Members Anderton Posted November 11, 2017 Members Share Posted November 11, 2017 A little background: For years, I've been posting a "Friday's tip of the week" at Cakewalk's Sonar forum, and it's been very popular. I'm broadening its scope to cover a wider variety of topics, and posting a new tip every Friday at craiganderton.com (click on the "Tips" tab). Because my site doesn't have a forum yet, you're welcome to discuss anything right here. This week's tip is a trick to add drama that involves tempo changes - but not the speeding up/slowing down you might expect. Check it out! You can also hear my latest song, which showcases this technique. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philboking Posted November 11, 2017 Members Share Posted November 11, 2017 A great tip. It's the time version of resolving a chord or melody back the to the tonic... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted November 11, 2017 Author Members Share Posted November 11, 2017 That's a really good way to describe it, actually...wish I'd thought of that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Emmanuel51 Posted November 13, 2017 Members Share Posted November 13, 2017 Thank you for these wonderful tips! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members telecharge Posted November 16, 2017 Members Share Posted November 16, 2017 Hi Craig and HC forum members, I take it this is the only Friday Tip thread? I looked back a few pages and didn't see any others. Anyway, I'm here to ask for recommendations on building virtual electronic drum kits. A recent Friday tip -- which is still at the top of Craig's tips page -- is about "More Expressive Electronic Drums." My current favorite drum program is Groove Agent SE, which comes with Cubase, but I don't like being locked into Cubase. I suppose my 2nd favorite is Arturia's Spark 2, and I'll probably go with that unless I learn of something better. What program(s) do you use to build your electronic kits? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted November 17, 2017 Author Members Share Posted November 17, 2017 Welcome, Telecharge! I've always appreciated your expertise in the SONAR forums, and I'm sure your expertise will be appreciated here. Yes, this is the only tips thread, at least so far. We'll see what happens as more people become aware of "the new digs." This may sound ridiculously low-tech, but as I've mentioned before, I use the Discrete Drums acoustic drum loops for non-EDM music (although sometimes the DD library sneaks in there as well, with a little processing). Fortunately, the DD libraries include individual hits of the drums included in the loops. This makes it easy to modify the existing loops (e.g., add a snare ghost note on a different track, or add cymbals in off-beat places), but I also use these hits to populate - gasp - SONAR's Session Drummer 3 or Rapture Pro (although I'll probably start moving over to Battery because my next project is more EDM-ish). The first time I used these "kits" was on and from my project, and I played the drum parts from a keyboard. I make no apologies for the drum parts, I think they sound good One trick is I don't do multisamples with drums or bass. Instead, I use Rapture Pro's filter and amp options to increase brightness and level with harder hits. I guess on one level it's less "realistic," but to my ears it has a better feel because there's more of a continuum instead of sample splits. Hope this helps...let's see what others say! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members telecharge Posted November 17, 2017 Members Share Posted November 17, 2017 One trick is I don't do multisamples with drums or bass. Instead, I use Rapture Pro's filter and amp options to increase brightness and level with harder hits. I guess on one level it's less "realistic," but to my ears it has a better feel because there's more of a continuum instead of sample splits. Hope this helps...let's see what others say! Ooh, I like this. I don't have Rapture Pro, but I do have other instruments where I'm sure I can map velocity to various parameters. I use Session Drummer, as well, but the parameters are pretty limited in the GUI. I'm guessing you need to go into the SFZ files to get what you want. That is something I've considered, but I'm not sure it's worth the time to do it that way. I also have Battery, but I've avoided it because I'm afraid I'll get lost in there "experimenting." That's the same reason I've avoided the modular synth in Spark 2. Thanks for the welcome and the info, Craig. I'll check out those songs, giving special attention to the drums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted November 17, 2017 Author Members Share Posted November 17, 2017 I use Session Drummer, as well, but the parameters are pretty limited in the GUI. I'm guessing you need to go into the SFZ files to get what you want. That is something I've considered, but I'm not sure it's worth the time to do it that way. SFZ files seem daunting, but they're really not that bad and you can "bake" a lot of expressiveness into them. For example one cool trick - for some of the Rapture Pro 12-string presets, there's just one SFZ file. It combines the two strings needed to make an octave, adds a slight delay to one of the strings, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members telecharge Posted November 17, 2017 Members Share Posted November 17, 2017 I'm not concerned about complexity. For me, it's more about efficiency and using the best tools (that I can afford). I really like Ableton's drum racks, too, and I've got a bunch of 'em. But again, vendor lock-in. It just feels like my efforts with electronic drum kits have been too scattered, and I would like to focus on one or two programs, or some kind of efficient process for putting it all together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted November 18, 2017 Author Members Share Posted November 18, 2017 I really don't think you can go wrong with Battery. It's been around forever (I wrote the manual for it years ago), there's a ton of content available, and it's not difficult to create your own kits. But it also depends on what type of music you want to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted November 18, 2017 Author Members Share Posted November 18, 2017 Hey everybody...posted my latest tip at craiganderton.com, it's about how to make synthesizer patches that sound like feedback guitar...as in the following video's solos at around 1 minute and also at 2:24. [video=youtube;aVZWkEHK-NE] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted December 2, 2017 Author Members Share Posted December 2, 2017 This week's tip is about how to emulate the sound of out-of-phase pickups with EQ - no soldering iron required! Check it out at craiganderton.com. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted December 9, 2017 Author Members Share Posted December 9, 2017 Just posted the latest tip on craiganderton.com...it's on mixing with techniques other than just changing levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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