I am recording lots of sounds around in my apartment, using sticks, mallets, and various objects to create percussion sounds.
Now I would like to find a great plugin for pitching this mostly “mid/high”-frequency hits down to low rumbles, while still maintaining the texture and character of them.
Any suggestions? I’ve tried pitching and tuning in Logic, but it does not sound good. I am sure there is a much better plugin for this?
hello
there is a little demo of pitching here :
but in my opinion when you try to pitch a lot some sample you reach a point where the structure of the original sound is a little destroy
i use another software to pitch sample and when the result is what i have expected for my composition i save it into wav file and import it in a audio track in my DAW, ok it is a long manipulation but i prefer do it in this way
in reaper by example you can pitch directly your sample in the track it works well, i think that all DAW can do that in cubase you cab edit your sample but i don’t use it so i have no information of the capability of the wave editor of cubase
i am also interresting for a plugin in order to put automation on the pitch
That’s kind of the Holy Grail there; down pitching without artifacts. 
I don’t think there is any approach that works great in every situation. It takes manual sound design to do it well.
One approach is to just resample (no “real” processing), layering the sound with versions of itself at different pitches, EQd, saturated, compressed etc to blend nicely. That way, you completely avoid the pitch shift artifacts, but still have proper material to cover the desired frequency range.
Oh, and speaking of blending; it can be really useful to have sounds intermodulate in various ways, to make them sound like one, rather than separate layers. Apply distortion or compression to the mixed layers, use a bit of AM, FM or ring modulation; that sort of stuff. Make the layers interact in an organic fashion, like they would if they were actual sounds emitted from the same physical object.
I mean, there is paulstretch for time stretching…surely there must be a crazy mega pitch shifter plugin too? 
Well, there are plenty of pitch and frequency shift algorithms, but the problem with shifting down is that there is no defined data above the Nyqvist frequency of the original sound. What are you going to put there? A time-stretched version of the original sound? An extrapolated frequency spectrum, trying to recreate what was supposedly in the ultrasonic range of the original sound?
That’s why I’m saying it calls for manual sound design. Unless you want to be left with (at best, very high quality, but still) low rumble, you have to specify what goes into the frequency range that’s not defined in the original data.
You can pitch shit in pauls timestretch with mixed results. I have stretched a sample using it and pitch shifted it down with little alterboy (Soundtoys) added mild distortion and saturation with a bit of compression. bounced out the result then pitch shifted it down again adding more Fx as required. This is a bit down and dirty - depends what your after.
Experimenting with putting sample in a wavetable synth and adding a sub ( sine wave oscillator) and tweak as desired. You can often go quite low with reasonable results.
Interesting topic, Mike! A few days ago I sampled about 10 plates and dishes-pieces from my kitchen. Lots of sound design possibilities. Some of the plates sounded like beautiful bells when pitch-shifted up. David said everything essential when it is a question about getting the sound pitch-shifted more than 2 semitones, and sounding natural. But if you don’t aim for that, sound-design possibilities are then different and bigger. You can accidentally get something different and very interesting.
For natural pitch-shifting (not more than 2-3 semitones) I like Melodyne. Otherwise, I use Meldaproduction MTransformer (it has pitch-shifting, frequency-shifting, formant-shifting).
Nice! I love recording audio and then mangle it with sound design!
For this specific instance I want to create low end impacts, from mid/high range various hits. Perhaps it is not possible to do that as David said, without adding extra low end layers.
You could of course use 96 or 192 kHz and a microphone that goes into the ultrasonic range. That way, you’ll at least have information to cover the full audible range after downsampling one or two octaves. Whether or not it sounds good is another matter, but I’m sure there’s interesting stuff going on up there, especially when dealing with glass or metallic objects. 
Ah, I actually always record in 96kHz 24 bit on my Zoom H6. 
Also, I have a sub-harmonic exciter (is that the proper term)? I guess I could use that to add an extra low end octave frequency below that still follows the main material, or so I assume it does?
Well, there are some different variants there, but indeed; some work by adding a subharmonic an octave down, either by pitch shifting, or by using pitch tracking to control a sub oscillator.
For sound design, I often do that manually; basically just cut most of the bass from the original sound (if there is any), and replace it with a synth oscillator, often with some harmonics, rather than just a pure sine. That gives tighter control, allowing you to actually tighten things up, rather than just adding the somewhat unfocused, delayed rumble you easily get when trying to create it from the original audio.
I have a Zoom H5 but during the move from CA to Utah where I am just sure what happened to it may be in storage not sure 
so I have my old iPhone 
better then nothing
but I too like to very much like record all kinds of things from taking a neelde or a break apart a part of a paper clip and dropping it a
a metal bowl or taking that same bowl and swishing that paper clip around and around then add then add some water drop etc… you get the point just experiment like a little kid
and now I want to bring audio clip in and rip them apart and make something new
Mike I found this free plugin that for very lows
MH Thump
Make your subwoofers shake!
https://mhsecure.com/metric_halo/products/software/thump.html
I have that Brian, it’s great for synthesis sub sounds…but I am talking about pitching down “my own recordings” for example when I hit a pan in my kitchen with a stick. It does not sound good when doing it in Logic…so I was looking for a really high quality pitch shifter FX plugin.
no worries yes that is a good one synthesis sub sounds 
I understand yes when to use my foot on the hardwood floor and would that to sound very low as
when you find a good plugin please post for everyone
What plugin is best for pitch down audio for sound effects Like breaking glass etc…
Zynaptiq Wormhole Plug-in
Little AlterBoy By Sound Toys
For $29
Reformer Pro buy Krotos
https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/3-Studio-Tools/48-Audio-Editor/5367-Reformer-Pro
Mike have you found one yet?
That wormhole plugin looks interesting. I haven’t found one yet, but haven’t done that kind of sound design in a while as I focus on music and courses right now.
Wormhole looks (sounds) pretty interesting indeed! (I’ve looked at one of their reverbs some time ago… Subspace, IIRC.)
Little AlterBoy works surprisingly well for vocals (used it for all backing vocals and “hard AutoTune” effects on my NaSoAlMo album), but it’s explicitly monophonic, and seems to rely heavily on the cycle of the waveform, so I suspect it might be a bit limited when it comes to general sound design work.
Hey Mike ,
Here another one
Thanks Brian, I will probably get back to this subject in the future, but right now I am back to focusing on composing music…and just do sound design for each track. I failed at selling sounds I made, so taking a break from it. So back to making music for me.