Speed Control on MZ-E10 & -N10

[Jason]

Anyone with an MZ-E10 or MZ-N10 tell me,

does the (DPC) speed control sound okay on these units?

I know that sometimes, having speed/tempo changes without accompanying pitch changes will make music sound choppy or robotic, like on some karaoke players, wave editors, and dj cd players. I'd rather have the high or low pitched sounds, if this is the case.

[Leland]

It sounds as you describe, choppy and robotic. Based on your post, you would not like it at more than say 5% plus or minus, which is the minimum change.

[darK (aka Tharaka)]

i have a R700 with the hack that gives it extra features...

when i speed up or slow down... i didnt think that it sounds choppy or robotic..

but then again.. maybe the n10/e10 speed control is different to the r900

[Leland]

Does the pitch change with the R700? With the N10, the pitch is kept constant, which results in the choppiness. It could just be my impression of it also, but I didn't think it sounded great when I just tried it.

[darK (aka Tharaka)]

Does the pitch change with the R700?  With the N10, the pitch is kept constant, which results in the choppiness.  It could just be my impression of it also, but I didn't think it sounded great when I just tried it.

i'm not sure what 'pitch' is exactly.. but when the speed changes the voices are higher and when you slow it.. the voices are lower... like that.. is that 'pitch'??

[Leland]

Yup. That's pitch. That is relatively easier to do, since you can scale pitch with speed and keep everything constant. Kind of like pressing your thumb on a phonograph album to slow it down.

On the N10, Sony has tried to make it so the music doesn't go higher or lower when the speed is increased or decreased respectively. This is done using digital tricks, but introduces some artifacts. This was the concern of the original poster. He would prefer what you have to what is on the N10. Thanks for clarifying, now I know it wasn't just poor listening skills making me think it sounded choppy and robotic. It does!

[Jason]

Thanks for your replies. If the N10 firmware is upgradable (is it?), I'll request that Sony add a feature to disable the pitch lock when adjusting the tempo. Else, I'll just go ahead an buy an N1.

[Leland]

Don't hold your breath. I have never seen a feature added after launch. The only possibility would be as a plug in for SonicStage. There is the sound effects menu, which currently only has a "vocals cancellation" feature (for karaoke, I guess). If Sony published the specs for these plug in's it would be cool to have people write tools to do things, such as the one you want. Otherwise, it sounds like the N1 it is!

[Bazirker]

Robotic and choppy...how bad? Is there any way that someone could record a sample of a song clip at normal tempo, then with some tempo changes? The tempo but not pitch changing would be a HUGE plus for me if it sound good...I play saxophone, and being abled to change the speed of play-along music would be very cool. (That won't work if the pitch is changed unless the change is a perfect octave...)

[Leland]

It seems like if you are playing along, you won't hear much, you are using it like a sophisticated metronome, so perhaps it doesn't matter. It does work, but it does sound choppy and robotic. How bad is hard to say, I think you have to listen for yourself and judge. The adjustments are fairly crude, with the available settings as follows:

-50, -25, -20, -10, -5, 0, +5, +10, +25, +33, +50, +100 (all expressed as percents.)

[Bazirker]

Is there any way that I could obtain record samples of different speeds so I could judge how it sounds? I live in the US, and there is nowhere within at least 100 miles of here that I could go to try and check out an N10 after they come out.