To learn more about what you get as part of Audio Plus, read this. To take a peek inside this sample pack, hit the jump!

This pack is useful to sound designers in film, games and television, and also musicians who want to add some ambiance to their tracks.

Here’s an example of one of the samples:

Download audio file (AmbientDemo.mp3)

Sample Pack Inventory

• City Crowd Ambience: Crowd ambiance just before the Norwegian Independence Day Parade Begins – talking, yelling, cars
• Close Waves Lapping 1 and 2: Anacortes Ferry Terminal – Small waves lapping on the shore with frogs in the background
• Anacortes Ferry Frogs: Dusk near the ferry terminal, frogs peeping near the marshes
• Lopez Island Birds 1 and 2: Summer morning, island birds chirping and calling
• Mount Rainier Birds and Rain: An evening at Mount Rainier – birds chirping, distant river, and light rainfall
• Mountain Chipmunk: A chipmunk chirping on a mountain hill
• Nisqually River Near: A close up recording of the Nisqually River in early spring
• Samba Band Practice: recording of a samba band practicing for an upcoming parade
• Urban Thunderstorm: Recording of a thunderstorm from under cover of a parking garage – some cars driving by occasionally
• Urban Zoo Birds: at the exotic bird exhibit – with plenty of domestic birds too!

Existing Plus members can log-in and download. Not a Plus member? Join now.

Each Tuesday we open our mic to readers and lurkers alike to come out of the woodwork and tell us your thoughts and opinion, your experiences and mistakes, what you love and what you hate. We want to hear from you, and here’s your chance.

What is your favorite microphone? What do you like about it? How did you discover it? Are you still in search of the perfect mic?

Do you use just one general purpose mic, or a variety of mics for different purposes? How many do you use at one time?

Or are you the sort of music producer that never needs or uses a mic? Do you see that changing in the future?

This style of programming is really addictive and can be used with pretty much any form of electronic music. Once you have put a sequence together using your synth of choice why don’t you upload the result for us all to hear?

Step 1 – The Tools Needed

All you really need to get this sound is a DAW capable of MIDI sequencing (which is pretty much all of them!) and a synth with glide or portamento and a legato voicing mode. If your not sure what these are just yet, don’t worry I’ll explain as we go.

I have chosen Disco DSP’s Discovery synth, which is a software emulation of the classic Nord Lead 2. Of course you don’t have to use exactly the same synth, I just happen to know this particular instrument handles this sort of sound pretty well. If you want to try a demo of Discovery you can pick one up here.

Disco DSP’s Discovery soft synth

It will prove pretty useful if your chosen synth has some kind of built in distortion or overdrive. A built in delay effect would also be helpful. If your synth doesn’t have these features you can use extra plug-ins for the effects, so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

Step 2 – The Sound

The sound we are looking to recreate is that of classic acid machines, namely the Roland TB-303. Obviously the result we’ll get won’t be exactly the same as the magic silver box, in fact it maybe very different but if you get your head around how these sounds are created, the outcome will most certainly have that acid edge.

A Roland TB-303

If we want be authentic the sound should be based on a single saw or square wave oscillator. This will then be fed into a low pass resonant filter and a simple decay based envelope. The classic acid glide is produced by using a mono / legato voicing mode in conjunction with portamento and come overlapped MIDI notes.

Once all these elements are in place we can add some distortion, delay and extra effect such as unison or a phaser for extra depth. So now we know what’s in store lets get started.

Step 3 – Our Oscillator and Basic Sequence

On the original TB-303 there was a choice of either a saw or a square wave oscillator, so to keep things as close to the original as I can I’ll go with a single saw wave here. Although the 303 was only capable of producing one voice we can always double up to create a thicker sound later in the process.

A single oscillator set up on the Discovery

The single saw wave oscillator:

Download audio file (3.mp3)

I have my synth loaded in Logic Pro 9 so this is where I will create my sequence. I have programmed a very simple step based pattern at 127 bpm. This was originally played in, then quantised and finally some extra notes added for pace.

Simple pattern programmed in Logic 9

The basic sequence:

Download audio file (3b.mp3)

With our single oscillator pattern playing back we are about ready to move on to the next step and start spicing things up a little!

Step 4 – Creating the Glide

Adding glide effects is arguably the most important part of creating an acid sequence. It’s this effect that gives acid machines their distinctive character, so we have to make sure things are right at this stage.

In a lot of synth patches that feature portamento the glide effect is on all the time. This is not what we are looking for here as we want only specific notes to glide and these gliding notes should be programmable. To do this we have to use a legato mode. Make sure your chosen synth has this mode available, it should be in the voicing section where you choose the instruments polyphony.

The glide set up in Discovery

When legato mode is engaged and our glide / portamento is turned on the notes should only glide when they overlap. You can test this by playing a note on the keyboard, holding it down and then playing another. This should may the note glide. If, however you simply play the notes with no overlap, no glide should take place.

It’s worth noting at this point that some synths will require ‘auto’ mode to be engaged in the portamento section. On some synths this is the thing that makes notes glide when overlapped. Some experimentation will be needed from synth to synth as they all work in different ways.

Going back to our MIDI sequence, we can now start to choose which notes will glide and which won’t. You can see in my sequence I have just picked a bunch of random notes but of course you may want to be a little more scientific in approach! I tend to find that notes towards the end of bars, or going from low to high work very well here.

The sequence with some notes overlapped for glide effect

The sequence with the glide effect:

Download audio file (4.mp3)

Step 5 – Filters and Envelopes

With our sequence playing nicely we can start to add an extra edge using a resonant low pass filter. The addition of a good dose of resonance is pretty important if we are to achieve that famous acid squelch.

A dedicated filter envelope is also pretty important here and you’ll want to use a fair amount of decay, with a low sustain and release setting. This will clamp down on each note and add real dynamics and movement to the patch. This filter can then be added when needed and even automated for sections of the sequence.

The filter and envelope set up

Your amp envelope will also have to be reasonably close to the filter envelope settings. Of course they don’t have to be matched exactly but a decay based signature does tend to work best here.

Step 6 – Adding Extra Effects

Once you are happy with the way the sequence is firing you can start to add extra effects to add a little spice. Distortion does tend to work very well with resonant sounds and will add new harmonics, making the whole thing richer and fatter. As I said earlier, many synths have distortion built in and many even feature it at the filter stage. If yours doesn’t, pick up your favourite overdrive plug-in … tube emulations can work wonders here.

The sequence with distortion and delay:

Download audio file (6.mp3)

Delay is another effect that can really add to sequence like this. Try something that has a high pass filter so the bottom end remains unaffected. This was all your lovely glides and squelches will be repeated but those all important lows will remain untouched and clear.

The final patch with effects playing back with some drums

The sequence in action with some drums:

Download audio file (6b.mp3)

Your Choice of CD from Amazon.com

There are hundreds of thousands of CDs available at Amazon.com – they are bound to have something you enjoy.

For the chance to win a CD, all you need to do is comment. Let us know the title and artist of the album you’d like to win. Make sure to include your correct email address with your comment so that we can contact you. This giveaway is open worldwide, but make sure to get your comment in before midnight this Saturday, Pacific Eastern Standard Time.

Please note: Envato staff and people who have written more than two tutorials/articles for a Tuts+ site are not eligible to enter.

Why Use Varispeed?

Varispeed isn’t the sort of tool you’ll need to use every day, but it’s the sort of tool that you like to know is available to you. Every now and then you’re halfway through a project when you decide that the tempo just isn’t right and the song should be slower or faster. Varispeed allows you to determine which tempo suits the song better, quickly and easily.

Alternatively, you may be having trouble recording a difficult part in the song. While Varispeed may not be your first port of call, after struggling with the part for too long it’s convenient to be able to slow the whole project down, record your part, and snap it back to normal speed afterwards. Your new part will be in time with everything else.

If you feel like a cheater recording the part slower, at least you can practice at a slower tempo before working your way back up.

And, for maximum fun, Varispeed can be used as an effect as well.

Step 1

Varispeed isn’t instantly available from the transport bar on a default installation of Logic Pro 9. If you right click anywhere on the transport bar you’ll get a menu option that says “Customize Transport Bar…” — click this.

This is what you’ll see:

Tick the box that says Varispeed in the second column, and then click OK.

Step 2

You should now see this button among the group of buttons on the right hand side of your transport bar:

If you click this button, Varispeed is enabled, and you’ll see a section of the transport bar’s information panel go orange.

Step 3

Your project still sounds the same at this point. Varispeed is on, but the change in speed hasn’t been specified yet.

Before we start tempo-shifting, let’s listen to the original piece. I didn’t want to record a bunch of music for this tutorial so I’ve just arranged a little tune from stock loops. It’s a bit busy because I wanted to demonstrate how well Varispeed tempo-shifts multiple audio and MIDI tracks all at the same time.

Download audio file (Original.mp3)

Go back to the orange panel on the information bar. If you drag the bottom section with the numbers in it up or down, you’ll change the tempo. The default view measures the change in percentage, and that change can be between -50% and +100%.

I have to say that I’m pretty impressed with how well Logic retains the tune’s cohesion at the most extreme ends of the spectrum. Here are the -50% and +100% versions, respectively:

Download audio file (Minus50.mp3)
Download audio file (Plus100.mp3)

Step 4

That’s cool, but modifying the tempo by percentages doesn’t quite give us control that’s fine tuned enough for a real song. We need to be able to modify the number of beats per minute directly.

In the top half of the orange section of the transport bar’s information area, there’s usually text such as “Speed Only”. Click and hold here to bring up a menu, and select “Resulting Tempo”. The percentage is gone, and now you can set a specific tempo, which gives you much less comedic and more useful results.

Here’s our song at 130 BPM, up from a base of 120 BPM:

Download audio file (130BPM.mp3)

Step 5

I mentioned that Varispeed could be used as an effect. Most features that allow you to speed up or slow down entire songs try to retain the original pitch of the track, which is what makes using Varispeed to record difficult parts possible.

But Logic gives you the option to change the tempo and the pitch in parallel. If you lower the tempo, you lower the pitch. If you increase the tempo, you increase the pitch.

This allows you to crank the tempo and create one of those silly chipmunk songs that I always see in American movies or create a dark, warped effect by bringing the tempo and pitch down low.

Here’s an example of each, at 66 BPM and 178 BPM respectively:

Download audio file (Pitch66BPM.mp3)
Download audio file (Pitch178BPM.mp3)

To do this, hold down on the top row of the Varispeed information section on the transport bar. This brings up the menu again. Now, switch from “Speed Only” to “Varispeed (Speed and Pitch)”.

At this point you can change the tempo or speed change percentage and laugh at the results.

This track has been submitted for your friendly, constructive criticism. They have put their track (and their heart and soul) in your hands to learn and get useful feedback.

• Do you enjoy the song or track itself? Does it have potential?
• Can the arrangement be improved?
• How did you find the mix? What would you do differently?
• What do you enjoy about the rhythm track? What can be done to improve it?
• Is the choice of instruments relevant and effective for the style/song?
• Are the lyrics (if any) effective? Does the style, arrangement and genre of the song suit them?
• Can you suggest any specific techniques that might improve the track?
• Do you have any other constructive feedback?

Kisapada by Milica Paranosic

Milica describes the track: “Three vocal tracks and some sound FX. A simple track. A Serbian folk tune.”

Author’s website: www.milicaparanosic.com

Download audio file (kisapada.mp3)

Terms of Use: You can only stream this song from the audiotuts website. No downloading unless you contact me personally.

Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.

Submit Your Tracks for Workshopping

Need constructive criticism on your own tracks? Submit them using this form.

Music Education Sites

1. Audiotuts+

As you’re reading this article, Audiotuts+ needs no introduction. Several commenters mentioned Audiotuts+ – thanks for the support!

2. Musictheory.net

This is a great Flash site with many resources to help you learn music theory. “Welcome to Ricci Adams’ Musictheory.net. To begin your journey into the realm of music, please select a lesson, trainer, or utility from the lists below.”

The site content is split up as follows:

• Lessons, including topics that cover notation, chords and scales
• Trainers, that teach you notes, keys, intervals, triads, keyboard, guitar and brass. There are also “ear trainers” that teach you to hear intervals, scales and chords.
• Utilities, including a chord calculator, staff paper generator and matrix generator.

Michael comments: “I have found http://www.musictheory.net very helpful. I am working my way through a Bachelor of Education with a major in music, and the aural training apps on the website are very useful for helping to train my ear, something that I’ve never worked on before now.”

3. Scalerator

This is a site that helps you with scales and chords. “Generates scale charts and tablature. Choose the scale you would like to learn from the drop-down boxes below, then click the button marked ‘Scalerate.’”

The charts are guitar-based, and there are options for various alternate tunings and other stringed instruments. It helps guitarists visualize what they are doing.

4. Scale Finder

A website that helps you learn musical scales and chords.

5. Sonic Academy

Subtitled “Learn music technology”, this site is all about learning audio. The site contains video tutorials, industry news, and a great forum.

6. Serious Sounds.net

Tutorials and information on MIDI sequencing, arrangement, sample use, soundfonts, using DAWs and VST/VSTis. “Providing Music Producers with Tutorials, Help & Advice on Music Production.”

7. Nick’s Tutorials

Joe comments: “Great Ableton/sound design videos.”

“My goal with this site is to provide high quality video tutorials to professionals and hobbyists alike. In the videos, I cover various topics such as sound design and production workflow. The product list is always growing as I complete new projects.”

8. Production Advice

A great site by Ian Shepherd. Here is a quote from his About page:

When I’m recording, mixing or mastering, I have only one goal in mind:

I want people’s jaws to drop.

I want them to look at me, thunderstruck, and say – “This sounds incredible !”

Or maybe even better, I’ll be chatting casually to someone and something I’ve worked on will be mentioned, and they’ll say – “wow, I love the way that sounds, it’s one of my favourite albums ever”.

My guess is that if you’re reading this, you feel the same way.

If so, then this is the site for you – because I want to help you make people’s jaws drop. I’m lucky enough that this has happened to me numerous times in my career, and I know I can help you achieve it, too.

9. Music Software Training.com

“Welcome to MusicSoftwareTraining.com and welcome to what many consider to be the most in depth and easy to follow Ableton Live tutorial Videos available ANYWHERE! My Goal is that you are able to come here as a beginner or as a professional and still take away a wealth of valuable information that will set your musical creations in motion.”

10. Key of Grey

“As the technical barriers of creating music are lowered, what was once only the domain of technical wizards has become accessible to everyone, everywhere, at anytime. With the abundance of new computer software that makes music easy and fun to create, a whole new group of enthusiasts is able to do in minutes what would have taken an expert days to do only a few years ago. “Key of Grey” is a resource for new songwriters and producers who want to learn how to produce a quality product with a minimum of technical jargon.”

11. Youtube

And don’t forget there are a lot of video tutorials available on Youtube. Many tutorials from other sites also find their way here. Just search!

Online Magazines and Blogs

12. Sound on Sound

Calling themselves “The Worlds’ Best Music Recording Magazine”, the site is full of useful articles and reviews. “Welcome to SOUND ON SOUND, the world’s premier music recording technology magazine. Based in Cambridge, England and independently-owned, we’ve been around since 1985. This web site houses our continually-expanding archive of highly informative articles (from January 1994) that chart the impact of technology on the music production and recording processes.”

13. Musicradar.com

Musicradar confidently calls itself “The No. 1 website for musicians.” It has sections for guitar, tech and drums. They have a forum, podcast and tuition section.

Their About page describes the site: “Created by musicians for musicians, MusicRadar.com is the number one website for guitarists, drummers and producers. Check out the latest gear updates and artist news. Read expert reviews on the best new kit. Play along with our expert video lessons or try our handy tips and projects. Add on our blogs, podcasts, competitions and a vibrant forum and MusicRadar.com has everything the modern musician could want!”

14. Create Digital Music

A site with lots of great articles and reviews on everything audio.

15. Innotune.net

“It’s quite simple. Electronic music needs more juice. More stories. More entertainment. More of that viking touch. That’s what we’ll bring you. We’ve got a team of well known dj’s and producers as well as some you won’t be able to miss out on in the future. And we’re all on a mission: Bringing you the best up to date electronic music, the best stories from the industry and breaking news.”

16. Beatportal

“Beatportal aims to be the world’s best electronic music blog and resource. The blog offers up-to-the-minute news about electronic music, informed music recommendations, DJ technology news, remix competitions with top artists and labels, and live blogging coverage from the most important artist tours and industry events. Beatportal’s Beatwiki – an index of 72,000+ artists and 8000+ record labels – is the biggest publicly editable database for electronic music available online. Beatportal is powered by the recognized leader in electronic music downloads, Beatport.com.”

17. Remix

“Remix educates DJs, engineers, producers, and performers of electronic music about the latest applications and new products specific to the electronic and urban music markets. Remix is the premier consumer magazine in North America dedicated 100 percent to the tools, techniques, and production syles of electronic and urban artists.

“Remix focuses on recording and live-performance gear, electronic musical instruments and music-production hardware and software for the electronic and urban music markets. Remix also features comprehensive product news and reviews about music-production and live-performance gear as it hits the market.

“Remix is the ultimate magazine devoted to keeping readers up-to-date on producing groundbreaking music: everything from house to hip-hop, trance to techno, experimental to electronica, drum ’n’ bass to downtempo and all other underground sounds that evade categorization”

18. Electronic Musician

“Electronic Musician is the #1 magazine in the U.S. for musicians who record and produce music in a home or personal studio environment. Its editorial focuses on music-production technology and techniques for musicians. It includes coverage of recording and live-performance equipment, electronic musical instruments, and music production hardware and software. EM provides comprehensive product news and reviews on the latest equipment and services.”

19. Wire to the Ear

“The popular pro-audio weblog with daily articles on creating music with computers, sequencers, plug-ins, synthesizers, microphones and more. On going discussions about song writing, the music business, promotion, live performances, publishing, royalties and great music recommendations.”

20. Home Studio Corner

“Tips, tricks and advice for home recording studio owners.”

21. The Music of Sound

An audio blog by Tim Prebble. “Tim Prebble is a film sound designer & supervising sound editor based in Miramar, Wellington, New Zealand. While most of his waking hours are spent working on film soundtracks other interests include making ambient/alaetorical music, collecting records, playing double bass, making electronic dubwise beats, planting sunflowers & wishing he was on holiday in Japan.”

22. New Music Strategies

A blog about independent music business.

23. Steve Lawson.net

Blog and tutorials by a solo bass player.

24. Audio Geek Zine

Joe comments: “Great tips and gear talk.”

25. Musformation

“Daily musicians’ news tips, gear, business and gossip.”

26. Tom Cosm

Blog of Tom Cosm, who gives all of his music away for free. The site includes video tutorials, and Ableton Live packs.

27. You Produce

Interesting magazine about music production.

28. Gear Junkies

This is another great forum and website about audio gear. “Gearjunkies is a website dedicated to Gear enthusiasts, people who love to play with gear for electronic music production and DJ-ing. The idea for Gearjunkies was born in 2002 by a group of three gear enthusiasts, and in 2003 we went online. Ever since we are working on the website to create a humongous online information archive for everybody to use and to share.”

Forums

29. Gearslutz.com

Gearslutz is probably the most helpful forum you’ll find on audio gear. If you have a question about some gear, it’s probably already been answered and discussed there. If not, ask.

30. Harmony Central

“The #1 Online Community for Musicians.” A strong point is its detailed gear reviews by users.

31. Recording Review

Jon T comments: “Great very friendly and fun forum.”

32. The Womb Forums

Jon T comments: “Home of the Mixerman Radio Show. Tons to learn on the forum.”

Resource Sites

33. KVR Audio

This site contains lots of useful resources, including plug-ins.

34. The Covert Operators

The site includes lots of free downloads for music production.

35. Future Music

Axl comments: “Soft synths, gear and more.”

Keyboard Sites

36. Keyboard Magazine

Great magazine with articles and tutorials for keyboard players.

Synth Sites

37. Matrix Synth

“Everything synth.” Ineresting synth site.

38. Muff’s Modules & More

Synth forum. “Cats and modular synths, but mostly cats.”

39. Analog Suicide

“Analog synths and music from the world of Tara Busch.”

Guitar Sites

40. I Heart Guitar

This is a blog dedicated to guitars, and contains interviews, articles, gear reviews, music reviews, and lessons.

The site is put together by Peter Hodgson. “I’m a guitarist and journalist from Melbourne, Australia. I contribute to magazines including Mixdown, Australian Guitar and Australian Musician Magazine.”

41. Guitar Noize

This is the first website I’ve found to have a feature article on guitar toilet seats. Put together by Audiotuts reader Jon, it contains everything you ever wanted to know about guitars (and some things you didn’t). The site’s byline is “Guitar news from the furthest corners of the interweb.”

Sites for Listening to Music

42. Grooveshark

This is a site where you can search for and play music in high quality, promote your band, and upload your music.

“Grooveshark is a revolutionary music community that rewards users for sharing their music. Grooveshark was founded by three University of Florida students hell-bent on changing the music industry, and the world, forever. Grooveshark’s goal is to compensate everyone in the value chain – from users to rights’ holders. Let us know if you are interested in joining Grooveshark.”

43. Soundcloud

A site where you can listen to music for free, and share yours with others. “As you might expect, over the years we’ve grown tired of getting emails with YouSentIt links or FTP log-ins just to be able to check out our friends latest soon-to-be released tracks. Not to mention how annoying it is to try and email a reply with some comprehensible feedback. Music is just kind of tricky to deal with over email. So, we thought we’d change that. SoundCloud is our way of doing it.”

44. Alonetone

“alonetone gives musicians a home for their music
unlimited distribution, sharing tools & warm fuzzies”

Audiotuts reader Sudara comments: “Free of advertising clutter & corporate stank – just a bunch of musicians putting their stuff up.”

45. Flowmi.com (Spanish)

Commenter Raymi describes the site like this: “I normally listen to http://www.flowmi.com, an Argentinian site that has a player called Flowcast which displays all kinds of music and remixes I love. They also have articles for design fashion and new albums that come out on the market.”

Music Stores

We’ll cover places to buy your music online in more detail in a future article. But here are a few sites mentioned in the comments to our Open Mic.

46. Beatport.com

Beatport is an online music store with a focus on dance. The site was a little slow to load, but seems very functional, and has a lot of tracks available.

“Beatport is the recognized leader in electronic dance music downloads for DJs and club music enthusiasts. Download high quality MP3s and WAV file formats. Weekly top ten DJ Charts. Buy from 600k+ tracks of House, Techno, Electro, Trance, Drum & Bass, Minimal, Dubstep and ten other dance music genres. Ten free digital downloads to get you started.”

47. Podcomplex

Podcomplex are a music store, but not just a music store. “Podcomplex produces and distributes independent, high-quality, original music, video and multimedia.” They also have a blog with guides for using DAWs and producing music on a PC.

What you might not realize though is that it’s a surprisingly easy effect to achieve. All you need is a source track and an Auto-tune plug in (or an Auto-tune clone, in this case we’ll use Logic Studio’s built in Pitch Correction).

First I’ll explain the parts of Pitch Correction that we’re going to use. Next I’ll walk through two different examples of how to put the effect to use. In this tutorial I’ll use the term Pitch Correction to mean the same thing as Auto-tune.

Pitch Correction

Pitch correction is mainly described as a way to “correct intonation”. If a singer is a little off pitch it can correct this error and make the performance sound better. But the effect can warp the sound of the audio, so for it to go unnoticed it needs to be applied subtly. Eventually someone figured out that the warped sound can actually be pretty cool, and by applying pitch correction heavily you can get some interesting effects. At last, gone are the days when you actually have to be able to sing to be a singer!

When you first instantiate Pitch Correction on an audio track you see the following window:

The only parameters we’re going to work with in this tutorial are Response and the individual pitch keyboard. What we’re essentially going to do is choose which pitches are allowed to pass through (using the keyboard) and then decide how much of the effect to apply (using the Response parameter). The Range on the left side we’ll generally leave on “normal”, unless you happen to be working with a particularly low pitched source.

The keyboard allows you to choose which pitches the source sound will be tuned to. If you have every note selected (which is the default setting), then the plugin will determine which pitch the incoming signal is closest to and adjust to it accordingly. Sometimes if you’re original signal is especially “pitchy”, the plugin can misinterpret the intended pitch. (For example if you sing a C but it is so flat the plugin thinks you meant B, it will “correct” the pitch to B).

Therefore it’s generally a good idea to only allow the pitches you want to be heard. If you’re original signal only uses Cs, Ds and Gs, then only highlight those three pitches.

The Root and Scale settings allow you to set an entire group of notes with just a few clicks, rather than have to go through and individually select every note that we want to pass through. In this case “Root” is the key you’re working in, so in C major your root is C. Scale is obviously the scale. In almost all cases you’ll want Major Scale or Natural Min Scale, but you have plenty of options available. It can be fun to click through the different choices to see what kind of result you get.

The Response parameter allows us to determine just how much of the effect we want applied. This is determined in milliseconds. The less obvious you want the effect to be, the longer it should take for it to apply which means a higher response setting. For our purposes, since we’re going for a very affected sound, we’re going to set the Response time all the way to 0ms. That way the pitch correction will be applied immediately, giving us the robotic effect we’re looking for.

For Effect

Now that we’ve seen the basic parameters let’s see how they can be applied. For our first example I want to create a downtempo electronica track. I want to use a pitch corrected vocal not as a lead singer, but more like just another sound in the overall texture of the groove. I’ve chosen the following samples from the Deep India library as my base vocal sounds:

Download audio file (1a_DI_Dry1.mp3)
Download audio file (1b_DI_Dry2.mp3)
Download audio file (1c_DI_Dry3.mp3)

The first thing we’ll do is apply Pitch Correction, so I’ll instantiate the Pitch Correction plugin on the audio track. The default setting is a chromatic scale with a Response time of 122ms. As I mentioned earlier, we need the effect to be applied immediately to give us the specific “vocoded” sound we want. I’ll set the Response to 0ms, which gives us the following effect:

Download audio file (2a_DI_Pitch1.mp3)
Download audio file (2b_DI_Pitch2.mp3)
Download audio file (2c_DI_Pitch3.mp3)

I don’t really hear much of the effect, mostly because every pitch from the chromatic scale is being allowed through. Let’s bring them all in towards a cohesive idea by limiting the pitches. In this case I’ll limit them significantly to only 5 notes, a D minor pentatonic scale.

Now listen to how the 0ms Response time and restricted pitch makes the samples sound like they actually belong together:

Download audio file (3a_DI_Pent1.mp3)
Download audio file (3b_DI_Pent2.mp3)
Download audio file (3c_DI_Pent3.mp3)

The Pitch Correction is now where I want to, so I’m going to color up the sound a little. I’ve chosen a Guitar Rig preset called Phase Wurli (Believe me, there was no science behind this decision. I chose Guitar Rig because I figured it would give me a wide range of interesting choices, and then I clicked through presets until I found something I liked). Here are the vocal samples with the Guitar Rig effect applied:

Download audio file (4a_DI_FX1.mp3)
Download audio file (4b_DI_FX2.mp3)
Download audio file (4c_DI_FX3.mp3)

Lastly I’ll apply a touch of reverb and delay. I mentioned that I want this sound to be a part of the overall texture, so the reverb and delay will help make it feel a little more washed out and part of the background.

Download audio file (5a_DI_Dly1.mp3)
Download audio file (5b_DI_Dly2.mp3)
Download audio file (5c_DI_Dly3.mp3)

Here’s how the final result sounds in actual context:

Download audio file (6_DI_Example.mp3)

Lead Vocals

The next example will be more of an upbeat dance track where the vocals are actually the lead, rather than just a background effect. We’ll start with the source track, which is a lead vocal for the song’s chorus. For this song the chorus has actual pitches that need to be matched, so I am going to select those notes individually. Like before, we’re going to set the Response time to 0ms.

To save myself from public humiliation and to save your ears from bleeding, we’re going to skip listening to the “raw” vocal track. Just take my word for it that it needs tuning. Here’s the sample with pitch correction:

Download audio file (7_LIBT_Lead.mp3)

To keep to the conventions of the style I’m going to heavily compress the vocal. I’ll start by instantiating Logic Studio’s Compressor and choosing the “Opto Vocal 01″ preset. I want to take it further though so I’m going to set the Threshold even lower to -18 and the Ratio even higher to 5.4:1. I want it to be so squashed you can taste the compression.

Here’s the compressed lead vocal:

Download audio file (8_LIBT_Compressed.mp3)

Next I want to beef it up a bit more so I’m going to sing the same line an octave down. Again pitch corrected with the same pitches. and with the same compression applied.

Download audio file (9_LIBT_8vb.mp3)

And finally I’ll add a harmony above the top line.

Download audio file (10_LIBT_Harmony.mp3)

Now that there are so many parts going on I don’t feel like the lead is cutting through as well as it could. I’m going to add a Stereo Sample Delay plugin to the lead vocal. The Sample Delay will split the signal to the left and right sides, with one signal delayed just a little. This gives us a “doubling” effect which makes the original sound feel much thicker. I’ll set the right side to delay by 800ms. Too low a setting and you wont notice the thickening, but too high a setting and the split signals wont feel like they still go together.

Here’s how our full Pitch Corrected vocal ensemble now sounds:

Download audio file (11_LIBT_Vox.mp3)

And finally, here it is in a the context of a real song:

Download audio file (12_LIBT_Example.mp3)

One More Time…

Using Pitch Correction for warping vocals doesn’t give you the same level of control and nuance as a traditional vocoder, but it does allow you to get an interesting effect with just a few simple clicks. All you have to do is turn it on, pick out your notes, and viola: you sound just like any other electronica diva.

You don’t have to restrict your use of Pitch Correction to vocals, of course. What happens when you use it on a guitar solo? Or even a drum loop? These tools are here for fun and there are no rules. Experiment!

To learn more about what you get as part of Audio Plus, read this. To take a peek inside this tutorial, hit the jump!

“We don’t do a lot on live sound at Audiotuts+, but it’s an essential area of knowledge every musician should have. After all, no matter how many tracks you record in a studio or at home, nobody will know who you are until you get out there and play for someone. One thing that’s stopping more artists from taking this step is their fear of the big fancy mixer. It’s quite a bit different to the mixer in Logic and Pro Tools.

“Due its vast array of controls, many find it intimidating, but it’s really nothing to be scared of. Let’s take a look.”

Table of Contents

• The Strip Layout
• Setting Up Your Channel Strip

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