Whether you are working on a doubled vocal part, the drum track or a bassline, that one slightly out of time note just stands out and brings the whole production down. Of course we can always just go for another take and record the part again, but it may seem a shame to have to do that if the part is otherwise perfect, and sometimes it is something you only notice when the other musicians have gone home!

It may just be that you have a vocal part from another project that you want to use in a remix, and you want to change the timing or duration of some of the words or syllables. In this tutorial I’m going to take a look at the powerful Sample Editor in Cubase 4 and show how we can use the Free Warp feature to alter the feel of a vocal part and also to correct an out of time djembe recording.

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If you fancy having a go at composing music to film, one of the first obstacles you will encounter is how to synchronize the music to the action in the film. Whether you are using real or virtual instruments, you are going to have to make the music follow the picture, and if you are working to a brief they may specify exactly where they want sections of music to start and finish.

In this tutorial I’m going to look at how we can import such a film into Cubase 4 and compose some music for it. I’ve put together a short nature sequence with butterflies and a spider (this is not going to win any Oscars, but it will suffice to practice with!) and I’ve written an imaginary brief from a producer specifying what should happen at certain timecode points in the film.

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Sometimes when you are recording a new track it is good to turn off the metronome and auto-quantize using your software, just hit record, and play from the heart. A spontaneity and more human quality can be captured in the performance. This works particularly well with solo guitar or piano.

Or maybe you want to use some audio from a live recording or a studio session where no click track was used. When it comes to adding other sequenced parts to audio that has been recorded in this way it can be difficult to get the timing of the midi notes right. The metronome and auto-quantize will be out of sync with the audio.

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“Livecut” by Smartelectronix is a VST beatslicer effect. It re-arranges the incoming audio in real time and is a great tool for generating drum’n'bass type drum fills from existing audio or VST drum loops. However, the output can seem a little unpredictable. In this tutorial we’re going to look at using Livecut to generate some fills from an audio drum loop. We will then edit the results, and with a bit of cutting and pasting create something more subtle.

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Andy Slatter guides you through the process of creating the tape stop effect using Cubase 4.

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How to use the Maize VST Sampler to create an instrument that is layered by velocity to create added realism and depth.

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Maize is a VST sampler that’s really easy to use. All you have to do is drag your samples to match the notes of a keyboard, and then you can play them back from your MIDI interface. Okay, that in itself may seem like no big deal, but what is really interesting about Maize is that you can export your finished patch as a VSTi synth which you can share with others.

You can download a free version, and if you chose to purchase the full version registered users can sell their VSTi creations and also customise the background and logo. In this tutorial I will show you how I made a very simple Djembe instrument from scratch using some samples of the African drum that I recorded.

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In this tutorial we are going to look at two alternative methods of creating the sound effect of a turntable or tape being unplugged and slowing to a halt within a music track.

You may have heard this effect on the vocals of the Black Eyed Peas song Hey Mama. Sid Vicious’ My Way also features the subtle effect of a turntable being turned off just before the song changes from the pompous introduction to the full blown punk section.

I’m going to start by doing something similar to the effect in the Sid Vicious song using some pre-prepared audio and Cubase’s pitch shift envelope tool, then move on to an electro track that I’ve prepared where we will automate the freeware plug-in Tapestop VST to slow down some vocals whilst the music remains unaffected.

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Livecut by Smartelectronix is a VST beatslicer effect. It rearranges the incoming audio in real-time and is a great tool for generating drum n’ bass-style drum fills from existing audio or VST drum loops.

However, the output can seem a little unpredictable. In this tutorial we’re going to look at using Livecut to generate some fills from an audio drum loop. We’ll edit the results to create something a little more subtle.

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In this tutorial we will explore how to produce a nice thick and crunchy distorted guitar sound using nothing more than your guitar plugged straight into your soundcard, a freeware guitar amp modeling plug-in and some step-by-step technical wizardry. For this tutorial I’ll be using Cubase 4, but the principals would be the same in any audio sequencer.

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