Imitate Guitar Techniques With MIDI Part 1 – Glissando (2 Semitones)

An arranger often needs to create a guitar solo track. When there is no guitar (or guitarist) available, he needs to apply various VST instruments, samplers, and so on. His hardest task is imitating live guitar playing techniques with controllers. Especially the most unique and “tasty” guitar sounds – those made with string bending and glissando (sliding up and down the neck). It is important to understand the difference between imitation of these two techniques. Usually, bending imitation is achieved while playing MIDI-keyboards using the pitch wheel in real time. Definite skills are required here, and we’ll discuss them in the upcoming tutorials. Imitation of the sliding technique with the pitch wheel, on the other hand, is rather difficult, as the pitch is not altered slowly, but quickly and unevenly (imitating the sliding finger as it comes into contact with each fret on the guitar neck). The size of alteration is always the same – one semitone, no more and no less. It’s impossible to be this precise with a pitch wheel only. Working in MIDI Editors (like Cubase 5) makes it possible to achieve the correct pitch change only with help of Key Editor window (different programs call it Matrix Edit or Piano Roll window) by using a drawing instrument (Draw or Pencil Tool). Exact calculation is essential in achieving the most realistic result. That is exactly what we will learn in this tutorial. I’ve created for you some examples of the described sliding imitation technique, combined with some other tricks – like string bending imitation. As you work through this series with me, you’ll learn to produce these sounds too. Download audio file (example-1.mp3) Download audio file (example-2.mp3) Well, are you ready? Let’s start! Note: This tutorial is good for any MIDI editor you use. I tried to make it as universal as possible, mentioning the commands, controllers, and window names of most programs – they may differ by  name, but their functions are similar. I also explain the distinctions of programs with alternative  system of numeric values. This makes the tutorial longer – but this way you can use it for your  preferred MIDI editor. That is why you’ll sometimes find screenshots from several programs at  one step. Enjoy! In Part 1 we’ll discuss the small range of sliding – glissando for two semitones. The actions we take depend on the glissando range we need. This range – two semitones – is quite a popular one, so we’ll start with it first, moving to wider range of sliding in future tutorials. Step 1 The first step lies in playing the music fragment as if sliding to every new fret the “guitarist’s” finger reaches is played as a new separate note (refer to the image below). The resulting sound is quite recognizable as a sliding sound, but it does not sound realistic at all, does it? Download audio file (1-1.mp3) Make a copy of this fragment or track or object (various programs use different terms), so that later (in Step 7) we can recover some event attributes – in particular, the time of the notes’ beginning (“Note On”). The thing is, we are about to make some changes, and later we will refer to altered numbers. Step 2 In the main field of the Piano Roll window let’s change some notes included in every glissando. As we’re talking about glissando for two semitones, there are three notes included in this case: the source note (1st), middle note (2nd), and the last one (3rd) – the main (target) one, that is usually longer than others. The first source note is 2 semitones lower (or higher, depending on the sliding direction) than the target note, the second middle note – only one semitone lower or higher. Pitches of these notes must become equal with the main note. We will return the initial pitch to these notes in the next steps, using a different approach. Step 3 Now it is important to combine the notes with the altered pitch (from the previous step) with the main note using the Glue or Merge Tool. Otherwise, we’ll have separate plucking sounds – distinct notes. Our task is to imitate sliding on the guitar string, where there is only one pluck involved – when playing first note. The sounds of the other notes come not from the contact of finger and string, but from the intermittent changing of the length of the string. Therefore, the other two notes do not need to have the specific features of the beginning of the sound (be it sampler or synthesizer). That is what we just made – only one sound is extracted, as we see on the image below. Step 4 Make sure that on the VST Instrument or sampler you use the value of the Pitch Wheel range = 2, which means that maximum shift of the pitch wheel will result in changing note pitch to 2 semitones. Most (but, unfortunately, not all) instruments allow to adjust Pitch Wheel Range (look at the images below). Many VST Instruments (samplers) make the value we need (2) a default setting. If for some reason you couldn’t find a way to change the Pitch Wheel Range for your instrument, you can try another method. Select the track where your guitar party will be and open List Editor window (Event List). At the beginning of track, enter three lines as in the image below (other columns – event time and MIDI channel number – may be different, of course). There should be three controllers (not simultaneous, but one by one in small period of time) with these values: 100 (value = 0), 101 (value = 0), and number 6. The value of the last controller manages Pitch Wheel Range, in our case its value should be 2. If you are lucky enough and your instrument supports specification General MIDI, it will recognize this message, “read” it, and the result will be our Pitch Wheel Range = 2. Of course, these messages should come before the notes to appear on the track. All these actions are possible for any pitch wheel range, for instance equaling 12 (an octave). However, the smaller the scale – the more precision for every graph. So, I recommend to choose pitch wheel range = 2. Step 5 In the Piano Roll window, at the left part for graphic editing, select Pitchbend (Pitch Wheel) from the dropdown list. This is the controller we need to help us change the pitch of note. Here is how it looks in different MIDI editors. This tool will allow us to “create” new notes when, actually, there are no new notes, while previous note is playing. Only changing its pitch bend value will lead to increasing or reducing the pitch, as if the finger moves to different fret. Step 6 This is the most important step – “drawing” to assign the needed pitch to each fragment, putting the right points in the graphic editing section. For the vertical axis it is either maximum or minimum value of the pitch bend controller: it may be +8191 or -8192 (one tone up or down); ±4096 (half of maximum value, equaling one semitone up or down); or 0. For horizontal axis, the points must precisely match the beginning of three notes taking part in glissando. So for the first note in our fragment draw a point before it corresponding value of -8192 vertically, because this note was initially one tone lower. This way we will give it its initial pitch that we changed in Step 2. Horizontally, the point must correspond the “Note On” event. If there are no other notes right before this one, the point on the graph can be placed even earlier on horizontal axis – just make sure it does not affect any other sounds. Step 7 Let’s do the same for the middle note, but the pitch bend value in this case will be twice as small (-4096), equaling a semitone down. On the horizontal x-axis, the point must correspond the beginning of the second note from the initial fragment. To know the exact number, we’ll refer to saved copy of our first fragment (Step 1) and take precise timing value from it. It is worth mentioning that some minor deviations of timing values are acceptable, as long as there is no extremely artificial sound. It will be strange to hear the guitarist stopping on one fret longer than others – why would he do it? Would he get stuck? So the timing intervals between points of changing pitch should be equal or almost equal (except for “long glissando”, which we’ll talk about later). Step 8 The last step in the graphic part is drawing points with a zero pitch bend value, corresponding to the beginning of the main target note in our three-note glissando. This way we imitate the first fragment that includes sliding technique. Step 9 While drawing points in the last three steps, you may have had no difficulty choosing the maximum or minimum values (Step 6) and zero controller value (Step 8). However, when you drew points for the semitone value in Step 7, you may have faced some problems. If your monitor is too small, or your vision is not good enough (like mine, for instance – I wear glasses), or if you drank too much wine last night and your hands are shaking, you may find precise point positioning on vertical axis impossible. But don’t worry. When a real guitarist uses a glissando technique, additional increase or decrease in string tension is inevitable. It is caused by the effect of finger pressing a string, that slides a surface – not a perfectly smooth one, but sculptured surface with relief on frets. That is probably why there are no perfect semitones on a real guitar. But, if you are a perfectionist and you like everything precise, you still can assign the absolutely exact numeric value – and there are two ways of doing so: 1. Every professional MIDI editor has so-called “MIDI Inspector”. Here the values of selected event parameters are shown, and you can edit them. 2. You can see all the events at once from the opened List Editor window (Event List). Before you open it, select the note you are working on now in the main arrangement window – for example, E3 in the 9th bar. When you open List Editor window, you’ll see a selected line with a message “Note” – the one you just selected in Piano Roll window. The next closest event is the pitch bend value. In the next line (of “pitch bend” type) you’ll find the value you entered. Try to assign this parameter the needed value (-4096). It’s not hard now to precisely enter it in needed field. It is worth mentioning that pitch bend in the List Editor window of some MIDI Еditors changes from -8192 to 0 in the lower part of graph, and from 0 to +8191 in the upper part. Others chose to show this value from 0 to 8192 in the lower graph part (and here the number 8192 corresponds a zero-shift of pitch), while the upper part changes from 8193 to 16383. In these cases the simple arithmetic comes in handy. For every value we spoke about just add 8192, and we’ll get the correct value for List Editor. Step 10 What we need to do for now is repeat the four last steps for the rest of the fragments containing glissando (we have eight fragments in total in our example – five up and three down). The difference is simple: for sliding down you have to draw a point for first note with coordinate equaled +8192 rather than -8192, and for middle note it should be +4096 rather than -4096 – we just take positive numbers instead of negative. Download audio file (1-2.mp3) After listening to the result, it’s not hard to notice a significant difference between the initial and final audio files. Some further adjustments and corrections are possible – and oftentimes even necessary. This applies to both the pitch bend value, and moment of time when the pitch is changing (the new point horizontal coordinate). It is very simple to adjust this using List Editor window (Event List). Conclusion Well, that is all for today! We learned how to imitate a realistic guitar sliding technique with MIDI keyboards in any MIDI editor. I hope it gave you some useful tips and you’ve enjoyed it. Use it to create your own live guitar tracks with MIDI editor. In the next tutorials we’ll be looking at imitating glissando for 3-4 semitones, and imitating glissando for an entire octave. See you then! Download the Play Pack for this tutorial (82 KB) Contents Cubase Source Files Media Files example-1.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 1.1 MB)

Quick Tip: How to Use DXF Patches in East West Quantum Leap Orchestra

Do you have high standards about achieving realism with orchestral sounds? DXF Patches in East West Quantum Leap Orchestra are controlled via the mod wheel and they can help you achieve better realism when sequencing orchestral music in your DAW. What is a DXF Patch? DXF stands for Dynamic Cross-Fade and is actually an instrument patch which for example is made of two samples, recorded in p and f dynamics. It’s called ModXFd, because the transition between these samples is smoothly controlled with the Mod Wheel (CC#1). ModXfd in Play interface So what’s the difference between an ordinary violin patch, which is controlled with CC#11 and a DXF patch, controlled with CC#1? Let’s hear for ourselves: Download audio file (dxf_violins.mp3) In this particular example we have some violins playing a G. The first recording is controlled with CC#11 (expression) only and the second one is a crossfade patch, controlled with subtle CC#11 and CC#1 (mod). Did you hear the difference? If not, listen to this: Download audio file (dxf_corni.mp3) So, the difference is hurting our ears now. The thing that CC#11 (expression) and CC#7 (volume) do is that they only change the volume of a single sample. As if you have grabbed the remote control of your TV and you’re turning your volume up or down. However, the crossfade not only changes dynamics in terms of volume. It changes the overall timbre of the instrument! Therefore you get more sophisticated and real sound, because when playing live, musicians don’t just turn the volume. They add slight vibrato and expand the sound. Here’s how a crossfade should look like: One Thing to Remember Remember that DXF patches can’t be controlled with velocity. They have two (or more) constant samples that are controlled only by Mod Wheel. If you want to create a sound that comes from pp dynamics (very low) and it suddenly bursts up to fortissimo, you should use Expression (CC#11) or Volume (CC#7). Good luck! Media Files dxf_violins.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 319 KB)

10 Ideas That Will Get You Playing Music Outside Your Bedroom

Many of us learn to play our musical instruments in our bedroom. Too many of us keep playing them there, too nervous to play in public, or just lacking the opportunity. Here are 10 suggestions to become musical in public. Audiotuts+ has a very broad group of readers. This article is aimed at those starting out in music by spending time in their bedroom learning the rudiments. But it’s also aimed at experienced music producers slaving over their DAW without experiencing the joy of playing live in front of real people. I’m also really keen to hear about your experiences in the comments. When did you first play in public? How did it go? And what advice do you have to those who are starting out? 1. Play In Someone Else’s Bedroom Do you have a friend or relative that plays a musical instrument? Get together with them and have a jam. Strictly speaking it doesn’t need to be in their bedroom, but that’s as good a place as any. When I first started playing guitar I didn’t get lessons, but had a friend who played. I’d go over to his place and play along with him. That meant I had to play in time with his playing, so had to change chords faster than I did when on my own. I also got to watch his fingering and technique. It was fun and educational. 2. Play at Parties If you can play guitar and know a few songs, take your guitar along to parties, barbecues, picnics, or anywhere you get together with friends. You might find a few people keen to have a sing-along with you, especially as the night goes on and the empty cans start to pile up. I have friends who are in the habit of taking an instrument with them everywhere they go, just in case the opportunity arises. One friend kept his drum kit in the back of his car, and you’d be surprised at how many gigs he got to sit in on. It was a great learning experience, and got him started in the industry. Another friend brought his bass guitar to my sister’s wedding, but that was because he was worried it would get stolen if he left it at home. He lived in one of those neighborhoods. You don’t have to be the official gig of a party to play there, especially if you’re among friends. But as you get good, you never know how many paid jobs you’ll be offered. 3. Put On a Concert If you’re getting lessons, many teachers organize a concert at least once a year where there students get a chance to show off their skill to adoring relatives. If you get that opportunity, take it! The opportunity of playing in front of a crowd can teach you a lot about yourself. If you’re not getting lessons, organizing a concert might be too difficult, though you never know what opportunities are around until you look. And check out the Talent Competition and Open Mic ideas below. 4. Try Busking Over the years I’ve spent a fair amount of time playing music on the street, usually in busy shopping centers during the prime times of the week. It’s quite an experience, and I loved it. I don’t think there’s any better way to get instant feedback on your music – good or bad – from total strangers! A friend of mine spent many years living on the street of Kings Cross in Sydney with nothing but his guitar. He had to play well if he wanted to eat, and that was a musical education he still tells stories about to this day. Be aware that in many places in the world you need a license before you can busk. Check this out before you get arrested for disturbing the peace. And remember that you don’t have to busk alone. Even just taking a friend along to sing with you can make your experience a lot more fun. And that way you’ll only get half the eggs thrown at you. 5. Play In a Nursing Home If you’re keen to try busking but don’t think you could handle the rejection, play somewhere that you know you’ll be appreciated. There are plenty of places that people are starved for attention, and will appreciate your music no matter how bad you are. Well, almost. And nursing homes and retirement communities are a great place to start. Quite a few times over the years I’ve played music in nursing homes. Sometimes on my own, other times with a friend, occassionally with a whole band. Some times I went back monthly, other times it was a one-off gig. But every time it was much-appreciated. Schools and preschools might offer similar opportunities. Not all types of music lend themselves to nursing home visits, though. When I lived in the Blue Mountains I had a teenage friend who wanted to start a punk rock band to play in the local nursing homes. I’m sure the elderly folk there are glad they never got past the rehearsal stage. 6. Form a Band If you’re playing with a friend regularly and things are starting to cook, consider pulling a few more friends together and starting a band. Bands don’t have to start big – three or four people might be enough – and it’s probably easier to set the direction of the band and develop a distinctive sound when there’s only a few of you. If you’ve been in a band you probably know that it can take a lot of time and practice for things to come together. This isn’t a bad thing, and you’ll learn a lot even if you’re just a garage band for some time. Choose some songs and stick at them until you know them back to front and they sound great. If you get to this stage without killing each other you can then start to think about gigging. You might become a local hit and go on to bigger things! 7. Join a Church Band This suggestion isn’t for everyone, but church is one place that normal people get the opportunity to play in front of a crowd week in and week out. And this usually comes with a sense of commitment and achieving something for a higher cause. I’ve often noticed on Australian and American Idol that there is a fairly high number of people in the top 12 who sang in church. That would have to be partly because of the opportunity to perform in public on a weekly basis for much of their lives, not to mention the endless practice sessions. I’m using “church” in a generic sense here, and churches vary as much in their musical styles as anything else. Many of them have quite contemporary music these days. After playing music in church for several decades, I can certainly say it’s helped my playing and given me the opportunity to play with some amazing musos. 8. Play At a Christmas Carol Event Every year like clockwork I see dozens of Christmas Carol events in schools, parks and shopping centers. Some of these are very professional events, while others (while not necessarily sounding any less professional) feature the talents of musicians from the local community. I’ve had the privilege of organizing quite a few of these types of events, and one of my favorite parts of the job was discovering the local talent. A guitarist would know a bass player up the road. The keyboard player lived next door to someone who played dobro on some bluegrass albums a decade ago. Someone would introduce me to a professional opera singer who lived locally. Musos would come out of the woodwork. Try to find out who is organizing your local carols, and see if you can get involved. At worst, wait until they are on this year and grab someone in the band after it’s finished to find out how to get involved next year. 9. Try Out In a Talent Competition From huge TV events like American Idol or Australia’s Got Talent a talent quest at your local club or karaoke bar, there are plenty of opportunities to get to sing or play live, and get some helpful – and possibly painful – experience. Not long after I started playing keys my teacher entered me in a talent competition run by a local music store. I hated him for it! But I went anyway. The pressure made me practice all the harder, and learn the song to perfection. My family (who had never heard me play before) came to support me. I nervously got on stage and did my best, which I think was pretty good – though I was severely out-classed by some of the other contestants. And I still remember the written comment made by one of the judges: “You looked awful, pal.” 10. Turn Up At an Open Mic Your local pub may host some open mic nights for up-and-coming talent. These are usually more relaxed than talent quests, and without all of the hype. But you won’t want to try one until you’re fairly confident of your playing and/or singing. If you feel comfortable and do well, you might want to try out for a more permanent gig. Well, there are my 10 suggestions about how you can ease your way out of your safe bedroom and start playing in front of others. Take it slow, enjoy the experience, give yourself permission to make mistakes, and learn from them. You might even bring some joy into the life of a stranger.

Essential Synthesis: Synth Bass

In this instalment we’ll take a look at how to create a solid synth bass patch, an essential part of any synthesists armoury. This time around I’ll be using Propellerheads Thor from Reason 5 / Record 1.5. In fact I’ll be using a different instrument for each instalment, to show that these techniques are truly generic in nature. Step 1: Grasping the Bass-ics So, what makes a good synth bass? Well to be honest that’s a tough question and hugely subjective but saying that there are some qualities that most of us find pretty satisfying. It goes without saying that a bass should have a solid low end. Also some filtering and light use of effects can make things interesting. Due to the fact that the bass patches you’ll eventually create yourselves will be infinitely varied, I can only show you one possibility. Because of this I thought I’d demonstrate how to program a classic Moog sounding analog bass patch. This should be a useful sound, regardless of the genre you work with and it will give you a great bass-is with which to start. (Sorry I couldn’t help it!) Step 2: Choosing Our Oscillators As usual I have started with an initialised patch that consists of a single sawtooth waveform, an open low pass filter and very basic envelope settings. It’s always a good idea to start with a clean slate and very few modulations when creating your own patch. The initialised patch in Thor. Download audio file (2.mp3) The raw untreated initialised patch I then moved on to adding a second saw wave, detuning them for some ‘fatness’ and finished off with a sub oscillator, in the form of a sine wave a whole octave below the others. Below you can here the oscillators with and without the sub. Please note this isn’t the best bass line I’ve ever written, it was just thrown together to demonstrate the patch !! The three oscillators are loaded. Download audio file (2b.mp3) The first two detuned oscillators Download audio file (2c.mp3) … and now with a sub oscillator Step 3: Filter, Filter, Filter When it comes to bass patches there aren’t many that don’t require some heavy filtering. Generally low pass filters are used to remove high end frequencies and add resonance, for extra harmonic content. Many filters also feature a drive function which can impart from extra grit and edge to your patch if needed. In this case I’ve opted for a low pass model and removed loads of top end. This gives the patch a warmer, more rounded character. Don’t worry about it being a little static as we’ll sort that in the next stages. Also you may be able to hear some clicks and pops, this is due to the default amplifier envelope settings and will also be rectified in the next step. The simple low pass filter settings. Download audio file (3.mp3) The patch with some basic filtering. Step 4: Amplitude and Filter Envelopes First up I turned my attention to the dynamics of the sound, all in all I was pretty happy with the way the patch played. The main issue for me was the clicks and pops I was hearing. These are caused by zero settings in both the attack and release phase of a typical ADSR envelope. Essentially you are hearing the sound moving from nothing to something in a very short time. This results in a click and it can also occur when the sound ends. By moving the attack and release settings up even a small amount you can pretty much eradicate these clicks. The amplitude envelope is altered to avoid clicks and pops. Download audio file (4.mp3) The clicks and pops are just about gone The next step was to look at our envelope settings was to spice up the filtering a touch. As I previously mentioned it was a little static and some dynamic movement was needed. We can introduce this by using Tho’s dedicated filter envelope. A simple decay based envelope setting was used here and then the envelope modulation was turned up the filter. This really brings the whole patch to life and with a touch more resonance, it really starts to take on that Moog like character. The filter envelope settings. The filter is tweaked to accommodate the new envelope setting. Download audio file (4b.mp3) And the dedicated filter envelope is activated. Step 5: Voicing Modes and Effects Most analog style bass sounds are monophonic in nature and as my initial patch was already playing back in a monophonic mode no change had to be made here. Saying that some portamento was used in the voicing area. Some portamento is added. Some subtle effects were also applied to add some sheen to the patch. A very small amount of chorus and soft saturation were used. This simply gave the patch a little crunch and depth. … then a touch of drive. … and finally some chorus. Download audio file (5.mp3) The final patch with a few effects Step 6: Conclusion As you can see this is a very straight forward sound to reproduce and is a great starting point for more complex bass patches. You should find you are able to program this sound on pretty much any soft synth, so if you don’t have Reason try to recreate it using your favourite instrument. The final patch. Download the Play Pack for this tutorial (98 KB) Contents

Quick Tip: Using External Tools in FL Studio

FL Studio comes with pretty much everything you need to make most sounds, but there might be something else you like to use, like an audio editor or some other audio application. FL Studio has an extremely useful ‘external tools’ feature that makes it easy to edit sounds with an application outside of FL Studio right from the browser. I’m going to be using the amazing Akaizer oldschool sampler timestretcher that’s available from akaizer.blogspot.com. When we’re done, right clicking any sample in FL Studio’s browser will bring up an option to open Akaizer or any other external tool, where it will open with the sample already loaded for quick and easy processing. Step 1 Install Akaizer or whatever application you want to use. When you’re done, be sure to remember where the main executable is located. Akaizer requires a .dll to be installed in order to be used with Vista or Windows 7, but other than that it’s just a matter of dropping the .exe onto your hard drive. Step 2 Open up FL Studio and under the ‘Tools’ menu, select ‘External tools…”. In the resulting window, click the file browser button and find your executable. Below the file location are a bunch of options for how the third party application should behave. We’ll want to check ‘Open with sample’ so that Akaizer opens with the sample all ready to go. If you want to use a different audio editor than Edison with FL Studio, you can check ‘Default editor’ and FL Studio will open your external tool whenever you click ‘Edit’ on a sample, instead of opening Edison. Step 3 Now let’s find a nice sample to timestretch in FL Studio’s browser. When you right-click the sample’s name, the usual options pop up, but at the bottom there’s an option to open it with Akaizer, nice! My computer’s audio drivers are a little messed up, so I have to set the driver in FL Studio’s audio settings window to the default driver instead of the ASIO driver in order to have two sound applications running at once, but it should work normally for you. Step 4 Now that we the sample opened in our external tools, we can start processing it. I’m going to take a vocal snippet and stretch it a whole bunch to get that creepy, metallic type sound. Download audio file (4.mp3) Step 5 Once you’re happy with how the sample sounds, save it to the same directory as the orignal, or wherever you want, and then you can just drag your new sample from the browser like any other sample. You may need to press the ‘Refresh structure’ button at the top of the browser before you can see it. Step 6 In addition to the browser, you can also open samples with external tools in a few other places, mostly where FL Studio shows a waveform preview. If we drag a sample into the step sequencer to load it into a Sampler channel, right-clicking the waveform will bring up the same external tools option as before. This didn’t really work for me, but in some places, like FPC, right-clicking the waveform will bring up an option to show the sample in the browser, where it’s easy to open it with the external tool. Media Files 4.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 44 KB)

20 Instructive Cubase Tutorials

Cubase is Yamaha’s digital audio workstation, which produces through its subsiduary company Steinberg.It has been around since the ’80s as a MIDI sequencer, but now also has a powerful audio engine for recording and editing, a rack full of effects, and a bunch of useful virtual instruments. The program is available for Windows and Mac, and costs around USD$500.
Last week’s article covered Cubase’s history and features. This week we learn how to use it. Here are 20 tutorials coming from Steinberg, Youtube and Audiotuts+.

This article was previously published on the AudioJungle blog, which has moved on to a new format in 2010. We’ll be bringing you an article from the AudioJungle archives each week.

1. Tutorials from Steinberg.net

Steinberg themselves offer some helpful video tutorials on Cubase. These include:

• Product Video
• Loop Mash
• Recording Audio
• Editing Audio
• Recording and Editing MIDI
• Working with Loops
• External MIDI Instruments
• Mixing and Effects
• Surround Protection
• Editing Audio 2
• Working with VariAudio
• Media Management

2. Cubase 5 Tutorial: Working with Loop Mash Tutorial and Making a Neptunes Hip Hop Beat

“To take part just get Pharlicious Drums 1, Brooklyn Drums 1, BeatBox Voices 1 and Timbory Loops from yummybeats.com and Cubase 5 from Steinberg. This Video Tutoial shows, how to work with LoopMash. Afterwards: BeatMaking Tutorial, making a modern “old school Beat” in the styles of Pharrell Williams & Chad Hugo (Neptunes), Polow Da Don… You can take part!!!”

3. Cubase 5 Beatmaking with Groove Agent One and Beat Designer

“Making a house beat from a breakbeat using two great new tools in Cubase 5.”

4. Kontakt 3 Output Config in Cubase – The Long Way

“Loading Kontakt and setting up the multiple outputs.”

5. Cubase Midi Control via Quick Controls

“A nice quick and easy way to assign Midi Controllers to parameters in Cubase.”

6. Cubase Tutorial – Tech Tip 8 – Create Stereo Width in Cubase 5 (Vocals, Lead Sounds etc.)

“In this video we take a look at taking a single mono vocal sample and using a couple tricks, we widen it out to make it sound like it is playing in full stereo. This sort of effect is great for adding body to your vocals or even moving a lead line so that it is not sitting directly in the middle of your tune!”

7. Cubase Tutorial: How to record MIDI data/ How to track your beats using MIDI

“Steps: 1. Connect keyboard. 2. Create MIDI track in Cubase. 3. Record MIDI data. 4. Create audio track. 5. Record audio.”

8. Cubase 5 – Reinvent Rhythm

9. Automation in Cubase

“Short tutorial for Cubase beginners. How to record, edit and draw your own automations. everything in this tutorial applies to Cubase SX3, Cubase 4 and Cubase 5.”

10. MdL Reviews: Cubase 5 DAW

“Back for a product review of my favorite DAW, Cubase 5. It’s packed with new features and updates, from brand new functions to the heritage tools by Steinberg.”

11. [NAMM 2009] Steinberg Cubase 5

“Exclusive presentation of the band new Steinberg Cubase 5 software sequencer.”

12. Cubase 5 – Beat Design and Loop Mangling

“Cubase 5 features outstanding new tools for creating beats, generating exciting new rhythms and working with loops.”

13. Cubase 5 – LoopMash Tutorial

“LoopMash is a revolutionary virtual instrument that offers a unique and innovative way of creatively working with loops and beats to create stunning new rhythms and grooves.”

14. The Top 6 New Features of Cubase 5

Apr 13th in Cubase, Production by Mo Volans
The new version of Cubase has landed with some pretty impressive new features that will be interesting to both new and seasoned users alike. Let's take a look at a few ground-breaking features the new version has to offer and see if these latest additions keep Cubase up there with the other big guns.
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Arrangement Tips and Tricks Part 3: Breakdowns

One of the most challenging aspects of arrangement to a beginner (and even some more experienced producers) is changing the tracks energy level. So you may find that moving from a busy section of your track to something a little more chilled present some stumbling blocks.
In this tutorial I’ve used a project that was developed during a one to one teaching session. The project was used to demonstrate all sorts of arrangement technique but the breakdown section should shed some light on the subject in hand.

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Step 1: The Project In Action

In this section if the project you can hear a number of drum and bass parts playing, the energy at this point is relatively high and moving to a spacey breakdown is going to take some work.
In the next section we’ll take a look at how it was done in this case.

The ‘higher energy’ section.

Download audio file (1.mp3)
The high energy section in action.

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Step 2: The Breakdown

There are literally countless ways of dropping energy and breaking down into a more minimal section but often the techniques used remain the same. It’s all about the combination of parts used and using automation to create a smooth, seamless transition.
As this project is already constructed I won’t be showing it being built form scratch but I will isolate specific techniques used and explain how they were carried out. Hopefully this will give you some ideas when you are constructing your next break.
So, here is the breakdown section in it’s entirety, playing from the point we heard in the last clip. In the following sections we’ll look at the techniques that were used to bolt this all together.

The breakdown.

Download audio file (2.mp3)
The breakdown plays back.

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Step 3: Continuity

One great way of creating a smooth transition is to have some level of continuity in your mix. If you can achieve this then even pretty drastic changes of mood can be easily accepted by the listener and not be a massive shock.
To give you an example of this when the breakdown starts many of the elements are dropped in one way or another but the bass and high hat loop are left in. By doing this I was able to completely drop the main drum pattern without too much of a drop in energy.
Here is the section I’m talking about with all the pads removed so you can hear whats going on.

Some elements remain for continuity.

Download audio file (3.mp3)
The parts left in are isolated.

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Step 4: Basic Fades

Another simple but extremely effective trick is to use very basic volume fades. It may sound obvious but using a number of fade ins and fade outs across a transition can make or break it.
For instance I wanted the hat loop I left in over the break down to melt away without being dropped too suddenly. I achieved this by slowly reducing its level over a decent amount of time. I also raised the level of reverb on the part as I went. This combination of these two fades creates the feeling it’s leaving the stage, so to speak!
Download audio file (4.mp3)
The hat fades out over time.
Here is the fade in question both in isolation and in the mix. Notice how when the entire mix is played the hat loop just melts into the background. You may not have even noticed this happen on first listen. This, my friends, is the idea !!
Download audio file (4b.mp3)
Now listen to the hat fade in the mix.

A simple volume fade doing its thing.

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Step 5: Filtering

You don’t just have to fade in level either; fading frequencies is a good way to achieve a similar effect but with some nice variation. If you use a mixture of filter and level fades you should build up a n interesting sonic picture thats involving to listen to.

Filter fades are extremely useful.

Lots of things were faded using low an high pass filters here but possibly the best example is the bass and pad sounds. These fade out together as the breakdown develops.
Download audio file (5.mp3)
The bass and pads are filtered slowly.

A few of the Fabfilter Simplons used here.

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Step 6: Reverbs and Delays

If you plan on creating an epic feel in your breaks, your going to need reverb and plenty of it. While your at it load up a delay plug-in or two, cause you’ll need them too!

Lexicon reverb was used in this mix.

Automating large amounts of reverb at the end of phrases or sections is the perfect way to paper over any cracks and seamlessly join elements thats are leaving or entering the mix. For an example I’ve isolated the main drum loop going out just before the breakdown kicks in. A healthy amount of Lexicon verb was used here.

The reverb level is automated.

Download audio file (6.mp3)
The drum loop is treated to some reverb.

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Step 7: Effects Samples

As well as using effects processors you can include actual effects samples. Again these are excellent for smoothing transition but they can also create tension and impact. Using risers and soft crashes throughout your breakdown will actually give the listener a sense of timing and allow them to keep track of where they are at, in absence of the main drum track.
To show you an example I have isolated the two main effects samples used in the centre of the break. Following that there is an audio clip of the whole ‘mini project’.

Some simple effect samples.

Download audio file (7.mp3)
The effects samples in isolation.
Download audio file (7b.mp3)
Here is the whole track to put things in context.

Quick Tip: One Way Of Using The Noise Gate Creatively

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Among the most underrated of mixing tools is the noise gate. It can do wonders for cleaning up loose sounds and emphasizing various aspects of a sound’s dynamics. A lesser known fact is that it can be used as a unique creative processing tool. In this tip we will look at one way of doing this by combining Logic’s noise gate with some creative routing techniques in order to create a dynamic auto panner.

Set Up

If you are unfamiliar with noise gates, the controls are fairly simple and I would suggest looking in your product manual for a more in depth explanation as this tip is going to assume some degree of basic knowledge.
What we are going to make is an effect that pans a signal according to its level. In this case, a reverb which pans left when it’s output is above a certain level and pans right when it’s output is below that same level.
For this example, I have instantiated Ultrabeat and sent a clap to direct out as well as a reverb aux. I have then compressed the reverb (more on why I did this later) and sent the reverb to two aux. channels where I have placed noise gates. I have then sent the two gated verbs and the dry clap to a single aux. (just for added control) and sent that to my stereo out.

Your routing should look something like this.

Closing The Gate

I am now going to solo one of the gates and bring up the threshold until my reverb begins to chatter (the gate opens and closes very fast as the signal is centered around the threshold) which is made more prominent due to the compression evening out the signal earlier in the chain.

First noise gate.

Download audio file (first.mp3)
First noise gate (left reverb).
From here, I will input the threshold setting into the second gate, but instead of having it cut the signal at the threshold, I will boost it by reversing the gain slider. Now the first gate will let the signal pass only above the threshold and the second gate will do the opposite and only let the signal pass below the threshold.

Second noise gate.

Download audio file (second.mp3)
Second noise gate (right reverb).

More Possibilities

From here I can pan the two signals to opposite ends of the stereo spectrum or do any other number of things to each channel individually to create an auto panning effect (and then some) that responds to the signal dynamics. The possibilities are literally endless
Download audio file (Both.mp3)
Both gates together.
Download audio file (wclap.mp3)
Reverb with clap.

Media Files
first.mp3 (MP3 Audio, 241 KB)

How The Hell Do I Use Reverb Anyway?!? Basix July 30, 2010 at 1:00 AM

Reverb is one of the things that can make or break a mix. Too much and it will either sound like it’s from the eighties or just plain too cluttered to be able to hear correctly. Too little and you feel like every instrument is attacking you at once. Reverb is used to create space in a mix, realistic or thematic, and a different use of reverb can give the same song a completely different character. Give two mixers the same mix and only allow them to change all the reverbs. Chances are those mixes are going to come out very different from one another. In the following Basix tutorial I’ll go into the different parameters, reverb modes and use of reverb. With the use of audio examples to demonstrate what I’m getting at, it’s my hope that I can clear some doubts that you have surrounding it. Typical Reverb Parameters In every reverb engine we have some of the same parameters to fiddle with. The more basic reverb plug-ins only have one or two parameters but some of the more advanced ones have almost unlimited capabilities for customization. Let’s look at some of the typical parameters we usually see in a reverb. Room Size/Type – You can usually choose how big you want your reverb to be. This can be either selected as pre-determined reverb modes(more about reverb modes below) or just the size of the reverb in seconds. A 0.5 second reverb sounds much shorter and smaller than a longer lush 3.3 second one. Pre-delay – You can use pre-delay to distance the reverb from the source sound. Think of pre-delay like the distance to the walls. By adding more pre-delay you are pushing the walls back allowing more time between the source sound and the reverb. This can be good when you have a big ballad with lots of reverb on the vocal but you don’t want to drown out the phrases of the singers with too much reverb. Early Reflections – Early reflections are all the combined reflections that happen after the original source signal. Theoretically, since these early reflections are the first reflections that bounce back from the nearest walls of our imaginary space our ears can pretty accurately gauge how large a room is supposed to be. If the early reflections are nearly instantaneous we are in a small room, but if the reflections don’t bounce back as quickly we can determine that we are in a larger space. Damping – Most rooms have all sorts of things that absorb higher frequencies. The carpet on the floor, the couch in the middle of the room as well as any blankets and clothes you have lying around. By using the damping factor on a reverb you are essentially determining how much high frequency energy is absorbed. Some reverbs have damping parameters for both high and low frequencies, and it works very similar to EQ. Density – How dense do you want your reverbs to be? The more dense a reverb is, the more the reflections continue to reflect and pack together, creating a thicker sound. The lower the density, the more space between each reflections, creating something that’s more similar to distinct echoes instead of a natural reverb. Diffusion – Diffusion determines the rate at which the reflections scatter and die down. A diffuse space is usually a controlled live space, with reflections that don’t pack together but rather disperse and die down. Frequency Filters – Most high quality reverbs have dedicated EQ controls on them, but some reverb engines just have frequency filters that allow you to filter out either unwanted high or low frequencies. This can be good if there is too much low bass in your reverb cluttering up the mix, or if there is too much high energy hiss annoying you. Wet/Dry Mix – Reverb are time based effects and therefore should almost always be used as a send effect rather than an insert. By using them as a send you can treat the reverb separately from the original source, allowing you more control over your source and reverb signals. If send effects confuse you, take a look at Joel Falconer’s tutorial on them here. The Different Reverb Modes The spaces around you all sound different. The spacious reverb you get by walking into a European Cathedral is not the same as you would get from walking into your living room. Spaces interact with each other, sounding bigger and bigger as there is more of it. Audio engineers know how the different spaces sound and what we can accomplish musically by choosing the right space to give to our songs. The different spaces we can choose from in our productions are called room modes. Reverb modes are basically categories of different spaces that have a distinct character and sound. I’m going to be using a drum beat as an example of the various reverb modes, so before we put different reverbs on it, listen to it dry below. Download audio file (drumsdry.mp3) I’m adding the reverb to all of the drum tracks equally for demonstration purposes. Usually, we don’t necessarily need to add reverb to everything. Maybe putting a little reverb on the over-head microphone tracks is enough to give a drum-kit its space, but for the sake of listening we’ll be putting the whole drum-kit into the reverb. Room – Rooms evoke feelings of smallish spaces with low ceilings. It can sound like a bathroom (everybody sounds great singing in the shower right?) or a small studio room. The sound a room makes is not as lush or big as a hall, but it does have its character and uses when you need to give an instrument a little space and depth. In the audio sample below I’ve added a realistic 0.7 second room sound to our drum track. Listen to how we’ve put the drums into its own space now. Download audio file (drumsroom.mp3) Hall – Hall reverbs are big and plentiful. You can add small halls to things, but it’s not unusual to use hall reverbs to add lush big reverbs to vocals, big drum-kits and other things you want to make sound like it’s being played in a big hall. Small halls still sound bigger than small rooms, and they have a more reflective quality than a room. Here is the same drum-beat played with a 2.4 second Hall reverb. The space sounds much bigger, and also more reflective than the room sound. Download audio file (drumshall.mp3) Chamber – Chambers were the first kind of real reverb that was created in the studios back in the old days. By playing the music through speakers down in reflective chambers that had a microphone that picked up the music with the reflections of these echo chambers the first natural reverb devices were born. Chambers can sound big but usually do not have many early reflections, giving the sound more space without audible reflections. Here is a chamber sound. If you go back to the room sound you can hear the similarities and differences in the sound. You can hear a similar space surrounding the drum kit, but the chamber doesn’t have the immediate slap reflection that the room sound has. Download audio file (drumschamber.mp3) Plate – Plates are mechanical reverbs and aren’t really an emulation of any specific space. Plate reverbs are big electro-mechanical plates that vibrate with the music, with pickups picking up the reverb vibrations that the plate is giving off. Typically, since a metal plate reverb vibrates pretty fast, the sound is full of early reflections and high density. Plates are popular for drums, especially snares. This audio sample below has a drum plate of 0.7 seconds and it thickens up the sound of the drum-kit and gives it considerable space without adding a long reverb trail. Download audio file (drumsplate.mp3) Spring – Spring reverbs are the mainstay of the 60′s Surf music. I wrote a little bit about the surf guitar sound of the 60s in my last Premium tutorial, but spring reverb is typical reverb every guitar amplifier has. Sound is sent through springs which reverberate and create that boingy, springy sound. Spring reverb is mostly used on guitars but don’t be afraid to experiment and see if you can pair your spring reverb with something else entirely. Impulse Responses – Impulse Responses (IRs) are like sound pictures of a room. You can take audio snap-shots of famous studio rooms, your own basement or your dining hall and use it in your productions. There are some reverb engines that only work with pre-loaded IRs (Logic’s Space Designer, Altiverb) and they come fully stocked with great sounding rooms, halls, plates and every other room mode you would ever want. Also, just by doing a quick Google search you can find people that have taken IRs of everything they can think of. From the pipes in their sink to the space inside their mouth, you can accomplish some pretty weird reverb sounds using warped and alternative impulse responses. Using the Right Reverb Now that we’ve gone over the parameters and reverb modes, you have to know which reverb will work for any given situation. A grand hall reverb might work great on slow piano pieces, or soulful guitar solos, but it might not work that great with heavily distorted rhythm guitars. It doesn’t take a lot of experience to instinctively know which reverb mode or reverb time to use, but once you get the hang of how each reverb usually sounds and what works for each instrument you can work faster and more efficiently on your projects. Let’s see how a medium hall setting sounds like on two different guitar parts. The first one is a clean chordal part, that’s slow enough to make the reverb shine, but the second one is a rock riff that becomes undefined and muddy once we put the same reverb on it. Clean chordal part: Download audio file (mediumhallgtr1.mp3) Sweet and soulful. Rock Riff: Download audio file (mediumhallgtr2.mp3) Jumbled mess. Placing Instruments Into a Room Say we have a song that we want to sound like it was recorded live, with all the instrument together in the room. All the instrument were tracked (recorded) separately in different studios, but they were all fairly dry sounding, meaning we can add any reverb we want to them. By choosing one nice sounding room or hall we can place the instruments together in that room and make them sound like they are all jamming inside a sweet sounding studio room. A good way to do this is to actually solo the reverb by itself and place each element into the room with sends. By sending each instrument separately you can place them closer or farther away in the room you have created. There is less of the drums sent into the room since I want them to be in the background. The bass is a little louder than the drums but the guitars are more dominant than the bass. Finally, the lead instrument, the accordion has the most amount sent to the reverb. Essentially, what we are creating here is the illusion of all these instruments playing together in the room. So by placing them with sends as you would preferably hear them together in the room makes them glue together better in the final mix. You can change sounds of the original instruments all you want, but now you’ve established a setting in which these instruments are playing. Listen to the soloed reverb here. This is only the instrument in the room without the original sounds. It sounds like something you would be hearing coming from a room far away. Download audio file (stereoreverbwet.mp3) Taking Out Unwanted Reverb EQing reverbs is an age old trick. Since you send your source sound to a specific reverb track you can modify and change your reverb sound as much as you want. The most common use is to put EQ in front of the reverb device and EQ out everything you don’t want, or accent a specific frequency that you want to jump out. The most common use is to filter out either highs, lows or both frequency ranges so that a reverb sits better with an instrument. Here is a drum track that has an overall reverb sound. The low end is a bit much so I’ve decided to filter out all the low end frequencies to about 500 Hz. That way the kick drum and low end of the drum kit doesn’t sound as cluttered but we still end up with a spacious drum sound. Too much low end reverb: Download audio file (drumrevnoeq.mp3) Low end filtered away: Download audio file (drumreveq.mp3) You can do this to any instrument obviously, and one trick I learned from one of Bobby Owsinski’s blog posts about reverb is to high- and low-pass filter instruments to achieve that Abbey Road sound. In this next piano part I’ve rolled off everything below 500 Hz as well as everything above 10 Khz. It give the piano part a much punchier sound. It has reverb but it doesn’t have any muddiness or ringing high frequencies to clutter it up. Piano without EQ: Download audio file (pianowet.mp3) A tighter piano sound with EQ: Download audio file (pianofiltered.mp3) Just a Little Bit of ‘Verb If you want a punchy rock mix and don’t want to touch into glam rock dimension you should be sparse on the reverb. Making things sound dry doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t use reverb. You just have to use it sparingly with short reverb times, and have them low in the mix. A really dry sound is unnatural to listen to, so when you are mixing your next track that just needs a little reverb to push the elements into place consider these techniques. Short reverb times – To just add some ambience to an instrument you should use short reverb times, small rooms, plates and small halls to accomplish a liveness without the bigness. Low in the mix – Keep your reverb tracks low in the mix. Gradually add reverb until you can audibly hear it, then back off the volume a little bit. If you don’t notice the reverb but notice something missing when it’s muted you’re on the right track. Filter – Filter out the high frequencies if you want the reverb to blend in better. It will add ambience without high frequency reverb trails. Here is a short vocal passage that has no reverb on the first phrase and then a small hall to add some extra ambience to it. Notice how dry the voice sounds first and then when the reverb kicks there is more life and excitement in the voice. Download audio file (vocalreverb.mp3) Mix and Match Reverbs You can also have different reverbs on different elements of a mix. Take backing vocals for example. There is usually more reverb on backing vocals than the lead vocal, in order to push the backing vocals away from being the leading element. By using different reverbs on backing vocals you can create different contrasts that can sound pretty or in this case, kind of creepy. Here is an example of a backing vocal mix I did recently. There are two separate reverbs being used, one 2.2 second hall and one 3.3 second hall. We have dry copies of the main vocals panned across the spectrum as well as an ethereal reverbed backing vocal chanting in the background. Sounds kinda creepy, but that was the goal. First sample is the complete track with all the instruments and the second are the vocals only. Download audio file (backingvocals.mp3) Download audio file (backingvocalssolo.mp3) Conclusion Reverb is a necessary ingredient in any mix, regardless if you want it to be heard or not. You can use it to add ambience, create spaces around instruments, construct specific moods or just make things sound punchier. However you use reverb, it is definitely one of the elements that you need to spend the most time with, experimenting with the different parameters, reverb modes and settings in order to familiarize yourself with how everything works and interconnects. I hope I have shed some light of how you can use the different reverb modes and given you some inspiring examples that you can use in your mixes. Since this is a Basix tutorial I want everyone to comment with any question they have regarding the doubts they have on reverb. No question is too stupid and everybody has scratched their head at some point over the workings of this ever elusive mixing ingredient.