Experiments? Work in Progress? Here's one...

[KuruPrionz]

This thread is for anybody who is experimenting with recording. 

Any and all experiments involving recording are welcome and I hope others will share their madness and obsessions.

 

Last night I was working on MIDI drum tracks and I had an idea crawling around inside my brain. 

This morning, I gave it a spin. Still needs work and I'm only scraping the surface but this is what I tried. 

I took a 2 bar MIDI groove clip and doubled it to 4 bars. 

Copied that and pasted it to 2 additional tracks. 

I shortened one of those tracks down to the length of 2 bars of the original clip and stretched the other one out to 8 bars of the original clip (double the length). 

With MIDI tracks, the pitch or sound does not change when you do that.

 

Then I exported the short and long clips as .wav files, brought those back in and stretched the short file, shortened the long file so both were the same length as the original 4 bars MIDI clip. 

There is some tweaking needed but that provides more or less the same beat one octave higher and one octave lower. 

 

I haven't figured out why I'm doing that yet but I'll come up with something.

 

What'chya got, let's share the funs!!!! 

[KuruPrionz]

OK, I refined my experiment just a bit. Clip attached, I panned the octave higher and the octave lower slightly off to the sides. The original track is in the center.

I also automated volume on all three tracks so you can hear each separate track and the combinations that are available. 

Fun stuff, I'll find a use for it! Since it is based on MIDI clips you should be able to use any instruments you may have. 

I think it sounds a little better than the pitch shifters I've used, stretching audio files changes the pitch but doesn't affect the waveforms. 

 

[David Emm]

I'm liking that. I peck away and do a similar thing by hand on an XKey. The results are a bit like playing 2 or 3 Alesis Strike Multipads in a row. Once you've hit the wrong pads enough, you figure out how to find the right ones for the job at hand. That's a randomizing technique that works for me.

 

Then there's the mixdown trudge through the beautiful but bloated semi-classical thing I spawned. I'm still having to remove chunks of bombast so you can finally hear the actual music in the center. HAH!

[KuruPrionz]

5 hours ago, David Emm said:

I'm liking that. I peck away and do a similar thing by hand on an XKey. The results are a bit like playing 2 or 3 Alesis Strike Multipads in a row. Once you've hit the wrong pads enough, you figure out how to find the right ones for the job at hand. That's a randomizing technique that works for me.

 

Then there's the mixdown trudge through the beautiful but bloated semi-classical thing I spawned. I'm still having to remove chunks of bombast so you can finally hear the actual music in the center. HAH!

Yes, the mix will put all experiments in their place (often enough, the trash). 

After considerable hashing about, I've come to realize that the most efficient way to utilize the above experiment is to create a drum track that supports the music and sounds good. Keep it in MIDI.

Then perform the octave above/below procedure on an export of the entire track, creating the octave up and octave down that you need. 

Finally, automate so that bits and dabs of all three tracks coincide if and when it adds something useful to the mix. 

 

I've prepared quite a few smaller chunks and quickly learned that the octave below will probably need both high and low pass filters to not sound like crap. This isn't always true and the settings will vary considerably. 

The octave above is usually a win if you just add a bit in the right places, like fills. 

 

Next up will be creating MIDI parts based on melodic content. As weird as this may sound, if you looped your chunk 12 times you could then adjust the length of the MIDI tracks (changes tempo but not pitch) to any of those 12 increments and in that way create chords when you adjust the length of the audio files (changes both tempo and pitch). 

 

That's a deep dive into needless complexity but it's fun to think about anyway. 

 

I've got one song I know will sound better with the drum octaves, I plan on doing that much for now. 

I'd love it if others have things they do that are off the beaten path, even wrong and bad but fun and interesting. I'm probably more of an "impurest" than otherwise, sometimes messing things up turns out to be interesting. 

[KuruPrionz]

Now that I've been messing about with the experiment, I have some observations. 

The octave above generally sounds good, either by itself or blended with the original beat. 

A bit of that higher pitch could help mixes translate to systems that don't have much low frequency response, just for one thing. 

 

The octave below sounds good on rack toms and other percussion that is in that middle range. It gives some snare drums extra punch and depth. 

I would remix the drum plugin to eliminate all cymbals (unless you want that "trash can lid" tone and I would also delete the kick and floor tom, they are too low to be useful and don't sound good. 

 

[Bill Heins]

Here's one for you...just started it today Since it's so short I played it through twice. I also used a couple of plugs I picked up for BF- Pulsar Massive and Mu. Still a work in progress so not sure where I'm going with it yet....well anyways here it is-

Apologies for your ears,

Bill

[KuruPrionz]

20 minutes ago, Bill Heins said:

Here's one for you...just started it today Since it's so short I played it through twice. I also used a couple of plugs I picked up for BF- Pulsar Massive and Mu. Still a work in progress so not sure where I'm going with it yet....well anyways here it is-

Apologies for your ears,

Bill

Nice! I have ask - is there a banjo? There is a "banjo sound", it would be quite an accomplishment to emulate a banjo on your keyboards because the picking pattern with the high drone string being played by the thumb is a unique aspect of banjo playing. Not saying it couldn't be done, just a bit unusual. 

 

In large part due to the "banjo" sound, I'm hearing a theme for a spaghetti Western movie, the first movement perhaps. Maybe add something with more "air" at half tempo for the next section? I dunno, just going with first impressions. 

 

I haven't done much with my drum experiment, yet. I got sidetracked by the opportunity to play a solo singer/songwriter gig and then to play lead guitar for a Motown cover band I used to be in, they needed a fill in so there I was. Fun but distracting!

 

 

 

[Bill Heins]

Yup, Banjo...also 2 12 String Guitars, Hammered Dulcimer, Mandolin, Mountain Dulcimer...and the usual orchestral suspects Everything played from my Kurzweil...Pianobook The Wolfmother Dulcimer, Indiginus Acoustic Guitar Collection, EastWest Ra Mandolin, 8Dio The New Epic Toms Ensemble, EastWest Percussive Adventures 1, and EastWest Symphonic Orchestra Platinum Plus. Both of my electric guitars  have issues right now so it's keyboard stuff for now!

 

Bill

[Bill Heins]

Forgot to add, Piano is VI Labs Ravenscroft 275

 

Bill

[KuruPrionz]

I guess my question was, did you play the banjo parts on keyboards?

That seems a bit trickier than playing the banjo, but then I'm a guitarist and not a keyboard player. 

It's the high drone string, you've got it sounding real, which is very cool.