TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Production Studio
-- Has anyone here put together a decent track W/O using a sampler editor whatsoever?

Has anyone here put together a decent track W/O using a sampler editor whatsoever?

I was silly enough to overlook my Cubase Sample Editor for a long time, only using samplers like shortcircuit with midi tracks + provided dsp fx to get some (relatively) basic use and modulation out of my samples.

As far as trance and progressive goes, has anyone here ever gotten by making music with only midi, vsti's and softsamplers? Or should direct audio editing, destruction, reconstruction, shaping, etc be key to any well produced track?

Re: Has anyone here put together a decent track W/O using a sampler editor whatsoever?

quote:

Originally posted by ClearWater I was silly enough to overlook my Cubase Sample Editor for a long time, only using samplers like shortcircuit with midi tracks + provided dsp fx to get some (relatively) basic use and modulation out of my samples. As far as trance and progressive goes, has anyone here ever gotten by making music with only midi, vsti's and softsamplers? Or should direct audio editing, destruction, reconstruction, shaping, etc be key to any well produced track?

I've done severe editing of samples AND have also done without. The past three songs I finished have been strictly using my DAW, Reason, and assorted plug-ins.

I think it depends entirely on the song. If a sample needs treatment in an audio editor or a dedicated software sampler I use that to tailor the sound I'm looking for.

I wouldn't say that wave editing is "key", as there are certainly enough tracks in the wild that clearly don't have any of it. But it's definitely the best for creating really slick-sounding effects that make the track stand out.

I never edit tracks in a wave editor. I only open my tracks in it to see how the waveform looks like, or the see the overall volume. I do everything inside Cubase (except if I have to tune a sample or determine what pitch it's in, but still, I don't do that in a wave editor).

quote:

Originally posted by Theran I never edit tracks in a wave editor. I only open my tracks in it to see how the waveform looks like, or the see the overall volume. I do everything inside Cubase (except if I have to tune a sample or determine what pitch it's in, but still, I don't do that in a wave editor).

If you use s(m)exoscope you can see the waveform in real time, as your producing.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric J If you use s(m)exoscope you can see the waveform in real time, as your producing.

As from tonight, I am no longer using a wave editor. Thanks Eric!

Wow, a bit surprised I suppose... getting to play with audio seems to give quite a few advantages when it comes to manipulating and creating new samples... certainly can see getting a lot of interesting percussive effects for drums and expressive effects for leads/pads...

Do any of you work with chopping up your audio or is it all smooth modulation of timbres through arranger envelopes? Do you just work on getting the complicated stuff done in the VSTi?

quote:

Originally posted by ClearWater Wow, a bit surprised I suppose... getting to play with audio seems to give quite a few advantages when it comes to manipulating and creating new samples... certainly can see getting a lot of interesting percussive effects for drums and expressive effects for leads/pads... Do any of you work with chopping up your audio or is it all smooth modulation of timbres through arranger envelopes? Do you just work on getting the complicated stuff done in the VSTi?

Chopping, reversing, glueing, duplicating, adding effects, and one very important thing like adding volume envelopes such as fading in and out, which otherwise requires tedious volume automating. (in Cubase that is, it has this neat little feature where u can drag the top of the audio file to fade in or out, or use the draw tool to draw a curve on the event)

Manual editing is good because everyone can tell when you're using dBlue Glitch, or it's mac ripoff Effectrix .

I love getting in and tweaking with stuff... but when I just start a track I usually just do nothing but midi.

How are you able to tell the difference between dblue glitch and doing it the long way?

quote:

Originally posted by cronodevir How are you able to tell the difference between dblue glitch and doing it the long way?

I've used dBlue glitch to record about 40 bars of glitches from an original track, then spliced the non-shitty parts back into the original and added my own effects, and nobody really noticed it as the glitch "sound". It's a lazy man's approach, like wading through a thousand preset patches and samples instead of trying to make my own, but it actually still involves a lot of work.

Plain vanilla Glitch is, well, pretty obvious. It just doesn't provide a wide variety of rhythms, effects, or timbres in general. Plus, to an alert listener, it sounds random, because it is random. Good stutter/glitch edits are supposed to blend well; they should add character but not seem out of place. They should help the track's rhythm along rather than disrupting it. Throwing on a Glitch plugin and tweaking a few knobs doesn't accomplish any of this.

So how do you glitch an incoming signal without a glitch FX?

Also, Who uses the default for dblue glitch?

quote:

Originally posted by cronodevir So how do you glitch an incoming signal without a glitch FX?

That is a topic that I've tried several times to write about without much success. It's very hard to put into words and seems to be more of an art than an exact science. The "how" really isn't that difficult, it's the "what" that stumps people, and sometimes you just have to experiment. And honestly, it's a lot of f*ckin' work even when you're in practice.

I could post examples here, but it seems silly just to prove a point... but if there's a genuine interest then there's plenty of material I can dig up from my own tracks, with glitch, without glitch, and various hybrids.

It isn't just glitches, incidentally - a lot of ambient effects I add use offline processing heavily, because it's far too expensive to heap on 20 reverbs and delays and filters and pitch shifts in real-time, and even if it weren't, doing the automation would be death.

I know psy at the very least is entirely possible to make without any samples whatsoever.

The kick you can make just with a synth and eq's, and the rest is fx, bass and leads which are all synths too.

quote:

Originally posted by DigiNut That is a topic that I've tried several times to write about without much success. It's very hard to put into words and seems to be more of an art than an exact science. The "how" really isn't that difficult, it's the "what" that stumps people, and sometimes you just have to experiment. And honestly, it's a lot of f*ckin' work even when you're in practice. I could post examples here, but it seems silly just to prove a point... but if there's a genuine interest then there's plenty of material I can dig up from my own tracks, with glitch, without glitch, and various hybrids. It isn't just glitches, incidentally - a lot of ambient effects I add use offline processing heavily, because it's far too expensive to heap on 20 reverbs and delays and filters and pitch shifts in real-time, and even if it weren't, doing the automation would be death.

I know "how", you render the synth stuff to wav. But ive never found a situation where side-effects and limitations of rendering to wav, was worth the effects you could add to it afterwords.

I am sure it sounds contrived, but i'm fascinated people actually do this. Untill you, in all 10 or so years of doing music ive never heard of anyone using wavs for anything but percussion[not counting people who obviosly HAVE to use wavs [recording a violin for instance]], and even then everyone I know makes their own percussion or uses a drum machine with samples. Infact most documents ive read actually suggest to not do that heh

quote:

Originally posted by cronodevir I know "how", you render the synth stuff to wav.

How to make the stutter and glitch effects, not how to bounce a track... I thought that was obvious.

If you've been producing for 10 years then I'm actually shocked that you've never done any direct editing or even seen it done. Come on man, there was a time when all we had was samples, and the majority of producing was done by physically splicing actual tape. Delays, flangers, phasers, all of the bread-and-butter effects producers use all came from that world. We may not be stuck working with magnetic tape anymore but it's important to understand the techniques of cutting, splicing, and processing in the digital domain.

late the party but only now have tried glitch after reading about it in this thread... when used properly it does seem to save a lot of time... even if audio editing is still more precise. That said I probably won't use it much

Lol Ive seen tape before, you can give it a phasor effect by bending :P I just don't know many who still use wavs if they can avoid it. This is why I like the freeze feature in cubase, you can get that effect without actually having to bounce wavs and deal with all that.

As for the glitch stuff yeah you do use wavs [if you don't use dblue glitch] actually right now I am slicing a vocal sample and sending it to a vocoder for making spiffy rythmic cycles and such. But I wouldn't have thought of doing it to a synth., because I can just use midi to make a glitchy effect. That and dblue glitch.

dblue glitch is actually pretty spiffy as long as you don't just use random all the time.

A clip of what I am doing.


This is actually very old, i'm remaking this song, but i'm keeping the vocal rhythmic thingy relatively the same.

more:

http://www.tindeck.com/listen/yfdd
http://www.tindeck.com/listen/qqxn
Song is originally mine.

Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.