The Use and Abuse of Sound Sources

[StuH]

Thread title stolen from Bete Noir

How experimental do you fellas go with your music?

I've always considered myself to be very traditional as far as my musical taste went and have always been striving to create classic rock sounds.

In a search for a drum solution I went out and purchased Guru from FXpansion. To my chagrin this was not exactly a definitive rock drum solution at all. it was more like a beat box/quasi singnal filtering trance, electronic and hiphop sampler. The purchase was my fault for not researching enough.
For the money I spent on it, I decided to at least give it a shot and to my amazement I've suddenly become a fan of modern grooves and beats, and bizarre synth sounds. It has really opened up avenues that I would not have pursued and in general has been positive for me as a guitar player with limited ability. So many sonic textures at my fingertips.

Anyway that purchase has resulted in adding Reason 3.0 into the studio. I plan on delving into the abtract/obscure realm of synth based music as soon as I can figure out how to operate the hundreds of sliders knobs etc on some of the softsynths.

Perhaps there are other "traditional" types out there with similar experiences.

[woodman]

long before i went digital, i went through a year and a half period off the beaten path ... i'd gone back to school and quit gigging, so i had to find other outlets. i'd just spin off on an impressionistic track and texturize it with the stuff i had a hand -- a cheezy old synth, drum machine, bass and many, many guitars. i wish i could rework that stuff with modern tools, but it's all on Tascam 4-track (ping-ponged to hell and gone), and that machine's long gone.

[Bete Noir]

A true Artist! There’s an amazing wealth of sound and textures worth exploring. The power and versatility of current software offerings is downright overwhelming.

Being out of the loop, I’m not familiar with Guru. Maybe something similar to Acid?
I find staring at an empty page when starting a project pretty intimidating, and beat boxes or loopers are a great way to just get things moving.
Reason’s a real powerhouse and absolutely nails the analog spirit. Can I assume your reference to knobs and sliders control is the often unexpected and unpredictable results? Hey, that’s the best part.

If you have some type of outboard controller with programmable controls you should try setting them to the control numbers for Reason’s modules (or any softsynth). It won’t help to keep things from getting squirrelly but it sure makes for a cool hands-on experience.

I’ve also spent/spend time as a traditional guitar player and even took a spin at the precision of classical. Never been great at any of it, but I sure enjoy it and that works for me. I think that’s my attraction to analog synthesis; it can be 180 degrees from tradition and so darn fluid.

Hey Woodman was your tascam cassette or reel?

[StuH]

Originally Posted by Bete Noir

Being out of the loop, I’m not familiar with Guru. Maybe something similar to Acid?

It's a jack of all trades step sequencer, sampler, and slicer with built in fx a compact easy to navigate gui. Standalone, rewire, plugin. It works on a pricipal of engines. One engine contains 16 pads, each wave file loaded to a pad can be manipulated to some degree. It will sequence up to 128 steps and has the capacity to store 24 patterns, and contains 3 aux send effects.
The beauty is that it has 8 of these engines. These can be mixed and matched together to form almost unlimited pattern layers in a form called scenes. These scenes are triggered from your hosts roll editor or of course your midi board. It actually reminds me of a compact, stripped down FL Studio.

[Bete Noir]

Now that’s an impressive tool! After your original post, I was flipping through the Sweetwater catalog and did come across the advert for Guru – but your description is far more informative and concise.

It seems once you get up to speed with functionality and capabilities you could easily produce those traditional drum tracks you initially envisioned but as you said it’s a gateway to another dimension.

I was also curious as to how you would use it with Reason without a second soundcard and some sort of sync – Rewire, plugin – sweet! Question answered.

[Bete Noir]

So…even with all these amazing software editors and processors, I have yet to find anything that can reproduce one of my favorite reel to reel abuses.

Slowing a sound file down to ½ or ¼ speed.

I know (groan) that’s the lamest effect in the book and I agree, traditional timbres come off as, well, slow speed guitar or piano or violin etc. (yawn); but I remember recording classic, pulsing analog waves in the high frequency range at 15ips then stepping them down to 7 ½ or 3 ¾ips and ending up with a galaxy of drifting blips, blurps, swishes, drizzles, rings, dings …the stuff of ambient background pads.

Anyway, I’ve tried the usual time expand/compress functions, knowing full well that’s not their designed intention nor within their capabilities. I’m usually rewarded with a dialog box that says something similar to “You can’t be serious” and has the yes button grayed out.

So short of buying a boat anchor reel to reel, anyone know of any audio tool that could do this?

[Chris S.]

Originally Posted by Bete Noir

I’m usually rewarded with a dialog box that says something similar to “You can’t be serious” and has the yes button grayed out.

LOL That's very funny, thx. :-) Personally, I hate that little dialog box that says "Have you been drinking again? [YES] [NO] [I can't remember.]" CS

[Bete Noir]

Chris - you're cracking me up.

Man-O- Man. When I saw that you replied to this thread I was SURE you were going to toss us for talking Electronica on the TDPRI.

[Ben Harmless]

StuH - a similar thing happened to me. I've got a friend who migrated from her punk-rock, mohawk-sporting days to get really into electronic music. I heard a few of her favorate tracks and kinda got the bug, but I'm not sure where to really begin.

Originally Posted by Bete Noir

So short of buying a boat anchor reel to reel, anyone know of any audio tool that could do this?

I got something for you if you got something for me.

I'm sure, since you are a visitor to a predominantly guitar forum, that this may be something with which you are familiar, and I know that you're set up for mostly line-level recording, but have you ever tried out a simple guitar delay pedal? There are about a million varieries, meaning a million different flavors. Set the feedback to the right level so that it repeats on its own, and then start messing with the time control. Caffiene is the only drug I abuse, but I've gotten pretty trippy with my delays. You can always use a 1/4" to XPR adapter and run a mic into the front to "sample" anything you want. My favorate is always slowing down sounds with serious transients. Go analog for that ol' organic experience - but I don't need to tell you that, you're a synth guy.

So, here's my question: Do you have anywhere you could reccomend that I go to learn how to approach those crazy modular synth boxes? I expect that it's sort of like learning the guitar - you have to know how to put your hands on the thing or you get discouraged easily. I don't know how to put my hands on the things.

EDIT: Robert Keeley has a mod for the Ibanez AD-9 that provides for an expression pedal to conrol the time setting. Oooohh, the possibilities.

[woodman]

Originally Posted by Bete Noir

Hey Woodman was your tascam cassette or reel?

my first one, where i did all the spacey stuff, was a 4-track cassette Portastudio. i then graduated to their 8-track cassette machine (2488, i think it was), but recorded mostly conventional material on that. the funny thing about the 4-track was, with all the blurring from ping-ponging tracks, it added to the spacey effect, kind of like a watercolor wash. not that i'd want to return to those days!!!

[StuH]

Originally Posted by Bete Noir

So…even with all these amazing software editors and processors, I have yet to find anything that can reproduce one of my favorite reel to reel abuses.

Slowing a sound file down to ½ or ¼ speed.

For such a simple effect it looks as if it has been the most dificult to achieve at least in real time with home based digital audio. Actaully it appears to be a brand new feature for the Sonar 6 engine and I'm not sure but I think new for latest version of Cubase too. The description at Cakewalk is about real time strectching of audio without changing pitch but whether the inverse can be done, I'm not sure. You would think it is possible though.

I konw i can create an audio groove, in the form of a loop and change it's tempo/pitch but it's a direct relationship. To produce that reel effect would require a huge amount of patience but it would be possible to do.

I've searched high and low for this on the net and the closest I could find was a phase vocoder. Very few plugins and mostly stand alone apps and older 2004ish. Try a search on phase vocoding and you might find something of interest.

[Bete Noir]

Hey guys thanks for the suggestions. You’ve got me rethinking how I might use some tried and true effects.

Ben – your question is deceptively simple – let me take a little time to compose a response before I reply.

Your ideas on exploring the possibilities of delays are excellent.

I think what I was after from the reel effect is the ability to physically strreeettch the waveforms, the immediate and obvious result being a drop in pitch. The secondary effect being to expose the harmonic overtones that are normally closely bound to the original timbres as well as dropping the pitch of those extremely high frequencies boarding on our hearing limit (and even above) into a comfortable audible range.
Those are the little buggers I’m after.

But you have me thinking about running a sound bit through a delay, clipping the tail, running that through again, maybe clipping the tail again and see what starts to separate out.
All my processors are digital and won’t be very hands on friendly but there’s still a lot of sonic possibilities worth exploring. I’d like to try a moogerfooger delay but that’s definitely not in my budget range these days.
I love Keeley’s offerings. I’ve been thinking about picking up an AD-9 anyway. I’m going to check that out.

I clearly have a much wilder lifestyle than you; caffeine keeps me going but I will drink an 11oz bottle of Guinness stout once a week whether I need it or not, and it’s highly possible I may be suffering some latent residual effect from the 70’s.

StuH – Your making me nervous when you start referring to c2004 as old. I still have software from a little startup company called Twelve Tone Row, it’s called Cakewalk v1.0. It’d be amusing to see if I could even load it.
Real time stretching without changing the pitch is exactly the problem; everyone seems to be working very hard to achieve this. I have to admit that it is a far more useful feature than what I’m looking for.
The current version of Cubase is a different animal from what I use. Mine was their flagship offering from the mid 90’s to around 2000 when they pulled a major upgrade fiasco, eventually got it upgraded to v5.01 then dropped it like a hot potato, but did offer an upgrade to their new $1200 flagship program, Nuendo. You don’t want to get me started on that.

Though it’s not a problem for me, I’m still running windows 98se on my trusty old Dell 410 PIII 500 workstation. Most current software isn’t going to run in that environment. I could get a current machine but the cost of replacing all my (audio) software and hardware to the level I’m used to would easily run me $10K or more. At the end of the day, it’s just a tool, and mine still has a lot of capabilities left to explore.
I will check out some of your suggestions, at least to see what I'm missing. It’s highly possible I might even have some type of phase vocoder or similar kicking around. Thanks!

Woodman – I used the 644midi studio for years, great little machine. I know you were musing when you mentioned transferring those old 4trks to a digital environment; but what the hey- pop those puppies into a 2trk cassette. The “A” side will still reflect your impressionistic period and the “B” side will probably fast start your abstract expressionist period.

[Ben Harmless]

Originally Posted by Bete Noir

Ben – your question is deceptively simple – let me take a little time to compose a response before I reply.

Your ideas on exploring the possibilities of delays are excellent.

I think what I was after from the reel effect is the ability to physically strreeettch the waveforms, the immediate and obvious result being a drop in pitch. The secondary effect being to expose the harmonic overtones that are normally closely bound to the original timbres as well as dropping the pitch of those extremely high frequencies boarding on our hearing limit (and even above) into a comfortable audible range.
Those are the little buggers I’m after.

But you have me thinking about running a sound bit through a delay, clipping the tail, running that through again, maybe clipping the tail again and see what starts to separate out.
All my processors are digital and won’t be very hands on friendly but there’s still a lot of sonic possibilities worth exploring. I’d like to try a moogerfooger delay but that’s definitely not in my budget range these days.
I love Keeley’s offerings. I’ve been thinking about picking up an AD-9 anyway. I’m going to check that out.

So, all this delay talk just had me playing around with the whole thing. As much as I'd like to fully grasp what you're after, I'll admit that I'm not completely on board the clue bus. I thought I'd add though, that the cool thing that I just re-discovered about analog delay (not that I'd forgotten, it just occurred to me in the context of this discussion) is that analog delay chips are not known for their high degree of accuracy to the signal source - especially as delay times increase. Now, I'm really grasping at straws here, but I'm thinking it might be cool to explore the ways that units with different chips distort the waveforms to see if they might serve as a filter to enhance, or perhaps simply destroy the types of artifacts you're looking for, especially if you set the box to self-occilate. The other cool property of this is that by manipulating the delay knob back to a faster setting, the distortion inherant in the unit won't restore the original signal cleanly. Then you go back down, and up, and down, and up untill you get fuzz, but perhaps discover something along the way.

It would be kinda like sonic gambling if we had a clue whether it would do anything like what you're looking for.

...And heck, if you discover that some particular unit or chip works for your purposes, then build and market a box to electronic musicians that has an interface designed to make the best use of the effect. Call it a solid-state tape-stretcher or something. I'll send you my address for the roalty checks.

[/QUOTE]
I clearly have a much wilder lifestyle than you; caffeine keeps me going but I will drink an 11oz bottle of Guinness stout once a week whether I need it or not, and it’s highly possible I may be suffering some latent residual effect from the 70’s.
[/QUOTE]

Guinness? Once a week? Seek help immediately!

[Tim Armstrong]

Wow, man....

...I'm tripping!







Tim

[StuH]

I wonder what would happen if I plugged my guitar into the microwave and set it on reheat?

[Ben Harmless]

Originally Posted by StuH

I wonder what would happen if I plugged my guitar into the microwave and set it on reheat?

Only good things. Promise!

[Bete Noir]

Originally Posted by StuH

I wonder what would happen if I plugged my guitar into the microwave and set it on reheat?

I'd take a sound bite of that!

[Bete Noir]

Originally Posted by Ben Harmless

I got something for you if you got something for me.

Ben- My original response has become a large layer cake. I’ve scraped off the frosting and just cut out a slice.

First, just to clarify a few points so I don’t set some precedent based on false pretenses.
I guess you could say I’m a registered lurker here and have been for years. I’ve read a lot of your posts and appreciate your wisdom, experience and expertise regarding the art of sound engineering.

I’ve been a guitar player for 35+ years and just got a little “sidetracked” into electronic sound.
I have 0, that’s nada, commercial or performance interest; just a fascination with sound.
I don’t consider myself a musician and I’m careful not to refer to myself as such.


This is what has worked for me.

1) 1990 - …. I worked with digital synths and just couldn’t get what I was looking for.
1994 - …. I was very fortunate (1st clue for an answer) to meet a guy who was an analog fanatic – both hardwired (keyboard) and modular(patchcord). He got me pointed in the right direction. I learned a lot by association. I was introduced to things like old Serge and arp 2600 modulars, old miniMoogs etc. Those were the sounds I was looking for.

2) …. So comes softsynths. Same guy introduced me to Generator soon to become Reaktor and Vaz2 modular. I added the Nord modular. These three have been my learning tools.
…. FWIW (2nd clue) I find dissecting existing instruments in Vaz and Nord, to see how they’re built, an excellent learning experience.
I find Vaz modular best to really see how (and to experiment with) various modules and their connections. The interface allows you to select a representation of each component and make the connections via choices from drop down boxes. No eye candy here - just useful info at a glance and it’s a very powerful instrument.

3) …. Your right, the learning curve can be a lot like a guitar or any other instrument. It takes a lot of patience, time and experimenting.

Short of dumb luck (see point 1 above), working with a virtual model is the most likely learning resource.

I’ve yet to find a workaround for the time and frustration.

How much time you spend depends on whether you want to build a bassoon or are willing to settle for jovial crickets.

I’m not sure if there’s even a grain of useful info here. If that’s the case, please disregard.

[Bete Noir]

Originally Posted by Ben Harmless

... I'll admit that I'm not completely on board the clue bus...

That explains it...I thought I landed on something soft when I fell off.