jit.qt.movie does not “guarantee’ a frame rate: the speed it reads the file from disc is independent from the speed it outputs frames. The speed jit.qt.movie outputs frames is NOT related to the frame rate of the video file: it is only the result of how many bangs per second it receives.

If you set the metro that bangs the jit.wt.movie to “100″ you will get around 10 frames per second output. This is true if your video FILE has a frame rate of 29.97, or 24, or 15…or even if your file is a still image, like a .jpg, instead of a .mov.

Frames per second of the file is NOT EQUAL to the frames per second that jit.qt.movie outputs. It is entirely independent.

Each bang received is a request to output a frame. If it has a new frame available, it will out put it. If it doesn’t, it will output the same frame again. (This is the reason you may see an output frame rate that is higher than the frame rate of your file — you mention seeing 33.25 from a 29.97 file.)

If you want to “guarantee” an output rate, your best bet is to type “@unique 1″ on the jit.qt.movie, and set the metro faster that your intended output frame rate (say, 20ms for 29.97fps). This insures that no duplicates will be output, and that there will almost definitely be a request for every new available frame from disc.

In MSP, it’s possible to guarantee timing: when MSP is ON, audio signals flow down the yellow-and-black patch cords at 44.1k samples per second, GUARANTEED. In Jitter, there are no guarantees. Video is heavy work, and there is no way to insure that other Max activities (effects, etc) won’t bog down the processor, or that system activities won’t cause the disc to spin etc.

Kurt

This techniques creates a nice ‘singing’ quality to the sound.

audio in blog foler

Eq 3 is designed for more drastic EQ effect than Eq8.

Place three different drum loops on three different tracks. Insert eq3 on each track. Then isolate the bass on one track, the mids on the other and the high on the remaining track. You will know have a hybrid loop. Try this other loops to create new rhythms.

Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes; all a minor third apart from each other. That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be: C, Eb, F#, A, because to get from one note to the next, you have to use “Tone, Semi-Tone” (known as a minor third).

Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord, there are only three “clusters” of notes, which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales.

Cluster 1: C Eb F# A

Cluster 2: C# E G Bb

Cluster 3: D F Ab B

Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please. For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F# A C, etc.

Generally speaking, you can’t make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords, due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes. However, a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune, and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:53 am Post subject: [EDITED!] Music Theory for Dubsteppers [Production Bible v2] Reply with quote
Music Theory

The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally, if it sounds right, it probably is. There are no rules in music, and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music. It’s about understanding the music.

Broadly speaking, it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors: scales and rhythm. Scales make up melodies, chords, harmonies and basslines to name but a few; whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song. In this part of the Production Bible, you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep; but for any of your future musical pursuits. This information is intended to be easy to read and understand, so I won’t be mincing sentences. But firstly, please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below. Otherwise you’ll be completely lost here.

Scales:

We’ll begin with scales. As I mentioned before, scales are the building blocks of your song; and without them, your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect you’re going for!).

There are two main scales that you should learn inside out – the major scale and the minor scale. A generalisation you’re bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds “happy”, and the minor scale sounds “dark”. Although this is not always the case, it is mostly true – and therefore you’ll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep. However, just in case you’re writing happy-dubstep (if that exists), here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up.

Major Scale:

The major scale is really easy to create. It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place:

“Tone, Tone, Semi-Tone, Tone, Tone, Tone, Semi-Tone”

In case you don’t know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is, here is a quick explanation:

Picture a keyboard (or if you can’t, see the image above.) Say you go from C to C#, that would be a semi-tone. The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F – it is still a semi-tone, because you have gone up one key.

A tone is two semi-tones – for example from C to D is a tone, and the same goes for from G# to A#.

The scale’s name is taken from the note that it starts on. For example, C major will start on the note of C. Similarly, A major will start on the note of A, and this is the case with every single scale.

Here is a quick list of a few major scales. After having seen a few, try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated. Ideally, you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale. It might sound boring, but it’s a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music.

Note:
- E# is the same note as F, and B# is the same note as C
- If something has a ## it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)

C Major: C D E F G A B C

C# Major: C# D# E# F# G# A# B# C#

D Major: D E F# G A B C# D

D# Major: D# E# F## G# A# B# C# D#

E Major: E F# G# A B C# D# E

F Major: F G A Bb C D E F

F# Major: F# G# A# B C# D# E# F#

G Major: G A B C D E F# G

G# Major: G# A# B# C# D# E# F G#

A Major: A B C# D E F# G# A

A# Major: A# B# C## D# E# F## G## A#

B major: B C# D# E F# G# A# B

Now, by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please, you can create a melody, bassline or harmony with extreme ease. Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result, and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune.

Minor Scale:

As was the case with the Major Scale, the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula. By knowing this formula, you can understand how the Minor is made, and how to use it to it’s maximum effect.

“Tone, Semi-Tone, Tone, Tone, Semi-Tone, Tone, Semi-Tone”

As is the case with the major scales, you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand. Here are a few Minor Scales, see if you can work out the rest.

Note:
- E# is the same note as F, and B# is the same note as C
- If something has a ## it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)

C Minor: C D Eb F G Ab B C

D Minor: D E F G A Bb C# D

F# Minor: F# G# A B C# D E# F#

G Minor: G A Bb C D Eb F# G

Similarly to the Major, now that you know your Minor Scales, you can quickly just take any note from the scale, rearrange it with another few notes in the scale, and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume.

Diminished Chords:

Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes; all a minor third apart from each other. That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be: C, Eb, F#, A, because to get from one note to the next, you have to use “Tone, Semi-Tone” (known as a minor third).

Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord, there are only three “clusters” of notes, which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales.

Cluster 1: C Eb F# A

Cluster 2: C# E G Bb

Cluster 3: D F Ab B

Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please. For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F# A C, etc.

Generally speaking, you can’t make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords, due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes. However, a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune, and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales.

Chords:

Chords are basically two or more notes played together. They are made up from a specific scale – for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale.

Usually, chords will include the first, third and fifth note of the scale, as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour. For example the basic chord of C major would be C, E, G. Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B). Really, it is up to the producer’s discretion how he/she goes about making a chord – just remember to stick to the scale you are using!

Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch. You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads. Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly. You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline, and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesn’t sound too sharp. Make your chords blend in with the music and you’ll have mastered them!

Chord Inversions

Quite simply, chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different, and suits your arrangement better.

For example, if you were in the key of C major, you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E.

Due to the fact that the notes are the same, and have only been inverted, the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music. This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time.

The first thing needed for good bass is an appropriate attack transient – dynamics processors can help shape this, but it’s easy to overdo it and frankly any synth with flexible envelope curve adjustment can do whatever needs to be done. For sub-bass, it’s probably best to either sample the bassline or use a synth which has oscillators which can reset their phase upon each note trigger. I find that for sub-bass it’s often smart to use an envelope with an extremely rapid decay (just a few ms) to modulate the pitch, this will help define the attack.

Second, it’s important *not* to have too much going on in the low-end. Your actual bass tone should probably not contain any detuning, chorus, etc. as this leads to phase cancellation and a weaker bass. If you want a more complex bass sound, it’s best to layer something simple (like a sine or triangle wave) with the more complex bass sound, and apply a highpass filter to the complex bass sound – this will give you a pure low end, with more movement in the upper frequency spectrum.

Which leads to point number three – one reason analog bass sounds good is that it is never pure – even self-oscillation from a minimoog’s ladder VCF (which should theoretically be purely sinusoidal) contains harmonics. The mind is very good at recognizing patterns, and when the ears receive a sound with harmonics corresponding to a low frequency, the mind can reconstruct the fundamental even if it is very weak or absent completely. This is essentially how bass enhancers work. There are many means to the same end, and the best path is often specific to the mix in question. The thing to always look out for is where you have room in your mix. See where you have available space, and decide how you can use that space to accentuate your bassline. Let’s say you don’t have a lot of energy going on in the 800-1200Hz range, you want a nice basline but you’ve already got a pad and a bassdrum filling up a lot of the low-end. One approach would be to use something like a sawtooth waveform, and apply two parallel bandpass filters, each with 100% keytracking – tune the first filter to the fundamental with low to moderate gain and/or resonance, and the second filter to the 4th harmonic or so with higher resonance and perhaps a little more gain. This way, you’ve got the fundamental which is present but not overwhelming, and a lot of frequency information correlated to the fundamental in an area of the mix which can support it. That’s actually a pretty simplistic example, but I think it illustrates well how to think about a bassline in terms of the entire mix.

Another technique is to use multiband compression on a bassline – a low amount of compression in the low-end, and more compression and transient shaping in perhaps the 1-2k range to give the bassline better articulation and a punchy, compressed sound without actually messing with the low-end too much.

The best way to really understand how to craft a good bass sound is to brush up on acoustics-related physics (and psychoacoustics, etc.) since bass is something that is so sensitive to what it interacts with. There’s no magic elixer, it just comes down to knowing what the sound is doing, what you want it to do, and how to get it to do what you want it to do – and sometimes, recognizing when that isn’t possible, and making a reasonable compromise.

But one thing is for certain – digital has done fantastic things for bass. If there is a reason that something like a Minimoog makes great bass, it’s that it does a lot of things ‘automagically’ that happen to make nice bass. The advantage of the digital realm is that you have complete control over every aspect of the sound – the disadvantage is that you have to know a little bit more about what’s going on – the computer only does what you tell it to, so you’ve got to know how to tell the computer what to do.

Ah, yes! Thank you for mentioning something very important which I omitted – cut the low frequencies! It is usually a good idea to apply low shelving EQ to every track in your mix, set to like 200Hz and with a lot of cut, like -12dB at least. Even the bassline should have a low shelving EQ, the only difference is that the frequency should be lower, like 40-60Hz. That super-low energy is usually not audible, but it will rob you of the energy our bass needs!

I was generalizing a little – for most genres, 40Hz is extremely low for any kind of bass. Of course, in a genre like jungle (circa 94-96) where there isn’t much going on outside of the break and the bassline, you can just use brute force and use up most of your headroom on a gigantic bassline with a fundamental of 28Hz or something rediculous. The whole point is that *usually* there will be undesireable subharmonic frequencies in your tracks that you will want to eliminate, since really low frequencies require a lot of energy to reproduce and will kill your available headroom. But it’s music, there are no hard and fast rules. There is of course no point in filtering out the fundamental in a really low bassline and then trying to fake the result with studio trickery if that huge, low bassline is what you wanted to begin with.

It’s not as bad as people make digital bass sound. EQ is a big part of it. People have commented in the overall volume you can have frequency wise before everything adds up bleeds and makes a mess.

If you are dealing with alot of higher frequencys, or maybe just drum and bass, then you don’t have to be AS carefull, you can let more frequency in.

But in a mix for a song, you do have to shelve, or EQ the bass to fit into the mix you are doing, the same goes for analog. The volume adds up.

As people have posted sometimes you have to do something counterintuitive, you have to cut the extrem lows and highs for it to stick out in a mix, and still not max out the monitor volume and blead all over the place.

That’s generally what I do too.

However sometimes my goal if I can make it work is to create a sub bass so low you can’t really here it too much but you can FEEL it hit you in a concert or with really good speakers. As long as it doesn’t cause clipping I really like to add a very low sub bass that you can’t really here, but yeat it makes your body vibrate.

It’s just one option, and that one you can do with both analong and digital.

One other thing, analog filters at high resonances are just not duplicated by analog emulations they just aren’t as good, they could get there, for our ear limitations, but they just aren’t there yet.

I’m guessing you get a smooth curve to cut off the frequency, a constant cure that limits the osc freq, at a logarithmic cut off with no gaps letting parts of the osc sign get through.

Digital is just not smooth. But it’s very nater it’s going to let some frequency get through because it can only form an integral under an analog curve, and thus it lets some sound get through, and it can’t actually cut some of the highest sine wave freq’s out, and that’s why some emulations leave it at a simple sine wave output at very high resoncances and that does sound crappy. With enough EQ tweaking and enough bands you can really get digital bass to sound good though.

It just takes work, and tedious EQ’ing and maximizing. But you can get it to sound pretty good.

he uses a plugin called BassChorus VST (unfortunately for me and many others, only available for PC *sob*

so.. that’s for the widening. The sounds themself are often very simple, saws and squares, but the trick as others have said is in the musicianship. You have to use multiple patches but they have to flow effortlessly together, with clever syncopation and lots of really well crafted silence as well. Another trick I have come up with is automating pitch drops in time. If you automate a ramp-down LFO to coarse pitch it will drop the bass and you can syncopate it. Check out this track i made and skip to about two minutes in when the vocals cut out to clearly hear what I’m talking about. The bass drop is key in this track to making it really groove.

Click image below to download.

Click image below to download.

The Computer Music Tutorial by Curtis Roads

http://www.udk-berlin.de/sites/graduiertenschule/content/what_is_the_graduate_school/index_eng.html

1. add filter delay to spread the sound in the stereo image. This add width the the sound. Use time mode to create subtle echos. Turn down the wet/dry value to 0. Use left and right and play with different time values to achieve different spatial effects.

2. using the triplet grid to create variation in the bass-line. It add interesting stutter effect. Good to use at an end of of phrase.

3. using pitch bend on some notes. Change it from the envelope. When pitch bending, need to change the pitch bend range in the synth to achieve big pitch bend changes.

4. layer baselines.

5. using redux to dirtying up the sound

6. add side chain compression to kick. lower the threshold.

7. on layer baselines that only play few notes add a long reverb to it with the wet/dry sneaking up.

8. Once baseline is made- resample it. Record them into another channel. Now we are only left with one baseline.

9. need good sub bass. Roll off the sub base a little with eq8.

add limiter with gain turned up 4db.

Drums:

Using Ableton’s Live impuse to layer drum sounds.

1. check out isotopes plugin for drums. used by glitch mob to give drums crunch.

Extra:

Sampling tipper sounds or sounds from artist I like.

Istope Mastering- can use on indivual tracks. Add stereo width.

Use simple delay instead of rever sometimes. No decay with simple delay

Compresion setting: LOng atack, mid release

Effects: Using the ping pong effect- fade, pitch jump to get interesting delays. (left click ping pong effect to see these options)