Thank you for a great tutorial again! The mid/side processing can be done also with the free TDR Nova dynamic EQ plugin (choose sum for mid and diff for side). A tip for us looking for cheap/free alternatives. 😊
James is an absolute master of his craft and makes complicated process very simple to understand. F9 Audio makes what I consider some of the best samples and creative tools out there. Great work James / F9 😎
Thrilled to hear this Jamie .. Its all we wish for with these videos - Contrast is also an amazing tool in an arrangement ... in Fact all of EDM revolves around this - emotion builds up , build up, build up - then BANG - the drop .... There are many subtler tricks to be employed though - hoping to cover this very soon
Yes, layering is the secret to synth orchestrations. It was the drums that I noticed the most substantial benefits. Stacking drums was the difference between a drum that sounded like MIDI played sample, to a live person drumming. Stacking and using naturally played velocity contrasts, along with natural imperfections of not perfect dynamics make the drums come alive. Playing in the drums instead of sequencing makes them human, stacking makes them sound real.
Thank you Martin ... ever so pleased you love it- We had a very stressful run up to release as with 4 X 11gb+ zip files and a lot of testing to be done it was intense, I finally got to play with it again on release day and was so pleased ... I know the prophet 5 very well indeed and we really nailed the movement and sound here
The "x 4" filters in EQ Eight are actually 48db/Octave. You can look it up in the manual. IMO they are too steep for regular use and sound weird sometimes, especially for uses like this.
Thank you for the correction .. They sound absolutely fine to me but that's the beauty of audio - we all get to choose the tools that suit us as individuals
It's for a collection of drum kits we have in the works Walter - I burnt an extraordinary amount of EPROMS for our Linndrum start of 2023 , started using them to create retro flavoured kits with modern sonics and this set is one of the results ... You've probably just given me a push to really get on with this so thank you
Thank you James for this lesson. It is indeed a good thing to visualize the sound you are after. It sure helps you to get the sound you want. Contrast it is then. I take a wild guess as to what the main word will be for the layering drums video and say, Phase, right Prof James?
Just personal preference I guess - for full mono either/or will work, but with the width control you could always open back up if needed ... Also some utility plugins on other DAWs don't have mono buttons, so a nice way to show some cross-platform technique in 1 video
FWIW, FL Studio also has stock plugins for frequency splitting and mid-side processing, but I don't think they are widely used as they aren't as glamourous as the "one knob" effects. (Like "Soundgoodizer", that actually collapses the bass region to mono automatically, while adding saturation to the side channels). I presumed that Ableton Live has different tools for the same sort of effect.
By the way you are right about Pro Q3. It's so good! But I realized it's pretty demanding on CPU usage so I learned to avoid it for individual tracks (I use MPC builtin EQs) and only use it on the final track or submixes etc. as much as possible.
I love the MPC platform - it's really come of age recently and the internal sampler engine is still one of the hardest hitting out there ... You can reverse the Pro Q 3 trick I showed here if it's on buss duties to do something really useful - Take a high pass band and throw it into the 'Mid' field and bring it up to about 50-60 Hz - this will clean up any subsonic information running around off centre , this forces all the real subsonics into the middle ( where it should be ) and might just give you a little extra gain in your master
In linear phase mode, Pro Q becomes quite CPU-intensive, but in zero-latency mode it's famous for its very low processor use, which is why it's often included on every track in everyone's projects. (Since it doesn't add 'colour', like with the non-linear saturation of SSL or Pultec emulations, for example, and its coders are wizards, FabFilter's EQ often uses less CPU than stock plugins. If it makes your CPU fall over, you might be in the super high-quality mode, which is only really needed for the final rendering).
@@djchemie I didn't immediately notice you mentioned using an MPC. I don't have any experience of that series of devices (I've tried the MPC beats software, which has some great stock plugins, however), but it occurs to me that maybe some MPC devices aren't as great at running VSTs (??), so you might be better off sticking with stock plugins. Pro-Q3 works like a dream on all the PC-based sequencers I've used though.
There is more value in this simple video than I every video I've seen in the past few years. Thank you very much for sharing this good sir! Little question though, is there hardware tools that allow us to manipulate stereo field like that? or the frequencies in the stereo field? Plug-ins are great,s but hardware is just a preference for me. Curious that's it.
Maybe not so easy with frequencies but certainly the stereo field - Just bring your stereo sources onto two channels and use the pan controls to control the stereo width you want for that sound . repeat with each layer - this is how I learnt to do it in my days with an SSL - if your desk has high and low pass filters you could really play with that - maybe if you pan one channel central and one far left you could raise the high pass filter higher on the centre panned channel - or EQ each channel slightly differently - As all eq on desk creates phase shifts, there's a ton of fun to be had there
Pff, i have to keep complimenting your content and teaching because it calls for it everytime ! Also, i could see Bitwig was gonna be something i wanted to hurry and get onboard with because of it's sort of modular capability, but i'm invested in Cubase (always have been) so i need to cough up to buy Bitwig and use both. I knew i should have taken that limited version freebie when it was available, could have probably saved with an upgrade price !
Grab the demo and see how far you get into it - We've been looking at it for a while and on Mercury P5 we tested the transfer process from Ableton to Bitwig - worked a treat for us and once I dug in, I found the whole system remarkable .... Def worth investigating as it's a beautiful thing to use - every other DAW should take note on their Graphic design in my opinion
Filters don't remove absolutely everything so sometimes using another works well - also the second one was only working on the mid signal - not the sides to scoop out a hole for that 1st bass sound
The Fundamental ( principal ) frequencies are the loudest and these are in completely different octaves between the Bass and Brass - Yes there will be overlaps but you'll be amazed how much wiggle room there is the higher you go - Always remember that every octave is a doubling of frequency and therefore effective bandwidth - For example - 30- 60Hz is an entire octave with all 12 notes packed into 30 Hz, 400=800Hz is another octave and here there's 400 hz room to carry all 12 - this is why orchestras sound so good - 16 Violins sound absolutely lush . It's also why you'll often see 2 guitarists in a band, but only 1 bass player - you get a richness to the layering .. on the converse - Playing the right notes if crucial - if you play the lowest notes in the brass patch then there will be negative interactions - Learning how to voice everything is a journey in itself, so experiment and see what fits you personally
All of the Split operations in Bitwig are fully spectral behind the scenes - Bandpass filters by definition bring in massive phase shifts around the corner frequencies - not to say these can;'t work, but it's just a different system - Also as you can see the simplicity of them is really good -- But these are all just tools remember - whatever works for you, works for you
Rookie question: on the brass panning example I’m noticing one side is more wobbly than the other. If I took the same sound and narrowed the stereo image and cloned it and panned it equally, wouldn’t I just get the same original sound? How is the difference between the left and right sides occurring? Thanks!!
This is the very reason why I'm using two different patches and I encourage you to do the same - You'll not get much from layering two of the same sounds together unless you make some changes in the second - What you could try is detuning one of them slightly, or detuning internal oscillators inside the patch, changing a saw oscillator to a PWM - all the other tricks I mention here - again it's all about contrast, contrast, contrast which is why I pick two different patches
Thanks James! I think my miss here was that I thought morning brass and daytime brass were the same patch just cleverly renamed in the daw. Thanks for clarifying! That said I love that you went out of your way to be so artful with the creation of these patches. A specific shared ‘vibe’ but meaningful slight adjustments between the tone of each. This is what makes your stuff so plug and play. A buy for me!
Me too, i am an idiot because I've been using ableton for the past 12 years and bitwig is so much more progressive, I just can't let it go. Recently i started learning cubase so hopefully I'll cut ableton. It's about time. They are not working on any improvements anymore 🤮
