Ok, thanks Larry.

Vegas 9 comes with Élastique Time Stretch, which is automatable. It can bend the pitch of an audio signal via time stretching, so it's not "genuine" pitch bending, but it still allows more tricks than the original Vegas pitch shift plugin which is not automatable.

Élastique also works in Vegas 8 - but not perfectly. It can be used there, but for some reason the render time rises up to infinity when rendering. Probably because Vegas 8 cannot handle audio events whose length may change via automation.

In Vegas, I fail to find any way to automate pitch shift or time stretch: no keyframe at plugin level, no enveloppe at event or track level.

Am I missing something ?

This was actually my first feature request, back in the early 2000's when Vegas was first released: Given that video has per-event plugins and also velocity envelopes, I see no reason why audio shouldn't have this too.

Until then, you will have to perform "true" pitch change (which is really "playback rate change") destructively in a third-party program such as Soundforge or Audition, and bring it back into your project. It's obviously not ideal, but it will get the job done.

"In Vegas, I fail to find any way to automate pitch shift or time stretch: no keyframe at plugin level, no enveloppe at event or track level. Am I missing something ?"

Yes. You're missing Élastique, which can be automated. But it only works correctly in Vegas 9.

VP 9c does have Elastique Pro bundled with it but the time strech / pitch shift is not automatable under Vegas.

Yes it is, but you need to add Élastique as a track effect.

1) Insert an Élastique Time Stretch effect to the track
2) Click the "Configure FX Automation" button (top right corner of the Audio Plug-In window)
3) Checkbox which parameters you want to automate (Pitch Shift Ratio is the one you want)
4) Voilá! An automation envelope will appear on your audio track for Pitch Shift automation.

Hmmm, I am really puzzled... Do you have both SF and Vegas installed ?

Having only Vegas I can change the time strech / pitch shift algorithm at event level using event properties: none, basic, Elastique

Adding a time strech or pitch shift to the track offers the usual Vegas plugins which are not automatable (no button at top right to choose the eveloppes). Listing of all automatable plugins doesn't include time shit or time strech:

I have Vegas 8 and 9 and Sound Forge 10. My Vegas Automatable plugin list shows Élastique in it:

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/8143/vegaselastiqueautomatab.png

Hmm, I wonder what the cause/difference is... does Sound Forge 10 enable Élastique as an automatable plugin?

You got my point.

My guess is that SF and Vegas can share audio plugins. SF comes with élastique pro plugin which is automatable (according to LarryP SF's pitch shift is too). Vegas Time strech and pitch shift plugins are not automatable.

As Larry said, if you want to automate pitch variations of time strech you have to get SF.

Well.... technically he didn't say that, he just said you can do a destructive pitch bend to the audio in Sound Forge... but yeah. SF10 makes Élastique automatable, apparently. So for you it would be a "Buy Sound Forge 10 to get one feature you need" kind of a deal....

Just got a new PC (64-bit Windows 7), and noticed something that may have caused confusion. The Élastique timestretch apparently cannot be used as an automatable track effect in the 64-bit version of Vegas.

But I just installed the 32-bit version, and Élastique was available in the track effect menu.

What could the reason be? Are there other plugins that don't work in 64-bit but do work in 32-bit?