This project is now winding up and the next stage will look at mixdown, mastering and delivery. Hopefully this series should give you some insight into producing a dance track or remix. Obviously all the techniques demonstrated only show one way of doing things and I’m not claiming this to be a definitive guide.

The Logic project is included in the playpack and is exactly as shown on the screencast. It only uses stock Logic instruments and plug-ins, so should load on any system.

Screencast

Reason won’t let users put Combinators inside of Combinators, most likely because this would present software stability issues. However, there are times that being able to do this, such as controlling two Combinators from the same MIDI controller, would be incredibly useful. Thankfully, there’s a way that we can achieve this.

We can change the MIDI Bus to route the keyboard input to multiple Combinators and allow them to play at the same time. It is important to know that you cannot save the setup with the Combinator patch because both involve external factors. However, you can save your project file. If you’re using the file included in the Play Pack, you will still have to configure your MIDI bus as seen in the first step below.

Step 1

The first thing that we need to do is configure our MIDI bus properly, so go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced Control.

Next, for each bus (A-D), select your MIDI controller, in my case, USB Axiom 61 ln1. This will make it so each Reason device on these bus inputs will be played by your keyboard. Close the window so we’re back at the main project.

Step 2

Now, let’s create three Combinators. Go to Create > Combinator, and do this three times.

Do you remember that really weird audio device at the very top of Reason? Well, we’re finally going to get to use it. Click the “Adv. MIDI Device” button to reveal the Reason controls for the various MIDI devices that you may have connected.

What we see now is a list of buses at the top, and below that, a list of channels for that bus.

Step 3

Now, for each bus, we’re going to assign it to a channel and a device. This will go as follows:

• For Bus A, we’re using channel 1, and assigning it to Combinator 1.
• For Bus B, we’re using channel 1, and assigning it to Combinator 2.
• For Bus C, we’re using channel 1, and assigning it to Combinator 3.

So, using the “Bus Select” button, choose bus A. Then, next to where it says “Channel 1”, click the down arrow. Use the menu to select Combinator 1 > IN.

For bus B, select bus B via the “Bus Select” button, and use the menu to select Combinator 2 > IN. Lastly, for bus C, select bus C via the “Bus Select” button, and use the menu to select Combinator 3 > IN.

Step 4

Just to test, look at your three Combinators. Then hit a key on your MIDI controller. You should see the “NOTE ON” light turn on for all three Combinators, not just one.

Step 5

To test it out further, let’s choose a sound for each Combinator. If you’re following along on what I’m doing, choose the following:

1. Combinator 1 – Pianos (Acoustic) > Distant Grand
2. Combinator 2 – SynthPoly > Velo-City Trance Lead
3. Combinator 3 – Rhythmic > Silicon Juice

Now, click record, and record a melody line. You’ll notice that the pattern is only recorded for one track. If you want it to record for all tracks, simply click the melody line, hold the control key, and move it up. This will copy it to the other track.

Reason won’t let you record more than one track at one time. However, this trick can save you significant time with mixing and matching Combinators, as you can hear them all in unison before you actually record anything. Additionally, you will hear them all playing while you record, you just have to copy the notes to the other tracks after you’re done.

Here’s my result from using this method:

Download audio file (Combinator1.mp3)

Combinator 1

Download audio file (Combinator2.mp3)

Combinator 2

Download audio file (Combinator3.mp3)

Combinator 3

Download audio file (AllCombinators.mp3)

All Combinators

As you can hear, having multiple Combinators helps give more definition to the overall sound, and it allows very unique textures as you can put a rhythmic sound with a lead sound, giving it more movement. Ordinarily this would require creating a Combinator, putting all the devices into the Combinator, and then mixing it using a line mixer in the Combinator. Using this method, we just created several Combinators and mixed them using the main mixer in Reason.

You can control up to four Combinators (one for each bus) using this method, which should be more than enough for practical purposes.

But there are some situations that call for a more unique approach to vocal treatment. When a choir or multiple singers are not available, composers turn to software to help them achieve their goals. This tutorial will focus on using Logic Pro and several of its plugins to create a multi-layered vocal treatment that might be appropriate for ambient, new age, or soundtrack work.

Step 1

We’ll first begin by acquiring our source sounds. For this particular project, I’ve decided to use some self-recorded vocals using a style similar to Tuvan or Tibetan Throat Singing. These types of vocalizations work well for establishing a dramatic and unique mood.

I’ve recorded several takes, each with slight variation and duration.

Download audio file (tuvaSource.1.mp3)

Tuva Sample One

Download audio file (tuvaSource.3.mp3)

Tuva Sample Two

Download audio file (tuvaSource.5.mp3)

Tuva Sample Three

Download audio file (tuvaSource.6.mp3)

Tuva Sample Four

Step 2

Next we’ll lay out these four variations on individual tracks, which will allow us to process each track individually as a unique voice.

As we begin our arrangement, we want to explore ways to create motion within the piece. Even though each of these four samples is relatively static, you’ll notice that the fourth sample is slightly longer and at a lower pitch. We’ll use this variation as a basis for our arrangement.

Because we only have one take at this lower pitch, however, we’re going to duplicate that track to add depth to the layer. We’ll use a common A-A-B-A arrangement here, where the first, second and fourth phrases are the same, and the third phrase acts as a variation.

Here’s what our first pass arrangement looks like:

Step 3

Now that we have a basic arrangement laid out, we’ll begin working with some plugins. In Logic’s Mixer window, we’ll add two new Auxiliary Channel Strips which will act as our FX Busses. Because these are now Bus tracks, we’ll set the input channel for each one to its corresponding bus – Bus 1 and Bus 2 respectively We’ll also add these new channel strips to the arrange window via the same Mixer->Options menu.

Step 4

In Aux 1, we’ll to add a reverb that will be used for all the vocals. I’ve chosen to use Logic’s Space Designer reverb, with the preset “Big Cave”, which emulates a large cavernous space with a long (8.5 seconds!) decay.

For each of our Vocal tracks (1-6), I’ll set the first Send to Bus 1. This routes the vocal channel signal to the Reverb Bus. For each track I’ve set the send level to a value somewhere between -12 and -6dB.

Here’s what the first section sounds like with a simple reverb:

Download audio file (section1reverbonly.mp3)

Step 5

With three unique vocal samples, this already sounds pretty good, but to add a bit more depth and variation, we’ll experiment with some spectral effects and Logic’s Vocal Transformer.

In the second Aux Channel, we’ll add an instance of Spectral Gate And Hold – another of my favorite plugins from the SoundMagic Spectral by Michael Norris. I’ve spoken of these plugins in other tutorials, but they work extremely well for ethereal, otherworldly sounds.

Without going into too much detail about FFT and Spectral Processing, here’s a quick blurb from the user guide for the SoundMagic Spectral Suite:

SoundMagic Spectral is a suite of freeware Audio Unit plug-ins that offer exotic real-time spectral processing effects, along with a few time-domain effects…the main difference between a time domain process and a frequency domain (spectral) process is that spectral processes have two extra steps involved in the processing of audio: spectral conversion and reconversion. Firstly, the effect converts the raw sound data into a “spectral representation,” a series of numbers representing the strength of the frequency components within the sound at various points before processing. Then, after operating on the spectral data in some manner, it reconverts the spectral representation back to a time domain representation (sound file format)…The frequency domain representation of audio consists of an array of frequency bands (called “bins”), equally spaced across
the spectrum from 0Hz up to the Nyquist limit (sampling rate/2).

With this in mind, we’ll make a few adjustments to the default settings of this plugin. We’ll set the threshold to -40dB, which ensures that all bins above this frequency will be affected. We’ll set fade-in and fade-out lengths to 3 seconds, Bin shift to 12, and FFT Size to 8192. Beware of setting this too high on slower machines – it is a CPU intensive process.

Here’s what our preset looks like:

Step 6

For our next step, we’ll route some of our vocal track to the Spectral Aux Channel. The spectral FX can quickly overload the mix, so in this case less is definitely more. We’ll send a signal of -2dB from Vox 1 and Vox 4.

Step 7

We’re nearly finished, but in listening to the mix, the B section still sounds too similar across the three tracks. To remedy this, we’ll use the Vocal Transformer plugin to slightly modify the formant of two of the channels. We’ll also slightly offset their start times, so that the phrasing doesn’t overlap and create phase issues.

Adjusting formants can be rather crude, so use small increments to find the setting that works right for your piece. In this case, I’ve chosen to offset Vox 5 by -2 steps, and Vox 6 by +6 steps.

Step 8

We’ll make some minor adjustments to offset the start and endpoints of our samples, resulting in this new arrangement.

The final mix is an interesting blend of organic and synthetic. Enjoy!

Download audio file (final_mix.mp3)

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.

By creating a marker track and putting markers at specified points, we will lock the markers to the timecode. We can then experiment with altering the tempo or length of the music, while ensuring that it will always start and finish at the timecode points we want it to.

The emphasis of this tutorial is in showing the technical process rather than writing an award winning score. I have written some light melodic music for the butterfly scenes and a simple dark string piece for the spider scene — you are free to download the timecoded original film and brief and have a go at scoring it youself!

The Brief

We have a short nature sequence which starts with butterflies on a tree. The film cuts away to a scene of a spider on a web, and then back to some more butterflies. I’m looking for light melodic music during the butterfly scenes, maybe using harps, flutes, strings or light synth sounds. The spider scene should be darker and ominous with strings or synthetic atmosphere sounds.

Cues

In timecode, the four sets of numbers indicate the position in the film in hours, minutes, seconds and frames. Our imaginary director has provided us with the following cuesheet:

00:00:00:00 – Start of sequence, something light and melodic and simple should start here.

00:00:18:03 – Start of zoom onto butterfly. The music can come up a step here as the camera zooms in.

00:00:00:28 – The butterfly music should be faded out by this point.

00:00:30:00 – Cut to spider on web, this should be marked by something simple, dark, and ominous.

00:00:58:00 – The spider music should be faded out by this point, or it can ring on until the start of the next cue.

00:01:00:00 – Cut back to butterflies, bring back something light and melodic, similar to opening music, maybe a variation.

00:01:12:21 – Music to finish by this point.

Step 1

Fire up Cubase 4 and start a new blank project. From the track column, add a video track.

Step 2

The film we are working with is in PAL format with a frame rate of 25 fps (25 frames per second). It is essential to go to Project Setup from the Project Menu and make sure that the video framerate is set to 25 fps, or your music will not be properly synchronized with the video.

Step 3

From the file menu, browse for the butterfly film and import the video.

Step 4

Drag the video part so that it starts at bar 2. It’s wise to do this so there’s some space before the video starts for count in and automated effects, but because we have moved the video the timecode in Cubase will not correspond to the timecode displayed on the video. What we need to do is alter the timecode of Cubase so that at bar 2 it reads 00:00:00:00, the same as the first frame of the video. Move the cursor so it is exactly over bar 2, then from the project menu select “Set Timecode at Cursor” and set it to 00:00:00:00.

Step 5

In the transport bar hover over the time display and right click to bring up the drop down menu, then select timecode instead of the default bars and beats.

Step 6

We can see a thumbnail display of the video in the video track, but we want to be able to see a proper preview of the video. From the devices menu select Video, which opens up the preview panel. You can see that there is a timecode display overlaid on the video. The cursor is at bar 2 and the timecode on both the video and the transport bar read 00:00:00:00, so we know that everything is lined up properly.

The preview panel is also useful because if you place the cursor over it and drag left or right, you’ll move backwards or forwards through the video. Similarly, dragging upwards or downwards on any of the numbers in the timecode display will move you back and forward through the film, which is particularly useful if you want to advance one frame at a time by hovering over the frame’s display (on the right of the four sets of numbers).

Step 7

Next, from the track panel, right click and add a marker track.

Step 8

With the cursor exactly over bar 2 use the pencil tool to draw a marker in the marker track. So, the first marker is on bar 2 and at timecode 00:00:00:00.

Step 9

Continue adding markers to the marker track at the timecode points specified in the list of cues. You can use the pencil tool, or advance to the specified timecode and click a marker number (the list of numbers 1-15 on the right hand side of the transport panel) whilst holding down shift. This list of marker numbers in the transport panel also serves as a way of quickly navigating to a particular marker.

Step 10

The marker list on the left of the tracks panel shows the seven markers and their position in bars and beats.

Step 11

Return to the first marker, and click the warp tab on the toolbar at the top right. Notice that the blue area turns burgundy, indicating we are now in warp mode. By holding down shift and clicking with the cursor over the marker, the tempo will be locked at that point creating a new tempo event. In this case it has created a tempo of 120 BPM at that point.

Step 12

Take a look at marker two. We need to adjust the tempo so that marker two falls at the start of a bar/beat/quantize value, so we can sequence the music easily. In timewarp mode, drag a bar to a marker, dragging a point in bars and beats to a point in timecode where we want it to fall. This effectively alters the tempo between markers but means we can move a particular bar/beat/quantize value to fall exactly where we want it to. We can control how the tempo will be effected by dragging a bar or beat from the left or right.

Step 13

I don’t need much of a tempo change here, but just want to get marker two lined up so it falls on a beat or bar, so I just dragged the faint gray line which represents bar 11 to marker 2.

Step 14

After that, we shift click on marker 2 and create a new tempo event at that point of 119 bpm.

Step 15

Proceed with markers 3 and 4, just dragging the nearest bar or beat to the marker as we don’t need much of a tempo change. Shift click on the markers to create new tempo events and lock the positions.

Step 16

I want the section between markers 4 and 5 to be slower in tempo (for the spider music) and through experimentation I’ve found that dragging bar 29 all the way to marker five does a good job of this. Lock the tempo again.

Step 17

I’ve dragged bar 30 to marker 6. Lock the tempo again and create a new timecode event by shift clicking the marker. You can experiment with dragging bars from the left or right, and nearer or further to achieve required tempos.

Step 18

Finally, I dragged bar 36.3 to marker 7 and locked the tempo. Now I’m ready to create music that will be sequenced exactly in time with the events and timecodes specified.

Step 19

I found some patches that I liked from VST synths and composed the first part of the music to represent the opening butterfly scene. At marker 2 a further string sound comes in to mark the zoom on the butterfly as specified in the cue sheet. The music fades by marker 3 as specified.

Download audio file (butterflystrack-s1.mp3)

Step 20

I used some some simple string sounds and a simple melody with a dark feel to represent the spider section. It fades out by marker 5.

Download audio file (butterflystrack-s2.mp3)

Step 21

Finally I created a simple piece for the final butterfly section using the same patches and a similar melody and feel to the opening piece. It fades by marker 7.

Download audio file (butterflystrack-s3.mp3)

Step 22

With the whole soundtrack finished and mixed, I exported the audio mixdown and imported the soundtrack into my video software to mix it into the film.

Download audio file (butterflysoundtrack.mp3)

Step 23

Here is the finished product!

Finished Butterfly Film from AUDIOTUTS Video on Vimeo.

Conclusion

I hope you have found this tutorial useful as an introduction to using markers and timewarping to score music to picture. Feel free to use the included video and brief to have a go yourself. If you have your own piece of video, why not have a go at logging the significant timecodes to make a cue sheet and your own brief? This makes good practice, or you could have a go at re-scoring parts of well known films.

Problem: they’re out of time with each other, having been recorded in different tempos, but you don’t have the cash to go back into the studio and record one or the other, or both, again.

Solution: slice, dice and ReCycle.

Note: this tutorial contains embedded audio that will not display in a feed reader. To hear audio, click back to the tutorial or download the Play Pack for this tut (scroll down to the end).

In this tutorial, we’ll use Propellerhead’s Recycle—though you should be able to follow along with your own preferred app—to reconcile the tempo of each loop, and shift the bass guitar’s pitch so that it’s in the right key.

Step 1

I’ve used ReDrum to bang up a quick beat, and while I was in Reason I made a simple bass riff. The drumbeat’s original tempo is 120 BPM, while the bass has a tempo of 115 BPM.

If you want to program yours the same way, here’s how each looked in the piano roll.

ReDrum Drumbeat

Listen to the drumbeat:

1 Dreambeat.mp3

Bass Riff in Reason

2 Bass.mp3

I then exported each as loops (File > Export Loop as Audio File). Obviously, with anything you program in Reason, you can change the tempo and pitch using the program itself. I’ve turned these into audio for the purposes of this tutorial, and the following is the process that you can use on any kind of audio recording.

Step 2

Open the drum beat wave file in ReCycle. You’ll be asked if you wish to place the left locator at the first slice, and you should answer yes, unless you’ve programmed a beat where the first count is silent, which is rare. If that’s the case, you’ll need to manually place the left locator at the start of the beat and press play and test that it loops smoothly. Continue to adjust the locator until the beat plays smoothly on loop.

Once the beat is playing correctly, the first thing you’ve got to do is tell ReCycle how many bars and beats the sound file is made up of. The drumbeat was one bar long, so in the field near the top of the window called Bars, enter 1.

Based on that information, ReCycle calculates the tempo – 120 BPM. Now, we need to dial up the sensitivity (Sens: on the second toolbar) so that ReCycle starts deciding where the slices need to go. With the drumbeat, I found a sensitivity of 60 picked up all the hits.

Step 3

I found that ReCycle was playing the loop back with an ever-so-slight clipping noise at the start of each slice, so I increased the Attack dial on the third toolbar up to 1.0 millisecond.

Step 4

So, we want our new song to play at 130 BPM – and the drumbeat is 120 BPM, so dial the Tempo on the second toolbar up to 130 and test that the file still plays smoothly on loop—if not, then you’ll need to play with the sensitivity until it does.

Now, go to File > Save As and save the loop as a REX (.rx2) file. You’ve successfully created your first loop.

Step 5

Time to load the bass audio into ReCycle. Again, enter in the bars and beats (this time it was two bars long) and check that it loops smoothly before making any changes. The bass riff needs a sensitivity of about 72 to pick up all the note hits.

Step 6

You might not have heard the clipping at the start of each slice in the drumbeat, but if you’re using the same bass audio as me, you’ll definitely hear it this time. When the loop is playing you’ll hear a distinct ‘pop’ everywhere there’s a line on the waveform indicating a slice.

I’ve included an audio sample of this, because it’s important to hear it when it’s obvious, in order to hear it when it’s so subtle that the average listener wouldn’t pick up on it. That’s not to say that you can ignore it when it’s subtle—people will be able to tell something’s wrong, just not what exactly the problem is. This is what it sounds like:

3 Thumpy Bass.mp3

Not pleasant at all! Play with the Attack dial until the clicking and popping is smoothed out. I smoothed it out at around 7 milliseconds, but if you’re using your own audio for this tutorial, you’ll need to find a spot that works for your file.

Save the bass as a REX file just as you did with the drumbeat.

Step 7

Open your DAW of choice. I’m using Logic for this tutorial. Once you’ve got a new project with two mono audio tracks, find the drumbeat loop file and drag it onto the first track. You’ll see a screen like this one:

Select Crossfade as your fix and hit OK.

Step 8

Your loop should now be taking up one bar in your first audio track. We want it to loop a few times, so hover your mouse over the upper right corner of the drumbeat until you see a “loop” icon next to the cursor, and then click and drag it across so it takes up four bars.

Step 9

Now, drag and drop your bass loop into the second audio track. It’ll take up two bars, and despite the fact it was recorded at 115 BPM, it now plays perfectly in time with the drums! This is because we set the slices and exported it as a loop that can scale in tempo. In this case, it’s using the Logic session’s tempo to tell it how fast to go.

Drag the bass loop across using the loop tool just like we did with the drumbeat, so it takes up four bars in total.

Step 10

It was pretty cool to see the bass and drums automatically line up their timing despite having been recorded in different tempos, but the next part is the coolest part. We wanted a song in 130 BPM, not 120 or 115 – so set Logic’s tempo, which is down in the Transport bar, to 130.

Play the session back, and if you’ve done everything correctly you’ll hear the instruments playing in time at a pretty fast tempo. If you know any old-school engineers who still use tape, mentioning this kind of ‘magic’ digital manipulation will get them on the soapbox, so be careful what you say!

Listen to the finished product:

4 Finished Product.mp3

Note: this article contains embedded audio that will not display in a feed reader. Click back to the site to read the tutorial with audio, or download the audio files at the bottom of the post.

Digital recording and the ever-increasing popularity of programmed music mean two things: it’s easier and easier to jump straight into recording a project with less and less thought, planning and consideration put into place.

You can hear this on a lot of the electronic music that’s out there. The composer may have got the forward movement right, with a composition that moves ahead and retains the interest of the listener, but the vertical movement—the depth of the song—remains ill-conceived. Perhaps there’s not enough going on, more likely too much, or it could just be a general lack of cohesion.

The Four Elements

In a given section of the song, you need to balance the following four elements. Don’t get me wrong: creativity comes first and you can elect to drop an element from your arrangement or add an extra one, but this is your foundation. This is how you start thinking with, planning and layering up your song.

Groove, or foundational elements. The drums and bass guitar almost always fill this role, though it may differ from song to song and genre to genre. The groove sets the scene for the rest of the arrangement, so it’s frequently referred to as the foundation.

Atmospheric elements give the song more depth and texture. These are quite frequently pad synths, but it can really be any instrument that plays long, sustained chords that generally only change with the chord progression, not with the rhythm or groove sections.

Rhythm plays against the groove, though never clashing with it, to add rhythmic interest to the song. Most rock bands have a rhythm guitar, Latin and reggae styles use certain kinds of percussion, and electro might use a rhythmic synth.

Melody or lead is the instrument at the forefront of the song. All the other elements exist for one reason: to support and add interest to this main element. In most music this is the vocal, and in many genres a solo from one of the other instruments will take the lead or melody part to give the vocal a break. It’s most likely to be a lead synth of some sort in electronic music.

Building the Song – A Four-Bar Tutorial

We’re going to use Reason to build up four bars of music using these four elements. If you want to follow along, fire up your sequencer of choice.

Step 1

First we’ll get a drumbeat going on. I’m going to be lazy and use a Dr. REX loop here. I want this track to have some atmosphere and space to it—perhaps to create an eerie feel and build up to a distorted guitar part—so I’m going to put some reverb on it and create a roomy sound.

Step 2

The second part of the foundation is going to be the bass guitar. Just a quick simple riff: after all this is about arranging, not composing. If you’re interested, the riff is based on the notes B, E, G and D.

So we’ve got our foundation sorted out, and hopefully you’ve tweaked the sound until you’re happy with it. Remember that it’s just a foundation, so its components shouldn’t be busy nor taking over the mix.

Step 3

Time to add an atmospheric element. If we just had groove, rhythm and lead elements, the mix would be lacking depth, so let’s use something really simple to fill things out a bit.

This is a Thor pad, and we’re just playing two bars each of B and G. Even though we haven’t added the final elements yet, it’s already evident that the song is going to be much fuller and deeper because of this addition.

Step 4

For this song’s rhythm element we’re going to use a rhythmic synthesizer, this time using the Malstrom. Remember that a great rhythm element doesn’t have the same rhythm as our groove or foundation: it works counter to it, often on the backbeat.

You can also see that I’ve used the two bass-notes and four melodic notes here, so we almost have two rhythms going on at once.

Step 5

Time for the lead. At this point I’d prefer to record a vocal and make that the lead. Given the sound we’ve built up so far, I think that’d make the most complimentary choice. But to avoid leaving Reason and having to set up a mic, let’s use another Thor synthesizer.

I’m creating a really simple melody, though you might want to put some more thought into yours: this one becomes grating pretty quickly!

Personally, I’m a big fan of vocals and guitar solos filling the lead role, so you may have better synth lead ideas than me.

We’re done! Now mixing is up to you, which you’ll find much easier, even if you’re no mixing master, because you understand each element of the song and the roles they fill. Many musicians sit at home layering tracks up but don’t stop to ask what each layer is doing, nor do many stop to think about arrangement, and this creates a whole bunch of problems down the road. Well, problem solved!

Listen to the final product:

Download the Play Pack for this tutorial (2.8MB)

Contents:

• Printable PDF tutorial
• Audio files