MUSC 156 W26 Assignment 4 – Rewind, Sampler!

Due by 10:00PM, February 12 submitted on OnQ

Weight: 6% of final grade

This project exercises all your MIDI muscles. Podcasts include a variety of media, and while the spoken voice recordings are essential, background sound/music can make all the difference in terms of creating an expressive and professional sounding podcast episode.

We are going to be using Megababy, Royalty Free Loops and our own recorded sample to make a 16 bar Drum n Bass/Jungle inspired Podcast Theme.

Your Submission Should Contain:

o  A Wav Export of your 16 bar loop

o  Your Project Folder containing RPP, Media Folder, and all necessary Media Files Including the TX16Wx programs you create

o A PDF/Word Document with a 150-200 word description of how you recorded your sample, and how you made certain choices, technically/expressively

1)   Start a New Project. Save this as a New Project in its own Folder with the filename format lastname_firstname_Assignment4. ***

a)   Add two tracks and load an instant of VST3i:TX16Wx into both of them.

b)   Colour your tracks

c)   Name them the following:

i)    Track 1 – INSTR – TX16Wx – Recorded Sample – this should have TX16Wx loaded

ii)   Track 2 – INSTR – TX16Wx – Beats – this should have TX16Wx loaded

2)   Open the Media Explorer or your OS Explorer/Finder, and find the MusicRadar-90s-Jungle- Samples Folder. (You must unzip the provided zip file first)

a)   Inside you will see various folders, labelled by BPM. Go into the various BPM labelled  folders and listen to what bass and/or beat components you find most interesting.

There

b)    After finding the folder you want to grab

from, set the Project BPM to the same BPM, eg. If you are using loops from the /172BPM folder, then set your Project BPM to 172.

Note: You can time stretch any of the loops to a different BPM, but it is not part of this assignment’s expectations.. If you do so, just make sure that all loops are synced to the same BPM.

3)   Drag the following elements of your choice from the Media Explorer into their own tracks

a)   2 tracks – 2 different 2-bar “Beat” loops

These do not have to match, it’s more interesting when they don’t!

b)   2 tracks – 2 different 2-bar “Bass” loops

These have their Key next to them, eg A, D, etc. If you don’t understand music, just pick two that sound good played right after each other, they don’t need to be in the same key.

4)   Name the tracks appropriately based on your loop choices. It should look something like below:

5)   Now take your two Beats and put them onto one track side by side, so together they add up to 4 bars. Glue them together into a single sample:

You should be turning the top track into something more like the second track above…

Mute all of your audio tracks and unmute the TX16Wx track

6)   We’re now going to load this glued loop into TX16Wx and slice it into a MIDI controllable Breakbeat.

a)   In Track 2, (INSTR – TX16Wx – Beats), Open TX16Wx by opening it in the FX Window

Name both your performance and program  lastname_firstname_MidTermBeats

b)    Click on the Waves button to drop down the Wave dialogue/Wave editing area.

While holding CTRL+ALT (or CMD+ALT) simply click and drag the Media Item you just glued from your Reaper Track into the Wave Editing Area.

Your Wav will automatically be rendered by Reaper and you’ll now see it as a yellow waveform inside TX16Wx:

Note: If the CTRL+ALT shortcut isn’t working for you, check your Reaper Preferences. Under Editing

Behaviour > Mouse Modifiers, ensure that CTRL+ALT is set to “Render Item to New File”. If you can’t drag it directly into TX16Wx (usually a macOS issue):

i)      You can also use this to drag media items from Reaper into your Finder/Windows Explorer and make new files from them. Try dragging the media item into the project folder in your Finder/Explorer, or Render the media item into a wav in that folder.

ii)    Drag new wav into TX16Wx from the Finder/Explorer or import it using TX16Wx Media Explorer

c)   In the Wave editing area of TX16Wx, you will see the Slice/#

option. Drag this number to the appropriate number of slices (in this case, 16), then click the slice button  to its right.

You will now see that your yellow waveform has been

divided into 16 separate sections. You can click on them to hear them. If you scroll down you can also see them in the Loops/Ranges list below.

d)   Right click anywhere on the yellow waveform view, and choose Slice > Layout Slices.

This will now lay the Slices out in the Regions view. To see this, click on the Regions button.

As you can see above, the break has now been mapped to C4-D#5

If you press play, the Midi item that is

already on the TX16Wx track will now play back your Beat slices in order as they are 1/8th  notes playing in order chromatically from C4 to D#5. ( see the image ---- )

When we play any note between C4 and D#5, it will play back the corresponding slice.

Take a second to play around with this and get the idea of how it works. Feel free to

use the Virtual Keyboard or make a new Midi Item.

e)   Before we continue, we need to take a second to change a couple things in the TX16W program and then save it.

i)     Set the number of voices from Poly to 1

This way we don’t accidentally overlap too many different slices.

ii)   Open the Groups Dropdown

You should see the JungleBeat Group in the table.

Set Poly to Mono and set Chk (Choke) to 1. This way we only ever play one sound and playing a new one chokes/stops playback of the previous note

iii)   Set the Volume of your Program to -6dBFS or lower so that it doesn’t overpower the Track volume. We want it to peak below -8dBFS

and DEFINITELY NO CLIPPING ANYWHERE :)

iv)  Save your Program into your Project Folder. Name it lastname_firstname_MidTermBeats If you do this, this guarantees I will be able to open your custom sample patch. If not, there is the  chance that it won’t load properly when I open it.

7)   We’re now going to record something musical into our microphone.

a)   Make a New Track and name it Recorded Sample. Set up the Input just like you did for your voice recordings. Solo this track for now.

b)   Using your microphone, record one of the following:

i)     3 (or more) different strikes of a percussive sound, something with a short attack and a short decay.

ii)    3 (or more) different notes of a melodic sound, either an instrument or a vocal, they should be fairly short. If you know the notes we can make a better instrument

Note: Please ensure that your recording, whether percussive or melodic, lands between - 12dBFS and -18dBFS. All recordings must be done at this volume.

c)   Split apart your 3 different strikes/notes using (S), then clean them up so that there is very little dead air before or after the wanted sound. I don’t want to see a ton of extra sound or noise that is unwanted.

d)   Make a copy of these 3 to the right. Glue them into a single item. Don’t replace the recorded sample with the glued version, I want to see both!

e)   Mute this track.

8)   Solo Track 1 “INSTR – TX16Wx – Recorded Sample”, and open its instance of TX16Wx.

a)   Just like you did with the Beat samples, name the Performance and Program lastname_firstname_MidTermRecordedSample

b)   CTRL+ALT+Click and Drag the glued Recorded Sample into TX16Wx’s Wave view, like we did with the Beat Samples.

c)   Set the slices to the number (3, or if you have extra samples, more)

d)   You can now adjust the Start/End points of those slices in the yellow waveform view, to line up with the sound we are slicing.

Mouse over and drag those lines as close to the initial transient of the note as possible. You can mousewheel scroll/zoom in and out to get more precise.

e)   Once you have the slice points set appropriately, right click in the waveform view and choose Layout Slices just like we did for the Beats.

9)   Looking at the Regions view again, we can now see the slices laid out.

We’re going to adjust the ranges and pitches here so the recorded samples play back at different pitches across different keys.

Below the Regions view Keyboard we can see the list of regions and their parameters.

a)   We Need to adjust the region ranges, and set their root keys.

b)   Our regions default to C4, C#4, and D4. We are going to spread these out.

We can drag the regions across multiple keys by grabbing their sides in the Regions view and dragging them across keys. In this case, I’m using Bb3-C5.

note: The regions can overlap, be careful

c)   Because the notes of my sample are C4, E4, G4, I just spread them out:

i)    Slice 1 – Root = C4. Lowest Note= Bb3, Highest note = D4.

With this setting, if I press C4, it plays back with no pitch change. If I play D4, it will play it back 2 semitones higher, and if I play Bb3, it will play it back 2 semitones

lower.

ii)   Slice 2 – Root = E4. Lowest Note, D#4, Highest note = F#4

If I press E4, the second region now plays back with no pitch change. If I play F#4, it will play it back 2 semitones higher, and if I play D#4, it will play it back 2 semitones lower

iii)  Slice 3 – Root = G4. Lowest Note, G4, Highest note = C5

If I press G4, the third region plays back with no pitch change. It doesn’t extend

lower, but it does extend up to C5, meaning that I can play as high as C5 and it will change the pitch up to 5 semitones higher.

For Melodic samples:

Set the regions and root notes at whatever is appropriate for your sample so that it plays back at different pitches, and matches the original notes.

You can confirm this by comparing your sample to a Kontakt patch that you know is in tune!

For Percussion samples:

Set the position and root note similarly, but what I want to hear is the percussion samples able to play back at different pitches, even if it’s not the specific melodic notes.

d)   Reduce the volume of this program -6dBFS or more just like you did for the beats earlier.

e)   Take a minute now to make sure that all your Beat and Recorded Sample tracks are muted. We should only have the two TW16Wx tracks and our Bass tracks unmuted

10) Your project should look something like the following now:

Now would be a good time to Colour your tracks if you didn’t earlier:

Tada! Much better.

All set up – Road to the Finish

11) We are now going to turn this into a full composition using the following elements:

i)    TX16WX with the Recorded Sample we created

ii)   TX16WX with the Break Beats

iii)  The Two Bass Loops

12) Duplicate the Beats Midi Item so there are 4 of them in a row.

Now we have 16 bars of a drum beat.

Turn 'cycle' (looping playback) on. Have a listen to the sequence cycling a few times to hear what it sounds like.

Go through each of the MIDI items and change the notes around to make a more

complicated break beat pattern of your choosing.

Each of the 4 patterns must be somewhat different

I want to see the following in your Drum MIDI editing:

i)    Both 1/4 Notes & 1/8th   notes

- Change the grid size, experiment with mixing different Notes lengths

(remember that longer grids like 1/2 are too long for the slice length (1/4)

- Do not overlap your notes, you don’t want to play more than one slice at the same time.

ii)   Some variation in Velocity

- Adjust the Velocity of some of your notes using the Velocity grid below.

13) Copy, Paste, and Edit your Bass clips into new media items and place them in a way that you like. This is entirely up to your taste. You can go back and forth between parts, but do not

overlap them, they should not be playing at the same time.

You can put these on two separate tracks, or the same track, just delete any empty tracks you leave behind from editing. Just make sure the track name makes sense.

I want to see:

i)    Some space without any bass notes

ii)   Some splitting and editing of the bass notes, eg moving them around, not just the full loop placed or looped.

14) We’re now going to add a Megababy Sequencer to the TX16Wx with our Recorded Sample.

a)   Add an instance of Megababy Sequencer to the FX list note: It must be placed before the TX16Wx …

b)   Make a repeating pattern or two that controls your Recorded Sample. If you use multiple patterns, automate them as shown in class in Week 4.

Note: You will have to drag the Green box over the Keyboard in Megababy until you get to the range you placed your samples in (eg C4). Megababy is also one octave lower

than TX16Wx, so if your note is C4 in TX16Wx, it will be C3 in Megababy…

Make sure MIDI trigger is off, or that the red box isn’t overlapping the green box.

You can make longer notes by holding ALT and dragging when placing notes.. other modifiers change velocity and delay the note. Try it out.

15) Now you should have the following:

i)    Track with Megababy controlling TX16Wx playing your Recorded Sample as a sequenced loop that plays all 16 bars

ii)   Track with TX16Wx playing back your sliced Drum beats

iii)  Track(s) with your Bass notes

iv)  All other tracks (raw beat tracks, original recorded sample), present but muted

16) We are now going to record our Megababy Sequence into an Audio media item

a)   Right Click on the Record button on our Track with Megababy and TX16Wx. Select Record: Output > Record Output (Stereo)

b)   Press Record and Reaper will record the output of your Megababy+TX16Wx sequence into the same track.

Record an appropriate number of bars to express your pattern.Trim it down to the appropriate length and Glue it. Now it is an audio loop that you can edit and place

c)   Disable the FX. If you do not, you will have it playing back over the new media item you recorded, making it twice as loud (which is actually +6dBFS) .

Do not delete the megababy or TX16Wx instances, I need to see your work.

d)   Split and Edit your new media item to taste.

17) Adjust track volumes in the following order:

a)   Ensure that all VST volumes (TX16Wx) are turned down enough so that they enter the Track Vlume Fader at a level below -6dBFS when the volume fader is at Unity (0dBFS) If not, adjust within the VST Device

b)   Ensure that all Media Item volumes (Bass, Recorded Megababy Sequence) are turned down enough so that they enter the Track Volume Fader at a level below -6dBFS when the volume fader is at Unity (0dBFS)

If not, adjust within the Media Item Properties

c)   At this point none of your track volumes should be over -6dBFS.

d)   Choose your loudest component (The drum beat) and mix your other tracks around it by adjusting the volume faders subtractively until you have a good balance around the

drum beat and the Master Fader does not exceed -6dBFS

Some hard rules for Volume adjustment:

i)    Never boost with Volume Faders.

Volume Faders are for subtracting. For more volume, you can turn up Media Item Volumes or VST Output

ii)   Never Ever Touch the Master Fader.

If it is above -6dBFS on the Master Track, select all the other track volume faders and pull them down until the Master Track peak lands below -6dBFS

iii)  DO NOT EXCEED -6dBFS on the Master Track

iv)  NO CLIPPING ANYWHERE! EVER! NO MATTER WHAT!

18) If you are feeling creative, feel free to add more elements as long as we keep good volume.

I will give +1 bonus to any use of one or more of the following additional elements up to a maximum of +2:

i)    Kontakt, Surge controlled by an Arpeggiator plugin

ii)   A Kontakt/Surge pad controlled by a midi item

iii)  Kontakt percussion elements controlled by another Megababy