Usually like this…

This piece includes several instruments, voices, drums (in red). Software used to mix is REAPER, voice samples and one pad are generated in Reason (visible in the background on the left screen), the rest – including most effects – is hardware. On this particular piece, I used mainly the MS-20, DP4+, TC Reverb, and a bit of the holiest grail reverb. Main software effects are EQ, bitcrusher and a delay, secondary effects are Atlantis VST filter stages, and a flanger.

On a standard track I use around 30 tracks, one of my ongoing projects is currently over the 150 tracks mark and will most probably end up closer to 250 but the simpler pieces use up as little as 6 tracks (kick drum, snare drum, high hats, bass, lead, reverb).
Of course, you can use less, but it is convenient to have more tracks, and mixing on a computer now means there are fewer hardware (and financial) limits on the number of tracks you are mixing.

OK, had a few question concerning the types of plugins I used. So, there you are, a bunch of free / cheap VSTs I use :

- Reaper‘s plugins. Reacomp, ReaEQ… can be downloaded as a separate VST pack from their website. Easy to use and extremely configurable.

- Atlantis VST: semi-modular synth with a cool interface (just get the interface pack). Great for basses, pads & effects

- DSK asianZ and indian Dreams. Cool sounds.

- moonoi.tk’s binaural simulator VST.  When panning isn’t enough.

- isotope vinyl. When you need the scratchy feel

- TC Electronic’s Fabrik R. hum… the VST I use most is actually just a controller for a hardware reverb. Still, great reverb, I’ll leave it here. And no, I don’t have any other recommendation for reverbs, this is the best I found so far, and it is so far ahead I barely use anything else as overall reverbs.

- Camelcrusher. Sounds very bad. I mean it is a terrible distortion simulation. Unless you stop considering it as an analogue simulation (just go and buy yourself a real lamp disto, am quite happy with my ElectroHarmonix) and consider it as digital grit. Yup. just when you need that harsh digital grit…. there it is.

I know I do not use that many VSTs on a regular basis.. but then I also make extensive use of Reason for digital sound generation. And when needing more powerful effects, I go back to my hardware with all its noises, internal non-linearities, and all the lofi that makes overall great sound.

Quick and dirty series of effects inspired by an acousmonium, used in the album « Spirit of Technocoumatics ». (clik on picture above to download).

FX is used several times throughout the album, but a quick overview can be heard around 3’37 on Technocousmatic 1

The combi knobs & buttons are not used, you need to open it up to have access to a mixer, each channel representing one « position », defined by reverb & panning.

• FX1 is a simply playing around with pan & reverbs.
• FX2 has additional delays included.
• For those who want to take it a step further, FX3 is doubled between an FX2 function, and an FX « damaged speaker » function. (feel free to play around with the distos though, FX3 was quickly put together and never really used)

I wouldn’t suggest to use these as spatial positioning tools, but rather as spatialisation tools, making the sound move around as it is being played.

Little granular synthesis / time stretching tool I developed based on an NN-19.

Note that the file size is limited by the NN19′s limits (not very long)

Knob 1 is the speed at which the sample is player, switch 1 stops that speed (granular synthesis mode).
Knob 2 defines the sample size / frequency
Knob 3 is some fine tuning to get your granular synth in tune
Knob 4 is where you start on the sample / where you take your grain from.
Switch 4 softens the sound by adding a touch of very short reverb. Sounds good on some samples, not on other.
Switch 3 plays the sample in reverse, when in time stretch mode.

The idea behind this synth is to loop-read a very small bit of a sample through an NN19, and advance through the sample to fake some time stretching. If you don’t advance, you have a granular synth.

A compressor has been integrated in the unit for the simple reason that playing with the knobs real time can produce some peaks, this allows for more time to think for the musician.

Download Document 02′s granular synthesis & time stretching patch here.

A track made in a train, while looking at the countryside. Synths are sequenced with Tiction,a generative music software.

Tiction is linked to Reason with MidiYoke. Heavy live filtering was applied on the drums & drum echoes.

Tiction – higher notes

Bass notes were also played with Tiction, using didgeridoo wavetables in a Malström.

The synth is tuned to give a spatial impression, the index of the second wavetable being changed by +2 and its motion by -1.

Voix … pleine de souvenirs. Toujours dans l’esprit ancienne SF, j’ai repris cette voix utilisée par plein de robots dans les vieilles séries (la plus connue étant celle des Dalek dans le Dr Who). Recette: parler dans le micro en prenant déjà le bon accent. Le coté drôle, c’était de le faire pendant le Global Game Jam, en open space.. j’ai du faire une dizaine de prises pour être sur d’en avoir une qui convenait. La voix est ensuite repassée par une Korg Electribe EA-1, en remplacement de l’oscillateur 1. L’oscillateur 2 est mis en ring mode, ensuite il reste a jouer avec la hauteur du deuxième oscillateur et sa forme d’onde jusqu’a obtenir le bon résultat. Un leger filtre passe bas résonant a aussi été utilisé.

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This voice should ring a bell. Keeping the old Sci-Fi image in Reons, I used this setting used by many robots in old series, the most known may be the Daleks in Dr Who. The secret is here: talk loud and choppy in the microphone, already using the right intonation. Fun side is doing this in the Global Game Jam open space. I recorded around 10 cycles to make sure I’ll have one that would fit. The voice is then passed through a Korg Electribe EA-1, replacing oscilator 1. Oscilator 2 is set to ring mode, then you tweak around the pitch and waveform until you get the proper result. a bit of resonant low-pass filtering was also applied.

Even if  « no one needs a vocoder« , This one has been used a lot here.

Quick summary for those who didn’t follow: make a sickness sound that is neither electronics nor organic. Or rather both at the same time.

Step 1: get a mechanical sound

I chose a piece of wood being rubbed against a tambourine.

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Step 2: get an organic sound

On this side of things, I just used my voice. (If you are under 12, you may laugh a the samples, then leave the site).

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Step 3:

Put the sounds through a vocoder, until you can work something out of it.This might take some times, I tried vocoding one signal by the other, switching inputs, changing dry/wet signals, and ended up with loads of nice sounds that would get well mixed together, which is just what I did.

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Step 4: Filters, reverb etc…

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Here is a small effect I did to emulate a vinyl being stopped.

To use the effect, put the combinator in line with the sound you want to stop, then send a MIDI note to the combi. An alternative method is to hit the stop button, but the results are not as good as the one with a MIDI note.

To start the sound again (or if no sounds comes out in the first place), hit the restart button.

The knobs are all cabled for automation purposes, not for human use…

Click on the combi to download the effect.

Now, the idea behind this combinator is simple. The signal is routed directly. When a note comes in, the signal is then routed through a delay, the delay time is increased in an exponential ramp and at its peak the signal is cut.

For the details, here is how it works:

• The Thor is used in junction with the combi to create a big CV machine
• The Thor LFO is used as the ramp to the delay
• The Thor buttons are used as variables.

1/

MIDI comes in, the THOR emits a signal through its CV out 2 and combi knob 3, to:

• Switch to the delayed channel.
• Arm its own button 1. This is the signal to say that the effect is now on, used as an on/off scale to send the delay signal to the DDL1.
• The Thor LFO used to increase the delay is itself key synced, to get the full ramp from zero on.

2/

The LFO ramps up, increasing the delay through combi knob 4, giving the vinyl being stopped sound. It also goes through the combi knob 1, back to button 2, in a way that the button 2 will only be pressed when the LFO has reached higher values (ca. 120), meaning the effect has to stop or the sound will go fast instead of slowing down.

3/

The stop signal goes through the combi knob 2, and mutes all tracks.

4/

The reset button reinitialises all the inner routing. If you kept up with my technical nonsense up to here, I trust you don’t need anymore information.

Just thought I’d get some technical advie posted here for those who are interested. I’ll keep it in english though, French users can always email / meet me.

Here is a classic problem with electronic music. It lacks groove. Either you use a MIDI controller and are proficient enough with it to get the right groove, or you just don’t groove. In the end, some products such as Propellerhead Reason now have a groove tool, and a bunch of presets to go with it.

But if the presets are not what you like, you still have to go through a controller. Well not anymore. Just get a microphone. Low-fi, who cares. You can sing badly that doesn’t mater either. The whole point is just to go « poum tcha taka taka » in your mic, feel very stupid, and get the rythm out of your voice. Singing along in rythm is easy. And groovy.

Once recorded, you can just get the groove from the wavefile. I use Cockos Reaper‘s drumtrigger plugins to get a midi file. Once the file is in your hads, open it up in Reason, get the groove from the clip (make sure you are editing the right groove slot) and apply that user groove to whatever track you want.