Friday, June 5, 2009
Modded Oberheim DS-2A Digital Sequencer on Ebay
Yesterday we had an analog sequencer, today we have a boxy, digital one with a couple of mods...
Info at the listing...
Thursday, June 4, 2009
In Case You Didn't Hear...
Tom Oberheim and the new SEM from stretta on Vimeo.
The new synth Tom Oberheim revealed yesterday was indeed a reworking of his classic SEM, as many predicted.
Using Ultrabeat as an Ultragate
Aside from making music, my other great passion in life is cooking. I'm not a chef by any stretch of the imagination, but I can throw together some halfway decent tasting stuff. The problem is, every place my wife and I have lived so far has had a pretty small kitchen. This means we don't have near the room to store all the cool little kitchen gadgets and tools we'd love to have and that we need to use what we have on hand to get the results we want.Making music on your computer can be very similar. Sometimes, you find yourself wishing you had a certain effect, only to realize you could reach the same end with something you already have. Let's take gating effects, for example. A while back, I showed you how to use the noise gate in Logic to make gated trance pad sounds the old fashioned way. This is great for basic gating, but what if you want something that offers a few more sculpting options. Enter Ultrabeat. I bet you didn't even know you could use it as a gate, did you? Well, that's what we're going to talk about today.
1. Open up Logic and initialize two new software instrument tracks.
2. On the first instrument track, assign any sort of sustained sound you like - synth pad, sweeps, strings, choirs, organs, a vocal, whatever. Play a 4 bar chord progression into the sequencer and set it up to loop. Change the OUTPUTs of the instrument (the dropdown menu right below the instrument's name on its mixer channel) to BUS 1. At the same time, change BUS 1's OUTPUT to NO OUTPUT. You will no longer hear your instrument playing. No worries, we want Ultrabeat to control that.
3. On your second instrument track, assign an instance of Ultrabeat. Choose a sound from the blue list on the left side of the interface that you'd like to replace as the gate channel by clicking on the sound name. You may have noticed in the past that on Ultrabeat's OSC 1 you can choose from PHASE OSC, FM, or SIDE CHAIN as your oscillator source. SIDE CHAIN lets you take an outside audio signal and not only gate it using the sequencer, but run it through Ultrabeat's filter, envelopes, and LFOs. You do this by selecting BUS 1 as the SIDE CHAIN source from the dropdown menu in the top right of the plug-in window. Next, press the SIDE CHAIN selector in the OSC 1 section so it lights up as the oscillator's source. We won't need the NOISE section or the OSC 2 section, so go ahead and turn those off by clicking their 'power' buttons so they dim. You can use these sections to mix with your gated sound, but for the sake of simplicity, let's just stick to the gated sound for now.
4. Go down to the sequencer and turn its 'power' button on. Program an interesting rhythmic pattern here, and press PLAY on Logic's transport bar and you should hear your sustained sound in all its newfound, chopped-up glory. Adjust ENVELOPE 4's DECAY as necessary to determine the shape and sustain of each note the gate triggers here.
5. Cool, huh? That's just the beginning, though. You can use Ultrabeat's filters (complete with overdrive and bitcrushing effects) to shape your sound further, you can modulate the filter with the LFO or other envelopes, use the PAN MOD or SPREAD to alter the sound's stereo position - you get the idea. Not a bad bonus feature for what is already a pretty kick-ass drum machine, eh?
Here is a quick before and after example to demonstrate the effect. First, you'll hear the original synth track, a string sound from EXS24. Next, you'll hear the same part gated through Ultrabeat with some bitcrushing applied, and some filter modulation opening and closing a low pass filter and a little bit of tape delay added for space.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Ex-Ableton Employees Start New Company
This isn't exactly new news, but if it got any press coverage, I sure missed it. At any rate, a number of ex-Ableton employees have started their own company called Bitwig, aimed at providing "next generation" music applications. Here's what they have to say:
"Within the virtual environment of a computer anything is possible, yet on a fundamental level, the way music is created today with computers is still very similar to how hardware studios were used. With an entirely new approach, we want to take the next step in the evolution of the computer music studio and create the music software we always wanted to use ourselves.
Bitwig is based in Berlin and founded by Claes Johanson, Pablo Sara, Nicholas Allen and Volker Schumacher. Our experience in the computer music software industry includes Ableton, where we were all part of the development team behind the successful music software Live, and Vember Audio, creator of the critically acclaimed software synthesizer Surge."
Alert readers may recognize the name Claes Johanson as one half of the band Burikusu!!!, who also happen to be signed to the record label I run.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Holy Crap, Waveformless is 1 Year Old!
Hard to believe it's already been a year! Thanks so much to everyone who helped spread the word and to all you readers who have helped Waveformless grow.
Thinking in Stereo
Last week, a reader requested I write something about panning and stereo placement of instruments. I'm going to expand on that a bit and talk about stereo in general, as there are several important elements that can effect how your mix sounds.
• Does is really need to be in stereo?
One mistake many beginners make when they start recording on a DAW, is that they record everything in stereo. In reality, only a relatively small percentage of your tracks probably really needs to be in stereo. If the sound you are recording has stereo effects applied to it, has auto panning, or stereo spread (as on some unison modes), then yes, maybe it should be recorded in stereo. But most instruments don't fall into this category. Remember, you can record a track dry (with no effects) and in mono, and apply stereo effects as part of mixdown. A stereo file takes up twice the disc space as a mono file, so that's reason enough to be sure you really need both channels to record a particular sound.
• If Everything is in Stereo, Nothing is in Stereo
Okay, not really, but the effect is the same. Big, wide stereo sounds are best used sparingly. Contrast with the other elements in your mix will help make the sounds larger than life, but if everything on your track sounds like that, you lose some of the impact (and probably have a really messy-sounding mix). So choose 1 or 2 elements, such as strings or pads that will be your massive stereo sounds and let it contrast with the mono elements. The effect will be much more striking. Remember that most synth presets are designed to sound impressive when you are playing them by themselves, but the huge reverbs or pan spreads might not be practical in the mix. So prioritize what your big, widescreen sounds are going to be and keep it restricted to those.
• If a Track is in Stereo, You're Not Really Panning
With a mono track, adjusting the pan knob will place the track wherever in the stereo spectrum you choose. If you do the same thing to a stereo track, however, you're not actually panning, you're essentially adjusting the volume balance of the right versus the left channel. There are plug-ins, such as Logic's Directional Mixer, that will allow you to do proper panning of a stereo track, but honestly, if you are planning on putting a sound off-center, you are probably better off recording it as a mono track and panning as normal.
• Keep Your Bass in Mono
As a general rule, it is always best to keep your bass track in mono. The main reason for this is that it can cause phasing problems, but you'd also be surprised at how many dance clubs and music venues have mono PA systems. So important elements (at least in dance music) like your kick and your bass are best left in mono and kept panned to the center. I realize that in this era of super fat unison sounds, a lot of synths have bass sounds that have some degree of stereo spread on them. If you like the way this sounds, I suggest EQing out the bass frequencies and then layering the sound with a simple sine wave sub bass in mono to flesh out the low end. This way, you have stereo effect, but it's only happening in the higher frequencies where it is less problematic.
• Middle of the Road
As a general rule of thumb, when it comes to panning, your most important elements should always be dead center. Examples would be your bass, your kick and your snare, and vocals. Our ears give priority to things that are in the center and it also gives your track a more solid-sounding foundation.
• Think First
Some elements of panning are rather easy to figure out. For instance, with your drum tracks, you've probably got your kick and snare in the center, you hi-hats slightly to one side (which side depends whether you want to mix from the drummer's perspective, or from the 'audience'), your toms left to right or vice versa, and your other cymbals placed throughout the stereo spectrum based on where they are on the drum kit. However, with most other elements, it's less obvious. So give some thought to what you want to pan to a specific position in the stereo spectrum, and more importantly why. A good example would be if you had two different instrument parts that fall into similar frequency ranges. If they are panned to the same position, some frequency cancellation will probably occur, and it's harder to hear each part distinctly. However, if you pan one element slightly left, and the other slightly right, there is less interference and you will be able to hear each part much more easily. Listen to a track by a band with more than one guitarist, and you will probably hear this in action.
• Avoid the Extremes
Panning, like most things in life, is best done moderately. Having a track panned hard left or hard right sounds extremely unnatural and unbalanced. Instead, keep your pan knob values somewhere between about 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock. Of course there are exceptions, such as when you want to create a special effect, but most of the time that range will be about right.
• Keep it Moving
Autopanning is an effect where the signal is automatically panned from left to right within a specified range and at a specific speed. This can really add interest to a mix, but don't overdo it. Restrict it to no more than one track. Any more than that and it can get very distracting. If you don't have an autopanning plug-in (most tremelo effects can be used as autopanners too), you can use the automation facilities in your DAW to do it manually. This is obviously a lot more work-intensive, but it does give you more flexibility.
Moog Opus 3 on Ebay
Typical 'ensemble' type synthesizer with separate sections for strings, brass, and organs.Also gave its name to a one hit wonder from the 90's dance scene...
Info at the listing...
Monday, June 1, 2009
Goldbaby Introduces Tape 101
Schwa Introduces CMX Stereo Microshifter
Plug-in purveyors Schwa have introduced the CMX Microshifter, an effect specializing in doubling and thickening effects. Here's what they have to say about it:
"CMX thickens and enhances monophonic audio by doubling the signal and applying small amounts of pitch shift and/or time delay to each side.
This technique is often applied to vocals or lead lines. With a light hand, CMX can add just enough fullness to give a part extra presence in a mix. With a heavier hand, CMX can create a rich and polished “expensive production” sound. The added presence is especially effective in musical styles that make minimal use of reverb.
CMX uses a new, unique pitch identification and shifting algorithm from Schwa that is designed and optimized for small, precise pitch shifts, from one cent to a quarter-tone, with perfect phase coherence and maximum smoothness. You can use CMX on exposed, high-quality vocal tracks with complete confidence."
CMX is available for Mac and PC in VST and AU formats and retails for $50.
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