Transpose: Thoughts?

Hi again! I’ve been desperately waiting for a decent
TRANSPOSE function, so I don’t have to carry two guitars, but having tried
TRANSPOSE, it sounds awful, with artifacts galore. It’s pretty much no different to PITCH SHIFT.

Does anyone agree, or am I missing something?

Thanks!

Update: I’ve found if I turn off every effect, and only have amp and cabinet, i improves to a workable level. Still not perfect, but I think I can live with it. I’m guessing any modulation effects and possibly compressor affects the way Transpose works?

Was super excited to try transpose and immediately upon hitting the first chord I could hear a ton of artifacts. I had it first in the chain and plugged directly into the QC. Really wild how glitchy it is.

Transpose will glitch pretty noticeably even with basic octave or fifth chords. Add in another type of interval and it sounds like there’s a delay or tremolo on.

I compared it to Poly Capo from the HX Stomp and they were leagues apart. Transpose will glitch hard if you bend the chord you’re on. Poly Capo doesn’t glitch with bends or strange intervals.

I’m assuming people might not notice the artifacts because they’re either using tons of gain, or don’t really know what to listen for.

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Played through my board again a few minutes ago. Transpose does introduce some strange warbling artifacts, and really trips out if you do any sort of bends. Kinda sucks if you play any sort of Post Metal riffs and want a slow bend to it while doing an octave chord.

I think it “feels” better latency wise to use Transpose instead of Poly Capo before the QC. BUT I can hear all the artifacts and strange effects Transpose adds to the signal which throws me off more than the additional latency. This occurs if I go straight into the QC or have pedals in bypass in front of the unit.

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Make sure it’s the first thing in your signal chain.

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It is. Just is a glitchy pitch shifter. Hard to notice in any of the demos because there is a bunch of reverb/delay or distortion. Also easy to miss if it’s a YouTube video just playing from an iPad or phone

You can kind of hear it in the new Connearn vid- that metallic, artifacty sheen

I was also REALLY looking forward to having the transpose effect but it is completely unusable in my opinion. If I play more than 3 strings with a clean tone it’s just littered with artifacts. The plug-in on my Mac is the same way but I was hoping for better results with the QC. Only usable with high gain single notes or power chords but that’s not my thing so :-1: Very disappointing Neuro Team!

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It’s odd because the Transpose in the PC plugins is my second favorite, right after the Helix Poly Capo. Not sure what went wrong here…

I am a bit confused by the different statements. Seems some say the Transpose in the Plugins is good, but not on the QC.
Others say they’re the same, but both are bad?

I haven’t ever used the plugin version of Transpose, so can’t say. Just watched the Andertons video for the new update and can hear the Transpose glitching when they’re playing chords.

I do love the QC, and love that they’re finally adding the plugins, new effects, and the QC seems to run smoother with the update. Transpose could use some TLC though.

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I swapped out the pitch shifter for the new transpose feature on my main preset yesterday…and quickly switched back to the pitch shifter…
I don’t get how something like this could get WORSE.
FWIW, the Pitch shifter is pretty similar to the Poly Capo on the HX stomp in my testing…both are far from perfect.

I really hope they notice how bad this feature is and roll out an update to address it…at this point I wouldn’t care if they needed to use an entire DSP chip to make it work well.

I might be wrong, but my understanding was that Transpose is the same as in the plugins.
And that the main purpose was to have exactly the same behavior. Which may be better or worse as the pitch shifter depending on the situation.

I guess I just figured it would logically be an improvement on what was already there :man_shrugging:

Which pitchshifter is better then those two in your experience?

Honestly, the Digitech Drop pedal or the EHX Pitchfork. They are, of course, standalone pedals so there’s that to factor in
I have not tried the Fractal stuff to asses their transpose feature, but I assume it is pretty good

Poly Capo is absolutely better than Transpose (on QC) and the Digitech Drop. There is an X Stable function (extra stable) option on Poly Capo that makes it really good. It also has an EQ built into it that helps keep the guitar signal similar to when it isn’t pitch shifted. Most pitch shifters like that will darken the signal. The Poly Capo was designed by the same people who worked at Digitech and made the Drop pedal.

I wouldn’t rank Transpose anywhere near Poly Capo. They’re very different in sound, and only Poly Capo sounds remotely good. Transpose warbles so much it sounds like a trem or vibrato is on the guitar if you do a chord.

I wouldn’t really use these pitch shifters for records much, but Poly Capo is totally passable live. Would rather use a baritone in the studio instead of a pitch shifter if it was a main guitar track on an album.

I did consider selling my HX Stomps (I have one for pitch shifting and one as a backup for an amp sim live) to get a second QC, but transpose was so weird I couldn’t imagine using it live.

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Pitch shifting on the FM9 also has some artifacts. The only solution I’ve seen that doesn’t is Line6 Variax which has a separate pickup for each string.

I can’t imagine there never being artifacts when pitch shifting/transposing. By nature of shifting sound down (therein stretching the audio wave,) it will affect the sound, especially when listening at 100% wet.

I’m not saying some ways of transposing aren’t more effective than others, but if you want zero artifacts live, you need a second guitar.

It’s funny to see this topic; I just made a topic over on the FAS forums asking when they’re going to improve their pitch shifting to be in line with (as good as) Helix and QC!

I think both Transpose and the Pitch Shifter are VERY good in the QC. Frankly, I can’t tell the difference, except that Transpose has fewer options (literally one knob to raise or lower the pitch by semitones; we play Black Hole Sun, which it tuned up 75 cents, so the Transpose block wouldn’t work since it needs to be raised by one semitone then lowerd 25 cents). I think the QC’s pitch shifting is as good as the Helix/Drop and much better than the Fractal stuff, particularly for clean guitar or bass. Once you have some overdrive, it hides most of the artifacts, so they’re all pretty much on equal footing once you’re playing with some hair.

That said, I would love for someone at NDSP to actually explain the differences in the blocks other than the obvious parameter differences. I literally compared them side by side for a good 30 minutes and couldn’t tell any variation between them when pitch shifted/transposed down, say, a half step.

Regardless, I’m very happy with them as a bass player - I don’t know why Fractal can’t seem to get pitch shifting right for bass, but that’s why I’m on QC now and not my FM3 :frowning:

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