Pitchmap Colors: Affordable Harmonic Correction Plugin

Tutorial | Oct 27, 2023

In this video, I discuss the features and benefits of the pitchmap colors plugin by Zynaptic. While the original pitchmap is quite expensive, this smaller and cheaper version still offers the same pitch correction capabilities. Whether you're a color-based producer looking to correct overtones in bass sounds or you're seeking to add tonality to your tracks, pitchmap colors is a versatile tool that can be used in various musical applications.

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Questions & Answers #

Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

What is the main purpose of the pitchmap colors plugin? #

The main purpose of the pitchmap colors plugin is to correct or adjust pitches and harmonics to a specific scale that is dialed in by the user. It is particularly popular among color-based producers who use it to correct overtones in bass sounds.

How does pitchmap colors differ from the original pitchmap plugin? #

Pitchmap colors is a smaller, simpler, and more affordable version of the original pitchmap plugin. It lacks some of the features found in the original, such as the matrix, threshold, field, purify, glide, and algorithm changes. However, it still performs the same function of correcting pitches and harmonics.

In what ways can pitchmap colors be used? #

Pitchmap colors can be used in various ways. It can be used to correct pitches and harmonics in bass sounds, create tonal material from harmonic material, process radio or random sources for sampling, order overtones in atonal tracks or grid experiments, and bring tonality to percussion sounds.

What are the drawbacks of pitchmap colors? #

One drawback of pitchmap colors is its price point, with the normal price being almost $400. However, it can often be found on sale or at a discounted price. Another drawback is that it uses iLok, which may be a limitation for some users.

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00:00] Hey folks, welcome back to another video on this Friday.
[00:00:03] Today it's about pitchmap colors that you can see in the background here by Zynaptic
[00:00:09] and it's the smaller and most important cheaper brother of the original pitchmap here that
[00:00:15] I feature a lot on this channel.
[00:00:17] And the biggest complaint I get about this plug-in is the price point because it's almost
[00:00:22] 400 bucks at normal price.
[00:00:24] I got this back in the day for 150 bucks on a sale, but it's still very expensive.
[00:00:30] And it got famous among color-based producers in the recent years and they used this to
[00:00:35] correct overtones from bass sounds.
[00:00:39] And so Zynaptic came up with the idea, that's I think how it went, with the idea to make
[00:00:45] a smaller, simpler and cheaper plug-in for these kind of color-based producers and just
[00:00:50] call it pitchmap colors.
[00:00:52] So it misses some features from the original.
[00:00:55] You can see here the matrix is gone, threshold, field, purify, glide, electrify, algorithm
[00:01:01] changes all gone in the newer thing here.
[00:01:05] It's dumped down, it's a bit simpler, it's almost better to use in my opinion in certain
[00:01:10] ways.
[00:01:12] So yeah, that's what it's different, but it does the same thing.
[00:01:16] It's correct or tries to correct pitches or harmonics to a scale that you dial in here.
[00:01:24] So then we have here already some nice words, sick, insane, what the fuck.
[00:01:29] So it's not the boomer plug-in, it's not made for boomers, but you can still use it of course.
[00:01:33] It changes basically the sound, the tonality of the pitch correction, I show you this in
[00:01:39] a minute.
[00:01:40] Then we have here a piano roll where you can dial in the notes you want to have or you
[00:01:44] want to correct the harmonics too.
[00:01:48] Then here is we have some low cut, we have a high cut, also min pitch, max pitch, which
[00:01:54] means basically you can exclude certain harmonics or pitches from correction.
[00:02:00] So that's neat if you want to not process the fundamental of your bass sound for instance.
[00:02:07] You want to keep the sub untouched, right?
[00:02:09] You only want to correct the overtones, the harmonics of the bass sound.
[00:02:14] Then we have here some snapshots, you can dial in your own scales here and then quickly
[00:02:20] recall them with these snapshots.
[00:02:22] You can also use automation for that to switch from one scale to the other scale quickly.
[00:02:27] You can also use MIDI input here, so you can use the MIDI keyword or the piano roll to
[00:02:32] change the scale on the fly.
[00:02:34] You can also inside of Bitwig use your note receiver and grab notes from a different channel
[00:02:40] or track and then use that in here.
[00:02:42] That's also possible.
[00:02:44] Then we have down here some options, scale shift, you can transpose the whole result
[00:02:51] of this plug in up to 24 semitones up and 24 semitones down, so two octaves.
[00:02:58] You can change the pitch rounding.
[00:03:01] You can bypass what you exclude here with the min pitch and the max pitch.
[00:03:05] You can also put this to mute or pie pass depends on what you want to do.
[00:03:11] Pied Pies, Form and Shift, let's put this here to zero and FMD Gamma.
[00:03:16] This changes the sound a lot.
[00:03:18] It's almost like a low pass, but I show you this a minute how it sounds.
[00:03:23] Here we have basically just the saw lead.
[00:03:27] This is actually the correct plug in.
[00:03:35] This original one, just delete this.
[00:03:37] You see I'll need this one.
[00:03:39] Just the original sound.
[00:03:43] Just the saw with unison on there.
[00:03:47] Then you put this pitchmap colors on there.
[00:04:03] SIG is the most subtle one.
[00:04:05] This one sounds very spectralish here.
[00:04:17] Also interesting is instead of unison here, let's use a simple saw.
[00:04:30] And maybe use a pit crusher here, pit eight on that.
[00:04:34] Let's see.
[00:04:36] Most of the time this sounds very nice.
[00:04:51] Maybe use here a sign and pit crush this.
[00:05:18] And this one tries to correct everything to the right scale.
[00:05:23] So maybe let's use your bass sound.
[00:05:28] Let's try this one.
[00:05:36] Put this in.
[00:05:43] And then use your pitchmap colors.
[00:05:48] Dial in the scale.
[00:06:09] So now that you have this, you can use your min pitch.
[00:06:12] You can exclude certain low frequencies.
[00:06:15] It sounds like a low cut.
[00:06:23] And then you can put everything that you excluded here from the pitch correction you can put
[00:06:28] in with the bypass option.
[00:06:31] So with this, you get basically the original untouched, unprocessed low end and the pitch
[00:06:39] corrected top end on top.
[00:07:03] The bass sound.
[00:07:32] Just a format shift, scale shift.
[00:07:44] So this is how it sounds on bass sounds.
[00:07:47] But I usually don't use this on bass sounds at all.
[00:07:50] I'm also not a color bass producer, right?
[00:07:54] So I'm doing ambient and some drum bass stuff.
[00:07:58] So I use this most of the times to get a tonal material into harmonic material.
[00:08:04] So here I have it, that's sometimes what I do.
[00:08:07] I have it on a radio station, actually.
[00:08:12] Let's put this here on random.
[00:08:14] So there's a random radio station running in the background.
[00:08:27] And then you can use basically a radio source or random source, whatever it is, and correct
[00:08:34] everything to the right scale and then resample it and use it in the sampler or maybe use it
[00:08:39] as a loop in the background.
[00:08:42] So radio in combination with pitch map is always a win for me and a nice sample source.
[00:08:50] You can use this in all kinds of different radio stations.
[00:08:52] Sometimes also, let's try it here.
[00:08:59] .
[00:09:24] And then you sample this and use it for whatever.
[00:09:28] So radio and pitch map always nice.
[00:09:32] Then I use it here also on a track where I do some grid stuff in Bitwig Studio, very
[00:09:40] atonal things here, a lot of phase modulation.
[00:09:46] And then I use basically pitch map to order all these overtones.
[00:10:15] I also use pitch map in combination with my Eurorack sometimes when you make experiments
[00:10:21] with Eurorack and you probably know that you get out of pitch very quickly with Eurorack
[00:10:27] and when you mess around with frequencies.
[00:10:31] So I used to do that on my Eurorack and then just put a pitch map on that and then resample
[00:10:37] it and reuse it in projects.
[00:10:42] So also Eurorack or grid experimentations here in combination with pitch maps, it's
[00:10:47] really nice.
[00:10:48] I do this all the time.
[00:10:51] Then another example is here to use percussion sounds.
[00:10:56] So pitch map then becomes more like a resonator in a way, a spectral resonator.
[00:11:04] So it's just some percussion sounds.
[00:11:06] Then I put your filter on it with a lot of resonance and it's tonality wise or pitch
[00:11:16] wise, it's all over the place.
[00:11:20] And then you use pitch map colors on that.
[00:11:27] Let's change the samples.
[00:11:41] And then basically a nice reverb or delay on that and you have new material that's completely
[00:11:46] in tune with your current project.
[00:11:49] So it's not only nice for bass sounds, color bass sounds, that's what I want to say.
[00:11:57] So use it on bass, use it on radio material, source random samples, use it on grid experiments
[00:12:04] or on Eurorack results or Eurorack experimentations.
[00:12:11] Also in percussion it's very nice to bring some tonality to drums or percussion sounds.
[00:12:18] You can almost use it like a spectral resonator and has some options.
[00:12:25] You can use to change the tonality down here.
[00:12:28] FMD gamma is nice.
[00:12:30] All these presets sound kind of nice.
[00:12:32] SIG is the subtlest one so you can also maybe use it for vocals in a way.
[00:12:37] But I use it most of the times like an audio effect.
[00:12:41] It's not like I want to correct something like vocals or something like that or make
[00:12:46] something sound nice.
[00:12:47] It's more like an effect to me and I know it sounds very spectral-ish.
[00:12:52] But I like it and sometimes it's nice to create samples with that.
[00:12:57] So the link is down in the description below.
[00:12:59] Like I said it costs 99 bucks.
[00:13:01] The only downside is it uses iLog in my opinion but that's how it is.
[00:13:08] I'm not affiliated with Synaptic.
[00:13:10] They got me this here for free, a free NFR license and yeah, that's all.
[00:13:16] So thanks for watching.
[00:13:17] Leave a like if you liked the video.
[00:13:20] Subscribe to the channel.
[00:13:21] Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
[00:13:23] Bye.
[00:13:23] [BLANK_AUDIO]