Arpeggiator Fun - Part II - Tension Build Up

Here's a cool way to make a musical build up using an arpeggiator trick.

Create a cool build-up in your musical climaxes with yet another powerful (and simpe) tool.

(this is my first tutorial on demand,built for artois from the ableton tips and tricks forum . may there be many more!)

Lets get started!

Grab any lead VST instrument and create a four bar chord (I used a C major chord). Make sure it's a long sustaining chord and not four bars of repeating notes.

Put an arrpegiator before it. I also threw in an EQ eight for a sweeping low-pass filter:









In the arrpegiator:

*set the style on random

* set the rate to 1/8

* set the gate on 120%

basically we are asking our arrpegiator to take all the notes and play one of them at random every 8th note. the length of each note will be UP TO 120% of an 8th note (you'll see what I mean a bit later)



In the EQ eight:

*cancel all the poles leaving just one

* set it to low pass

* set it's frequency to the maximum (22KHZ)



We're telling our EQ eight not to let any frequencies over a MAX of 22KHZ pass.



now we'll put a 4 bar linear automation on the gate parameter of the arrpegiator and the frequency parameter of the eq eight:















press play and listen to four bars of ultimate climax :)



Wanna contribute a cool tip?
email me : fireballgames AT hotmail DOT com
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Add me as a friend on myspace!
Cheers
J

Musical Mutes - using midi jedi tricks

Hi there,
Today we're going to make muting more musical. When I use the channel mute button I get two very annoying side effects:

* long sustaining drum sounds get cut abruptly

* when returning from mute , long sustaining notes suddenly play (only their tail)

So how do we do a musical mute, basically telling a single drum part of the kit to stop and start playing?


Lets get started!

first create a drum rack.

Then drag a sample into the drum rack , I used Freddie the Freeloader by Miles and captured a horn hit.

next drag a "note length" midi effect before the simpler:

set the mode to SYNC and the time to zero.

now press ctrl-k and map the "q" button to the device on/off.

make a short midi clip with long and short notes and start pressing the "q" button once in a while to feel just how cool this tip I gave you is ;-)

p.s. I mapped the on/off button to an on/off button on my BCR2000, So this trick is cool for midi controllers as well.

Wanna contribute a cool tip?
email me : fireballgames AT hotmail DOT com
Feel like being a good sport?
Add me as a friend on myspace!
Cheers
J