100 Computer Music Tips

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100 computer music tips

computer music To celebrate our hundredth issue, we bring you 100 essential tips with which to take your computer-based music making to the next level

Your environment 01

Your working environment should be as conducive to creative activity as possible. If you find that you spend an inordinate amount of time surfing the net when you should be working, create a new user account on your computer just for music, and delete any shortcuts to your web browser. Even better, use a dedicated offline machine for your music.

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Try to keep your leads as tidy as possible to avoid electrical interference and any potentially hazardous cable tangling scenarios. If you’re in a cramped environment you may find that an external audio 028

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interface or internal card with a breakout box is useful if you often need to swap leads around.

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If you get a loud clicking sound through your speakers when you turn a certain electrical item in your room on or off, unplug it from the same multiway adaptor as the rest of your kit – this should solve the problem and save your speakers a bit of wear and tear.

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If you’re unable to use a separate computer for making music, there’s plenty you can do to make a regular computer a bit more

COMPUTER MUSIC 100TH ISSUE TUTORIAL

musician-friendly. Consider buying a new hard drive and installing an OS on it strictly for music. If at all possible, partition the drive into data and OS halves so you can reinstall the operating system without too much hassle.

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Customising your computer can help speed up your workflow. Put a shortcut to your plug-ins folder on your desktop – this will make installing new plug-ins and managing existing ones much less hassle. Delete unnecessary icons from your desktop, and replace them with shortcuts to your most commonly used programs, such

Unclutter your desktop for a more serene working environment 1


as your sequencer and sample editor.

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Clearing unwanted programs and files from your machine can help you reclaim wasted hard disk

space and even CPU cycles. PC users should try CCleaner ( ) to tidy up their www.ccleaner.com registry and zap unneeded temporary files. If you’re creating large audio files, regular hard disk defragmentation is also a must for both Mac and PC, so if your machine suddenly feels slower, run your disk defrag software.

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Get rid of all those dodgy files lurking on your HD

Many sequencer and instrument interfaces these days are extremely high-detail and display a lot of information at once. Make sure your video card’s resolution is fixed at a decent setting – 1024x768 is a good start, but even higher is preferable. If you find this makes text too small, use your computer’s font size settings to make it bigger.

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If you're at high resolution, raise the font size

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Many computer musicians find that a second monitor helps increase their productivity. It can be used as a dedicated mixer screen, for example, or to display virtual instruments while keeping your automation tracks visible in the main screen.

3 Customising your sequencer's interface will help you get more music done. No more excuses!

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Most sequencers offer at least some degree of customisability, so take the time to hide any parts of the interface you don’t use. If you’re not sure what anything is, use the documentation to find out before you get shot of it – it could be something useful.

Make sure the right Speaker Setup is selected – use Desktop stereo speakers if you’re not sure. 5

Make sure you’re using the right speaker setup

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If you’re using a PC and can’t record with your machine’s built-in mic input, it could be because it’s set up to be a subwoofer output – a strange quirk of many motherboard-hosted sound systems. Head to the Control Panel and open Sounds & Audio Devices . Select the Audio tab and click the Advanced button in the Sound Playback panel.

Time management 11

If you work on a lot of projects at once, name the folders they reside in with the dates you started them as well as the titles – this will make it easier to keep track of what you’re working on at any one time. And try to keep all your projects in one folder so you don’t miss any when backing up your work.

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Back up your work regularly – not just your projects, but any sample or patch libraries you have as well. These days creating backups is cheap – a DVD writer can be picked up for well under £30, or you could invest in another hard drive and regularly back

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up by copying your folders over manually or using a utility such as DriveImage XML ( ). www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

One easy method of backing up vast amounts of data is to copy it to your iPod – this enables you to take it with you wherever you go, so even if your house gets demolished by a meteor you’ll still be able to get your work back.

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If your computer is connected to the internet, you can quickly back up non-audio data by simply emailing it to yourself. Most webmail accounts now offer hundreds of megabytes of storage space – more than enough when you consider that the average patch or MIDI arrangement is only a few kilobytes. This practice also enables you to get access to your MIDI parts and patches from other machines.

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iPod: handy for more than just playing music playing music

If you stumble across an interesting instrument sound or effect setting, save it immediately before altering it any more – it only takes a couple of seconds, but if you keep experimenting with the sound without doing so, you may never be able to recreate the same magic. Save instrument and effect patches to a TUTORIAL 100TH ISSUE COMPUTER MUSIC

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specific folder for the appropriate plug-in you’re using to create an easily accessible patch library.

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Some sequencers, like Logic and Live, enable you to save individual instrument channels and effect chains, so if you make a hot sound, you can save it in its entirety. If you feel a sound has tweaking potential, save it out for later use. To do a similar thing in Reason, pack your instrument/effects chain into a Combinator and save it out separately.

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Use Reason's Combinator to save your chains

Create a template project featuring all the tools you use most often – EQ on every channel, delays and reverbs on send/return busses, for example. This can be loaded up instead of your sequencer’s default ‘New project’ when you begin a new

piece, allowing you to get on with composing or recording immediately.

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When working on a complex project, arrange your mixer sensibly so you can make quick adjustments at mixdown time. Group sounds by category, and consider routing sounds of the same type through a submix channel – this will enable you to change the volume level of every sound in that category using just the one fader.

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When recording live instruments or vocals with a microphone, check your levels before embarking on a mammoth session. If digital clipping is present in the sample there’s no real way to reverse the damage; if it’s too quiet you’ll have to normalise it, making any noise in the sample much more obvious.

tested them out them, move them into the main folder if they’re good, or delete them if they suck.

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When a track gets to the stage where you feel you’re not making any progress, take a break and do something else, even if it’s working on another project. Similarly, if you’ve been really struggling with a track for a long time, take a break from listening to it, then reassess it.

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If you find you have your best ideas away from your studio, use your mobile phone’s voice memo function to record any ideas you have – just make sure you’re in understanding company if you plan on beat-boxing into your Nokia for extended periods.

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These days we’ve all got access to so many plug-in instruments and effects that it can be hard to know which ones to use and which are just totally superfluous. Make a subfolder in your plug-ins directory called New , into which you can stick all those untried plug-in files. Once you’ve

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Check those levels before you start recording!

Computer optimisation 23

If you use a MIDI keyboard controller to enter information into your sequencer, you need to make sure your computer’s latency is set at a reasonable level or you’ll suffer a delay between hitting the note and hearing it play. Use your soundcard’s ASIO driver buffer setting to lower the latency value to an acceptable level.

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If audio playback starts to break up or glitch at low

latency values, it could be that you’re using an unsuitable ASIO driver; or if you’ve got a lot of instruments or effects loaded, you might be pushing your CPU too hard. Make sure you’re using the latest drivers for your soundcard, or ASIO4ALL www.asio4all.com ( ) if you’re using an onboard sound system.

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When you’re using a lot of instruments or effects and your sequencer’s CPU load is peaking, you can give yourself a little breathing space by increasing your audio interface’s buffer size. This will introduce latency when recording MIDI and audio, but it’ll give you a little extra CPU overhead to help you get your track finished.

26 ASIO4ALL is a must-have for most laptop PCs

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When your computer is recording audio it’s at its most susceptible to errors caused by background functions, which could


result in spoiled takes. The first thing you should do is turn off your machine’s screen saver. This can be done in Apple Menu»System Preferences»Desktop & Screen Saver in Mac OS X, or Control Panel»Display»Screen Saver in Windows.

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Presumably you’re not going to need to change profiles on your machine during a recording session, so make sure your account is the only one logged into the machine before you start. Windows users should head to User Accounts in the Control Panel, click Change the Way Users Log On or Off , then turn off Use Fast User Switching.

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It only takes an inopportune system sound playing at the wrong time to ruin a take, so make sure you turn them all off before you start recording. In Windows, head to the

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Silence those obtrusive system sounds

Sounds and Audio Devices icon in the Control Panel, then select the Sounds tab. Here, select No Sounds from the Sound Schemes tab. Mac users can simply turn down or mute the alert volume level in the OS X Sound Preferences.


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To claw back even more CPU cycles, it’s best to turn off any superfluous graphical effects. In Windows, go to the Control Panel and double-click the System icon. Select the Advanced tab, click the Settings button in the Performance panel, make sure the Adjust for Best Performance radio button is selected, and click OK .

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Mac users can get rid of the cycling desktop background by heading to System Preferences»Desktop & Screen Saver and disabling the Change Picture option. Extra system resources can be freed up by closing unneeded Widgets in Dashboard and turning off the Dock’s graphical effects in the System Preferences»Dock menu.

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You may find you get better disk performance if you use a hard drive other than the one your OS boots from to record and store audio. The idea behind this is that the

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secondary drive doesn’t have to cope cope with all the demands of running the OS, leaving it free to read and write audio info at the highest speed possible.

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If you’re on a network, your computer could take a performance hit if it’s being accessed a lot. Prevent this by unsharing any shared folders or disconnecting entirely.

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If your CPU’s close to maxing out there are a few things you can do to make your project’s processor overhead a little lighter. If your sequencer enables you to change the global sample rate, try turning it down to a lower value. Just remember to turn it back up before you export your project as audio. temporary solution, as to get the best quality mixdown you’ll have to use the If you’re using a lot of 24-bit 24-bit sounds, but in the meantime it’ll samples you could save you a few CPU cycles. economise on processor usage by bouncing them down to one or many Some instruments feature 16-bit files. Again, this is only a rendering options with which you can lower the quality of the instrument’s output. This usually results in a slight reduction in sound quality and CPU usage, but if you’re using a lot of instruments, the cumulative effect could be enough to give you a useful amount of processor breathing space.

Do you really need all those effects? Be honest… 7

each one individually to see if you actually notice any difference to the sound when its turned off. If you can’t tell the difference with or without the effect, bin it. You’ll save processing power and make your mixer less cluttered at the same time.

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Certain internet software can really cane your computer’s processor, so if you do find CPU usage to be an issue, shut down every bit of extraneous software you can – ie, virus protection, file-sharing clients, media players, etc. PC users should shut down any non-essential System Tray items, and stop them from loading on start-up.

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If you’re using a lot of effects on a channel, try bypassing

Drums 38

Getting the right drum sounds same note, and playing with the is key to creating a individual volume levels of each. professional sounding track, especially if you’re making dance music. A turd is If your kick drum doesn’t still a turd even with a liberal sound meaty enough, it may application of polish, so use the best be intrinsically lacking bottom end. quality loops or drum sounds you can Unfortunately, no amount of EQ will help get your hands on. Check out the cm in this situation as it can’t add DVD and http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/ frequencies that aren’t there. Look for for drum sounds by the barrowful. another kick drum sound to use instead or layer with the sound you have If you feel your drum sounds already. The same goes for other drums are lacking that certain – it’s important to have a good sound in something, you may find they sound the first place before you carry out better layered up with other drums and any processing. percussion. It’s common practice for producers to layer up multiple samples Dynamics tools are important of the same type in order to achieve a when dealing with drum full sound. Experiment by loading up sounds, so try and get your hands on four snare samples triggered by the the best compressor plug-in you can.

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Four samples are better than one, as they say

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Get Classic compression for free from Kjaerhus

This comes down to personal preference, but a couple of free ones we’d certainly recommend are Digitalfishphones Endorphin ( ) and www.digitalfishphones.com Kjaerhus Classic Compressor ( www.kjaerhusaudio.com/ classic-series.php ). Try out a few until you find one you like – check out www.sadglad.com/compressor.html for loads more.

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The ways in which drums are compressed vary from producer to producer and project to project, so try a few different setups to see which suits you. For example, you might find compressing drums individually gives you the polished sound you require. Alternatively, you can

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create a submix to group any number of drums together on one mixer channel, which can then be compressed for a less clean-cut sound.

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STEP BY STEP

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Ducking in Reason

One drum sound you’ll generally need to process on its own is the kick. If this is overly powerful, compressing it along with the rest of the beats could result in them being drowned out whenever it plays. Compress it on a separate channel then adjust the make-up gain so that it sounds right with the rest of your beats.

Compression plug-ins have many uses, especially those with sidechain capabilities, such as Ducker or Reason’s MClass Compressor. For example, you can use your kick drum to trigger a compressor on a channel running a synth or musical loop, creating a pumping house-style effect.

Load House Kit 1 into Redrum and put

3 it into Run mode. Program a

four-to-the-floor kick drum pattern. Click the Sidechain Solo button on the Compressor to hear what you're doing. >>

1 Give your percussion some edge with a touch of emulated tube amplification

In Reason, load up the default New

Unplug everything and route Malström's

1 Project, then add a Redrum, Malström

2 main outputs into the Compressor’s audio

and MClass Compressor to the rack. Call up a Malström patch with a high sustain level, such as Etheral (in Pads). >>

input, and the Redrum outs into the Compressor’s sidechain input. Plug the Compressor's output into the mixer. >>

4 off and record or enter a chord into the

Make sure the Sidechain Solo button is

5 Compressor and you’ll hear the sidechain

Turn the Threshold knob down on the

Maelström sequencer channel. On playback you should see the Gain meter on the Compressor start to flicker. >>

compression start to kick in. By programming a more complex drum part you can create more sophisticated effects.

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If you’re programming your own drum parts and are having trouble getting them to sound right, turn down your track’s tempo to get a better idea of what’s going on. If the part sounds too busy, try reducing the velocity of less important beats to give the impression that they’re being played more softly. This technique is particularly important when triggering the same sample multiple times.

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Running percussion tracks through a little light processing, such as a tube amplification plug-in or even a subtle overdrive or degrader, can help warm them up, but be careful not to overdo it – over-processed drums can lose their dynamics or become so distorted that they lose their groove, so periodically bypass any such effects to make sure you’ve not lost the original beat’s vibe.

try automating features that most people don’t bother with. For example, filter sweeps are all very well, but they’re pretty familiar to the majority of listeners. Try using automation to sync an oscillator’s pulse width modulation to the beat, or set an envelope to control the speed of an LFO assigned to filter cutoff.

has loads of oscillators, turn them on one by one to see how they affect the sound. The more you detune these extra oscillators, the more apparent they’ll be. You can also create your own sub-oscillator by turning a regular oscillator down an octave or two.

Synths 47

If you’re a bit of a preset jockey you might not realise the true sonic potential of your favourite synth. A good first step on the road to synth programming greatness is learning how to initialise your synth’s parameters. There might be an option somewhere on the interface to do this, or you might have to load up a supplied ‘Init’’ patch. ‘Init 1

Initialise those parameters and get creative!

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If you want to create synth sounds that really stand out,

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Synth patches can be made to sound phatter with the addition of more voices. If your synth

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Effects like reverb, chorus and overdrive are as much a part of the overall sound of a synth as the oscillator and filters. Get to know your synth’s effects section inside out, and if


an element isn’t up to scratch, use a separate plug-in instead.

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To make your synth sounds more expressive, tie parameters such as cutoff frequency to controls on your MIDI controller such as velocity, aftertouch or the mod wheel. This will make the output of your synth sound more organic as the parameters are affected by your playing style.

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Synths with multiple filters can be useful when programming lead and bass sounds for dance music. Set the filters up in series so that the sound passes through one then another, and try using various envelope settings and cutoff frequencies on either filter for interesting textures and effects.

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impart a human touch to lead sounds. More expressiveness can be added by using an LFO to control the patch’s overall pitch – assign the Amount or Depth parameter to your mod wheel to control it manually.

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Some synths demand a great deal of processor power; get around this by exporting single or multiple notes as audio and loading them into your sampler. This can lend a more ‘immediate’ quality to the sound, as well as saving on CPU usage.

Start by selecting the Initialize option in

Set both oscillators’ Phase values to 150

1 Z3TA+’s Program menu. Set the first two

2 degrees. Now turn up the Attack , Sustain

oscillators to Vintage Saw 1 , and put them both into Multi, Free mode. Transpose Oscillator 2 up by seven semitones. >>

and Release in the Amplitude Envelope panel – check the screenshot to make sure you’ve got the right kinds of values. >>

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Most plug-in synths feature multimode filters, so if you normally limit yourself to high- or low-pass filtering, experiment with any band-reject or band-pass modes on offer. These filter types work best when used dynamically – ie, when they’re swept using an envelope or LFO. Try using filters of the same type in series at slightly different cutoff frequencies.

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If your favourite synth enables you to modulate its pitch with an envelope, try adding a quick ‘hump’ at the beginning of the note. This can

There are ways to deal with CPU-hungry synths

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So far so unexciting – the sound is pretty

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In the first row of the Modulation Matrix,

3 basic and very synthetic. Switch LFO1 on

4 set the Source to LFO1, Range to 0-1.4%,

by setting Wave 1 to Triangle. We want this to modulate the pitch, so we must turn our attentions to the Modulation Matrix. >>

Curve to U-Lin-, and Destination to All Osc Pitch. Set both oscillators’ Bus values to 100:0.0, routing them through Filter 1. >>

STEP BY STEP Programming a lush pad in Z3TA+

Set Filter 1 to any of the low-pass filter

Time to enhance our basic pad sound

5 types and set the Cutoff to 3000Hz. In

6 with a few effects. Click the Effects

the Master Section, change Poly to 8 and set the Render quality to Normal. Now you can play chords. >>

button, turn the Delay and Reverb effects on and turn up their levels. Set the Modulation effect to Chorus/Phaser and you’re done.

Bass 57

Bass can be a difficult thing to get right, especially if you only have feeble desktop speakers at your disposal. While there’s no substitute for a pair of half decent monitors, at least use headphones until you can afford to buy some – these will give you a better idea of what’s going on with your track’s low-end frequencies.

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If you’re having trouble getting your bassline in tune with a sample, or simply want to hear the notes a little better, transpose it up a few octaves. This makes its pitch a lot easier to discern, and consequently makes it a lot easier to tune. Once you’ve got it sounding right, simply transpose it back down again.

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You can emphasise certain parts of your track and make them sound weightier by getting your bassline to double them. If the part you want to double is a MIDI part, simply copy it onto the track that triggers your bass synth. You may find you need to adjust the octave of the bass sound, depending on how the patches are programmed.

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Filling the frequency range is key to getting a good, fullsounding track, so you might find it helps to double your bass part with a sine wave tuned to as low an octave as possible while still being audible. Be sure to filter out the very bottom of the sine (50Hz and below, say), though, as sonic energy that low takes overall dynamic headroom away from the rest TUTORIAL 100TH ISSUE COMPUTER MUSIC

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61 STEP BY STEP Making a crunchy bass in Reason

Generally, delay-based effects such as

1chorus and flanging don’t work well

with really low bass parts, but here we’re going to process a more mid-range bassline using Reason’s built-in effects. >>

Begin by selecting the SubTractor synth.

2 Program a bassline in the octave starting at the note C1. Run it through a chorus unit with the same settings as we have here. >>

That’s pretty bouncy, but we’re not quite

3 surfing on sine waves yet. Next in the

chain, add a distortion unit. We’ve increased both values over their default settings for more crunch. >>

of the track without actually benefiting it in any way.

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If you’ve sampled a bassline from a record that’s not entirely ‘clean’ (ie, there are sounds present other than the bass part), you’ll probably find that adding a low-pass filter makes it sound better. This filters out high frequency sounds, leaving you with the just the low-end groove.

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If your bassline and kick drum are clashing, try applying an EQ cut to the kick drum from about 80Hz down – most frequencies below this are generally only taken up with bass or so-called sub-bass frequencies. Sidechain compression can be used to ‘duck’ the bassline when the bass drum kicks, but generally it’s a better idea to get the two co-existing.

64 Next comes the Unison effect. This

4 time, all we’ve done is turned up the Detune amount to give a nice thick mid-range buzz. >>

That’s cool, but it could be cooler – turn

5 the SubTractor’s LFO1 Amount control up to about 90 and set its mode to F.Freq. Pukka, but a bit random. >>

This effect works better with Sync mode

6 on and the Rate set to 3/16. Beautiful!

We’ve also added a Phaser before the Unison effect for more modulation mayhem.

If your synth bass sound lacks mid-range punch, try layering it with another bass sound or even an acoustic instrument patch from a ROMpler or real-world recording. This can add the necessary dynamics to make the start of the note stand out, making it more percussive and its rhythm easier to discern.

sidech ain 3 EQ and/or sidechain compression can be used to tidy up your basslines

Sampling 65

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Give us a WAV: rippin' it up in iTunes

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If you lift samples from CDs a lot, you’ll find you get noticeably better quality results ripping the tracks digitally rather than sampling them through your soundcard. iTunes can be used to rip uncompressed audio files from CD to WAV or AIFF format, and it’s totally free – you can then open the resulting files in Audacity (also free and cross-platform – see http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) and trim them down to size.


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When sampling from vinyl you from vinyl are clicks and scratches. may find that you get a lot of These can add character to your tracks low-end noise. This can be removed (a la Portishead), but they’re not always with a high-pass filter set to a low cutoff desirable. If there are only one or two frequency – around 30Hz, for example. noises in your sample, you can simply Don’t set the filter too high, though, as lower their volume using your audio you’ll start removing frequencies editor’s pencil tool. from the sound itself, which is to be avoided unless you want to intentionally If you always max out your thin it out. CPU due to over-ambitious plug-in use, process samples in your Another problem you may audio editor before loading them into encounter when sampling your sequencer. If you prefer working in

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your sequencer, export processed tracks as audio, then re-import them and turn off the original tracks.

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Live musicians can’t keep time as well as computers can, so when you try to get a piece of live playing looping along with the rest of your track, you may find it goes out of time. This can be avoided by cutting the sample into individual beats and playing it back along with the rest of the track.

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If you have a sample you really like but that’s too short for your purposes, there are a few things you can do to stretch it out. The first is to timestretch it in your sampler or sample editor, although this option is not available in every program. Alternatively, you could loop the tail portion of the sample, though this works best with longer, sustained notes.

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STEP BY STEP Editing samples When using drum sounds that you’ve recorded or sampled yourself, make sure they’re accurately edited. Short, percussive sounds are susceptible to timing problems if not sliced correctly, so use an audio editor like Audacity to cut them up.

Use the selection tool (the icon above

Sample looping definitely works best with notes that go on for a bit

Load your audio file by dragging it from

To zoom in and see a smaller section of

1 the Finder/Explorer into Audacity. Listen

2 the sample more closely, use the

to the sample and locate the part you want to edit. >>

magnifying glass icon at the top left-hand corner of the interface. >>

Press Ctrl/Cmnd+X to cut the highlighted

3 the magnifying glass) to select an

4 section of the sample. Once you’ve got

unwanted part of the sample. For the greatest editing accuracy, zoom in as close as possible. >>

rid of everything you don’t need, save the sound using the Export as WAV option in the File menu. >>

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Repeating the same sample over and over again can sound unnatural, so if your sampler offers a ‘round robin’ feature, try using a variety of samples instead of just one to create a more human-sounding

performance. Alternatively, you could vary the sample’s volume, pitch or filter settings using automation, although this won’t sound as natural in action as our first suggestion.

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Don’t overlook your sampler’s amplitude envelope. By turning up the attack time you can make a sample come in more smoothly, while turning the release level down makes the end more abrupt and snappy sounding. If you want the sound to fade out over time, turn the decay amount decay amount up and the sustain sustain value value right down.

If you need to fade a sound in or out, use

5 the envelope tool to the right of the

selection tool. This enables you to create fades by simply dragging the edge of the sample. >>

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If you get a click at the start or end of a sample on a sequencer track, use your software’s fade out/in function to apply an extremely short fade where the click occurs. This will stop the channel quickly going from silent to loud or vice versa, which is what causes the noise.

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If you want to audition a large number of 24-bit samples, you’ll need a media player that supports the format. Windows Media Player doesn’t, but iTunes and QuickTime are available for free www.itunes.com (www.itunes.com and www.quicktime.com), for Mac and PC.

Effects processing 76

Effects and processing are as much a part of any track as virtual instruments and audio recordings, so it’s important to use the best quality plug-ins you can get your hands on. If your sequencer’s native plug-ins aren’t up to scratch, check the CM Studio and Library on the cm DVD for a selection of alternatives.

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Reverb is one of the most frequently used effects, and the vast majority of tracks feature at least light use of reverb at some point. This effect puts your sounds in a virtual space, without which your track may sound unnatural. By deploying a reverb plug-in as a send effect you can use it on several tracks at once, placing them

all in the same tailor-made environment.

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If you’re creating a slow, atmospheric piece, you can afford to have longer reverb times and less severe damping because there’s more room in the soundscape – if you’re creating a fast piece with a lot going on, too long and bright a reverb

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Keep it real – apply some reverb!


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will detract from the other sounds.

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Equalisation (EQ) is another tremendously important processing tool that can have a disastrous effect when misapplied. It can be tricky to know when and where EQ should be used, so try listening to a rough version of your track on a variety of stereo systems to see which parts

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Excite those synth parts with a bit of flanging

Just the Tonic: sync the LFO to your track's tempo

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need bringing out. Also, load a well-produced track by another artist into your sequencer, compare it with your work and use it as a corrective guide.

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If you feel a sound could do with more bite, try turning up the Q value on your EQ plug-in, reducing the gain by a few dB and sweeping it through the frequency range. You may find that this notch EQ sounds good at particular frequencies, or ‘sweet spots’. Once you’ve found a sweet spot, tweak the Q and gain levels to get the sound just where you want it.

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Although equalisation is an extremely useful sound-shaping tool, it’s no substitute for having a decent sound in the first place. If you find you have to apply inordinate amounts of EQ to your tracks when mixing, perhaps there’s a problem with your source sounds or general mix. Time to re-record, or turn off the EQ plug-ins and start the mix again from the scratch.

Sounding it out: play with those Q and gain levels for added impact and bite

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Flanger or phaser effects can add sparkle and movement to your synth parts, but try to keep the rate set to a reasonable level – too slow and the processing could distract the listener from other things going on in the track as the effect slowly peaks and troughs. Too fast and it’ll just sound wobbly, so start with a Rate value of 0.5Hz or thereabouts and go from there. Filters are among the most powerful effects in the computer musician’s arsenal, and should be used with due caution and reverence. Rather than deciding on an arbitrary resonance level, sweep through the available range while your track plays back – this should give you an idea or what value works best.

When using a filter with the cutoff tied to an LFO, you’ll probably find it best to have the LFO synced to your track’s tempo. If the filter is a plug-in it’ll probably have a ‘sync to host tempo’ option; if it’s part of a synth or sampler it will likely have an option to retrigger the LFO with each note played. Overdrive, amp simulator and degrader effects can all be used to warm sounds up, but used excessively they can do more harm than good. Begin by using low values, then gradually increase the distortion control until you get a good tone – if the sound starts to crack up, turn it down a little. Mixing in some of the original signal can help take the edge off.

Arrangement 86

Unless you’re intentionally creating some kind of long-winded ambient piece or film soundtrack, don’t dawdle for too long at the intro before getting to some kind of interesting musical ideal. With the multiplicity of media available to us these days, it’s important to give the listener something to grab their attention as soon as possible.

87

As a general rule, t’s i good to change the track in some way every eight bars or so. This doesn’t have to be a radical change in direction – 036

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something as simple as changing a This is an important part of most tracks hi-hat part’s rhythm or adding a layered – especially those in the dance music synth can help reinvigorate the piece for category – and introducing or removing the listener. it has a massive impact on the overall feel. Try removing the bassline for a bar Fills are an extremely useful or two at the point just before you feel tool for keeping a track it’s getting tired, then reintroducing it flowing – if you feel a section of your with a subtle variation. track is getting stale, try putting a drum fill at the end of a bar or halfway When finishing off a track, through it, or simply cutting the drum think to yourself, ‘Can I tell the part out for a few beats. This will go no same story in less time?’. If your track small way towards easing the potential gets repetitive or boring, cut it down a monotony that repeated sections of a little, removing any sections that aren’t track can cause. up to the standard set by the rest of it. As a general rule, if you’re not sure Think about where you drop in about a part or section, you’re probably and take out your bassline. better off without it.

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Change will do you good, but keep it subtle!

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make music now

Mixing 91

When mixing, it’s important to remember that boosting a sound’s EQ increases its volume, which could make it too loud. If you boost anything heavily, reduce the sound’s overall level by turning it down in the mixer.

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Using an EQ cut helps bring a sound out but can also take away from its weight somewhat, so try also adding a slight EQ peak just above or below the cut. This technique works in a similar way to the resonance of a filter, emphasising the frequencies around the cutoff point.

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It doesn’t take long for the human ear to get used to frequency changes in a sound, so if you find yourself continually applying high-frequency EQ boosts, take a break and A/B your track with a professional mix to make sure you’re not going overboard with the top-end.

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Play your draft mix through a few systems to get an idea of what it sounds like coming out of a variety of speakers. Consider doing a few alternative mixes – for example, you could have a mix with louder drums or slightly less bass. Compare each mix on each stereo you use to see which sounds best, and make notes about any changes that need to be made.

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When working with vocals, it’s important to make them as intelligible as possible – unless you’re a Napalm Death-style shoutist, of course. This can be achieved by clearing some space for the vocal in the mix – ie, don’t have an instrument part play at the same time in the same frequency range; or if you must, turn it down until the vocal is nice and clear.

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Analyser tools such as VST Inspector enable you to visually compare your tracks to professional pieces. They display what frequencies are being produced by the mixer channel into which they’re inserted, so use one on your sequencer’s master output and another on the channel with the professional track loaded onto it.

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When you want to change the volume of a MIDI instrument part at a certain stage in your track, see if you can use your sequencer’s automation to do it rather than

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Elektrik Piano features drastic variations between soft and hard velocity settings

manually changing the notes’ velocity levels, as that could alter the sound in other ways. For example, a piano patch from a ROMpler will sound tonally different when played at quiet or loud velocities.

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Always be sure to give your ears a bit of a break between finishing writing a track and starting work on the mix. When it's time to come back to it, you might just spot important things that need changing that you wouldn’t have noticed had you not given your ears a rest. When you’ve finished the mixdown, take another break before mastering it or listening to it again in case you’ve lost the plot.

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Inspector gadget: size up against the pros

100 STEP BY STEP Quick-fix mix tricks

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If you want your track to sound good in people’s homes as well as on their iPods, you need to get in on a bit of stereo action. This can take the form of stereo effects such as delay or reverb, or you can get creative with the placement of sounds in the stereo field. For example, you could try panning one synth part slightly to the left and another slightly to the right.

If you feel your mix is going nowhere,

1 pull all your mixer's faders down to

zero, except for channels with dynamics plug-ins inserted (changing the input volume will affect their response). >>

Pull the faders up one by one. If you’re

If you’re still having trouble, get rid of or

2 making dance music, you’ll probably want 3 turn down any superfluous effects, such to start with the kick drum or any drum loops you’ve got going. You might find that resetting each track’s send level helps too. >>

as over-complicated delay lines, extreme compressors or muddy reverbs. Toning down excessive EQ settings will probably help too.


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100 Computer Music Tips

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