all, because it is working on my ear so well. I use a digital piano, I set it too an organ tone without any vibrato, and I place a weight on the key of the note I want (as a weight I use a heavy guitar slide, but anything narrow and weighty enough will do). The organ tone makes for a really musical exercise, so I use it a lot and for a long time, whereas a lot of drones I have tried I found piercing and pretty difficult to live with.

Best wishes, and I hope you find what you are looking for.

 

[jheise]

[...]

Thank you for your suggestions, I do all that and more (or variants) already. I just want to quantify some things in the realm of: in a 45 minutes exercise where every interval in two octaves is played 16 times (non consecutive) that works well, not perfect, with a tuner at hand and the 2 cent deviation for professionals as the setting for ok/nok. How do I compare without the aid? And just for reference, not that it's tied to a specific goal or my self-worth.

 

[jheise]

What can Melodyne do?

Will check it out, thank you.

Edit: I imported a file, set A=443 and was able to step through all notes and see how much I deviated.

Is there an easy possibility to filter/colorize and see it on the whole in one step? I could not find that option on a first run-through.

 

[gogogergie1]

Check out the app Tonal Energy, it’s pretty good at visualizing your intonation in real time. It will provide a score in percent and visually how in tune each note was over a length of time. It’s also a great all around practice app with tuner, metronome, drone. I use it every day on the iPad- I think this is exactly what you are looking for.
TonalEnergy, Inc.

 

[knirirr]

I found this app useful for getting real time feedback on my (bad) intonation: ‎Tunable - Music Practice Tools
It can record a session and award an accuracy score per-pitch.

 

[jheise]

It can record a session and award an accuracy score per-pitch.

I didn't know about this feature. Tunable is the tuner app that I use for some years now. Thank you!

 

[jheise]

Check out the app Tonal Energy, it’s pretty good at visualizing your intonation in real time. It will provide a score in percent and visually how in tune each note was over a length of time. It’s also a great all around practice app with tuner, metronome, drone. I use it every day on the iPad- I think this is exactly what you are looking for.
TonalEnergy, Inc.

Looks like an interesting app, I'll check it out. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[basscleff94010]

The TotalEnergy app can record your playing with a detailed graphic analysis of the intonation and the rhythm. It helped me figure out that some of the intonation mistakes were related to specific bow changes or shifts. (I was often late on the beat when I was out of tune, which made the situation even worse.)

 

[Happy Steve]

The reatune plugin in reaper DAW may do want you want.. you can look t the plugin while you are recording / monitoring input

 

[jheise]

Thanks again for all the recommendations. I use(d) real time analysis regularly and this thread now has some more recommendations in that regard, too. Thank you.

I am specifically looking for tools that I can use retrospectively and will try out the mentioned tools that have that particular feature and get back to you.

 

[Jon Stefaniak]

I don't know melodyne, but the VariAudio editing in cubase pro is pretty amazing. Probably overkill and over any reasonable budget for your needs

 

[lurk]

There's an app called Intunator that might be what you're after.
Intunator App
I've got it and the problem is that I think intonation is variable according to the context. I like drones. Cello drones for tuning on Spotify or a the tanpura droid app if you want to work on stuff that doesn't go with a perfect 5th.

 

[jheise]

I just re-read my initial post and I think, I should have made it more clear: I'm not searching for something that I use during practice (because I know/do a lot of the other things mentioned already), but something to post-analyze my playing and show it. Something like statistics for basketball: you practice 1000 throws with a blindfold and make a video doing it. And it tells you afterwards how many throws missed. But you don't have to watch the whole video to count for yourself. And you don't remove the blindfold during your session so you can count while you're throwing - because that would defeat the purpose.

 

[Happy Steve]

Reatune works on playback. It even draws graphs of pitch/error in one of the tabs

 

[gogogergie1]

Tonal Energy will do this- there is a record option that will graph out each note and give you a score on your accuracy over time. But this won’t work if you are looking for an option for a DAW

 

[damonsmith]

There's an app called Intunator that might be what you're after.
Intunator App
I've got it and the problem is that I think intonation is variable according to the context. I like drones. Cello drones for tuning on Spotify or a the tanpura droid app if you want to work on stuff that doesn't go with a perfect 5th.

I have the cello drone app on my phone - think it is great. I don't believe it locks you into any tuning system. It is about accuracy and having enough sensitivity and facility between your hands and ears to hit a mark in the moment, whether that mark is an 440 A dead center or a G tuned just so to make an upright piano and guitar blend together.
Just like a metronome shouldn't make you stiff, it should just get you into the right place.

 

[oldNewbie]

+1 for Tonal Energy . Note also that especially for passages or music, TE is very sensitive to the attack , more so than , say, Tunable (dunno if Tunable can be fed files post-event) . In this way, it's a very good critic of the front of your notes. Well, mine anyway - if I play some music with any rhythm or tempo and see less than, heh , ideal scores, but hold an eighth note for a few beats to let the note stabilize , the score improves . For one thing, this gives me confidence in my left hand, and motivation for improving the bow. It's a good direction to head in , and ime a good use of technology.
I remember walking through a room at the 2019 ISB convention as vendors were packing up, and Sam Suggs IIRC was trying to get a bit pf practicing in in the middle of all the traffic, or maybe trying a bow or something and I think was playing a Bach cello suite very very nicely. There was some music on the floor and big iPad big, blinking green circles with "+1" typically in them. And what looked good on the screen sure sounded good. Fine intonation and good front on the notes... That's what you get for your 10,000 (+) hours and diligence!

 

[longfinger]

Melodyne is the king of software, for what it seems you want.

However, many DAWs have a pitch correction plugin built in now, just perhaps not as great sounding. For Instance, Logic X has it. You can record yourself, activate the FlexPitch and check it out.

I'm sure the other DAW's for Windows have similar built in plugins. Also, Melodyne will work as a plugin in your DAW too.

It will display the waveforms rising and falling on a grid with the piano keyboard on the left showing what the notes are. You'll see where you're sharp or flat based on a tuning Grid. (Right click on each note to get more info) I think you can modify the Grid tuning parameters too. (Global tuning, ET, Just, Meantone etc). Details may vary.

Many DAWs have it.. well because modern pop performers requires a lot of pitch correction. :-/