Sequencing Tricks Part 2
Continuing on from part 1, we look at creating mock turntable stops, echoes and fade backs. Click here to download the files for this tutorial .
Echoes
This is a similar technique found in the '034 Sequencing Tricks 1' tutorial, except there I've used it in a slightly different way.
From the tutorial folder , open up the folder ECHO and load the project file ECHO. This loads up a program called 'SIMPLEC' which contains a break beat chopped up in into various slices and regions (using the techniques found in chapters 019-022). It also loads up some example sequences that we will use in the tutorial
Go to MAIN and play sequence 1 (FADE1) and you'll hear a one bar beat. On the start of the second bar the beat stops, with a small trailing 'echo'. This is really simple to create. The 'echo' sample is simply a kick chopped from the first sample used in the loop ('SIMPLE1.wav' - PAD A1 in the SIMPLEC program) and then repeated rapidly over time with a gradual volume fade out.
Go to sequence 2 (FADE2), press PLAY and you'll hear that I've removed the echo from the start of the second bar. Let's recreate this echo in sequence 2 together.
First thing I needed to do was create a single kick sample form our SIMPLE1 region on pad A1. To do this, I followed the following procedure.
Go to TRIM and select SIMPLE1. Highlight the end point using your cursor and using the techniques covered in chapter '010 Editing Samples Part 1 ' hold down the Q2 slider and AFTER and move the end point to just before the second wave form peak (thus leaving us with our single kick selected). Set to around 20828. (MPC2500 users note that in the screen below, 'SLICE' will instead read 'CHOP').
Now hit WINDOW to show the Fine screen. Press ZOOM- (F2) several times to zoom right out so we can see the waveform from a distance and jog wheel to the right to close in on where the waveform peak is about to start. Now press ZOOM+ several times to zoom right into this area and make you final adjustments with your jog wheel - I set mine to 21038.
Close this screen and press EDIT (F6) and select EXTRACT. Highlight 'New Sample' and rename our new sample (if you wish) and press DO IT. You can now assign your new kick sample to a spare pad in your program. At this point, don't forget to go back to your original SIMPLE1 sample and put the end point back at the very end of the sample so that this original sample plays through (remember SIMPLE1 is the first sample played in our loop).
Of course, you don't need to assign this anywhere as when you loaded up the project file, this sample (SIMPLE7) is already assigned to pad A5.
Go to sequence 1 (FADE1) and highlight track 1. If you now go to STEP EDIT (mode and pad 14) and select the start of the second bar in the time field (002.01.00). You'll see the following:
Here you can see that we have lots of instances of pad A05, each 8 sequencer 'ticks' apart, but with a gradually decreasing velocity (the 'V' parameter on the far right). If you scroll down the list of sequencer notes you'll see that the velocity eventual becomes 1 (we can't set a velocity of 0!).
To create this echo, return to MAIN and go to sequence 2 (FADE2). Press F1 to set a new TC (timing correct) value - set the 'Note Value' to 1/32(3) and press CLOSE. This will allow us to place our repeated echoes nice and close to each other. Go into STEP EDIT (mode & pad 14) and highlight the top left time field and change this to the start of the second bar (02.01.00).
Press WINDOW to bring up Step Edit Options:
Set 'Auto step increment' to YES and press CLOSE. TO insert our pad A5 events, press the red OVERDUB button and press pad A5 ten times. As you can see, each time you press the pad, your sequencer automatically advances to the next step. Don't worry about the velocity for the moment, as we'll now fix this manually.
To create the volume fade, just reduce the velocity ('V' value) for each successive beat - I used '127, 57, 31, 20, 12, 6, 2, 1, 1, 1'. Press PLAY to hear our echo fade. You could have used the NOTE REPEAT function to add these notes and then the slider to perform the volume fade, although I believe this is overkill in this situation (our chapter 041 will explain slider use in more detail).
It sounds good, but now play sequence 3 (FADE3). Now I've added a gradually increasing low pass filter to each successive beat - as we've discussed previously, adding low pass filter to echoes makes them sound a little more realistic, a bit more like a real delay effect unit. We have covered all the methods and theory behind adding low pass filter in previous chapters, including how to edit note parameter settings such as this in STEP EDIT, so I will not explain this again. But to see what we did, open up STEP EDIT for sequence 3 and navigate to bar 2 (02.01.00)
Remember, in order for sequencer filter settings to work on our pad sample, you have to first turn on the LOW PASS filter for that particular pad. If you go to PROGRAM (MODE and pad 7), FILTER (F2), pad A5, you'll see that I have already set this up.
Turntable Stop
We can take the above effect, and change it for a completely different sound by just changing the filter 'decrease' into a Tuning decrease. Load up the TURNTABLE project file. In this tutorial we will recreate the sound of a turntable stop.
In sequence 1 (TURNTAB1), we have a drum beat in bar 1 that ends with a repeated kick fade out in bar 2. This is identical in method to what we did previously, except this time, rather than drop the filter, we dropped the tuning of our pad. All I did in the second bar was (in step edit) add multiple instances of the kick on pad 5 and go through each instance gradually decreasing the velocity and tuning (the 'T' setting) - this can also be done by using the Q-slider as we did in the last tutorial except this time change the parameter in the note assign screen to TUNING - so basically you are performing a tuning sweep (see chapter 041 for more details on this). The effect is not bad, but not very realistic when compared to a real turntable stop. But we can get this sounding a lot better by adding another sound to our program.
If you go to bank B, on pad B1 you'll find another copy of our single hit 'SIMPLE7.wav'. Sounds a bit different? All I've done is shave some attack off the front and added some decay to the end, so now both ends of the sample have a fade in or out. Now, go to sequence 2 (TURNTAB2) and here I've replaced all the instances of PAD A5 (note 39) with this pad B1 (note 51) - you can do this easily by changing the note number for each step in step edit. i.e.
002.01.08 P:A05( 39) would become
002.01.08 P:B01( 51)
Alternatively, remember chapter '17 Editing Sequences Part 2'? Here we looked at the TRANSPOSE function which allows us to replace any instance of one pad with another. So to transpose our pads here, go to SEQ EDIT (mode and pad 13), select TRANSPOSE and set up like the following:
Note that I set the start time to 002.01.01 , this means that our first instance of pad A5 on bar 2 is not transposed as I think our turntable stop sounds better with a bit of attack on the first hit, so I left it as pad A05.
So play sequence 2 - pretty cool, eh? By taking the attack off the repeated element, you lose the jerky feel of the fade. This means you can use a beat from a non-vinyl source and still put in authentic sounding turntable stop. Of course, this works with any sound, so experiment. Just make sure you always start a fade like this with the full attack version otherwise it sounds a bit dull (although this type of effect will also have its use).
Fade back
Now let's go back to our original example ECHO - so load up the ECHO project file again. Have another listen to 'FADE3'- why not add a reverse sequence in order to bring the drums back in? Listen to sequence 4 (FADE4) and you'll hear that I've extended the initial fade out, and then simply added a fade in using, basically, the same sequence but in reverse. Open up STEP EDIT to see exactly what I did.
