AcmeBarGig Forums

OK, lets challenge the status quo a bit more.
Most of us don't realise how important rhythm is in music. Even behind every mellody there is a very important rhythmic component.

To illustrate this (and because it is really cool!!!) I am going to show you how to turn almost any sound into an unrecognizeable and musically attractive version of itself.

Take a sound, any sound...
Although this works best with "frequency rich" noisy sounds.
Think of engines: cars, trucks, bikes, boats, airplanes...
Think of natural sounds: water flowing, waves, wind, rain...
Think of motors: vacuum cleaners, hairdriers, drills, chainsaws...
And of course, the good old white noise...

My starting point is a sample of my washing machine, recorded with my faithfull £5 web mic.
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Here is the signal chain.


And the Stereo Trance Gate settings.
Note that both gates and both filters are switched on.


I have experimented with the left filter being used to let through the lower frequencies. I have tried both bandpass and various types of low pass. The low frequencies tended to sound too strong, so I adjusted the left level down so the sound ws not too boomy.

Finally the Tribe Amp.


The Tribe Amp is my favorite VST effect for making any beat crispy. You will have a chance to judge that on the sound examples.
I won't go into detail about Tribe Amp in this tutorial. Simply copy the settings from the image and off you go.

The volume dropped a bit after the Trance Gate filters. I used a VST utility to adjust the volume at the end. Probably could have simply pushed the master volume on the Tribe Amp to compensate, but as I was experimenting with the Tribe amp on and off, I decided to control the volume with a separate plugin rather than with the amp master volume.
You can also simply push the volume fader on the channel up.

Here are a few example clips.
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All start with STG and Tribe Amp switched off (i.e., bypassed).
Then I switch the gate on and adjust the volume up to compensate, as required.
Then I switch on the Amp. You will notice that the high frequencies get pleasantly boosted. You will also note that the sound becomes mono since Tribe Amp is mono (it would have been possible to use 2 amps in parallel to process each mono chanell separately to keep the sound in stereo).
The first clip has also a bit of reverb (not shown on the signal chain above).

In the last clip you can hear me adjusting the filter LFO speed, depth and type and the filters' cut off in realtime.
If you want, and With a bit of practice, it is possible to smoothly change from one set of parameters to another (i.e., avoiding havin glitchy rhythm patches).
Anothe roption is to clip the clean sections of the recording and make them into rhythmic loops and then use these to construct the rhythmic sequence.

alright - I'm gonna try experimenting with this now - you got me interested and I'm bored to death anyways. Just took my nighttime pain meds and made a pot of strongassed coffee - I'll begin the experiments!

Absolutely...Now you're talking...
Made me want to get really stoned and dick around with it!
KM

That is great!
Let me know how you get on and if you want any help. Fee free to send me a PM.
Also would be great if you post any interesting audio clips from your experiments.

Have fun!