Make whole sample the same pitch/frequency?

[spitfire1]

Hey guys hope you are having a good day.

I have this audio file of the inside of a car while driving so the rpms of the engine are going up and down and constantly changing pitch/frequency. I need a looping rpm engine sound for a video game that stays in the same frequency/pitch all throughout. I tried working around it by grabbing a part of the audio file where the engine is fairly level in rpms and not always reving like on a straight road and then tried to copy and reversing to make it loop but you can always hear how it is constantly going up and down in pitch frequency. I mean it is not alot but it is bothering me and it makes the video game i am trying to put this engine sound into sound wrong as a result like the engine is broken.

What i am looking for is a plugin or a software that can import or change this engine sound sample and level out all the pitch/frequency change within the sample. I saw some plugin called levelator but i have not yet seen if it does pitch as well as volume but i only need to level out the pitch nothing else.

Regards, spitfire1.

[steve]

I have this audio file of the inside of a car while driving so the rpms of the engine are going up and down and constantly changing pitch/frequency.

If it's a real engine recording (not synthesized) then it won't be only the pitch that's changing, but also the timbre (harmonic content), pulse rate (speed of successive cylinder exhausts), resonances and other aspects of the sound that will also be changing. Even if you manage to make the pitch to remain constant, it will probably still not loop very well.

Some possible solutions:

• Find a loop that someone has already made (try freesound.org)
• Take a very short sample of the engine sound (say equivalent to one complete engine rotation) and repeat it until it is long enough for your loop.
• Synthesize the engine sound (Google has some tips)
• Record longer samples so that you have one long sample for each gear change
• Use an obviously "stylized" sound rather than a "realistic" engine sound.

[spitfire1]

I have this audio file of the inside of a car while driving so the rpms of the engine are going up and down and constantly changing pitch/frequency.

If it's a real engine recording (not synthesized) then it won't be only the pitch that's changing, but also the timbre (harmonic content), pulse rate (speed of successive cylinder exhausts), resonances and other aspects of the sound that will also be changing. Even if you manage to make the pitch to remain constant, it will probably still not loop very well.

Some possible solutions:

• Find a loop that someone has already made (try freesound.org)
• Take a very short sample of the engine sound (say equivalent to one complete engine rotation) and repeat it until it is long enough for your loop.
• Synthesize the engine sound (Google has some tips)
• Record longer samples so that you have one long sample for each gear change
• Use an obviously "stylized" sound rather than a "realistic" engine sound.

Thank you for the detailed answer. I will answer in more detail later today. I would prefer the real engine recording . I will try to make shorter loop like one engine rotation and then repeat that in a loop. I should say the sample is about 3 seconds but there can be up to a minute long. Would the length change the effect do you think?

Is there are plugin that automatically and seamlessly/smoothly creates a loop of the sample by fading in/out and reversing possibly?

[DVDdoug]

Is there are plugin that automatically and seamlessly/smoothly creates a loop of the sample by fading in/out and reversing possibly?

You can make a crossfade. I'd try a crossfade of 1/2 second or so, but if the sound is very-consistent a few milliseconds may work. The sound & crossfade probably won't be perfectly consistent so you may need to very the crossfade so you don't hear the same crossfade repeated over and over.

If you take a 3-second sample and double it 5 times, that's 96 seconds (minus the time lost during the crossfades) so that's manageable.

[spitfire1]

Is there are plugin that automatically and seamlessly/smoothly creates a loop of the sample by fading in/out and reversing possibly?

You can make a crossfade. I'd try a crossfade of 1/2 second or so, but if the sound is very-consistent a few milliseconds may work. The sound & crossfade probably won't be perfectly consistent so you may need to very the crossfade so you don't hear the same crossfade repeated over and over.

If you take a 3-second sample and double it 5 times, that's 96 seconds (minus the time lost during the crossfades) so that's manageable.

Thank you DVDdoug. I will try that.

Below is a video of the sounds in action. I need to fix that inconsistency in them as well as somehow get rid of the noise in the background but i wouldn't know how to do that without compromising the engine note.

Video:
https://youtu.be/Kdm-lnUO0ks