Time-stretch, but keep audio pitch.

[hhhhhhhhhhhhhh5]

Is there a way to time-stretch a comp, but keep audio clip pitch and duration? I know that it's possible to "un-stretch" the audio to compensate, but I’m looking for an easier workflow.

[Mylenium]

Well, to be utterly candid: This is not really a smart workflow. Out of several tools I can think of, AE is the worst at audio processing and you already have much better options in your CC suite by ways of Audition or for that matter Premiere. Or to put it plainly: Stretch your audio in the otehr programs and import the already processed file rather than wasting your time with the most unsuitable program for the task and trying to find ways around its limitations...

Mylenium

[Warren Heaton]

If you copy and paste the source footage audio (or source footage video with audio) to a Premiere Pro Sequence, you can match the speed change in the Speed Duration dialog box (command R, macOS; control R, Windows) and enable Maintain Pitch.  Render the results out and import that back into your After Effects project.  You could try copying and pasting it back, but while the change will stay - as a Time Remap - I am pretty sure that the pitch adjustment will fall off.

If you're using After Effects Time Stretch it's important to note that a higher percentage is slower while in Premiere Pro Speed Change that a lower percentage is slower.  If you're using Timewarp in After Effects, a lower percentage is also slower like in Premiere Pro.

PR Speed Change dialog box with Maintain Audio Pitch enabled.

-Warren

[hhhhhhhhhhhhhh5]

Thank you for your suggestion. I wish time-stretch dialog in After Effects had the “Maintain Audio Pitch” option like Premier Pro. It’s a little surprising that after so many years they don’t seem to have it.

Here is an example to clarify my question. Suppose I have an AE comp with a video of items dropping on the floor. The clip is 1-minute long. In addition to video, it has 20 sound effects that play at the time of impact for each item.

Now I add this clip to the main comp. I want it to play for 30 seconds. So, I use time stretch to speed it up. The sound effects are now one octave higher and twice shorter. I don’t want that. So, I go to Audition and prepare the audio by changing both pitch and duration by 100%. Everything works great, although I just spent a lot of time processing those audio clips. Later I realize that 30 seconds for the clip is too much, so I make it 20 seconds. All the sounds again have wrong pitch and duration. Back to Audition to prepare those 20 files. As I mentioned in my original post, this will work, but the workflow is not very smart.

[Rick Gerard]

Exactly what Mylenium said. Stretch your audio in Audition. There are amazing tools there. Check out this unlisted video - if they have not blocked me yet for copyright (Planning on redoing the tutorial).

The workflow in Audition is fantastic at maintaining qauality. Better then Premiere Pro or the other workflows in Audition.

Then render the audio, bring the audio into AE, and use it instead of the original track.