I've been speaking with Bjorn of The Covert Operators on and off for the last few weeks about his latest Max4Live project, the "Clip Mapper." He described it to me in broad terms but I must admit that the details a were a bit fuzzy for me. I'm not a Max/MSP guy by any stretch of the imagination, so very often I need to see these devices in action to truly understand their potential. And what potential there is! Here's the description in Bjorn's words:
Matt Pacyga and I have teamed up to release some free sample downloads resulting from our respective field recording experiments. Matt has put together a superb set of crunches and splats which originally emanated from his kitchen and some very unlucky food items. The recordings are high quality and super-creative, so I highly encourage you to take advantage of his generosity and download these sounds! I've also got a number of samples on offer here that came from some contact microphone experiments, but I'll defer to the official description (after the jump) for the details:
Continuing from the last post, let’s take a look at some more sound-shaping tools that will aid us in our quest to develop unique timbres. As usual, I’ll be using Ableton Live to illustrate when needed.
Gate Combined with Effects Automation
Although generally used as a corrective device to remove excess noise between sounds like drum hits or guitar strums, the gate has creative applications that aren’t so immediately obvious. On the basic side of things, many people will use a gate to create an unnatural, but rhythmic, silence after a drum hit. This works especially well on acoustic drum loops which include natural room ambience. Using a Gate in that situation will combine the expected “live recording” feel with a pleasing “swing” created by the abrupt silences. My favorite use for the Gate is to first employ the above method on an acoustic drum loop, but then to add effects automation which is activated every time the gate silences the audio. For example, I might create a Simple Delay device in Live that is off by default, has medium feedback, 50% dry/wet, and a very short delay time that is measured in milliseconds rather than note divisions. Just before the Gate silences the audio, I automate the “Device On” parameter of the delay to the “on” position to make the effect audible. Just before the next note hit, I set “Device On” to “off” and continue in this fashion for each drum hit. The audible result, if subtle enough, is an effect that sounds almost like a passing tone between the original sounds. To preserve this effect, it’s important that the delay is not audibly trailing off over other drums hits; this is meant to be a small timbral change rather than a typical effect.
I thought it would be fun to put together a small list of useful timbral-shaping tools. They are presented in no particular order along with a few words on how I like to use them. I tend to refer to a similar list in my head whenever I’m trying to come up with a creative way to improve upon a sound rather than just replacing it altogether. Please note that I’ll be using tools from Ableton Live to illustrate the concepts.
This time I’d like to focus on how an instrument or sound effect develops along with the composition. Last week I mentioned that many device presets contain too much frequency content to easily fit into a mix with other instruments. This generally means that judicious use of subtractive EQ is required to tame these complex timbres. These presets are in part designed to sell the instruments themselves: Companies hire sound designers to put together bombastic sounds that are guaranteed to grab the potential customer’s attention. These big patches show off the power of the instruments in question and are a lot of fun to reverse-engineer. However, when it comes to finding a patch that can be used in a composition, it might actually save you time to design your instrument from the ground up rather than fight against a preset using loads of EQ.
Sound Design in Ableton Live: Analog
Sound Design in Ableton Live: Operator
Sound Design in Ableton Live: Sampler
Sampling & Slicing in Ableton Live
