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Craig - BT article.... Nano/Time Correcting


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.... or anyone. The BT article in Electronic Musician, I found very interesting. Most of the beginning of the article, the chap talks about

a technique he's big on called, nano correcting,

time correcting. Time correcting in unreal values

above 64th note values. I found mention of his techniques intriguing but must admit I still

pretty much don't understand what he's talking about.

 

I was hoping Craig or anyone else with a wider understanding of Electronic music than mine could

help me understand the subject better.

 

Edit:

 

Here's a link to said article that came online

since starting my stay in the hospital on Monday.

 

Sonic Surgeon

William F. Turner

Songwriter

turnersongs

 

Sometimes the truth is rude...

tough shit... get used to it.

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I assume he's talking about trimming really tiny pieces of audio, or rearranging them...a visual analog would be like creating individual FX on each frame of a film. I don't claim to do anything special, but I do trim samples and loops down to millliseconds and individual samples quite a bit. I just didn't come up with a catchy name for it, I just call it "very time-consuming editing but things sound better when the timing's right." :)
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I was also puzzled!!!

 

I think I get it.. but why?

 

Here I am thinking that the cool thing about grooves (or riffs)is that "off-timiness" that makes you love it. I LOVE those garage tapes or off the cuff takes that aren't perfect, that's what makes them go Mmm!

 

BT seems talented and knowledgeable plus me not having heard his music gives me no right to judge. I wouldn't judge him (or anyone) even if I did not enjoy his music.

 

Hey whatever rocks his boat, right?

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:rolleyes:

 

maybe you'd like to read my book on nano-correcting the stroke of my masturbation sessions...in otherwords...BT is cutting up a complex rhythm until it grooves in 4/4 to his liking....slice slice slice slice slice slice slice, quantize...woohoo!

 

Kind of like what real musicians do in real-time ;)

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Originally posted by TeleCarlos:

I was also puzzled!!!

 

I think I get it.. but why?

Well... as I get it... and according to his interview in Keyboard Mag... Brian's slicing audio an insane tini-tiny little way (we are talkin 256th notes and beyond here...). Supposely, when you divide that much, the mind thinks of it as a whole... but with certain psicological rhythmic pattern... or something like that.

 

bananas, huh? :eek:

Who Put The ' M ' In MySpace?

don\'t_click | day_job

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Originally posted by RaGe:

Actually the "nano-corrected rain" on this last CD sounds just like ...rain. Or my ears are not up to par.

There was a track by some post-rock band (can't remember which one -- but one of the ones that wasn't made up of excellent instrumentalists, by a stretch) that used a long sample drop of some crickets in a big loop. They were out of time with the music which I could tolerate -- but each time loop came back around the crickets went out of time with themselves... as though they 'dropped a beat' and change. (Crickets 'chirp' in precise relation to the temperature, making the pattern of their sound very regular and, hence, reassuring. [it's my personal theory that music grew out of the natural reptetition of sounds in nature. Regularly paced sounds are reassuring, but sounds that get louder or more rapid are cause for excitement/alarm. By manipulating this tension and release, music can produce a range of emotions. At least that's my thinking.])

 

From skimming the BT article, I had thought maybe his 'nano-correcting' was sort of like manual granular synthesis... but I think you guys are more on the right track.

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I like a lot of BT's music.
I do too. He gets killer grooves and great sounds.

I guess I have trouble graspin the fact that I probably couldn't recognize the value editing one of my notes an unreal value like a 128th or 256th note, let alone the thousands and thousands of edits he supposedly does on a record.

 

In my ears he's somewhat of a genius so I'm intrigues by his work method but can't imagine or understand the need. But hey it does work.

 

Speaking of EM, there had been discussion about how out of touch EM seemed to be lately. Last few months have seemed to be better and just got the new one today and it appears to have a handful of articles I'm gonna enjoy.

William F. Turner

Songwriter

turnersongs

 

Sometimes the truth is rude...

tough shit... get used to it.

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From what I gather, he slices digital audio down beyond 64th notes (256 notes? 2560ths notes? 512th notes?), and seems to enlarge the waveform so he can visually see it, and fade the tail end of it so there is no clicking. Then he pulls some of the samples out (512 notes, for instance), and leaves others in, and quantizes the results. Just a guess, since I've heard it but never tried it. Sounds like a sample which starts as a complete, whole piece of plastic, which is trimmed into a neatly arranged comb (of audio pieces). At one point he had mention working on some software that would help automate the process, but where I read that I couldn't tell ya.
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Expecting virtual cabbages and tomatoes hurled my way...

 

I loved much of BT's stuff from the previous CD, and the remix of 'dreaming' I have is, IMHO, the BEST pop techno song I have ever heard.

 

I also think his last CD, while technically brilliant, sucked nards.

 

He is a big candidate to me for the 'cage rattle' of an outside producer, someone totally out of his element. Incredibly talented dude, but I think he has started a little rut. I am guessing that part of the rut/sameness is from the way he is working now, all softs...

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Originally posted by Anderton:

To me, the bottom line is this: I like a lot of BT's music. As to how he got there, I really don't care!

Word! ... Although... sometimes I wonder... "how did he do that? And that thing right there... the heck is that!?" ;)

Who Put The ' M ' In MySpace?

don\'t_click | day_job

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I remember the Keyboard article well. The point of micro-timing as I understood it in that article was to match the feel of various sample loops. When you buy or record drum loops separately from bass loops, then create some loops in FruityLoops with swing applied, and then create some arps in yet another program with that has a different swing logic, you end up with a mess. Anyone who has played or heard a really tight band understands the problem of having different people record loops or passages separately. From the article it seems that BT has a standard feel that he matches all his loops to. This is the one point I take issue with. It may make things easier when you have a huge collection of loops but I would think that reduces the variety of feel you music has.

 

Robert

This post edited for speling.

My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page

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Originally posted by deanmass:

I also think his last CD, while technically brilliant, sucked nards.

That must be the one I bought and gave away then, I think it was called "Emotional Technology"

 

I'd got so excited about checking him out as well :(

"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." - Banky Edwards.
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Originally posted by Rog:

Originally posted by deanmass:

I also think his last CD, while technically brilliant, sucked nards.

That must be the one I bought and gave away then, I think it was called "Emotional Technology"

 

I'd got so excited about checking him out as well :(

That's it. He went from musician to scientist on that CD. I like the double CD of Ima best, followed by ESCM and Movement in Still Life. Some of his early work does seem to be poorly mixed but it shows more dedication to melody and tonal structure rather than how many studders can fit into a split second.

 

Robert

This post edited for speling.

My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page

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