Category Archives: Processing

Descriptions of unique audio processing techniques

Flying 808s

Posted on by
Reply

To generate this pattern I loaded a basic TR-808 kick drum sample into one of the most simple Pluggo VSTs called Flying Waves. The controls in Flying Waves are a set of movable cross hairs on a grid, volume and an external sample button. Moving the cross hairs up and down increases and lowers the pitch of the sample while left and right lowers and increases the volume respectively. With a sine wave you can get Theremin like sounds.

After loading in the 808 kick I resampled myself adjusting the cross hairs for a few minutes until I had some interesting patterns to work with. After that I cut and pasted a bar that was a good representation of what I was going for, then I looped it four times and rendered the results.

Flying 808s

Untitled Processed Rhodes

Posted on by
Reply

I came across this old late night session of sleepy Rhodes melodies and decided to render about fifty eight seconds of it. It was originally recorded on November 3, 2006 at about 12:53am. I love electronic timestamps.

There are two separate tracks of Rhodes, each running through separate processing. I added auto-panning to each track in opposite phase as a quick final touch before bouncing it down. The tracks are also running through equalization, amp modeling, two separate delays, and reverberation.

Untitled Processed Rhodes

Bit Reduced Down Sampled Fuzzed and Resonated

Posted on by
Reply

Absolutely nothing is distinguishable in these samples after all the processing that has been applied. My goal was to make a sequence of random samples sound as nasty as possible by applying down sampling, bit reduction, and distortion, then bring it back into something tolerable by applying some resonance filters and reverberation.

I automated the frequency and dry mix of the resonator so I could create some Theremin like pitch sweeping as well as bring in and out the noise of the bit reduced samples throughout the piece. What I ended up with is a palate of odd textures and diffused noise suitable for frightening the neighbors on a chilly Autumn evening.

Downsampled Fuzzed and Resonated

Filtered Synth Drums at 125bpm

Posted on by
2

I programmed this beat and ran it through some pretty thick filtering followed by compression with a touch of delay automated in here and there for a few dub effects. Another technique I used to get some different fills going in the pattern was to add a MIDI arpeggiator and turn it on at certain moments to change the feel. The arpeggiator was programmed to randomize the notes in the sequence using specific note durations. I alternated between eighth notes and thirty-second notes.

Arpeggiating at eighth notes slowed down the feel of the beat since the high hat pattern was programmed in sixteenths, while arpeggiating the pattern to thirty-seconds created some simulated fancy fill work. These techniques can be hit or miss, so whenever I use them to produce I generally render the track several times with the random behaviors enabled then scour the output for “gems”. Finally I collect the “gems” and use them as fills selectively. Another example of unnatural selection at work.

Filtered Synth Drums at 125bpm

Dark Chorused Guitar

Posted on by
Reply

I am not, nor will I ever claim to be a guitarist, so please forgive the playing in this example. I do like the sound I have achieved here though. To get it I ran a cheap Fender Squire through VST distortion, thickly modulated chorus, followed by delay, and reverb. It’s very 80s, although I was not necessarily going for that. I does seem to go well in the piece in which it was recorded.

Oxotremorine Guitar Sound