Hopefully the last couple of tips have made the point that Arpeggiator is not just a device that eats chords and craps Baba O’Riley. I find that exploring what it can do with one note at a time really helps to demystify some of its more interesting features. The nifty thing about the Velocity section […]
ARPEGGIATOR: TAKING STEPS
The Steps setting can be used to generate some fun pitch effects when along with some of the delay-style effects we’ve been looking at. For example: In the example above, the sound being triggered is a percussion sample. The Rate, Gate and Velocity settings generate a series of rapid repeats which fade away quickly […]
ONE SCALE, MANY MODES
Someone just asked me a question about creating custom Scale presets. Scale is used to force all incoming notes to conform to a particular scale. While the Scale’s interface is perfectly logical, it’s pretty tricky to wrap one’s head around. I’m not really going to get into explaining it except to say that it’s […]
TRANSPOSE VS. BASE
If you take a look at the Scale device, you’ll notice that right below the Base knob, there’s a Transpose control. And yet, I said you should use Base when changing the key of a preset scale… The difference is that Base simply transposes the scale, while Transpose will transpose each incoming note. Er, or […]
EQ: CHECK THE GAIN
A simple but useful feature of Live’s EQ 8 is the Gain control: It’s just a simple volume control, but it comes in handy for A/B-ing your EQ setups. If you’re making an EQ adjustment that raises or lowers the volume of a signal noticeably, you can cut or boost the gain a return the […]
GET THE GAIN RIGHT (ALL THE TIME!)
Whenever you’re processing a signal in a way that changes it’s gain (whether you’re doing it with EQ, compression, distortion, etc.) the only way to really hear what the processor is doing is to match the volumes of the processed and unprocessed signals. The reason for this is a principle well known to any experienced […]
SUBTRACTIVE EQ
There’s a common rule about using EQ in mixing: cut instead of boost. Like many rules, there are about a million exceptions. This one isn’t even really a rule. For me, it’s more of a workflow: first improve the sound of the mix by removing frequencies that sound bad or aren’t necessary, then boost to […]
MID-SIDE EQ
One very cool thing about Live’s EQ is it’s Mid-Side mode: This allows you to apply different EQ settings to the middle and the sides of a stereo signal. If you’re not familiar with Mid-Side, the concept is pretty simple. The Mid is the mono information in a signal – the stuff that’s identical in the […]
THE MID-SIDE RACK
If you really want to get busy with Mid-Side processing, your best bet is to build a Rack. All you need is an Audio Effect Rack with two chains: Drop a Utility device into both chains. Set the Width of the one in the Mid chain to 0% ….and the Sides chain to 200%. Now, […]
GRAIN DELAY: MUTANT CHORUS
At first, the Grain Delay appears to be a beast intent on total sonic destruction, but as I’ve pointed out a few times this year, it really shines at some much gentler effects. I quite like using it as a chorus effect. Let’s take a look: Spray is turned up a little bit. Strictly speaking, […]
