From the category archives:

Tutorials

Color Theory with fried ride cymbals

2010-01-05

Brian Hazard of Color Theory does the uncommon good of sharing his experiences of the electronic music production process, including snippets of tracks-in-progress. While the Net has opened so many collaboration and behind-the-scenes opportunities, insecurity is still rife and I come across much fear of "spilling one's secrets". Thus, it's still comparatively rare to find computer musicians who find the time to share stories of their craft — understandable if someone is struggling enough for resources as it is.

Brian recently let me know in his post "Snippets 13-15", he cooked up his own dubsteppy take on my recipe for fried ride cymbals and it's included with two other song snippets. Thanks Brian for taking my, well, Theory and Color-ing it into action! He's got a great sense of exploring melody across styles, very catchy. In particular, my ears welcome the dancy piano grupettos in "Canadian Boards".

I also learned that Brian has been migrating to Ableton Live, and with the clean way he laid out that post with audio snippets after each step, it feels like Brian would be a natural fit for doing Audiotuts+ if he feels like it! Whaddaya think, Brian?

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Jangle fête

2010-01-02

I get fixated on microcosms of sound. While describing them is only part of the story, I suppose it's rather like opening a (wanted) box of chocolates and luxuriating in each one's unique taste. I shall have an in-action example of this later, but I delight preparing the following recipe for "fried ride cymbals" in Able-town:

Perform a gently swung ride cymbal on a MIDI track. I tend to go for a 2-, 4-, or 8-bar loop. Preferably, with velocity switching for dynamics. I play in the pattern live so it has that natural groove, then I quantize 50% of the way, and another 50% if it's too "loose" (but sometimes you want that).
Apply the Saturator so you get some added sheen and even intentional distortion. That crisps it up.
Add heavy dynamic compression so it pumps, almost claustrophobically at times. Don't worry, there's a counterpoint to this.
Add some vinyl effect with hints of crackle — this is where we approach "it sounds like a vintage record sample without originating there".
Freeze the track, flatten it to audio. F&F are steps I do often, as some edits are more flexibility performed in the audio realm.
Chop out little bits here and there so there are gaps in the vinyl's ambience. Alone, this can be unsettling. Coupled with other drum tracks and more of a comprehensive arrangement, the spaces create intrigue and allow breaths for other instruments to make their mark.
Finally, shift cymbals around and add flavor.and variation. This can involve some subtle pitchbending on the clips to displace our sense of tone and timbre. I like occasions of extreme timestretching to provide surreal warp graininess; artifacts I've been making my own.

A similar sound in terms of shade can be found in the work of Amon Tobin, Four Tet, and others who actually sample jazz records. I've mostly done it the above way, altho I'm not opposed to cheekily nicking a hi-hat here and there.

Beyond the rawpass, perhaps in the future I'll do step-by-step tutorials of these thoughts which rush to the forefront of my mind. *gazes admirably at Audiotuts+* I've been musing over it awhile but tend to get carried away by digging into practical productions. OHMY.

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Apple Keynote double shadow on chart label fix

2009-12-04

With rare exception, Apple's user interfaces live up to the hype of being intuitive and satisfying. Except in recent memory, their Font Panel. I had a problem in Keynote 5 where I was trying to remove shadows from chart label text. Sounds simple enough, oui? I expected to find shadow with, oh, all the other text styles like bold and underline. However, it was in the Inspector. One of the shadows, anyway.

Wait, ONE OF THE SHADOWS!?

Yes, apparently not just one, but TWO shadow effects are applied. The other one has to be eliminated through the Font Panel — which would make sole sense, if only that were evident from the get-go. Y'see, the Font Panel plays a nasty trick on you, because it has numerous controls hidden until you stretch the panel wider, with no pre-evident guide to discovery.

Thanks to the rapid-replying Tulse for helping me figure this out; it should've been much easier to begin with. So I hope in Keynote 6, only one shadow is used, and that in a future Mac OS X update, the Font Panel is revised. I heart being able to sort my faves, but had no idea these controls were awaiting me.

And you, don't feel bad if you miss something only-obvious-in-hindsight like this. As you just saw, it happens to me, too.

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So I've started a musical Dream Journal

2009-08-14

I explain more in this video. Visit my LOVELY MUSIC page, and see the "dreams tag" for the ongoing stream of entries.

Also, here's the making of "002 – Watermelon Patch", which gives a behind-the-scenes look at some of the steps I take to put a techno(logy-based)/electronica/computer music track together:

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[TIP] VLC media player can turn movies into color ASCII

2009-07-03

VideoLAN Client (VLC) media player has a nifty feature built in: it can play movies (and still pictures!) as color ASCII. This means visuals appear reminiscent of old BBS and terminal art. Since it's automated, it's not the most precise conversion, but I put some concert footage through it and was all grins. Here's how you do it, at least on the Mac side (since VLC is multi-platform):

Go to VLC menu > Preferences.
Click Video tab.
Change Output module to Color ASCII art video output.

BEFORE

AFTER

Play a movie and get out the bitcrushed popcorn. To screengrab a still shot like this with Skitch, I had to drag it into the VLC playlist, play it for a sec, then quickly pause it.

A brief google shows me not many know about this, so spread the lofi word! Previously related is my "8 Inspiring Stories of ASCII Art" for Smashing Magazine.

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[TIP] Link to a page in a Texterity online magazine

2009-06-29

If you've ever read an online magazine, after PDF, it's likely you leafed through one powered by Texterity. Coverleaf has a bunch of examples and one I checked out recently is the Costco Connection. I've found Texterity mags pretty straightforward and don't have any insidious quibbles with the format, but how to link to a page is unobvious. Turns out the answer is quite simple; just head for the Share button, as shown here:

Interestingly, the same principle works on other formats too, like transhumanist h+ magazine's Flash format, where the option is represented by a Digg icon and called "Social bookmark this page". From there, if you click the Google icon, it'll show you the page URL.

On YouTube, nemoDaedalus helpfully notes:

Same as with Google Maps (not Earth, Maps!), once you got a nice view and want to share that, you have to click the not-so-easily-found Link-button.

Looks like a number of independent content presenters should make their direct links clearer!

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[TUTORIAL] Tweak effects to make your voice sound richer on the Zoom H4n

2009-06-28

The Zoom H4n "Handy Recorder" is very versatile. Not only does it function well as a mobile field recorder, it also doubles as a USB computer interface. What's the point of that? Well, since it has built-in condenser mics (and you can also attach external mics via XLR), it's very convenient to record your voice, as I've done across many videos with my Mac.

What's even better is that it has built-in effects which are quite usable. For instance, there's a limiter which prevents digital clipping, and while I wouldn't put it in the same "creamy analogue" class as some of my fave DAW software limiters, it can still protect you from overloads. There's also an amp simulator which can colorize instruments you record, or in my preferred case, my voice. I took some time to tweak that today and came up with an effects setting which has deeper bass and greater presence. No doubt I'll continue to adjust it as I find more room for improvement, but as this video makes clear, it's sounding very broadcast-friendly already.

If you have a Zoom H4n and want to try out the settings, here they are. Keep in mind my male voice is fairly low, so you should adjust to fit yourself (and your environment) better.

Start the H4n while it's plugged to your computer via USB and connect as AUDIO I/F. (I presume you've done this before; if not, consult the manual.)
Press MENU button.
Select EFFECT (click the wheel).
Go to a blank effect (like No.50) and click EDIT.

On EDIT:EMPTY screen, edit each of these sections:

PRE AMP EDIT

OFF/ON: ON
TYPE: AG MPRE (short for Acoustic Guitar mic preamp, I find it sounds thicker than the VOX MPRE which is supposedly for vocals)
COMP: 1
DE-ESSER: OFF
LOW CUT: OFF
BASS: 0dB
MIDDLE: 0dB
TREBLE: 3dB (boost of sharpness — note this isn't in the video I did above, I changed it after, it's subtle)
LEVEL: 80 (I find going higher starts to result in unpleasant distortion)
ZNR: 3 (raise this to reduce noise in noisy surroundings, like a computer with a loud fan)

EFX

OFF/ON: ON
TYPE: LIMITER
THRSHOLD: 10
RATIO: 7
RELEASE: 10
LEVEL: 90 (I'm experimenting with this; if I notice too much distortion I'll drop back to 80.)

LEVEL: 80

Then…

Choose RENAME from the EDIT:EMPTY screen and give your setup a fitting title, like "AWESOME". I named mine "LIMIT3" for the time being, after an earlier revision.
Make sure to click STORE and click EXECUTE to save it into No.50 or another empty slot.
Now try auditioning before/after to compare the difference.

What about using those effects on the road?

Good question! I haven't yet checked this in-depth, but I know the H4n has a somewhat different effects config when it's acting as a truly mobile recorder, so try adapting the above if you're on the go and want to record with such effects.

I find setting up these effects is a great timesaver…

so I sound pro voiceover-ready directly into the computer, and I don't have to mess around with an app's audio tools. (Nor does Screenflow, the most common prog I record Mac videos into, have such a way to do this.) And of course, if you plug your H4n into another computer, you can also access these same settings, making it even more convenient.

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[TUTORIAL] Freaky alien voices with Antares Mutator + How to make your voice sound Goauld in Ableton Live

2009-06-27

Until June 30th, Antares Mutator can be bought from audioMIDI.com for US$10. It's an attraction to get you to buy the whole AVOX 2 bundle. I found Mutator fun but don't have a burning need for it — still, I hope you enjoy this video showing a bizarre range of what it can do:

Some people remarked I started sounding Asgard at the end, and I've done Goa'uld voices in the past. So as a tip of the hat to Stargate SG-1 and knowing the question comes up a fair bit, here's my tutorial on how to use a flanger + pitch-shifting in Ableton Live to sound like those parasitic System Lords. There's also a gate + limiter effect, but as I explain, those are optional.

The really awesome thing is after you have an effects chain setup, you can easily drop in just about any voice clip and Goauldize it. Easier than having to run one process after another in a sound editor that doesn't allow live chaining like this.

Add Joel Goldsmith's original score for the final authentic touch!

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