Digital Performer 7 – New Mixer, Guitar Amp & Score Features

MOTU recently released a new version of Digital Performer, and we have now added a new training course for Digital Performer 7. The most notable improvements in this upgrade involve the Mixing Board and the QuickScribe score editor as well as a set of guitar and bass amp simulation plug-ins. This blog covers the highlights of these new features.

Mixing Board – A New Look

There are several new features related to the Mixing Board: the Channel Strip as well as new EQ and Dynamics controls and features. The Channel Strip is a separate window which displays one-channel slice of the Mixing Board and changes depending on which channel is selected. For those of you familiar with Logic or Cubase, the Channel Strip is basically the same as the Inspector in those DAW’s. In both the Channel Strip and the Mixing Board, you now have thumbnail views of selected EQ and Dynamics plug-ins which allow you to view and control the parameters without opening the plug-ins. We have created a YouTube video of an excerpt from our training course which explains how to use these new features.

11 Guitar & Bass Plug-Ins – Presets Not Included

This past year seems to have been the year for souped-up guitar rigs. Both Pro Tools and Logic included fancy plug-ins for guitar and bass amp simulation, pedals, and speaker cabinets in their last update cycle, so I guess Digital Performer decided it was time to jump on the bandwagon. The Custom ’59 Amp includes both power amp and pre-amp presets. There are also nine different pedals and stomp boxes. The Live Room G speaker cabinet simulator gives you a choice of different mics, mic placements, and cabinet models. If you’re a guitarist, you can have a field day putting together a rig with all these choices. But for the rest of us there are no factory presets like you have in Logic or Amplitube that will give you a realistic British Crunch or Surfer Rock sound, so you may feel a little lost. How does the sound of these plug-ins compare with the competition? We have added a Digital Performer guitar rig to the Amp Simulation section of our Listen & Compare feature so you can decide for yourself.

QuickScribe Editor – Lyrics & Chords

MOTU also added something for those of us who like to work with MIDI tracks as a score. There are new lyrics and chord tools for the QuickScribe Editor. In the past you could always use the text tool if you really needed to enter lyrics and chords, but it was a pretty clumsy solution. The lyrics feature has both a direct entry tool and a lyrics window. You can paste text into the lyrics window that you copied from a document and then auto flow it to the score. The chords feature allows you to both enter chords symbols and also automatically transpose them.

The Laundry List

For the record here’s a summary of the new features listed by MOTU. For what it’s worth, I’ve also seen several discussions in both the Motunation and Gearslutz forums praising the stability of Version 7. Personally I’ve never had a problem with stability in Digital Performer, but some people are claiming this release is a marked improvement.

Sound Forge 10 – Building on Strength

Sony recently released a new version of Sound Forge, and we have now added a new training course for Sound Forge 10. Sound Forge, like most Digital Audio Editors, is a mature product. Thus the new features and functions are relatively incremental. Nonetheless, these enhancements do add significant value to this audio workhorse. We cover the major new functions in-depth in the new tutorials, but I’ll go over the highlights here.

Disc-at-Once – Instant Multitrack CD’s

One convenient new feature is Disc-at-Once, which allows you to burn a multitrack CD directly from Sound Forge. The Sound Forge bundle already includes CD Architect which is a separate application for creating CD’s. Even though CD Architect is integrated with Sound Forge, it is more convenient to be able to burn a CD with a few tracks (such as you might want to do to prepare demo) directly from Sound Forge. We have created a YouTube video of an excerpt from our training course which explains how to use the Disk-at-Once feature.

Event Based Editing – Mark Your Changes

  Another convenient feature incorporated into Sound Forge 10 is Event Based Editing. Now anytime you make a change to the audio in a data window, such as copying, pasting or increasing the volume, Sound Forge creates an event which marks the area that has changed. This facility makes it easier to go back and tweak the change if necessary, since you can easily recall the exact areas that have been modified.

Zplane Elastique – Time & Pitch Tool

As any of you who work with time stretching or pitch shifting audio are aware, it can be very difficult to achieve quality-sounding results when making such changes. Thus in Sound Forge 10 Sony licensed time stretching and pitch shifting technology from Zplane Development to augment its existing plug-ins that perform similar functions. There are many such plug-ins available these days, so the proof of the pudding is how well this one compares to the competition. We have added Zplane Elastique to the time stretching and pitch shifting sections of our Listen & Compare feature so you can decide for yourself. If you are interested in the subject we include a more detailed examination of the issues associated with time stretching and pitch shifting in our Digital Producer course.

iZotope Mastering Suite – More Plug-Ins

  Sound Forge 10 adds two mastering plug-ins, a spatial imager and an exciter, from iZotope. Several mastering plug-ins from iZotope were already included in Sound Forge, all of them scaled down versions of the Ozone Mastering Suite marketed by iZotope. The exciter is a collection of tube and tape saturation algorithms, which are usually referred to as “warmers” rather than exciters. Typically such plug-ins generate mild harmonics which many people find pleasing and thus add warmth to a mix. We have a more complete discussion of this type of effect in our Mixing & Mastering course.

The spatial imaging plug-in uses mid-side processing to control the width of a stereo image. You can use the principle of mid-side processing to separate a stereo mix into center and side components. In some circumstances you can effectively adjust the relative volumes of these two components to change the perceived width of the mix. Once again, we have a complete discussion of the use of mid-side processing in our Mixing & Mastering course.

The Laundry List

For the record here’s a summary of the new features listed by Sony. As you can see, there are also quite a few process and editing/workflow enhancements. Although over the years, many of the functions originally performed only by audio editors have been incorporated into Digital Audio Workstations, Sound Forge continues to be my “go to” app for serious audio editing and processing.

FL Studio 9 – More Plugs, Fewer Bugs

ImageLine recently released a new version of FL Studio, and we have now added a new training course for FL Studio as well as updating our DAW Shootout. This new version has a few new plug-ins and major features as well as a long list of minor enhancements and bug fixes. We cover the major new functions in-depth in the new tutorials, but I’ll go over the highlights here.

Side Chaining – Catching Up

Side chaining has been a fairly recent addition to many Digital Audio Workstations, but practically all of the DAW’s that we cover have incorporated it. And now you can add FL Studio to the list. In general side chaining allows you to route the output of one channel to a second input on another channel which is typically used to control the actions of a plug-in. The most common use is probably ducking. A simple case of ducking is lowering the volume of the music when someone is speaking. We have created a YouTube video showing how to use side chaining in FL Studio 9 to lower the volume of a guitar when the vocalist is singing. Side chaining is also commonly used to create a pumping effect in dance mixes which we demonstrate in our Mixing & Mastering course.

Vocodex – New & Improved Voice Mangler

The folks at ImageLine obviously like vocoders. FL Studio already had the Fruity Vocoder, and now it includes Vocodex, which is a more deluxe vocoder. Vocoders typically extract the intelligible content from a voice (the Modulator) and combine it with another sound source, such as music (the Carrier), to produce a robotic-sounding voice. They are fairly common in pop music and have been used by everybody from Pink Floyd to Madonna. Vocodex adds a number of new and interesting functions for voice mangling as well as a built-in synthesizer and keyboard to generate chords as a carrier. We have a more complete discussion of vocoders in our Digital Producer course.

Fruity Stereo Shaper – Swiss Army Knife for Stereo Imaging

The Fruity Stereo Shaper is a new mid-side processor. Once again FL Studio already included the Fruity Stereo Enhancer which performs a more limited subset of the same functions. Any stereo signal can be separated into Mid and Side components and recombined. There is a recording technique based on this principle, and it is also the basis for creating wider stereo images or moving the sound around spatially in mastering. It is is also the underlying technology in the products that claim to extract or remove vocals from a mix. The controls on the Stereo Shaper are deceptively simple, and in fact you can perform a large variety of Mid-Side processing tasks. However, frankly I’m not sure what the average user would do with it other than the same kind of stereo widening that is typically done in mastering. We have a more complete discussion of Mid-Side processing in our Mixing & Mastering course.

Riff Machine – Instant Composing

Need a new riff, but not up to composing one right now? Not to worry. Just fire up the new Riff Machine in the Piano Roll Editor and tweak a few parameters to create a MIDI riff. There are quite a few options to play with: Note Progressions, Chords, Arpeggiation, Mirroring, Levels (Humanizing), Articulations, Grooves, Fit Chords/Scales. Several of these have factory pattern libraries.

Autogun – 4 Million Presets and Counting

So now that you’ve used the Riff machine to automatically create a new riff, you need to find a unique sound for it without manipulating a lot of synth parameters. Just use Autogun, the new synthesizer which boasts four million presets. Autogun is derived from two other plug-ins that ImageLine sells separately: the Ogun synthesizer and the Maximus mastering processor. (Actually, the effects processing is based the Soundgoodizer which in turn is based on Maximus.) With that many choices, you’re bound to find a sound you like.

The Laundry List

For the record here’s a summary of the new features listed by ImageLine. We have also updated the DAW Shootout for FL Studio 9. The addition of side chaining slightly improved the score. However, the new plug-ins had no effect since FL Studio already had the bases covered by similar plug-ins. ImageLine has a long-standing policy of providing all upgrades to FL Studio free, and thus Version 9 is free to existing customers.

Sonar 8.5 - Cakewalk Takes a Breather

For the past 7 years every Fall like clockwork Cakewalk has released a new version of Sonar, more frequently than any other DAW manufacturer. So I suspect it’s either the economy or that even the Sonar faithful are becoming a little burned out on new releases (or probably a little of both) that prompted a different strategy this year — Sonar 8.5. Unlike some manufacturers normally Cakewalk only does bug fixes in “point” releases and doesn’t charge for them. The upgrade to Sonar 8.5 costs $99 and has a surprisingly generous amount of new content. In response we decided to issue a free course upgrade for our Sonar 8 customers instead of doing a new course. Here’s my take on the new features in Sonar 8.5. If you’re a first-time Sonar customer, you may also want to take a look at my blog on Sonar 8.

Matrix View – Ableton Live Session View for Sonar

One of the major attractions for Ableton Live has been its Session View which allows you to build a project so that it can be performed in real time. The Session View is not only useful for live performances but for experimenting with alternative arrangements of a song. The new Matrix View in Sonar 8.5 provides basically the same functionality. Think of a Matrix View column as a vertical slice of a project timeline and a row as a track. You can trigger different columns or cells in real time to create various arrangements. Matrix View is a totally new tool in Sonar and still seems to have a few rough edges. I had trouble getting the cells to sync properly when I triggered a column, so it may not be ready for your next DJ gig quite yet. But it’s well-designed and a good entry into non-linear sequencing for Cakewalk. Our Sonar 8.5 update includes a new tutorial on the Matrix View.

Drum Tools – The Beat Goes On

Cakewalk has chosen once again to feed the insatiable appetite of DAW users for bigger and better drum tools with Session Drummer 3, Step Sequencer 2, and the PX-64 Percussion Strip. We have also added a new tutorial demonstrating how these three tools can be used together.

Session Drummer 3 is basically a facelift for the existing Session Drummer drum sampler. The real news about Session Drummer is the new content. Steven Slate Drums is the “in” acoustic drum library this year, so Cakewalk included several Steven Slate drum kits as well as a new library of samples from the classic Roland TR drum machine series. In addition there are tons of new MIDI drum grooves from Groove Monkee, Steven Slate, and Smart Loops.

The PX-64 Percussion Strip is a combo audio FX plug-in which contains practically all the FX you would normally use for drum sound processing: Transient Shaper, Compressor, Expander, Equalizer, Delay, and Tube Saturation. The Transient Shaper is basically the same design as the TS-64 Transient Shaper introduced in Sonar 8. However, this Transient Shaper is easier to use because of the graphical display and seems to be less resource-hungry on your computer. There is one design glitch with the Compressor though. The Compressor has simplified parameters and displays only Threshold and Ratio controls. Thus attack and release times as well as make-up gain are automatically handled under the covers. There is something fubar with the coordination of the release time and the make-up gain, and the result is a rather annoying tail especially on kicks.

Step Sequencer 2 is an upgrade to Sonar’s pattern sequencer tool which is used mainly for design drum patterns in real time. There are now additional functions for developing beats for individual drums. For example, now you can add flams or set a probability for how often a step will be triggered.

Audio Snap 2 – From Bad to Worse

Sonar 8.5 also includes Audio Snap 2 which is a major revision to Audio Snap. The Audio Snap 2 pallet has a different look and there are some additional tempo functions.

However, Audio Snap continues to have issues with correctly identifying audio transients, especially for audio other than drums. Below is a comparison of transient mapping between Sonar Audio Snap and Pro Tools Elastic Audio of the same bass groove. Sonar was unable to correctly estimate the tempo of this clip whereas Pro Tools got it right. If you compare the transients that each DAW identified, it’s pretty easy to see why. We had to remove the section on the Global Tempo Mapping from our tutorial because we couldn’t get the new version of that function to work at all. In general I have high respect for Sonar as a DAW. Thus I’m somewhat perplexed as to how Cakewalk keeps missing the mark on this tool (see my earlier blog Rube Goldberg Design, Bungled Execution).

VX-64 Vocal Strip

Sonar seems to be into combo FX plug-ins these days, and, personally I think it’d a great idea to have everything that you would normally use to process a certain type of audio in a single plug-in. Thus analogous to the PX-64, Sonar 8.5 also introduced the VX-64 Vocal Strip which includes De-Esser, Compander, Equalizer, Doubler, and Delay plug-ins, as well as several Tube Saturation functions.

A De-Esser removes sibilance in vocals by filtering out specified frequencies once the amplitude reaches a certain level. A Compander is a combination compressor and downward expander. You can think of a downward expander as a soft gate which can be used to remove sounds in a vocal track when the vocalist is silent. The Doubler and Delay can be combined to turn a solo into a chorus. This plug-in also has a large number of useful presets for the most common vocal processing.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

Although this update is not as ambitious as the usual annual Sonar update, it is nonetheless a good value given the new features that you’re getting for $99. If you’re a Sonar fan, go for it.

Logic Pro 9 – Drums, Grooves & Guitars

Apple recently released a new version of Logic Studio, and we have now added a new training course for Logic Pro 9 as well as updating our DAW Shootout. The new versions of most Digital Audio Workstations during the past year have focused on drums, grooves, and, to a lesser extent, guitars. So Logic is basically keeping up with the Joneses. Here are some of the more notable new features.

Flex Mode – Better than Apple Loops?

Most of the buzz about Logic 9 has centered around Flex Mode, a new facility for time stretching. Now, of course, time stretching has been available in Logic for a long time using Apple loops. However, converting an audio region to an Apple loop is a bit of a pain since the Apple Loop Utility is still a separate application, even though you can invoke it directly from Logic. Also, you cannot warp Apple Loops, that is, manually adjust the timing of selected portions of the audio region. Warping can be useful for correcting the timing of drums or vocals which aren’t quite “in the pocket”, as well as for creating special effects. You can warp multiple tracks at once using the Flex Tool which is great for aligning drums when all of the drum kit pieces have been recorded as separate tracks.

Flex Mode does have its limitations. As we demonstrate in our course, the sound quality of the time stretching can be fairly sensitive to the particular Flex Mode (Rhythmic, Polyphonic, etc) that you choose. Also, unlike Apple Loops, Flex Mode does not support the concept of a root note, and you cannot do real time pitch shifting. Thus if you need to match the root note of a region with the root note of your project, you’re back to creating an Apple Loop. Personally, I prefer a single integrated function for both time stretching and pitch shifting like Elastic Pitch & Time in Pro Tools or Audio Warp in Cubase. However, Flex Mode does provide a quick and easy solution for manipulating drums. Our Listen & Compare section includes an audio demo of Flex Mode time stretching, so you can judge the audio quality for yourself (This section is currently being updated. So if it’s not there now check back in a couple of days).

Custom Grooves – Feelin’ Groovy

In previous versions of Logic, you could not extract or apply grooves in real time. Now with Flex Mode you can extract a groove from an audio region and then apply it to another audio or MIDI region. This YouTube video, which is a reformatted excerpt from our new course, demonstrates how.

EXS Slicing – Who Needs REX?

REX is a popular format created by Propellerheads Software, and is used mainly for time stretching drums and bass loops. You can use a REX loop in Logic, and the tempo will automatically adjust to the tempo of the project. However REX files are also popular for another reason. Internally REX files are chopped up into separate slices based on the transient peaks of the audio. Using a REX player like Propellerheads Dr. Rex, you can access each slice with a MIDI note. Thus, in effect, you can create a drum kit from a single loop, and play it with a MIDI drum track.

Normally you would need to purchase Propellerheads’ Recycle to create a REX file. However, Logic 9 has added a function which automatically chops up a file into REX-like slices and loads them into the EXS24 sampler. Thus you can create a new drum kit from a loop and play it with a MIDI drum track in the same way as you would use Recycle and Dr. Rex. We demonstrate how to do this in our tutorial on Loops & Remix.

Drum Replacement – Move Over Drumagog

For the functions I’ve described so far, Logic is playing catchup with at least some other DAW’s. However, Drum Replacement is a function that none of the other DAW’s that we track currently has. If you decide you don’t like the sound of a particular drum in a set of drum tracks you can replace it with a MIDI track that plays a drum loaded into the EXS24 sampler. Here is another YouTube video, which is a reformatted excerpt from our new course, that demonstrates how to do this.

Amp Designer & Pedal Board – Who Needs Amplitube?

Logic also added a couple of goodies for guitarists. In recent years plug-ins like IK Multimedia’s Amplitube and Native Instruments Guitar Rig have become popular for replacing the hardware amplifiers, speakers, and pedals that guitar players have used for a long time. Logic already had the Guitar Amp Pro plug-in, but it’s pretty basic compared to the third-party alternatives. The Amp Designer and Pedalboard plug-ins are a significant upgrade to Logic’s guitar Amp Simulation capabilities Apple also included a good set of Channel Setting presets for these plug-ins. Thus if you aren’t up to designing your own guitar rigs, you can still create killer guitar riffs by using such presets as British Invasion, Honky Tonk Crunch, and Power Pop Chords. Our Listen & Compare section includes an audio demo of the Brit Invasion Crunch preset, so you can judge the audio quality for yourself (This section is currently being updated. So if it’s not there now check back in a couple of days).

Guitar Chord Grid Library & Editor – 4000+ Chords

Logic has also added some enhancements in the Score Editor for chord grid notation. The Chord Grid Library now includes 4000+ guitar chords. And if you still can’t find the fingerings you like, you can always create additional chords grids with the Chord Grid Editor.

Guitar Chord Grid Library & Editor

The Laundry List

For the record here’s the complete list of major upgrades in Logic Pro 9. As I mentioned earlier, we have also updated the DAW Shootout for Logic 9. The Flex Mode enhancements really didn’t improve Logic’s score that much since in the past most of those functions could also be accomplished using Apple Loops. Nonetheless Logic did pull slightly ahead of MOTU Digital Performer in the ratings. Logic has always been one of the top Digital Audio Workstations, and this upgrade solidifies that position.

Mixing & Mastering (Version 3) – Mo Betta Mastering

We recently released Version 3 of our popular Mixing & Mastering course. What started out as a basic update of the versions of the software products used in the course, turned into a major overhaul – especially for mastering. Somewhat to my surprise we wound up adding about 40 minutes of new content on mastering. I thought it would be worth discussing the rationale for some of the subjects that we added. Here is a summary of the big hitters:

Ozone 4 & T-Racks 3 – Plug-In Mastering Suites

One of the major additions to the mastering section was IK Multimedia’s T-Racks 3. We also updated iZotope Ozone to Ozone 4. Although our focus in the entire course is on concepts, not how to use specific products, we do make liberal use of examples from both of these mastering suites. People tend to have strong opinions about T-Racks. While some think the T-Racks plug-ins add too much coloration to the sound, this mastering suite does have a large following. Here is our YouTube video from the course which compares the Ozone Multiband Dynamics with the T-Racks Opto Compressor.

Although the basic principles of mastering apply to both mastering for CD’s and for the internet, there are some gotchas in internet mastering that trip up even experienced engineers. Thus we have added a section on internet mastering that focuses primarily on the importance of conservative limiting levels and phase analysis.

Loudness Maximizing – Mastering Limiter Quality

In prior versions of the course we have discussed the considerations about loudness maximizing quite a bit. However, we haven’t spent any time on the quality of the key component in loudness maximizing, mastering limiters. We have now added a discussion of mastering limiter quality, including null tests of several popular limiters.

Stereo Imaging – A Deeper Look

We have also talked about stereo imaging in the previous courses. However, now we have expanded the discussion to include an in-depth look at the underlying principle, mid-side processing. There are examples of how mid-side processing in Ozone 4 can be used not only for stereo imaging but also the enhancement of vocals.

Linear Phase EQ – You Can Measure It But Can You Hear It?

Several DAW’s now include linear phase EQ, and there are a number of third-party plug-ins, including the T-Racks 3 Linear Phase EQ. We discuss how to validate the claims about linear phase EQ as well as latency considerations.

EQ Phase Analysis – Waves Renaissance & PSP Audioware Neon HR

Side Chaining – Dance Mix Pumping

While the main emphasis in this update is on mastering, we did find time to create some fresh examples for mixing. Even though we demonstrated side chaining in the prior versions of the course, I decided that a new example would probably be more relevant. This YouTube video is an excerpt from the Mixing Dynamics tutorial which presents side chaining with a twist.

DIY Is Inevitable & Fun!

The table below summarizes how the content distribution of the Version 3 course has changed from Version 2. As I said at the beginning, most of the emphasis has been on beefing up the mastering section.

The course, as it has been from Version 1, is oriented towards musicians who are considering doing their own mixing and mastering. There was an article in Pro Sound News recently which estimated that because of digital processing, the cost of creating a personal studio has been cut in half over the last 20 years. While statistics of what percentage of musicians are now doing their own tracking, mixing, and mastering, are difficult to come by, the trend is fairly obvious. Many musicians have become comfortable with doing tracking and mixing. Mastering still has more of a “black art” aura about it, but don’t be fooled by that. The strongest case for doing mixing and mastering yourself is the time you can spend on it, versus the time you can afford to pay an engineer. To be sure, engineers because of their experience can work faster, but they’re still on the meter (even if you’re getting a fixed-price-per-track deal). And besides, you may even decide you like DIY mixing and mastering.

Ableton Live 8 – Modest but Balanced

Ableton recently released Live 8, and we have now added a new training course for Live 8 as well as updating our DAW Shootout. This upgrade is fairly modest in terms of the number and scope of new features, but it does provide updates for both the basic Digital Audio Workstation functions as well as new functionality for performers and the Electronica music crowd.

Grooves – Somebody Finally Did It Right

By far the most impressive new functionality in Live 8 is a collection of features related to grooves. Now you can capture grooves from either MIDI or audio clips, edit them, and apply them to either MIDI or audio clips. Each Live set now has a Groove Pool to help you manage all the grooves in a project and a good collection of pre-defined grooves has been added to the Live Library.

I suspect that not too many of you use grooves in the first place. And if you don’t, it may well be because you took a look at grooves in your main DAW and decided that using grooves was more complicated than you really wanted to tackle. Sonar and Cubase and, for that matter, most other DAW’s already have the groove features that Live 8 added. However, in many of the other DAW’s these functions have been added over the years with little attempt to maintain consistency, resulting in a jumble of confusing processes. Live may be late to the groove game, but they did it right We elaborate on these features in our new course and have also created a YouTube video on Live 8 grooves.

Beefed Up Mastering Tools

Live 8 has beefed up its mastering tools with a multiband compressor and a brickwall limiter. In the past Live has included various compressor-based presets and rack combinations which claimed to provide this functionality, but which were not really all that good. These two plug-ins on the other hand are the real deal and provide the smooth multiband compression and lookahead limiting needed for mastering. We demonstrate how to use these two plug-ins in our tutorial on mastering.

Multiband Compressor & Brickwall Limiter

Guitar Goodies – Pedals Not Included

Live 8 includes two goodies oriented toward the guitarist: Looper and Overdrive. Looper is a software emulation of a hardware overdub stomp box such as the DigiTech JamMan. The idea is that you can record a riff and it will immediately play back as you continue to jam. You can then decide whether to re-record the riff or to overdub additional parts onto the loop. Overdrive is a guitar amp simulator designed to simulate the harmonic distortion produced by hardware guitar amplifiers. Software guitar amp simulators have become popular in recent years with products like IK Multimedia’s Amplitude and Native Instruments Guitar Rig. Although Overdrive is OK so far as it goes, it’s really not in the same league as the guitar amp simulators included with most other DAW’s. If you’re a real guitarist performing live, you can control both of these plug-ins by using Live’s existing MIDI mapping function to map the controls to pedals or stomp boxes.

Distorted Reality

Finally, Live 8 includes two new distortion plug-ins: the Vocoder and the Frequency Shifter. Vocoders were originally developed at Bell Laboratories in the 1930′s and separate the intelligible sounds (the “modulator”) of the human voice from the tonal sounds (the “carrier”). You can then combine the modulator with practically anything as a carrier to produce otherworldly-type voices. Vocoders have been used in music by everyone from Robert Moog to Pink Floyd and Madonna. Our Digital Producer course includes a more complete examination of vocal processing including vocoders.

The Frequency Shifter could probably be described as a phaser or flanger on steroids. It shifts the frequency of a signal up or down by a small amount which can be varied by applying LFO’s. These types of FX were first used as psychedelic FX in the 1960′s and have been popular in Electronica music genres ever since. Our Mixing & Mastering course includes a more complete examination of these type of distortion FX..

The Laundry List – Beware the Library Cleanup

As in most new software releases there is a laundry list of features. Below are the ones discussed in our new course. Notice that the Live Library is included in that list. Ableton developed an entirely new set of samples and presets for Live 8. However the problem, at least as some of us view it, is that they declared a lot of goodies in the Live 6 and 7 library as “legacy”. If you follow the standard install procedure, you wind of getting rid of most of that content. In particular there were a lot of great instrument and FX presets that have disappeared. Fortunately, there is a Live 7 Legacy Pack which you can download from the Ableton website and install. I highly recommend it.

Mind Share, Not Market Share

For a long time I have characterized Live as a product which has a greater mind share than its market share. While you can debate how well our Music Software Popularity Survey measures market share, Live has always ranked near or below the bottom of the top ten software products. It also does not come out very well when measured against the standards that we apply for full Digital Audio Workstation functionality in our DAW Shootout. Yet it continues to have a huge intellectual influence on musicians. Berklee offers courses on Live and trade magazines constantly extol its virtues. As I’ve speculated before, I think the main reason for this influence, as well as why people buy it, are its two unique features: the Session View and Racks. Live established its turf with those features, and Live 8 continues to flesh out its features as a DAW.

Cubase 5 – Loop & Remix Bonanza

Steinberg recently released Cubase 5, and we have now added a new training course for Cubase 5 as well as updating our DAW Shootout. Although Cubase has always ranked at or near the top as a heavy-duty Digital Audio Workstation, it has never gotten much attention from the loop and remix crowd. Steinberg appears to be on a mission to change that. Cubase 4.1 added integration with Sequel, Steinberg’s recent attempt to compete with Apple GarageBand. Cubase 5 features several plug-ins aimed squarely at the loop and remix market.

Taking on Akai MPC

Although the Akai MPC has been the main tool for a generation of hip-hop artists and remixers, a bunch of companies are now taking aim at the MPC with less expensive alternatives that use a computer as the drum sampler (see my blog, Move Over Akai MPC, for more on the subject). On the hardware side you have products like the M-Audio Trigger Finger which mimic the 4×4 drum pad design of the MPC but which are basically a MIDI controller rather than a hardware sampler. Groove Agent ONE takes a place in the growing line-up of software drum samplers based on a 4×4 pad design. Despite the similarity in name to Groove Agent 3, a virtual drum machine that Steinberg markets separately, the two have very little in common. Groove Agent ONE is basically a separate animal.

The design is pretty straightforward. There are 8 groups of 4×4 pads which are mapped to 128 MIDI notes. Each pad can have up to 8 layers mapped for velocity switching. Unfortunately layers cannot be layered in the same velocity range. Tuning, EQ filtering, and amplitude envelope shaping can be applied separately to each pad. You can also route pads to separate audio outputs for additional FX manipulation such as compression. Groove Agent ONE comes with a fairly generous assortment of factory drum kits, and you can create your own drum kits by dragging and dropping samples.

Pattern Recognition

Cubase 5 also adds a Beat Designer, a drum pattern sequencer which makes an excellent companion to Groove Agent ONE. While many people make beats by tapping them out on pads, some of us prefer using the interactive approach of pattern sequencers which allow you to enter beats on a grid and listen to the results in real time. You can define your own drum kits in Beat Designer, but the drum note names are locked to the General MIDI Standard for drum note names. As with most pattern sequencers, you have a lot of flexibility in defining pattern grids and controlling the velocity of individual drum notes. There are also functions for creating swing beats and flams. You can store up to 48 patterns in each preset and trigger the patterns using MIDI notes in a track or from an external MIDI keyboard or pad controller. While Beat Designer and Groove Agent ONE can be used independently of one another, they work very well together. Thus we have added a new tutorial, Drum Tools, which demonstrates how to use the two plug-ins together.

Melodyne Clone For Free

Cubase 5 also includes VariAudio, a new pitch shifting algorithm which could be described as a Melodyne clone. The quality of audio pitch shifting has always been problematic. Changing the pitch of vocals in particular is difficult to do without the results sounding like chipmunks or frogs. As we discuss more fully in our Digital Producer course, there are several different approaches to transposing audio, and the one that has been most successful for vocals is individual note identification using techniques popularized by Antares Autotune and Celemony Melodyne.

VariAudio is integrated into the Cubase Sample Editor as well as with the other pitch and time functions in Cubase. So, for example, audio events for which VariAudio has been enabled can have root keys and be transposed using a transpose track just like other audio and MIDI events and parts in Cubase. VariAudio also has functions such as pitch correction and expression control. We demonstrate how to use VariAudio in this YouTube video which is a reformatted excerpt from our new tutorial on pitch and time. A head-to-head listening comparison with Melodyne is also included, so you can judge the quality of VariAudio pitch shifting for yourself.

Making Music by Twisting Knobs

Another new toy for remixers is LoopMash, a unique tool which allows you to slice audio files in such a way that you can replace the sounds in one audio file with content from other files while at the same time maintaining the rhythmic character of the original file. It provides a novel way for remixers to create new content. Personally I tend to put LoopMash in the “making music by twisting knobs” category. But if that’s your thing, go for it.

Some More Traditional Goodies

Cubase 5 does include a couple of major features oriented towards more traditional music making, the REVerence Reverb and VST Expression Maps. REVerence joins the rapidly growing list of convolution reverbs that have become available in recent years. As we explain more fully in our Mixing & Mastering course, conventional reverbs simulate reflections of sound based on mathematical models of a particular space. Convolution reverbs, on the other hand, use Impulse Response files which are profiles of actual or artificial physical spaces. Typically convolution reverbs are high quality reverbs that can be used for mastering, and we demonstrate how to use REVerence in our new tutorial on mastering.

Express Yourself

Finally, we come to my favorite enhancement in Cubase 5, VST Expression Maps. As we explain in some detail in our Digital Producer course, one of the key ways of producing realistic sounds from virtual instruments is using articulations. Most high quality virtual instruments include different samples for each articulation. For example, guitars and basses will have articulations like pick, slide, and hammer-on, and orchestral instruments include articulations such as tremolo, staccato, and sforzando. Several different methods are used to change from one articulation to another, but the most common is keyswitches – notes outside of the sounding range of the instrument that will invoke a particular articulation. Although you can simply enter keyswitches as notes in a MIDI track, having to keep track of which articulation is triggered by which note can be a real pain.

VST Expression Maps provide an easy way to define the articulations available for a particular instrument. Once defined, articulations can be invoked from any of the MIDI editors in Cubase – the Key Editor, Score Editor, and the List Editor – or from an external keyboard. For example as shown below, in the Key Editor articulations are handled as an Automation Lane. Many of the instruments in the HALion One sample player supplied with Cubase use articulations. A few track presets that include VST Expression Maps for HALion One instruments have been created for Cubase 5. Hopefully, Steinberg will continue to expand this library. We show how to create and use VST Expression Maps in our new tutorial on MIDI editing.

Architecture and Warts

In general the enhancements in Cubase 5 are part of a trend that I see in the Digital Audio Workstations that we track. The top-ranked DAW’s are mature pieces of software, and there aren’t too many ways left to compete by improving the core recording, editing, and mixing functions. Thus the competitive battlefield has shifted to including fancy plug-ins and other such enhancements. Some DAW’s just tack these functions on to the base product, and the result is a hodgepodge that seems like a bunch of warts.

On the other hand, the amount of effort that Steinberg puts into integrating new functions into the core Cubase architecture has always impressed me, and these enhancements are no exception. For example, as I pointed out earlier, VariAudio is fully integrated with the other time, pitch and sample editing functions in Cubase. Beat Designer also does not require any special handling. It is simply another MIDI plug-in. VST Expression Maps are fully integrated into the MIDI editors and MIDI track functions. This attention to integration ultimately makes for a much more robust architecture which in turn results in a product that is consistent and easy to use.