Groove Hacking with Multiband Gating
03/05/2024
About four years ago, I did a tip on multiband gating. Although it was a cool effect, it was guitar-centric, cumbersome to edit, and time-consuming to put together. But that was before Track Presets-this improved version requires only a single Track Preset, and works well with synths, guitars, and other instruments. Furthermore, a Macro Controls panel provides flexible, versatile editing. (There's a download link at the end, along with an audio example.)
The overall design is somewhat like a vocoder. It uses a Modulator to generate control signals, and these process a Carrier. The mixer channel layout in fig. 1 may look daunting, but loading the Track Preset does almost all the work for you.
Setup
1. Load the Groove Hacking Track Preset.
2. Open the Mix view. When you load the Track Preset, the Output assignments for the Modulator's Lo, Mid, and Hi FX Channels default to Main.
3. Assign these outputs (circled in orange in fig. 1) to the sidechains in the Carrier's Gates:
Assign the Lo band output to the Carrier's Lo Gate sidechain.
Assign the Mid band output to the Carrier's Mid Gate sidechain.
Assign the Hi band output to the Carrier's Hi Gate sidechain.
Figure 1: The blue channels are the Carrier, the violet channels are the Modulator. The Modulator bus outputs with the orange outline have been assigned to Gate sidechains in the Carrier.
4. Choose audio for the Audio In and Modulator tracks, and you're ready to do some groove hacking. To get a feel for how this works, try a synth pad or power chord for the Carrier, and a drum loop for the Modulator.
5. The Macro Controls panel's default settings will likely not work well with the Audio In and Modulator tracks you're using, because the Groove Hacking effect is sensitive to levels. So, once you have the setup in place, use the Macro Controls panel to optimize the effect.
How to Use the Carrier Bus Macro Controls
Fig. 2 shows the Macro Controls for the Carrier's FX Chain.
Figure 2: Controls that relate to a specific Gate have the same color. The yellow macro controls, and the LookAhead and Send Note Trig buttons, are global.
The following are per-band Gate controls:
Threshold edits the triggering characteristics for each Gate (Lo, Mid, and Hi bands). If turned up too high, triggering won't happen and you'll hear no sound. If turned down too low, the sound will be on almost all the time instead of following the modulator's rhythm.
Gain adjusts the output level for each Gate. Use these controls to achieve the best balance among the three frequency bands.
Mute turns off individual bands. When choosing the optimum Threshold for one band, it's convenient to mute the other bands.
Pan Bypass. The Lo, Mid, and Hi bands have default pan positions of center, left, and right respectively. Turn on the Pan Bypass button to center a band in the stereo field.
The following are global controls:
Attack edits the time for the triggered sound to ramp up to its full level. Turning this up can give short swell effects.
Release is important, because it determines the percussive character of the triggered sounds.
For advanced applications beyond the scope of this tip, enabling Send Note Trig exposes the Gate note trigger outputs as MIDI inputs for Instrument tracks. Every time a Gate opens, it sends a MIDI note trigger. For example, you might want to trigger a kick drum sound every time the Lo Gate opens. The triggers default to Note C3 with a Velocity of 100. To modify the note pitch and velocity, open the FX Chain, and open the Gate whose note you want to edit.
Leave LookAhead on. Turning it off reduces latency by 2 ms, but the tradeoff is less precise triggering.
Under the Hood: How It Works
The Carrier Section (blue channels in fig. 1) has an Audio Input channel and a bus. The Audio Input's pre-fader Send feeds audio to the Carrier bus. The bus splits the audio into three bands, followed by gates. Triggering the gates from control signals generated by the Modulator Section (violet channels in fig. 1) processes the Carrier audio.
The Modulator Section derives the control signals:
The Modulator audio's channel has three pre-fader sends that feed three FX Channels.
Each send goes to its own FX Channel.
Each FX Channel has a Pro EQ3 that isolates a particular frequency band.
Each FX Channel Output provides a control signal to the sidechains of the Carrier's Gates. These control signals open and close the Gates.
The Carrier Section processes the audio it receives from the Audio In track's pre-fader Send with the Carrier's Extended FX Chain. Fig. 3 shows the FX Chain's Routing Window. The splits are frequency-based, with split points at 250 Hz and 1.50 kHz. Each band goes to a series connection of a Gate, Dual Pan, and Mixtool.
Figure 3: Incoming Carrier audio feeds a frequency-based Splitter, which splits into three bands. Each of the three bands goes to a dedicated Gate, Dual Pan, and Mixtool.
Optimizing the Frequency Splits
You may need to optimize the Carrier's Splitter frequencies, as well as the Modulator's EQ frequencies, for the audio you want to process. In most cases, the Carrier's Splitter bands and Modular EQ bands should be the same, and the Modulator's frequency bands shouldn't overlap. To do this:
Set the Modulator's Lo band Pro EQ3's HC Freq to the same frequency as the Mid band Pro EQ3's LC Freq. This is also the same frequency as the Splitter's low frequency split.
Set the Hi band Pro EQ3's LC Freq to the same frequency as the Mid band Pro EQ3's HC Freq. This is also the same frequency as the Splitter's high frequency split.
The stages mentioned above are the only ones used in the Pro EQ3 processors. For the best separation between the bands, choose a 24 dB/octave
LINK: | https://blog.presonus.com/2024/05/03/groove-hacking-with-multiband-gat... |
See more stories from presonus |
More from PreSonus
24/05/2024
Add Punch & Snap to Drum Hits
By Craig Anderton A Pro EQ3 stage's gain can respond dynamically to incoming signal level, so that louder inputs kick the gain higher (or lower). But Studi...
22/05/2024
How To Distribute Your Music with Studio One From Creation to Digital Streaming Platforms
If you're a PreSonus user, you're probably pretty hands-on in producing ...
17/05/2024
Studio One: Your Binaural Beats Lab
By Craig Anderton When I heard about binaural beats, I was interested-I like beats, and I'm into binaural audio. But this has nothing to do with either o...
15/05/2024
The Pocket Queen | Take the Leap | Quantum Audio Interfaces
Professional drummer, producer, and New Orleans native talks about taking the leap. A life in music requires passion, creativity, and dedication - and for many...
08/05/2024
Introducing the All-New Quantum Audio Interfaces
Take the Leap with the Next Generation of PreSonus Audio Interfaces MEET THE ALL-NEW FAMILY OF QUANTUM AUDIO INTERFACES The culmination of nearly 30 years of ...
08/05/2024
INTRODUCING QUANTUM
Take the Leap with the Next Generation of PreSonus Audio Interfaces MEET THE ALL-NEW FAMILY OF QUANTUM AUDIO INTERFACES The culmination of nearly 30 years of ...
03/05/2024
Groove Hacking with Multiband Gating
by Craig Anderton About four years ago, I did a tip on multiband gating. Although it was a cool effect, it was guitar-centric, cumbersome to edit, and time-con...
26/04/2024
The Real-Time 6-to-12-String Guitar Converter
By Craig Anderton With this technique, when you play a standard 6-string electric guitar, you'll hear the rich, vibrant sound of a 12-string guitar. The pr...
19/04/2024
Impact XT's Secret Clip-Launching Talents
By Craig Anderton Impact XT can launch clips, which is great for songwriting (see the blog post Songwriting with Impact XT). But few people realize that Impact...
12/04/2024
Make Better Mixes with Selective EQ
By Craig Anderton Good mixes often depend on carving out a unique sonic space for each instrument, so you can hear them clearly. Sometimes carving out that spa...
05/04/2024
Multitimbral Magic with MIDI Guitar
By Craig Anderton MIDI guitars are a niche product, because the learning curve can be daunting for some guitar players. However, I'm surprised how many pro...
29/03/2024
Avoid Collaboration Concerns
By Craig Anderton As the universe of Studio One users grows, so do opportunities for collaboration. But your collaborator may not be using the same version of ...
22/03/2024
Create Rhythmic Alchemy with the BeatCoder
By Craig Anderton Over three years ago, I wrote a blog post on how to make a drumcoder. Its design was somewhat like a vocoder-drum audio served as a modulat...
15/03/2024
Make Stereo Downmixes More Immersive
By Craig Anderton One of Atmos's coolest features is scalability. No matter how complex your Atmos project may be, you can render it as Binaural, 5.1, 5.1....
13/03/2024
Studio One: A Brief Exploration with Great Good Fine Okay
Watch the Brooklyn Synthpop duo remix their song Blame in Studio One Less than 24 hours after meeting each other, producer Luke Moellman and vocalist Jon San...
10/03/2024
Stamp Out Boring Flanging!
By Craig Anderton The impetus behind this design was wanting to add envelope flanging to amp sims like Ampire. But there's a problem: most amp sim outputs ...
01/03/2024
Creating Room Ambiance with Virtual Mics
By Craig Anderton Supplementing close-miking techniques with room mics gives acoustic sounds a life-like sense of space. Typically, this technique involves pla...
27/02/2024
Notion Mobile 3.3 Now Available
Notion Mobile v3 took mobile music creation to the next level with support for iOS, Android, Windows, Fire OS and macOS. Now v3.3 adds many enhancements and fix...
26/02/2024
The Sweet Spot with Grammy-Nominated Producer 6ix
Logic's Grammy-nominated producer breaks down his Sweet Spot. Before he found success as an avant-garde hip hop producer, 6ix was just 30 units shy of a de...
25/02/2024
The Sweet Spot with Multi-Platinum Producer Warren Huart
The Grammy-nominated multi-Platinum producer breaks down his Sweet Spot. From the studio with chart-topping artists like Aerosmith and The Fray, to empowering ...
23/02/2024
Don't Make This Mixing Mistake!
By Craig Anderton Do you think of mixes in absolute terms, or relative terms? Knowing the difference, and when to apply which approach, can make a huge differe...
16/02/2024
Tuff Beats
By Craig Anderton Calling all beats/hip-hop/EDM/hard rock fans: This novel effects starts with drums modulating the Vocoder's white noise carrier, and take...
09/02/2024
Reinvent Your Stereo Panning
This tip is about working with stereo, NOT about Dolby Atmos or surround-but we're going to steal some of what Atmos does to reinvent stereo panning. Stud...
07/02/2024
Studio One: Mix in a New Dimension with Jeff Ellis
The GRAMMY-winning recording and mix engineer shows us how he uses Studio One to create an artful immersive mix. Jeff Ellis is a force to be reckoned with. The...
02/02/2024
Presence Electric 12-String (the Artist Version Remix)
Presence's sound library includes a fine acoustic 12-string guitar, but not an electric one. So, perhaps it's not surprising that one of the more popula...
26/01/2024
Faster, Simpler, and Better Comping
At first, this might not seem too exciting. But follow the directions below, and try comping using this method-I don't think you'll be disappointed. Thi...
19/01/2024
How to Quickly Slash Your Latency
You know the feeling: You're tracking or doing an overdub with a virtual instrument or amp sim, but you're frustrated by the excessive latency inherent ...
12/01/2024
How to Fix Phase Issues
Recording audio using more than one feed from the same source may create phase issues. For example, when miking a bass amp and taking a DI (dry) input, the DI...
05/01/2024
Bigger, Wider Sounds: Try Stereo Miking
If you haven't experimented yet with mid-side stereo miking, you'll be in for a treat when you do. Here's why: Record background singers with gorge...
29/12/2023
How to Prioritize Vocals with Mix Ducking
This complements the tip Better Ducking for Voiceovers and Podcasts and the tip Why I Don't Use Compression Anymore. It applies the concept of voiceover duc...
22/12/2023
Should You Use Highpass Filters when Mixing?
Engineers sometimes advocate using high-pass filters to clean up the low end and tighten the sound. Others believe that because of issues inherent in highpass...
20/12/2023
Studio One: A Brief Exploration with Josh Cumbee
The GRAMMY-nominated artist, producer, and songwriter shows us how he uses Studio One to cook a musical idea from scratch. Josh Cumbee is a triple threat: The ...
15/12/2023
Why I Don't Use Compressors Anymore
This wasn't a conscious decision, or something I planned. But when I looked through my last few songs while seeking candidates for a book's screenshots,...
08/12/2023
Phrasing-The Final Correction Frontier
First, a follow-up: In the October 13 tip about creating Track Presets for parallel processing, I mentioned that Track Presets can't include buses, which is...
01/12/2023
Vocoder Tweaks and Tricks
Vocoder's aren't normal effects. For example, Arturia's Vocoder V is an effect/instrument hybrid, because it's an audio effect that includes a...
24/11/2023
Release Your Music in Stereo and Immersive
For over a decade, stereo and mono vinyl records co-existed before the transition to stereo was complete. During that time, many records were released in both m...
17/11/2023
String Arrangements Made Simple
Strings can enhance almost any genre of music-and with a little more effort, you can do string arrangements that go beyond simply adding a string pad preset. So...
10/11/2023
The Metal Amp De-Harsher
Since Dynamic EQ was introduced in version 5, I've used it to replace and improve some techniques I used to do with static EQ. For example, I'm a fan of...
03/11/2023
Capture-and Keep-Your Creative Impulses
Gregor Beyerle recently posted a video called Producer vs. Engineer-What's the Difference?, which had quite a few comments. It seems most people feel that f...
27/10/2023
Better Drum Reverb with Dynamic EQ
Sending too many low frequencies through reverb gives a bloated, muddy sound. This is one reason why you'll rarely see a send from a bass track going into r...
20/10/2023
A Happy Accident for Drum Sounds
While trying to do something else with Melodyne, I stumbled on this way to add depth or tightness to drum sounds-quickly and easily. Here's the sound of an ...
13/10/2023
Create Track Presets for Parallel Processing
Parallel processing splits a signal into two or more parallel channels. Bi-amping is a common example of parallel processing: One channel processes low frequen...
06/10/2023
Easy Atmos: Grab Headphones, Mix, Have Fun!
Everyone talks about the importance of Dolby Atmos for post-production, but the implications go further than that. Atmos really does change how you create and ...
29/09/2023
You Can Do Immersive Audio. Right Now.
You don't need a massive surround system with speakers wired all over your studio to create immersive audio. Whether you want surround or Dolby Atmos mixes...
22/09/2023
Better Ducking for Voiceovers & Podcasts
By Craig Anderton Background music or environmental sounds are usually an essential part of commercials, movies, presentations, podcasts, and more. When doing ...
15/09/2023
Steal Your Intro-with Ripple Editing
The post Mixing la Studio One had a great response, so here's another tip that relates more to making better music than making better-sounding music. We...
08/09/2023
Quick EQ Fixes with Dynamic Tilt EQ
This FX Chain's inspiration is the Tilt filter circuit created by Tonelux designer Paul Wolff. First used in the Tonelux MP1A mic preamp, the Tilt filter h...
01/09/2023
Create Authentic, Customizable EDM Pumping with X-Trem
But first, some breaking news: Version 1.5 of The Huge Book of Studio One Tips and Tricks is now available from the PreSonus shop. Like previous versions, it...
25/08/2023
Superspeed Comping with Studio One 6.2
Studio One 6.2 reworked Layer and Take handling, and some of the new functionality is exceptionally useful. For example, suppose you want to record comp vocals ...
18/08/2023
The PhaseTone Warper
We haven't done a boutique digital effect for Studio One Professional in a while, so let's use a plugin in a totally wrong way-yet end up with somethi...