rbpitch: Rhythmbox Pitch/Tempo Shifting

[allquixotic]

rbpitch is a plugin for Rhythmbox that lets you change the pitch, tempo, and speed in real-time while playing a song. It needs testing, popularity, and bug fixing -- you can help! Just trying it and reporting your findings here will be immensely helpful!

And you might find it useful, too: I've heard that it is useful for dance lessons, guitar practice, and singing. I personally just enjoy the aesthetics of changing the pitch, tempo, and speed of my music.

The new homepage for rbpitch is on Launchpad: http://launchpad.net/rbpitch You can find downloads, information, source code and a bug tracker there. Binaries are available for Ubuntu 10.10, 11.04, and 11.10! Visit the Launchpad site and look for "END USER INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS"! For those running other distros, you can check out the source code and read the file README.txt for instructions to compile from source. This thread is very old and contains obsolete / incorrect build instructions; please disregard them!

My plan for the future is to support the latest stable version of Ubuntu with binary packages that can be installed through Ubuntu Software Center (download a .deb file and double-click it). For other distros running a recent version of Rhythmbox (I currently require Rhythmbox v0.13.0 or later), you will have to build from source. But it is much easier now than it used to be!

rbpitch was inspired by Olli Parviainen's excellent PaceMaker plugin for WinAmp. WinAmp and PaceMaker won't run on GNU/Linux, though. Rhythmbox is an excellent media player, and rbpitch makes it that much better!




Thanks,

Sean

[wilee-nilee]

I am curious as to what you are using this for.

[allquixotic]

From the readme:

Q: What are the possible uses of rbpitch?
A: Borrowed from http://surina.net/pacemaker by Olli Parviainen (no infringement intended):
*Slower music tempo eases practicing music
*Change the music key to match the singer's voice (karaoke, singing practice)
*Dancers can change the music tempo suitable for dancing
*Adjust music key instead of retuning instrument for each song
*Listen 78 RPM vinyl singles with a usual 33/45 RPM disc player
*Transcribe tunes
*Write down dictations


My "real" use of it only fits into the "change the music key to match the singer's voice for karaoke" use. However, even when I'm not singing, I use it just for fun. I find that changing the pitch/tempo of a song slightly increases the number of times I can listen to it without it getting boring -- or a song that I've worn out suddenly becomes significantly less worn out.

There is actually substantial academic research indicating that mild pitch/tempo shifting causes sounds to seem more varied and interesting, stimulating brain activity. It is frequently used in computer games for things like footsteps that play repetitively over and over.

Some people just can't fathom listening to a song in a different pitch or tempo because it deviates from the original. I don't care to break people of this kind of perception, but I know there a lot of people out there who don't hold this sort of bias.

So, aside from the "real" practical uses stated in the readme file, I'd say that I mainly pitch or tempo shift for pure fun or "ear candy". But it really is useful to train my voice (especially when singing in a foreign language!) by slowing down the tempo a lot until I can pronounce the syllables just right.

I developed this app with myself as a user in mind; hopefully other users who share similar interests will also find it useful.

EDIT: Even if these don't seem like compelling reasons for you to use rbpitch, keep in mind the requirements of rbpitch:

Disk space: 96KB for binaries only; the source files are just 30KB.

Runtime overhead: zero if the plugin is not loaded (the user can choose whether to load it or not). If the plugin is loaded but not being used for pitch shifting, runtime overhead is only a few kb of memory. And it needs about 1.5% usage of one core of a Core i7 2.6GHz while actively performing pitch shifting on a playing song.

The cost of initial integration is higher (in man-hours), but this is a one time cost that can be shared among teams from different distributions if we cooperate. I've already done the hard work and developed the code, and I am committed to continued support for bugfixes, security, and features that would not significantly add to the requirements or dependencies.

Thanks,

Sean

[wilee-nilee]

Thanks for the information, the reason I asked is that having aquired pitch myself, I wasn't born with perfect pitch but aquired it through years of playing. so having music in; A 440 reference is more enjoyable for me. Although I belive Baroque pitch was 338 I could be wrong though. I think having the option to change it and the speed is a good idea for those that it benifits. I would be curious to see the research you reference can you at least post the names of the authors I can find it for free via my college library.

[allquixotic]

Actually, I don't have a reference to a peer reviewed article or anything like that. I picked up this anecdotal thesis that "occasional pitch variation increases replayability of familiar songs and stimulates brain activity" in college -- from something I heard in a lecture. I'm not sure if the professor was referring to some literature they'd read; I wish I had asked them!

The closest thing I can find is this page from a musicology class: http://www.musiccog.ohio-state.edu/M...s/Scherer.html

The first chart on that page seems to suggest that different pitches and tempos induce different ratings or emotional states. This is kind of a duh when you think about it -- if you listen to slow, plodding music with uniform and steady tones, it's likely to put you to sleep. But if you listen to highly varied, rapidly changing, dynamic melodies, it's likely to wake you up if you're feeling drowsy!

What this plugin allows you to do is to take any given song and pretty much tailor it to the mood you want. If I love the lyrics of a really fast song, but its pitch and tempo are too manic for my mood (maybe I want to chill out in the evening), I can shift down the pitch slightly, and the tempo even more, to make the song easier to process, and actually less stimulating. OTOH, if I want to take a relaxing song and blaze through it in a fraction of the time, I can do that -- the result will be anything but relaxing.

The other point I wanted to make is that these pitch/tempo shifts keep the music "fresh". Surely you can see that by shifting the pitch and tempo sufficiently, the similarity between the original recording and what you're hearing diverges. This creates a sense of novelty that you haven't heard these particular tones at this particular speed before, and thus can help you enjoy a song that currently instills boredom just by thinking about it.

This is actually a fertile area for higher level research in cross-disciplinary studies (music theory + sociology + psychology). I bet you could even make a compelling case for encouraging employees who listen to music while they work to vary the pitch/tempo a bit to stimulate brain activity. Especially where people listen to the same fixed set of tracks for weeks or months on end (not all that uncommon I'd think), you don't want them to become bored of what they're listening to. This boredom might reflect in their diligence and the level of effort they put into their job. Maybe all they need (besides a new, fresh set of tunes) is to start pitch/tempo shifting their existing collection of music.

I know that's probably taking it too far beyond the realm of practical believability, but I don't think I'm going out on such a shaky limb by saying there are people out there who will find interesting uses of these three simple musical transformations (namely, pitch shifting, tempo shifting, and pitch+tempo shifting together).

Anyway, that's pretty off topic even within this thread. I've established my rationale for the program's existence; if you disagree with it, nothing compels you to use it. One of the reasons I created this thread is to determine how many people actually agree with my rationale -- people who actually think, "yeah, I could use something like that", or "yeah, that would be fun!". If it turns out to be no one but me, oh well -- in the worst case, I'll have written a program that makes me happy. Too bad for those who find it doesn't do the same for them.


Thanks for your feedback,

Sean

[wilee-nilee]

The link is a good source there are other studies mentioned within it, so when I have time I will definitely look for the studies. I like mixed media art, like mixtures of genres, spoken word and visual all together. Music and pitch and rhythm seem to be part of a hard wired structure in the brain although measuring the depth of it has so many variables. The work of biologists recording bird songs and other communications with various species find that rhythm and pitch are part of the communication and used for various activities. For somebody like myself basically a classically trained musician, who branched out to playing Jazz professionally, along with mixed media expression that was at times completely improvisational music has different effects. I would rather play in a minor key, and when I came across a chord that was major even if it had a lot of extra altered notes like flatted 4th raised 5th etc I generally play it with the relative minor as the tone centre which gives it a interesting sound being that the relative minor is the same scale but starting on the 6th note of the scale. There are two major figures in altered pitch expression; a more mathematical approach the first is Nicholas Slonimsky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Slonimsky The next is George Russell who wrote a book called Lydian Chromatic Concepts which is a very interesting approach to scales and chords. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_...%28composer%29 George Russell influenced a ton of players from Miles Davis to John Coltrane, Frank Zappa and many others including myself. If a person has studied this book you can easily recognize somebody who is using this methodology. Although one of the best Fusion Guitarists in the world Allan Holdsworth sounds like he has studied Russells book in actuality he is self taught, but his biggest influence is John Coltrane so he is using the method but without actually studying it. Holdsworth is an amazing player I saw an interview with him and he said basically he just looks at the fret board and sees all the possibilities, this is a paraphrase, but he is truly an amazing player. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxx9i...eature=related Yes that is Chad Wackerman on the drums who played with Zappa I have seen Vinnie Colaiuta play with him as well another Zappa alumnae. A little off topic but I think any investigation into music and how it might affect us is a good one. For me being that I have studied music theory and play multiple instruments and many styles and genres I fall out of the mainstream as far as what I can tolerate in speed and pitch or dissonance the more complex it is the more I like it generally, but I also like all kinds of music from Megadeath to Nirvana to John Coltrane to Duke Ellington to Thelonius Monk---etc it is all artistic expression and is all valid. Sorry for the one paragraph but I have the flash blocked so I think this keeps it all bundled together.

[Fufkin]

Thank you!

I have literally been searching and requesting exactly this since I started using linux 4 years ago. I google "linux pacemaker equivalent" every few months hoping and praying, and today it paid off!

If it works then I would love to donate some cash to help development - I'm afraid that's the only kind of support I can offer.

I'm eager to try it out, but I've gotta be honest all this compiling stuff looks pretty intimidating. I'll see how far I get.

[allquixotic]

Fufkin,

Don't worry -- what I'm going to do is build a .deb package that you can install for the version of Ubuntu you're using.

Please state the version of Ubuntu you use and the architecture (32-bit or 64-bit).

Please keep in mind that, if things go well, this plugin will be shipped by default in a future version of Ubuntu. The manual compiling step is a temporary thing while I try to get this integrated upstream.

Until then I will provide a hand-rolled .deb that's convenient for you to install.

Best,

Sean

[Fufkin]

Fufkin,

Don't worry -- what I'm going to do is build a .deb package that you can install for the version of Ubuntu you're using.

Please state the version of Ubuntu you use and the architecture (32-bit or 64-bit).

Please keep in mind that, if things go well, this plugin will be shipped by default in a future version of Ubuntu. The manual compiling step is a temporary thing while I try to get this integrated upstream.

Until then I will provide a hand-rolled .deb that's convenient for you to install.

Best,

Sean

Thanks man, that's great! I've got to admit I gave up on the manual compiling.

I am using Ubuntu 9.10 32bit.

[mike.thorton]

I don't understand wilee-nilee's replys at all, but... I'm really interested to the plugin. I need it to practice playing the guitar.

I'm not familiar with the compiling and programming though.

I've already managed to do:

git clone git://tiyukquellmalz.org/rbpitch

but I'm not able to do anything else. See the output of next command:

sudo bash local-install
make: *** No rule to make target `clean'.  Stop.

Would be nice to give us step by step instructions. Linux for human beings

Thanks very much! Good job. Looking forward to test it.

P.S. If you want, you are free to set up your own PPA on launchpad...then it's just a short step to 1) distribute it to people via adding PPA, 2) ask ubuntu maintainers to include the plugin by default. I would like to see it by default in 10.04.