RETOOLED
Jan 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Jim Batcho
Digidesign products may fill a lot of different roles in your studio, but they could also serve as tools you have never even imagined possible. Take your Digi 001, for instance — it's not just for tracking ideas, remixing sessions and recording your MPC loops. And the Pro Tools|HD rig is not only an editing and recording platform. Hidden inside those systems is a tool that doesn't get nearly as much attention as auto tuning, editing and plug-in processing: the Pro Tools beat machine.
Since Pro Tools began implementing more composition-friendly features — such as grid-style arranging, I/O labeling, easy time-compression and expansion trimming, sound replacing and beat manipulating — the system has become an incredibly powerful rhythm-production machine. But if you are a loop guru who prefers working with actual chunks of pure sound, the new Pro Tools could become your best friend.
PREPARING YOUR SESSION
If you always use the same sound sources in your recordings, it is best to set up Pro Tools session templates and label your I/O channels. Once you route all of your hardware outputs into your interface, create a new session on your audio drive. Name it Beat Template or something similar and save it to a master Templates folder on your drive.
In your session, pull down the I/O Labels window from the Setups menu. Create corresponding names for your physical inputs in the I/O Labels window (mic 1, mic 2, e6400-L, e6400-R, electribe-L, electribe-R, DM-Pro 1, DM-Pro 2, DM-Pro 3, DM-Pro 4 and so forth). That way, each time you want to record a specific source, you can pull down the correct input on the Pro Tools mixer by name and record-enable it. The next step is to set your preferred pan, volume, auxiliary-input and bus-assignment settings. You should also enable preferences, such as loop record and loop playback; create any groups you want; and set your editing mode to Grid. Also, set your main counter to bars and beats and the subcounter to minutes and seconds. In the Preferences window under the Setups menu, select the Display tab and check Draw Grids in Edit Window. Save the file again and close the session.
Now, go to your Templates folder and open up the Beats folder. Single-click on the Beats session icon and press Command + I. (Windows users: right-click and choose Properties.) In the resulting window, check the box that says Locked. (Windows: check the Read-Only box.) This ensures that you cannot save over your template. When you want to create a new rhythm session, open the Beats session, perform a Save As and save the session in an entirely new folder on the same audio drive.
When remixing a finished session rather than starting a new one, define the tempo before overdubbing new rhythm tracks. If the original session engineer stayed true to the tempo and worked in Grid mode, you're all set. If, on the other hand, there is simply a click track or a drum track with no bpm defined, you will need to employ the Identify Beat option in Pro Tools. This process takes transient peaks in the click or in the drum performance and determines the correct bpm. Identify Beat is explained in the Pro Tools user manual.
MAKING LOOPS
Although Slip and Shuffle modes are valuable to the rhythm programmer, the preferred Pro Tools editing environment by far is Grid mode. In that mode, every region movement and editing action snaps to user-defined note-value resolutions (quarter notes, eighth notes and so on) corresponding to the session's tempo.
The two best options for developing loops are to load them from sound libraries or to create your own by recording. If you plan to use loops from a CD-R as a starting point, load them into the regions list and drag them into a track's playlist. Zoom in tight on your loop. If the loop's beginning doesn't start precisely before the transient's peak, you will need to trim it using the method described in the next paragraph.
Recording your own loops with a drum machine is a simple process. Make sure that Pro Tools' tempo and the drum machine's bpm are set to the same value and record your tracks. Record enough of the pattern so that you have a complete loop or a series of measures that you want to work with. Switch from Grid to Slip mode and enable the Tab to Transients option (above the Edit window's Show/Hide regions button). Tab to Transients is an excellent way to create loops because it allows you to Shift + Tab through a region's transient points to make a clean selection. In other words, you can go from the point just before the first kick note in measure 1 and select your way through to just before the first kick note in measure 2, for example, making an easy loop selection that will snap to the grid.
Use the Grabber tool to select the entire region you recorded and then press Option + F (Windows: Alt + F) to view the entire region close up. Listen to the region and identify what you'd like to keep as your loop and what should be trimmed off of the ends. Within your recorded region, use the Selector tool to click on an area before the beginning point of a desired loop and depress Tab once to set the cursor just before the transient's starting point. Now, hold the Shift key and keep hitting Tab (selecting your area) until you get to the point just before the beginning of the area where the loop begins again. Now, you have a perfect selection. Hit Command + T (Windows: Control + T) to trim the region down to its new state. Hit the Spacebar and let the playback loop for a couple of times to test.
Whether you record your own loops or load them from CD-R, it's likely that your next step is to do some time compression or expansion (TC/E). Even if the numerical bpm values in Pro Tools and on your drum machine match up, a slight variance always exists between clocks, so you need to do some slight compression or expansion after you record. If you operate a TDM system, this is easy: Switch back to Grid mode, snap the region flush against the beginning of the session, pull down the TC/E Trim tool option and let it intuitively compress or expand the end of the loop to match the end of the measure. If you work in LE, however, you'll have to do it manually. All Pro Tools systems come with the highly usable Time Compression and Expansion plug-in, and a couple of other excellent third-party options are on the market — notable are Wave Mechanics Speed and Serato Pitch 'n Time.
Switch back to Grid mode and slide the front end of your newly created loop into the session's starting point or a measure's starting point (a darker blue line on the grid). You'll note that the end of the loop will likely overlap or run just short of the next dark blue line on the grid, which is why you have to either compress or expand it. With the Time Compression and Expansion plug-in window open (see Fig. 1), click the Selector tool in the Edit window and place the cursor directly on the measure's end point (the dark blue line within or beyond the region, not the region's end point). In the plug-in window, note where inside the Destination column it reads End. It will display the exact bar-and-beat location where your cursor is blinking in the playlist. Write down the exact bar-and-beat value. Now, use the Grabber tool to select the entire region (loop) you want to process. In the End tab, type in the bar-and-beat value you wrote down and hit Enter. You should then see the Ratio tab change to what will be the end result. Now hit Process, and the region should fit perfectly into the Pro Tools grid — it will fall exactly between the two dark-blue lines designating a whole measure.
When you have your finished loop, double-click on it with the Grabber tool to rename the region. You can now duplicate (Command + D; Windows: Control + D) to your heart's content to create a looped audio track. Listen back to what you've duplicated across the playlist. Note that on rare occasions, Tab to Transients may not select at the precise 0dB line on the waveform, which can lead to audible pops. If that occurs, zoom in to the sample level on the original loop's start and end points to fix the problem. (See the “Cleaning Up and Consolidating” section for more information.)
OVERDUBBING
Loops set perfectly to the grid in this manner are good starting points and provide the foundation for overdubbing new sounds. With templates set up and I/O channels labeled, building upon your initial loops is a matter of pulling down the instrument of choice and tracking new performances. You can also load single-hit samples — an 808 kick, for example — into the region bin and pull them into the session. In much the same way that you layer beats with a traditional drum machine, you can place all samples in time on the grid. Unlike most drum machines, you have the added benefit of doing everything visually.
When tracking new material, every new sound or rhythm you record can be chopped up in time and snapped into place. You can also record live instruments, sound effects and samples with microphones. The best way to do that is with Loop Record, which can store all of your looped takes on different playlists within the track. Because all overdubs are recorded to discrete tracks, you have the advantage of editing, processing and mixing each track in isolation.
CREATIVE EDITING
Without a doubt, editing is the great liberator in modern audio technology. There are so many ways to manipulate audio that the rhythmic possibilities are literally endless. Use Grid mode and have some fun mangling your audio into submission. Try some of the following:
Strip Silence
To get a radical gated effect, take a drum loop and use some extreme Strip Silence settings to remove the quieter parts of the groove. Strip Silence is also an excellent means to remove areas between notes from a less-than-perfect live-percussion recording, for example, in order to snap the notes into perfect time on the grid.
Neutralized attack
Set your grid resolution high, such as to 32nd or 64th notes. Take something with a fairly long tail, like a reverberated snare region, and trim into the initial attack of the note by one or two grid values; then, fade in your new beginning by a couple of grid values. You're left without the snare's attack and only with the sustain, which makes for some scary whoosh sounds.
Antisustain
Set your grid resolution to 64th notes and go to a track in the Edit window with material that has a great deal of sustain to the performance, like ambience or an electronic kick. Zoom in closely on the sustaining area, select across the grid equivalent of one 64th note and then hit Delete. Skip the next 64th note value, proceed to the one that follows it and delete that area, as well. Continue on for a while and then listen back. You'll hear a fast mute-unmute effect caused by the empty spaces that you created. That is one way to create the well-known stutter effect.
Swells
Another common effect in electronic dance music is to build fast swells of notes leading up to a dramatic moment in a beat — excellent for transitions. With your grid value set to 16th notes, pull a single dry hi-hat note into your playlist. (Shorter notes are better.) Zoom in tight on the region and select across a single 16th note grid value (from the light-blue line where the note's region begins to the next light-blue line). Hit Command + D (Windows: Control + D) to duplicate it. Continue duplicating during the course of a measure. For the next measure, switch to 32nd-note resolution. Place the same hi-hat note within the measure's starting point, select an area where the note is, from one blue line to the next. It is now half the time and may even cut off the tail of the note. Duplicate this in the same way throughout the course of a measure. (You will have twice the number of notes as the previous measure). Switch to 64th notes and do it all again. The result is a swell that builds from 16th notes to 32nd notes to 64th notes with each new measure. Couple that with a volume rise and some creative effects processing, and you have an intense transition point (see Fig. 2).
Reverb
After chopping audio in the aforementioned ways, select across the entire result and continue extending a bit beyond it. Pull down a reverb plug-in from the AudioSuite menu and preview some different characteristics. Click on Process, and the effect will create a new complete region out of your chopped audio. Of course, you can do this with any effect — try it with some extreme compression settings or a radical change in EQ character. Just for kicks, try reversing the whole thing and listen to the result.
MIXING AND AUTOMATION
The mixer automation in Pro Tools is incredibly powerful. The quality of pan and fader movements is vastly superior to any hardware rhythm sampler or drum machine. The ability to write automation such as mutes, volume, pans and sends lets you compose beats like a mad programmer, but on individual tracks and with the fidelity of an expensive digital mixer.
Automation can be drawn in graphically or accomplished in real time while the audio plays back. It is preferable to draw automation moves using the graphical-editing tools in the Edit window. The Pencil tool in particular is an excellent way to draw in automation assignments. You can draw lines freely, but the tool also gives you the ability to create random and set square patterns and triangle patterns. The beauty of these options is that the patterns cling to the grid just like regions do. You can change the resolution of all patterns by changing the note value.
PLUG-INS IN MOTION
Naturally, automation also extends to real-time plug-in processing. Plug-ins come in two varieties with Pro Tools LE: file-based AudioSuite and real-time RTAS. TDM-based Pro Tools systems also include the venerable real-time TDM variety. Both real-time and file-based plug-ins have particular benefits when it comes to composing rhythms. The former enables you to alter the effect during the course of the song or loop. The latter is handy when you want to save CPU bandwidth, generate a universal effect across the entire track or process single hits like reverberated snare notes. In the case of Digidesign's SoundReplacer AudioSuite plug-in, you can even blend and replace recorded sounds with samples from your sound library.
But the real fun happens with the real-time RTAS and TDM plug-ins. All of those knobs, sliders and lights on a plug-in interface can change over time as the audio plays back. To automate a plug-in, click the interface's Auto button in the top gray area of the window (see Fig. 3). Add your automation modes of choice and click on OK.
As with standard mixer automation, you have two choices — real-time or graphic — for manipulating your selected parameters. In the case of the former, look for the control that you added in the automation menu. It should be illuminated or otherwise designated, such as with a green box. Play back your session and change the knob as it plays. This will “write” the automation data to the system. Play it back again, and you'll see the knob move. When you add an automation parameter, it creates a graphical view option in the Edit window, in the same pull-down where you select a track's waveform view and the other standard automation views. As with mixer automation, plug-in parameters can be drawn using familiar editing tools.
Filter sweeping is an extremely common and dramatic effect. Because Pro Tools is your rhythm-production machine, you have the option of sweeping the EQ of a single track, a selection of tracks or the entire performance. If you want the effect across the entire mix, drop a plug-in on your master fader. If you want just a few tracks affected, create an auxiliary input and assign certain tracks to bus assignments that correspond to the input. If you only want to tweak one element, add an EQ on the track's individual channel strip.
Pull down an RTAS EQ plug-in and press the Spacebar to listen to your mix. As you listen, try cutting different frequencies to their lowest possible dB value and listen to the effect. Notice that massive cuts in EQ across a broad range sometimes make a track inaudible. Often, that is exactly the idea — a way of introducing an element into a track by gradually bringing it from a muffled state to its “proper” EQ position. Before automating the sweep, note which EQ character you want to end up with (or start with if working in reverse). If you want to end up in a “flat” state, that's easy to remember. If not, you'll have to save it as a preset.
Once you understand which EQ values give you the effect you want, select your automation modes — EQ frequency, gain and sometimes Q work best. Now, you're free to tweak the knobs or sliders in real time (the best option for generating an intuitive and musical sweep) or just draw them in graphically. Try several passes and experiment in different ways as you go; this is an art more than a science. Incidentally, you can also create similar effects with the more bizarre plug-ins out there — offerings such as GRM Tools and SoundToys by Wave Mechanics, for instance.
Plug-ins don't exist only to unleash your creativity. As with any typical mix, you may need to compress or EQ certain elements in your rhythm so that everything sits well in the mix. Pay attention to the frequency range or “space” that each instrument is occupying. If you clutter too many instruments into the same range, they will become lost, and you'll be left with a muddy mix.
CLEANING UP AND CONSOLIDATING
It's important to remember while you're programming rhythms that your ears are always a better judge of reality than your eyes. Listen to what you create and try to discern whether you hear any digital clipping. (Red-lined meters do not always indicate that distortion exists.) Close your eyes and listen for any pops, dropouts or other anomalous sounds that might happen.
If any digital clipping exists, you're more or less stuck with it. You'll likely have to rerecord or do some pinpoint copying and pasting from other audio material. If you encounter any other problems, you can try fading region start and end points or crossfading adjoined regions. When all else fails, zoom in to the sample level of the waveforms in question (the resolution at which the waveform appears as a single line). If the waveform at the end or beginning point of a region does not reside at the 0dB line, you have a couple of options. Trimming the region in Slip Mode to an area where the waveform is at 0 is the easiest. But many times (with loops, that is), you want to retain the region's length. In that case, try using the Pencil tool to redraw the waveform so that it resides at the 0 point at the region's beginning and end.
When a session has a large number of disparate regions (remember those 64th-note swells?), the system needs to load all of those individual files to play them back. That can sometimes create a drain on your system. Once you're completely satisfied with the edits in your session, it's a good idea to clean up the session by consolidating all of the regions in your playlist into a single audio track. This is accomplished simply by selecting an area across the playlist and choosing Consolidate Selection in the Edit menu, or Option + Shift + 3 (Windows: Alt + Shift + 3). To save hard-drive space, you may want to just select across areas of the playlist where audio occurs; however, you can consolidate across the entire playlist from the beginning of the session to the end whether audio is present. Do that by creating a marker called End at the end of the performance. Place the cursor anywhere in track 1 before the marker; then, click on the marker to position the cursor at the end point for that one playlist. Next, press Shift + Return so that the entire area is selected. You can consolidate all of the regions on a track-by-track basis and name each new region. That way, you have each entire track in your beat, from beginning to end, all in sync with one another. Because they're all properly named, you're also practicing good file management, which is handy if you want to transfer files to another platform, rebuild the performance track by track or remix the session.
Remember that, when programming beats in Pro Tools, experimentation can lead to wonderful places. But keep in mind that you're not just using a standard drum machine, you're harnessing a powerful tool. With power comes responsibility. Don't let things get so out of control that you forget the essentials of a good rhythm: musicality, fidelity, emotionality and subtlety.
TDM EXCLUSIVES
Although this article focuses on Pro Tools LE, some of the most liberating operations as a rhythm programmer are only available on Digidesign's flagship TDM software, which runs only on Mix and HD systems. Among the many cool rhythmic options exclusive to TDM are the following:
Single-stroke key commands
If you've ever worked on a TDM system and then had to switch to an LE system, you know what a serious drag it is to be without single-stroke key commands. Thankfully, they are scheduled to become available to Pro Tools LE users starting with version 6.0. Also known as command-key focus, single-stroke key commands spread common editing chores across a computer's QWERTY keyboard. Want to trim the end off of that region where the cursor resides? Hit the A key. It's that easy.
Beat Detective
This magical software utility takes multitrack rhythm performances and conforms all elements into perfect time with one another. Like Tab to Transients (and sometimes coupled with it), Beat Detective is also an excellent way to make quick loops from live performances or to simply cut up a multitrack performance into manageable bits. And if you want to make loops out of multitracked drum kits while still retaining the discrete channels, no better utility is available.
TC/E Trim tool
The Time Compression and Expansion pull-down preference on the Trim tool is a quick way to fit recorded loops to your grid setting. The TC/E tool is handy when loading loops with bpm values different from your existing grid, or when recording new material in which the bpm values of Pro Tools and your drum machine don't match up perfectly. According to Digidesign, the TC/E Trim option will also be available starting with Pro Tools LE 6.0.
| Want to use this article? Click here for options! |  |
