Celemony Does It Again

Another component in the audio restorers toolbox. Mr Rose will be drooling.

http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=capstan

Mr Rose will be drooling.

Only at the price!!

"Capstan will be released in mid June 2011 and is likely to cost €3,790"

OUCH!!!!

Time for David Johnston to come along and totally undercut these guys with a simple tool for Audition.  As he's done before with other tools!

Time for David Johnston to come along and totally undercut these guys with a simple tool for Audition.  As he's done before with other tools!

Alas, I've heard recently that he has nothing to do with the software any more - he's dissociated from it completely, apparently.

Time for David Johnston to come along and totally undercut these guys with a simple tool for Audition.  As he's done before with other tools!

I suspect that the people at Izotope are more likely to be the ones to create a useful competitor. Something for RX3 perhaps? Cedar are the other people who might do something like this although possibly they don't see it as particularly important.

Edit... I just noticed that Cedar have announced something at

http://www.cedaraudio.com/news/respeed_launch.html

James.

I just noticed that Cedar have announced something

That'll be another arm and a leg then .

Alas, I've heard recently that he has nothing to do with the software any more - he's dissociated from it completely, apparently.

Oh dear, that's quite the sad news.  That means we're now (in the software universe) deists if the creator has dissassociated himself.  So sorry to hear this.

Yes, iZotope is the one to watch, I agree.

That means we're now (in the software universe) deists if the creator has disassociated himself. 

That puts me in mind of another question. Ignoring the causal aspects of this, I wonder if he even knows about the current state of the software, or doesn't care about it, or whether he cares and doesn't know?

Mr Rose will be drooling.

Only at the price!!

"Capstan will be released in mid June 2011 and is likely to cost €3,790"

OUCH!!!!

And by the look of it I'd have to add a separate new PC with 64-bit Windows to the bill as I've no current plans to change OS's on my current main PCs. I've stumped up for some reasonably pricey software (and hardware) before now but this is out of my league for the foreseeable future.

Out of curiosity, I looked at both of these offerings - only in terms of what they claim to do, not actually trying them, you'll understand.

Celemony said "Capstan detects wow and flutter by analyzing the musical material itself, so the medium is of no relevance."

As far as I can see, if I took a typical unaccompanied choir recording with its inevitable pitch inaccuracies, both of them would use the pitch information available to determine the speed inaccuracies of my digitally-clocked recording, and correct it for me. Wow! Or should that be Flutter?

Cedar's claim is perhaps slightly better. "Respeed™ automatically identifies - or allows the user interactively to identify - unwanted speed changes contained within the presented audio."

Here, at least you seem to be able to exercise some choice....

But these are both essentially varispeed devices, and all you are doing is determining the speed/pitch correction algorithm using slightly different criteria than ones that have been used before. Of course, the more obfuscation you see in the descriptions of how it's done, the less there actually is involved, as a rule (think about it...) But I think that I may be about to set a certain team of designers a bit of a challenge!

As for either of these being worth some stupid amount of Euros, I rather think not. Can you honestly see them selling any more than a handful at those sorts of prices?

Given how little the big record companies are currently spending on this kind of work, and how little the smaller companies can afford to pay for it, certainly in the historical market across just about all genres - and the number of cases where it's actually necessary - I find it hard to see how they can sell many copies at all. Over the course of preparing over 500 CDs of historic classical, jazz and blues releases I can only think of a small handful - single figures - where this would have been nice to have, and perhaps only a couple where it would have saved a great deal of work manually "straightening out" wow using AA3's pitch bend tools. None of the recordings was a great seller and between them revenues wouldn't have come anywhere near covering the cost of the software.

I like a couple of the features shown in the promo video, though generally they're only fixing slightly more easily and quickly what I'm already managing to do already - accurate repitching to A440 and automating (to a degree) the kind of repitching that AA's pitch bender can handle. As for the comment about off-centre record pressings - well I've a much simpler and cheaper solution: a slender circular file to enlarge the centre hole in the desired direction and the careful positioning of the record. It rarely takes more than a minute to eliminate this source of wow from a 78 or an LP.

Ultimately I simply don't think it's worth the money - and I don't think it'll be long before a copycat product is available at a fraction of the price. Good luck to them - but I rather splash out on a tool to reliably eliminate disc swish than wow and flutter; it's far more common and much more of a nuisance to me.

Yup!

I think Andrew sums up my feelings exactly.

It would be a useful tool to have in the box but, at the sort of prices these guys will want to charge, there really is little or no market and I could think of plenty of more useful things to spend the money on..

Looks like I'll be eating my words on Capstan...

I've been working on a series of piano recordings from the early 1930s and felt the pitch wasn't quite as stable as it could be, with flutter detectable at times and a general sense of wobbliness, if there's such a thing. So I got in touch with Celemony and they put me onto Mathis Nitschke, the product specialist you'll see in the video on their site. He's done some processing for me on some of these piano recordings and the results have left me anticipating a significant hole in my pocket very soon (although the final retail price is now expected to be a little less than the website currently suggests, and I can reclaim 19% sales tax, it's still a hefty wad of cash that I'm trying not to think about too hard).

My dilemma is simple: once I'd heard the results on my own material, and heard the remarkable way it "solidifies" a piano (for want of a better term), I realised reluctantly that there's no going back to remastering historic recordings without it. The recordings I work on generally don't exist without some kind of measurable wow and flutter, and even if it's not obvious to most listeners (and some are more sensitive to it than others), the before and after comparison is tangible and produces a real improvement even on well-recorded material - and especially on piano recordings. I simply don't feel I can continue a major piano recording cycle (Beethoven's 32 sonatas, recorded 1932-35 by Artur Schnabel) knowing what Capstan can do for it without using it.

So curse you, monarchee, for telling me about this!!!! 

But seriously, I'll let our accountant curse you and I'll say thanks - it really does seem indispensable now I've heard it in action, and the first CD release using it anywhere will be on our label very shortly. I'll post a link to a preview movement at some point soon if anyone's interested, and I'll let you know how I get on with it when I actually get my own hands on a copy.

Looks like I'll be eating my words on Capstan...

Oh dearie me.

Actually, I did think about it, when the first post appeared, and wondered if I might have the same experience as you had - once "heard", it beomes a must-have tool.

Bearing mind your comments, I'm rather glad I'm in the process of winding down my business, since I would hate to have to part with that sort of money .

Oh dearie me.  I may need to send you some work, Andrew.  Graeme, thinking of retiring?