Thu, 15 May 2008 Check out www.MMwOSX.com for new links including a list of Logic 8 Books the MMwOSX YouTube Channel and information on my new book Introducing Reason 4. Category: Blog -- posted at: 9:06 AM Comments[0] |
Wed, 2 April 2008
Hello and welcome to installment 18 of Making Music with OS X. This time around I'll be
giving you the lowdown on where exactly the podcast and blog have been
for the last few months, talking about some new projects that I have in
the works, giving you a quick review the very cool Apogee Duet audio
interface and, as usual, I'll be covering some cool free
music software for OS X. ---------- New Website First order of business is to let you all know about the new website for Making Music with OS X. You can find all of the new blog entries, show notes and previous podcast installments of Making Music with OS X at www.MMwOSX.com. I've also been working on a major update/overhaul to my website cliff truesdell dot com. As a result I've been deleting some of the older pages, including the links to the free loops I've been giving away as well as the free loop, virtual instrument and plug-in effects links. All of those links have also been posted www.mmwosx.com and you'll find them just below the blog entry for this installment. ---------- Introducing Reason 4 The main "reason" that Making Music with OS X has been out of commission for the last few months is that I've been working on a new book called "Introducing Reason 4." This new book is a complete beginner to intermediate level look at Propellerhead's Reason 4 virtual studio software. It includes chapters covering all of Reason 4's new features, such as the RPG-8 Monophonic Arpeggiator, the Thor Polysonic Synthesizer and of course the program's very cool new sequencer functionality. I'll be talking a lot more about the book in the coming weeks and probably devoting some future installments of MMwOSX specifically to working with Reason. You can find out more about the book at www.IntroducingReason4.com. The book will be out on April 7, 2008 and it's already available for pre-order on Amazon. If you pre-order on Amazon you'll get an additional 5% off the already low, low price. I know, I sound like one of those cheesy guys on TV... Find out more about Introducing Reason 4 here. The book also comes with an included CD that has lots of example files to guide you through the various tutorials you'll find in each chapter. As an extras bonus there's a free ReFill containing exclusive REX content from www.BeatHive.com. Digital audio educators, bloggers and magazine writers, please feel free to hit me or the people at Sybex publishing up for a review copy. you can contact me here at me new email address: cliff at mmwosx.com Speaking of Amazon - for those of you who still haven't purchased a copy of my first book "Mastering Digital Audio Production" there are lots of new and used copies for sale on Amazon and prices start at around $15. - a pretty good deal for a $40 book. Mastering Digital Audio Production ---------- MMwOSX YouTube Channel Making Music with OS X now has it's own YouTube channel. This is something I had talked about in earlier episodes and have finally gotten around to. There are 4 videos up there right now. the first is a look at one method that I use for quickly creating loops using Ableton Live and Reason 4. There's also a three part series on creating Apple Loops with Reason, including exporting, audio editing and using the Apple Loops Utility. I'll be adding more videos in the coming weeks so be sure to head over there and take a look. www.youtube.com/mmwosx. ---------- Ableton Live 7 Videos I've also been working on an update to my video title at HowAudio.com on Ableton Live. They'll be posting that soon over there. In the meantime you should check them out and take a look at some of the new titles they've got. I've just finished watching the Battery 3 and and Axiom 61 titles, which are great. There's also very cool titles on B3 organ drawbars, acoustic guitar miking and a lot more. www.HowAudio.com ---------- BeatHive Store My loop store over at BeatHive.com is now officially up and running. It's called "Mission Control," named after my sunny little home studio in San Francisco's Mission district (even though I'm actually on the other side of the country right now, but that's another story...). I've posted about 80 loops over there so far and I'll be adding more every week. Be sure to check it out here: www.beathive.com/shops/missioncontrol ---------- Apogee Duet Review As part of an ongoing attempt to make my studio at least somewhat portable I recently purchased the Apogee Duet audio interface. This is an amazing little device and iif you are interested in combining high quality and portability in an audio interface the Duet should be high on your list of devices to check out. The Duet comes with a breakout cable with 2 1/4 inch instrument inputs and 2 XLR inputs. however, it's not possible to use all four at once - you can only use any 2 at a time. This is great for recording say, acoustic guitar with one microphone and voice with another or recording one instrument at once. It's probably not the interface you are going to want if you are recording a complete drum kit or a live recording situation that requires multiple inputs. Installing the Duet was very easy. Just a quick trip over to www.apogeedigital.com to download the drivers and software and from there it was pretty easy to get up and running. The Duet comes with it's own software called Maestro. Once installed Maestro starts up automatically when you start your Mac. You can make adjustments in the Maestro Control window to choose which inputs (1/4 inch or XLR) are active, turn on phantom power for your condenser mics, adjust volume levels and more. One nice feature is the ability to save and recall configurations. For example - attached to the breakout cables I have 2 condenser microphones a bass and an electric guitar. Since you can only have two active inputs at any one time I have 1 configuration for the two condenser microphones, for recording acoustic guitar and vocals. Once those tracks are done I can go to the Maestro File menu and quickly choose the configuration for electric guitar and bass, and then record those tracks. I could just as easily create more configurations, such as one for vocals and electric guitar or vocals and bass. The Duet has been specifically touted as integrating seamlessly with Logic and GarageBand, and this is definitely the case. Getting a up and running in Logic 8 was as simple an experience as I've had. Ditto with GarageBand, though I haven't spent much time with GarageBand and the duet. The Duet has also been absolutely a breeze to work with in Ableton Live 7. Looking at photos and reading descriptions online I was a little concerned about the unique hardware aspect of this device. It doesn't look or operate very much like the standard M-Audio or Digidesign audio interfaces I've worked with before. After working with it for just a few minutes it became very clear that the it's sturdy, solid, well-built and not at all complicated. As far as audio quality goes, I can't compare it to my previous other interfaces right now because I don't currently have access to my Pro Tools rig and I'm working on an entirely new system with entirely new gear (a story for a another day...). However, a quick look around the Web will tell you that the general consensus is that this thing sounds great, especially in comparison to many other audio interfaces. I definitely wouldn't disagree. You can find pictures and product information about the Duet at www.apogeedigital.com/duet. ---------- The Free Kore Player One of the coolest new free virtual instruments I've seen in a while is the free Kore Player from Native Instruments, released just last month. This is available as free download from www.native-instruments.com and can be expanded with a variety of Kore Soundpacks, all of which are pretty inexpensive. The Kore Player is a big file and when I first when to the NI site to get it the download took a loooong time. I have seen an email from Native Instruments about a faster d/l being availble, which is good. It is a free instrument and therefore somewhat limited in the number of availble patches, but the ones it comes with are for the most part very good. There's some nice "standard" instruments, like organ and acoustic bass along with some cool synthesizer patches and soundtrack-y ambient pads. There are some very good drum kits included and the Kore Player can also be used as an effects processor, though there are a very limited number of effects settings that come with the free version. I've posted an overview tutorial movie on the Kore Player on the Making Music with OS X YouTube channel. www.native-instruments.com ---------- That's all for now - thanks for stopping by! Cliff email me: cliff at mmwosx dot com Category: Blog -- posted at: 11:47 AM Comments[0] |
Wed, 12 March 2008 This list is a compilation of some of my favorite free plug-in effects and virtual instruments. For more complete lists check out these links at www.dontcrack.com: Free
Virtual Instruments Free Virtual Instruments: Remedy (AU, VST, RTAS) :: Virtual synthesizer. Orca (AU, VST, RTAS) :: Virtual synthesizer. Free, but requires registering for the Fxpansion forum. Crystal (AU, VST) :: Virtual Synthesizer. Ticky Clav (AU, VST) :: Virtual clavinet/keyboard. Scroll down the page to download. Da Hornet (AU, VST) :: Virtual Synthesizer. Scroll down the page to download. Zoyd (AU) :: Virtual Synthesizer SampleTank 2 Free (AU, VST, RTAS) :: The demo version of IK Multimedia's virtual sampler. Click the "Download" button at the top of the page to download SampleTank 2 Free and the included sounds. Sonik Synth Free (AU, VST, RTAS) :: Virtual synth workstation. Click the "Download" button at the top of the page to download Sonik Synth Free and the included sounds. Free Alpha (AU, VST, RTAS) :: Virtual synthesizer. The "little brother" to LinPlug's Alpha3 synth. Universal UVI Player (AU, VST, RTAS, MAS) :: This is essentially the demo for the UVI soundcards virtual instrument library.Follow the instructions on this page to install the player and demo files. Free Plug-in Effects: Nomad Free Bundle (AU, VST, RTAS) :: Modulation effects :: Scroll down to the "Discontinued" section and click on "free bundle information." Vinyl (AU, VST, RTAS, MAS) :: Lo-fi Vinyl simulation plug-in. Luxonix LF-1310 (AU, VST) :: Multiple effects unit that lets you combine 3 effects at a time. Supaphaser (AU, VST) :: Phaser/modulation effect. Donationware - if you like these plug-ins please make a donation to the the author. Inspector (AU, VST, RTAS) :: Spectrum Analyzer plug-in Ambience (AU, VST) :: Excellent reverb plug-in. Other nice plug-ins on this page as well. Donationware - if you like these plug-ins please make a donation to the the author. Pluggo Jr. (AU, VST, RTAS) :: Plug-in suite with 12 free effects. Scroll down the page and click on the "Pluggo Jr." link. King Dubby (AU) :: Delay plug-in based on analog echo units such as the Echoplex and Roland Sapce Echo. Fuzz Plus (AU, VST) :: Virtual distortion/fuzz pedal. Fish Fillets (AU, VST) :: Compressor, De-Esser and Expander Plug-ins. Green Oak (VST) :: 6 VST plug-ins for OS X. SSL LMC-1 (AU, VST) :: Compressor Frohmage (AU, VST, RTAS) :: Filter plug-in. Free, but requires registering for the site. KR Phaser (AU, VST) :: Modulation/phaser effect. Massey Plug-ins (RTAS) :: Aside from the freeware THC distortion/stompbox plug-in there limited functionality working demo versions of 4 great RTAS plug-ins. FreeG (AU, VST, RTAS) :: Gain/fader plug-in Freesound Bundle (AU, VST, RTAS) :: A suite of 5 free plug-ins. Black Water Reverb (AU) :: Reverb plug-in. A VST version exists somewhere. Please email me if you know where to find it. Super DestroyFX (AU, VST) :: Some very cool "different" plug-ins. Also more here, as well. Expert Sleepers (AU, VST) :: Scroll down the page a bit to find some very cool free plug-in effects. Classic Tools (AU, VST) :: Some very cool plug-ins, including the excellent Analog Delay. Donationware - if you like these plug-ins please make a donation to the the author. Category: Blog -- posted at: 11:09 AM Comments[2] |
Wed, 12 March 2008 Loop
Resources ModernBeats
Acid Loops Dooley
Drums Beats
and Samples Category: Blog -- posted at: 10:38 AM Comments[0] |
Wed, 12 March 2008 This is the first post of a few that I'll be doing here to replace some of the pages over at clifftruesdell.com. These are direct links to all three collections of free loops I posted in 2007: Download Free Apple Loops Download Free Acid loops (.wav format) Week Two: Download Free Apple Loops Download Free Acid loops (.wav format) Week One: Download Free Apple Loops Download Free Acid loops (.wav format)
Category: Blog -- posted at: 9:09 AM Comments[0] |
Fri, 2 November 2007 Download Chapter 9 - Virtual Instruments from Mastering Digital Audio Production: The Professional Music Workflow with Mac OS X by Cliff Truesdell Download Chapter 9 Free Here This chapter covers all aspects of using virtual instruments on OS X computers including: Using virtual instruments in Ableton Live, Logic, GarageBand and Pro Tools. Using virtual synthesizers, virtual samplers, virtual drums and virtual amplification, including various plug-in formats (RTAS, VST, Audio Units) file formats and the basic synth parameters and signal routing found on most virtual instruments. Programs and plug-in including Absynth, Crystal, Minimonsta Minimoog, Arturia Analog Factory, SampleTank, Kontakt, PianoTeq, Guitar Rig, BFD, iDrum, Battery and more. Lots of links and resources for free and demo virtual instruments! More info here: www.MasteringDigitalAudio.com Making Music with OS X Blog and Podcast Category: Blog -- posted at: 3:15 AM Comments[2] |
Sat, 27 October 2007 Category: Blog -- posted at: 8:36 PM Comments[0] |
Thu, 18 October 2007  Welcome to installment 17 of MMwOSX. This time around I'll be giving away a free month pass to HowAudio.com where you'll find my new Ableton Live video course, reviewing the latest release from Propellerheads, Reason version 4, doing a quick intro and recap for any new readers/listeners, giving away more free loops from www.BeatHive.com, and covering new software releases including Ambrosia Software's WireTap Studio, a new beta version of the AudioCodex program and Digidesign's new virtual amp plug-in "Eleven."---------- HowAudio: Ableton Live Videos and Free Pass Contest I've just finished a series of video tutorials called "Ableton Live: Basics" for HowAudio.com. The course includes over 5 and 1/2 hours of information, concepts and in-depth coverage on using this amazing music creation and sequencing program. You can view the complete course, including free access to the Quickstart movies at: www.HowAudio.com A subscription to the site costs $19.95 month and gives you access to the entire constantly expanding HowAudio course catalog, including lots of great videos on Pro Tools, Digital Performer, how to relic a guitar, drum tuning and much more. Yearly subscriptions are also available. As a way to get you all over to the site to check it out I'm going to give away a free pass to someone who can answer the following question: How many Quickstart movies there are for my new Ableton Live video course at HowAudio.com? Once you've been to the site and checked it out, go to the show notes for this episode at http://macmusic.libsyn.com and send me an email with "HowAudio Contest" in the subject line. I'll randomly choose the winner from the correct entries received before October 22nd. So if you're reading this after October 22nd 2007 please don't send me a contest entry email! By the way - if you're interested in checking out Ableton Live you can go to www.Ableton.com and download a free demo version of the complete program. Then check out the free Quickstart movies at HowAudio.com to get an idea of just a few of the things you can do with Ableton Live. ---------- BeatHive - More Free Loops and Podcast This episode's collection of free loops from www.BeatHive.com is now up on my Web site. You can find them here: Free Loops From Beathive BeatHive also has a great podcast called Making Music (no relation) and the current episode has the first of a two part interview, actually more of a conversation with me and BeatHive's Kenny D., where we talk about a number of things including strategies for creating loops and making music in general. You can find BeatHive's making music podcast on iTunes and a direct link here: BeatHive Podcast As always I've been posting a few random new loops over at www.SoundSnap.com. Along with my stuff there's thousands of other free loops and sounds - well worth checking out. My Loops on SoundSnap ---------- WireTap Studio Ambrosia software has just released WireTap Studio, an update to their WireTap program that allows you to record audio from any source on your Mac. Wiretap Studio comes with an audio editor, an audio player, Audio Units support and more. This an application that I've always enjoyed especially for sampling DVDs and recording streaming audio off the Web. Their Web site is here: WireTap Studio ---------- AudioCodex Beta I got an update from the folks at MachineCodex.com about their software, which I believe was called Machinehead when I reviewed it a few episodes back but is now called AudioCodex. This is a really interesting piece of software, described as "an alternative media player for Mac OS X." I keep coming up with new uses for this thing, including opening up loop files and mess around with them. Today I started using it to slow down songs in my iTunes library without changing the pitch, which is awesome for trying to figure out complicated guitar and keyboard parts. The current version is public beta 0.93b and it's free but expires on October 30. No doubt they'll have a new version up by then so be sure to check them out at: www.machinecodex.com ---------- New Guitar Amp Plug-in From Digidesign Pro Tools users can download a 30-day trial version of Digidesign's new virtual amplifier called "Eleven." I've installed it and checked it out very quickly by A/Bing some tracks against Amplitube and I wasn't blown away by the included presets, but then again I've never been a big fan of virtual amplifier presets. Once I've had a chance to tweak with the settings I'll come back and say a bit more about it. Feature-wise and looks-wise it seems to "stack" up pretty well l against the competition - it'll be interesting to see what the price tag on this one will be...hopefully there'll be a free 'lite" version coming along at some point. Digidesign ---------- Reason 4 Review A few weeks back Propellerheads released the latest version of their virtual studio software, Reason 4. I was able to get my hands on the upgrade just over a week ago (from a very cool store here in San Francisco called Robotspeak). The biggest change is probably the redesign of the Reason Sequencer. A lot of people were critical of the Reason Sequencer found in earlier versions. Personally, I was OK with it. At least until I started working with Reason 4. The redesign is pretty severe, some much so that there's going to be a bit of a learning curve involved for anyone who's used earlier versions of Reason. Some the familiar functionality has been moved from the Sequencer to the new floating Tool Window. The Sequencer now creates "clips" automatically for any recorded or drawn performances. There's new pattern sequencing functionality as well. A lot of this has taken some getting used to but all in all it's a much better set up and much easier to use once you get the hang of it. There are 3 videos dedicated to the new Sequencer on the Propellerheads Web site. Definitely check those out The only new instrument is the Thor Polysonic Synthesizer, which is pretty amazing. lots of features including a huge range of different Oscillators, Filters, a built-in delay and chorus and a ridiculous number of routing options. Reason 4 also adds a long hoped for feature - the RPG-8 Arpeggiator. The other big new feature is the ReGroove Mixer which you can route any or all of your tracks through to add subtle or drastic rhythmic variations or create completely a different feel for your tracks. And finally they've made some very nice additions to the Reason Factory Sound Bank. Lots of new excellent sounding NN-XT patches, new REX loops, Redrum kits and more. If you already a registered owner of Reason 3 you should definitely go out and get the upgrade to Reason 4, it'll be the best $129 dollars (plus tax) that you'll spend on digital audio software this year. Find out more about Reason 4 from www.propellerheads.se, including upgrade options and deals for owners of earlier versions or Reason Adapted. ---------- Recap For New Listeners For those of you who are new to MMwOSX I wanted to give you quick rundown of what's going on around here. I started this podcast in April of this year (2007) to coincide with the release of my book Mastering Digital Audio Production: The Professional Music Workflow with Mac OS X. In the book I cover the entire range of music software for OS X Macs including DAW programs like Ableton Live, Logic, GarageBand, Reason and Pro Tools, virtual instruments, samplers, using ReWire, plug-in effects, working with loops and more. Basically, everything from setting up a studio for making music to mixing and mastering. This blog and podcast were started as a way to keep up to date with the programs covered in the book and with the new software that's being released all the time. I also figured this would be a good way to expand on some of the things I covered and cover some things I missed in MDAP. You can find out more about the book at: www.MasteringDigitalAudio.com You can also download a free chapter - all of chapter 9 "Virtual Instruments." There's also more links to free loops, free plug-in instruments and effects and other OS X audio resources at my Web site www.clifftruesdell.com. ---------- That's all for this installment. Thanks for reading/listening - I'll be back soon with more updates, tips, information and free stuff... -Cliff Category: Blog -- posted at: 6:34 PM Comments[0] |
Tue, 25 September 2007 Welcome to Making Music with OS X installment 16. This installment is my first attempt to catch up with all of the big digital audio changes that seem to be taking place at once these days. Between August and October we'll see (or have already seen) new versions of GarageBand, Logic and Reason, plus all kinds of other new developments from Ableton (Live LE), Native Instruments (Guitar Rig 3!) and much more.Free Loops From BeatHive The folks at www.BeatHive.com have very generous offered Making Music with OS X listeners access to some free loops. So for every episode of this podcast, starting with this one, I'll be giving away 15 free BeatHive loops. You can download this episode's loops here: Free BeatHive Loops In other BeatHive related news, a couple episodes back I mentioned the BeatHive Making Music podcast. You can find that here: BeatHive Making Music Podcast And I believe the next episode will have an interview with me, talking with Kent Carter about my book Mastering Digital Audio Production and lots of information about creating and working with loops. More Free Apple Loops I've posted my third and final (for now) set of 50MB of free loops on my Web site. Those are available here: Free Apple Loops and Free Acid Loops I've also posted some different free stuff on my page at SoundSnap.com and you can find that here: My Page on SoundSnap.com ---------- Logic Studio 8 and Logic Express 8 If you thought that GarageBand 08 was going to be the biggest digital audio news from Apple this year you were wrong, like me. Turns out the long rumored and even longer awaited new versions of Logic are here. I won't spend too much time on this right now - I'll have a Logic Express 8 review in an upcoming episode. But I will say that it looks pretty amazing. Most importantly, it looks like they've finally streamlined the darn thing, making it possible to work in a single window, instead of having to work in 3 or 4 or more windows at once. Logic Express 8 has added some features from Logic Pro 7 including the Ultrabeat drum unit, the EXS24 Sampler and Guitar Amp Pro. They've also lowered the price! At $199 this looks like a no-brainer. I'm predicting that this thing is gonna be huge. Logic Studio looks incredible too. They've included Logic Pro 8, SoundTrack 2 and a new program called MainStage for live performance. The whole thing comes with a giant collection of content (8 DVDs!) and it's $499. Obviously. Stay tuned! ---------- Rax is Back! One of the programs I covered in MDAP was the excellent RAX program, an Audio Units host from Plasq software. Rax was unfortunately discontinued right around the time the book was released. The good news is that Audiofile Enginerring, whose Sample Manager and Wave Editor programs I also covered, have aquired Rax and recently released the program. You can now find Rax, along with Audiofile Engineering's other excellent software at: www.audiofile-engineering.com Rax ---------- Belkin TuneTalk Review Finding a way to do simple, low-tech mobile recording has been a giant pain in the neck for me over the last couple of years. my main objectives have to get semi-decent quality recordings of band practices, decipherable recordings of interviews and in a perfect world grab sound effects and real-world noises for ambient music or whatever other uses I might come up with After a bunch of research I ended up with a Sony MZ-N707 Minidisk recorder. Possibly one of the worst purchases of my life. I'm a pretty smart guy and I could never quite figure out the multiple steps you have to go through to do anything with the MZN707. I think it might have been called the 707 because it took 707 steps to do anything with it. Once you were finally able to do any recording recording you had to use their special (buggy, clunky) software to get the recording on to your PC. Emphasis on PC - there was zero Mac support. Ultimately I ended up lugging my iBook around and recording into GarageBand using Sony's ECM-DS70P along with Griffin's iMic, a USB connector with an 1/8 input. The iMic is a nice alternative to carrying around an audio interface for my iBook, which doesn't have an audio input. though the iBook's built-in condenser mics aren't too bad in a pinch. So when it occurred that I should try one of the iPod recording options, the first thing I looked into was the Griffin iTalk, but I was skeptical. My experience with the iMic has been that it works, but it's not the sturdiest piece of plastic and it's a bit noisier than I 'd like it to be. Not too surprisingly, the reviews I read of the iTalk said about the same things, only worse. However, I did notice that people were saying lots of good things about a similar product - the Belkin TuneTalk. So I took a chance and dropped about 50 bucks on one and I couldn't be happier. The TuneTalk plugs right into your iPod, where you'd usually connect with your computer or charger. It fits perfectly, even with my thick plastic iPod cover. The Recording quality is pretty amazing, but even more amazing is that live band rehearsal don't overload the built-in condenser mics. Really best quality rehearsal recordings I've ever made, without dealing with multiple microphones and recording devices. If needed, there's an Autogain button on the bottom of the TuneTalk that can give you a bit of a sonic boost. There's also a button on the side that you can click to go right into record-ready mode. Finally, The process of getting your recording from the TuneTalk to your computer couldn't be easier. Just connect your iPod to your computer and it asks if you'd like to copy your new voice memos. Pretty easy. Pretty solid and it sounds darn good. Check out the Belkin TuneTalk here: Belkin TuneTalk ---------- Free Plug-ins: Luxonix LFX-1310 and TAL VSTs The Luxonix LFX-1310, which I mentioned in MDAP is now available for Universal Binary Macs. This is a great VST and Audio Unit plug-in with 24 effects that can loaded up to three at a time. Download the LFX-1310 here: www.luxonix.com I also recently came across some very cool free VST plug-in instruments and effects for Mac that I wasn't previously aware of. These are from Togu Audio Line (TAL) and you can find them here: Togu Audio Line All of their plug-ins and effects are free, but there is a "Support Us" link where you can make a donation via PayPal if you enjoy the software. ---------- That's all for this time! Thanks for stopping by... -Cliff Category: Blog -- posted at: 5:05 PM Comments[2] |
Mon, 17 September 2007 I've just posted a third set of 50MB of free loops. That's a total of 150 MB of loops in both Apple Loops and Acid Loops (.wav) format. You download all three sets at: www.clifftruesdell.com/mcpreview.html Free Apple Loops and Free Acid Loops -Cliff Making Music with OS X www.MasteringDigitalAudio.com Category: Blog -- posted at: 7:30 PM Comments[1] |
Sun, 2 September 2007 Quick Links www.SoundSnap.com www.HowAudio.com Free Apple Loops and Free Acid Loops www.ableton.com Live 6 and Live LE 6 comparison chart www.digidesign.com GarageBand 08 Show Notes Ableton Live Videos/HowAudio.com Welcome to installment 15 of Making Music with OS X. As promised I can now start to talk about some of the "big news" I've been mentioning over the past few episodes. I've been working on a couple Ableton Live tutorial videos for HowAudio.com. Ableton Live: Basics, the first installment of a two part series will be up on their site soon. HowAudio.com is a fantastic new site, with lots of cool digital audio videos and more. You can buy DVDs or view the complete HowAudio library by buying a monthly or yearly subscription. They are going to be adding even more new stuff over the next few months. I highly recommend checking them out, viewing some of the demo movies that are there and signing up. As soon as Ableton Live: Basics is released I'll be running a contest for for some HowAudio related stuff so stay tuned for that. www.HowAudio.com More Free Apple Loops and Acid Loops There is yet another cool site for free loops, samples sound effects and more. This one is called SoundSnap.com. I've been posting some of my loops over there as well. For right now everything I'm posting over there is from the free loop collections I've been giving away on my Web site, but I'll be adding some original content up there soon. As of right now there are over 7000 free loops on SoundSnap and thousands more samples and other audio files. It's a great place to share your stuff and find lots of free content. www.SoundSnap.com You can find my free loop collections here: Free Apple Loops and Free Acid loops New Releases: Ableton Live LE 6 and Digidesign Structure LE and Structure Free Ableton has just announced a new version of Live called Live LE. While this is a light version of the program, it's still very feature heavy. At the significantly cheaper price of $169 it's a great deal, but there's a few things missing that might make be a deal-breaker for some users, such as lack of ReWire support. There's a comparison chart here that tells you all you need to know about the differences between the two versions: Live 6 and Live LE 6 comparison chart This release shouldn't be confused with the Live Lite versions of Live that come bundled with Pro Tools and many other programs and audio hardware. Digidesign has just released an LE and a free version of their new Structure RTAS sampler instrument. You can find out more on the Digidesign Web site, including a comparison chart. I've downloaded and installed Structure Free and it's pretty darn cool. Based on my limited experience with the free version, Structure is another excellent addition from the folks a Digidesign. I'll have a closer look at Structure free in an upcoming installment. GarageBand 08 Review As I mentioned last week, I've been messing around with the latest version of GarageBand. Here's my review... The first thing you'll notice when you start the program is that there's no option for creating an iMovie soundtrack anymore, which isn't too much of surprise. GarageBand 3 was a bit clunky for that and I doubt it was a very popular feature. You can still do it, though. Just create a New Podcast Episode and drag your video clips on to the podcast track. GarageBand will change the Podcast Track into a Movie track. There is, however, now the option to create a session using the new Magic GarageBand feature. As I expected from seeing the demonstration videos, it's not really all that useful for creating original music. But I guess it could be an interesting practice tool if you wanted to create a Magic GarageBand a session, eliminate your instrument of choice and play along. The way it works is that you choose from one of 9 genres and GarageBand creates a session with 5 different instruments: guitar, bass, drums, some kind of piano or other keyboard and a lead instrument, which were horns in the Reggae and Jazz sessions that I tried out. All of this is visually represented as a stage populated with the various instruments. You can then choose between different instruments and performances. For example you can change the guitar and amplifier model which also changes the melody being played, or you can choose a different type of drum kit or keyboard type. There's also an empty section on the center of the stage, which is for you to select the type of instrument that you are plugging in and playing. Finally, you can then choose "create Project" and GarageBand will create a new GB session with all of your tracks in place. Honestly, I'm not sure what the point of all this is, except as I mentioned, possibly as a practice tool. Magic GarageBand actually could be an interesting feature if the tracks it created were Software Instrument tracks. That would allow you to use a MIDI keyboard to play the instruments on each track and create your own parts, using Magic GB as a kind of session template in each genre. As it is what you end up with is basically end up with someone else's song, made up of loops that every other GB user has access to as well. Not a very useful tool for creating original music. Automation So far the single coolest feature I've come across in GB 08 is the automation, specifically the effects automation. They've done a great job here. It's very simple: just add an effect to a track, click the view/hide automation button and select add automation from the drop down menu. I was pleasantly surprised to see that each effect parameter can be automated. For example, if you've added GB's built-in Flanger effect you can automate the Intensity, Speed and Feedback settings independently. Even cooler, the automation can be accessed for third-party plug-ins as well. As an experiment I installed the OhmBoyz delay demo, an effect with over 100 editable parameters, and I was able to access all of them for automation. Next I added LinPlug's FreeAlpha3 free Audio Unit synth and tried automation various parameters. Sure enough I was able to quickly and easily access all of the instruments parameters, creating filter sweeps and even switch oscillator types in real time. Pretty cool. Strangely though, I wasn't able to access the anything close to the same range of paramaters for the included GarageBand instruments. Some of the included instruments allow volume automation and some have Attack and/or Release automation, but that's it. GB 08 makes automating Audio Unit plug-ins very easy. And there's also Tempo automation as well, if that's something you've been wanting access to. Other Improvements Visual EQ: This is very nice. A simple, straightforward, click and drag parametric EQ that comes with lots of presets. New LCD Display: An improved LCD display that lets you choose between viewing location by time or measure, or displays chord information or project information. More Effects Per Track: You can add four Audio Unit effects to each a track instead of two. The Arrange Track: A nice feature that allows you to quickly select entire sections of a song and move them around. Very handy. Multi-take Recording: Very convenient if you'd like to quickly take multiple passes at a track or an overdub. Videos and Documentation: For the new user, or the experienced user interested in finding out more about the new functionality, there are some good video tutorials online and a new, very well done Getting Started PDF. Both are accessible from the Help Menu. What's Not included There are some things that I was hoping to see this time around which are not included. There are no new instruments, effects or even presets (though there are new Jam Packs to buy separately). There are no new included Apple Loops or even jingles or zingers (does anyone use these?). The Bottom Line I'm happy with GarageBand 08, but not nearly as excited as I'd hoped to be. For musicians last years GarageBand 3 was not really a big step forward, though the podcasting features have been incredibly useful to many people. So, while the new automation is excellent, and some of the other new features are very nice, I was hoping that this time around Apple would add even more functionality, specifically geared toward people using GarageBand for original music, such as new instruments, effects and/or improving the program's audio and MIDI editing features. The fact they put so much effort into adding an essentially useless feature like Magic GarageBand is a bit disappointing. That said, GarageBand is still by far the best deal going for entry-level music software. So if you've never used the program and you are thinking about buying it, then consider GarageBand 08 highly recommended. For existing owners I definitely wouldn't call this an "essential" upgrade, especially if you are just using GarageBand for podcasting - there's nothing really new here for podcasters. But if you use GarageBand a lot, it's still a heck of a lot of fun and there are some cool new features. And if you have been hoping for more control over your EQ options, arrangements and Audio Unit effects and instruments, then GarageBand 08 is worth checking out. Category: Blog -- posted at: 11:51 AM Comments[0] |
Sun, 19 August 2007 Welcome to installment 14 of Making Music with OS X. This week I'll be covering a great Web site for loop users and producers called www.BeatHive.com, giving away a bunch of free Apple Loops and free Acid Loops, talking a bit about iLife 08 and GarageBand 08 and reviewing yet another audio editing program for OS X.---------- As you may have noticed, I've really been dropping the ball on getting these episodes up. Along with being super busy I actually took a vacation last week, something I don't do very often. The good news is that I have a lot of great stuff going on (which I'll be able to talk about very soon) and I've also got a pretty good backlog of software, digital recording concepts and Web sites to cover in upcoming episodes. So please be sure to stick around and check back, MMwOSX is definitely not going anywhere. I'd also like to thank all the patient listeners and folks who bought MDAP who have sent me emails letting me know that they've gotten some good use from the book and the show. If you're new here, I'd also like to mention that I have lots of resources on my Web site www.clifftruesdell.com for Mac audio in general, including links to other digital audio Web sites and podcasts, as well as links to lots of free Apple Loops, plug-ins and effects and more. BeatHive I had a very interesting talk with Kent Carter of www.BeatHive.com last night. If you aren't familiar with BeatHive, it's a fantastic site for both loop users and loop creators. If you're looking for a place to buy loops, BeatHive has a ton of loops from a great range of loop producers and the site allows you to easily preview and buy either individual loops or "packs" of multiple loops that form a complete track. Individual loops cost .99 and packs start at 1.99. The site's interface is really cool and makes it very easy to preview and search for specific instruments and genres. You can also search by format (Apple Loops and Acidzed .wav loops), tempo and more. One of the coolest things about BeatHive is that the site is set up so the loop producers can upload loops, create and manage their own individual shops. Users can browse shops by genre or just go through all of the shops and find a specific producers whose work they like. If you are interested in creating your own BeatHive shop, get some loops ready and click on the Set Up Shop link. It's also non-exclusive, so any loops you sell on BeatHive can also be sold elsewhere. It's a great way to sell your loops and to promote your loop libraries and it's also a great way to get more exposure for your music and production work. I should also point out that it's a community as well. In the BeatHive forums you can communicate with other users, post any music you've created with BeatHive loops and get the answers to any questions you might have about BeatHive, looping and music production in general. If that isn't enough, there's some free content available on the BeatHive site as well. Just click on the Free Loops graphic and sign up for the newsletter to access the loops. You can also find more free BeatHive loops on the Web at www.iCompositions.com and www.MacJams.com. http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/beathiveicroyaltyfreeappleloops.html Finally, the folks at BeatHive have also started an excellent new Podcast called "Making Music" (we'll be working that one out with our lawyers!). Here's a direct link to the podcast in iTunes: Making Music Podcast in iTunes Making Music Podcast Web Page www.BeatHive.com ---------- Free Apple Loops and Free Acid Loops Speaking of free loops, you may have seen my blog entry from last week about some loops that I've created that I'm giving away. I've been working on series of loop libraries (that I'll be selling on BeatHive and elsewhere) and in the process of creating these loops I've got some extra stuff lying around that I've decided to give away for free. Each week or so for the next month I'll be posting sets with of 50 MB of loops in both the Apple Loops and Acid Loops (.wav) formats. Right now there's two weeks worth of loops up there. I've got limited bandwidth so I'll be taking down week one's loops eventually. These are completely royalty-free so you can do whatever you want with them. If anyone out there has some bandwidth to spare, feel free to upload and post them yourselves - just include a link back to the blog page or my Web site. Free Apple Loops and Free Acid Loops ---------- Garageband 08 I suppose the biggest news in the Mac audio world this past few weeks is the release of iLife 08, including a new version of Garageband. I'll have a full review in the next episode, but I felt like it was important to mention it here and fill you guys in on what's new and how people are reacting to it. First off, the overall reviews of iLife 08 have been pretty negative, mostly based on the experiences that folks are having with the new version of iMovie, which apparently is a complete rewrite and has eliminated many features. Something else that's apparently problematic for a lot of people is that iMovie 08 is not compatible with anything earlier than a G5 processor, though GarageBand and the rest of iLife 08 will work with G4 processors or higher. iLife 08 also requires OS 10.4.9 or higher, which is a bit of a drag for me since I've been sticking with 10.4.8 because of some incompatibility issues with some of my Audio Units. Though it's probably safe to upgrade by now so I guess I'll be doing that this week. Anyway - enough about iLife in general, here's a list of the new features in GarageBand 08: Magic GarageBand - quickly create backing tracks Multi-take recording capability Automation of tempo effects and instruments Define sections of your song arrangement for easy copying and pasting Visual EQ: Graphically adjust frequencies for each track by clicking and dragging individual EQ band As I mentioned, I'll have a complete review of GarageBand 08 in the next episode. ---------- Twisted Wave Audio Editor Well there's yet another addition to the already crowded OS X audio editing application field. This is a fairly straightforward and easy to use audio editing app called Twisted Wave. No matter what your primary DAW program I think it's a good idea to have at least one standalone audio editor. I was surprised to find out how much I like Twisted Wave. As with many of the other Audio Editing applications out there (SoundStudio comes to mind) Twisted Wave is really easy to jump in and use. My always important cross-fading and normalizing functionalities were easy to find and use. Something else I noticed right away - when I went to select a section of a waveform Twisted Wave automatically moved the start and end points of my selection to the nearest zero crossing points. This is a really nice feature that can make editing, copying and pasting audio much quicker and simpler. The interface is very simple - maybe too simple. There are just a few very basic commands available at the top of the interface window. It'd be nice to see a few more added, or the ability to pick and choose which buttons are visible. Twisted Wave supports Audio Units (of course) and implementing them is very straightforward. Your AU effects appear in a pop-up box and you can select a section or entire audio file. Click the play button to preview, then click apply to apply the effect. You can also easily create presets called "Stacks" containing multiple effects in any order. VST plug-ins are not supported. www.twistedwave.com --------- Here's a quick recap of some of the OS X audio editing apps I've covered in this blog and in MDAP, along with current prices and links along with muy own rating of each program: SoundStudio 3 - $79.95 **** www.freeverse.com Fission - $32 **1/2 http://rogueamoeba.com/fission/ Twisted Wave - $49.95 ***1/2 http://twistedwave.com Wave Editor $250 **** www.audiofile-engineering.com Sample Manager - $90 ***1/2 www.audiofile-engineering.com Peak Pro - $599 **** www.bias.com Peak LE - $129 **** www.bias.com Audacity - Free *** http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Cacophony - Shareware/$25 **1/2 http://www.bannister.org/software/cacophony.htm ---------- That's all for episode 14 - thanks for stopping by and I'll be back soon with more info, tips and concepts for Making Music with OS X. -Cliff Email: "cliff at mmwosx dot com" Category: Blog -- posted at: 12:26 AM Comments[0] |
Sat, 4 August 2007 I've been working on a series of loop libraries but they're not quite ready for prime time. As a result I have a pretty big collection of loops that I'm going to give away for free on my Web site. These loops are 100% royalty-free and can be used in any context you like. Since I've got limited bandwidth I'll be uploading a new 50 MB set every week. Depending on your DAW or format preference there's an Apple Loops version and an Acid Loops (.wav format) version of each set. You can download either or both set from here: Free Apple Loops and Free Acid Loops -Cliff Category: Blog -- posted at: 8:38 PM Comments[1] |
Tue, 3 July 2007 Welcome to installment 12 of Making Music with OS X. This week I'm going to talk about some cool OS X audio software and plug-ins that weren't covered in Mastering Digital Audio Production and a couple of my favorite recording magazines.Virtual Instruments Magazine I just got my first copy of Virtual Instruments magazine today and I'm really impressed. The focus of this magazine is pretty obvious from the name and it's an amazing read. VI is seems like it's geared toward higher end, professional users but there's something in there for digital audio folks at every level. In fact, I think that because it has so much "deep" information it's very useful for people who consider themselves new or intermediate level users because it gives you a lot of insight on how the "pros" are working and using Virtual Instruments, MIDI and other tools. They also cover hardware as well as software and they do a great job of covering tools and concepts that are useful for both Mac and PC users. Another very cool thing about VI is that as a subscriber you're given access to all of the back issues in PDF format. If you are interested there's also sample PDF of a recent issue on their Web site: www.virtualinstrumentsmag.com TapeOp Magazine You may already be familiar with this magazine, but if you aren't then I suggest you get right over to TapeOp.com and sign up for a free subscription. That's right - it's free. TapeOp is entirely supported by advertising, which might be annoying in some magazines but I actually enjoy looking at TapeOp's ads and imagining that I could someday afford all of the various microphones, hardware and software. Every month TapeOp features interviews with recording engineers, gear manufactures and musicians along with a letters section that answers reader questions, as well as reviews of gear, music and software. There's also a very cool reader forum at www.TapeOp.com. TapeOp's focus is on recording, both digital and analog. I have yet to read an issue without learning something. Heck, I don't think I've read single article without learning something. Pete Townsend of The Who (who knows a thing or two about home recording) has sent fan mail to TapeOp. 'Nuff said. SoundStudio 3 One of the programs I didn't cover in Mastering Digital Audio Production but really wish I had is the audio recording and editing application SoundStudio. SoundStudio costs $80 and is available for both PPC and Intel Macs and requires OS X 10.4. I've been looking for an alternative to Audacity recently because I've been having some "issues" with it on my G5. So if you've been frustrated by bugs and crashing in Audacity and you're looking for a more stable alternative and your willing to spend a few dollars you might want to check out SoundStudio. If you have any experience with any audio editing software you'll find that SoundStudio is extremely intuitive. I was able to figure out how to do 90% of what I use an audio editor for without consulting any of the program's documentation. It took me about a minute to figure out how to compress, normalize, cross-fade and export a loop. Though I'm not crazy about how the program handles cross-fading, it gets the job done. It has great integration with any installed Audio Units you may have and you can easily record, edit and export audio into multiple formats. You can download a trial version and try it out for yourself at: www.freeverse.com/soundstudio The Levelator The basic workflow for this podcast is that I record the spoken word part into Pro Tools then bring that into GarageBand 3 where I add the music, images and links. There is however an intermediate step between Pro Tools and GarageBand and that's a free application I use called the Levelator. Levelator does exactly what the name implies - levels out the audio so my podcasts have a consistent volume level. Since I'm not a professional announcer and I tend to record my segments at different times and often at slightly different distances from the mic the Levelator really comes in handy. While the Levelator is perfect for well-recorded spoken word, it's not so great for badly recorded or noisy audio. I tried to use it on a job recently where I was cleaning up the audio from some old spoken word tapes that were being transferred to CD and "Levelating" the audio brought up the unpleasant noise any time there was a pause. The Levelator is freeware and you can download it from www.gigavox.com where you'll also find some other useful links for podcasters and information on the GigVox Media platform. SoundMagic Spectral Plug-ins The Spectral plug-ins are a suite of over 22 free plug-ins created by a composer from New Zealand named Michael Norris (I wonder if he's friends with the guys from Flight of the Conchords). These are not your standard delay, reverb etc. type plug-ins. They do strange things and some of them have lots of parameters and sliders to move around. I can't say that I'm even close to understanding what exactly they're doing but they are a lot fun, especially if you like working with random or unexpected sounds. One thing I've noticed is that their is often a fairly significant delay/latency problem with some of the plug-ins. I've found that when working with the Spectral plug-ins that have an FFT or Fast Fourier transform by using those plug-in's FFT drop down to change the default 2048 setting to 512 you can drastically reduce the latency. I've been mostly using these in Live 6 and I have had a couple of crashes and that's something you want to watch out for with any free plug-ins. One final note - these plug-ins require manual installation, which is covered in the included "Installing SoundMagic Spectral" documentation and also in Installment 1 of this blog and podcast. Download SoundMagic Spectral More links to free Audio Units (and VSTs) ----- That's all for this week. Next week I'll be back with more resources, plug-ins and the return of the Cheap Software Spotlight. -Cliff www.MasteringDigitalAudio.com Category: Blog -- posted at: 2:13 PM Comments[0] |
Wed, 20 June 2007 Welcome to installment 11 of Making Music with OS X. This week I'll be covering some of the latest software updates, including the upcoming Reason 4, talking about digital audio videos on YouTube and a cool new Web site for online collaboration. You can find more OS X audio resources and information about my book Mastering Digital Audio Production at www.MasteringDigitalAudio.com and at www.clifftruesdell.com ---------- New Schedule First of all you may have noticed that this week's episode is a bit late. I've had a lot of good stuff going on including some projects that I'm sure I'll be talking about in more detail in the weeks ahead. Because things are so busy right now I'm going to be doing this podcast and blog on a bi-weekly schedule for at least the next month or so. ---------- Reason 4 Probably the biggest music software news in quite a while - Propellerheads Software announced today that they are ready to beta test Reason 4. You can find out more at www.propellerheads.se, where they've posted lots of info and some very cool screenshots that you can mouse over and read up on all of the program's new features. Some of what's coming in Reason 4: *The much requested arpeggiator (finally!) *A new synthesizer called "Thor" that includes it's own pattern sequencer, modulation matrix, built-in effects and more. This looks just awesome. *A whole new look and lots of new features added to Reason's sequencer window, including vector automation, tempo and time signature automation and multiple lanes per track. *A "groove console" called ReGroove for adding a more humanized feel to you tracks. As I said, there's much more detail on the Propellerheads Web site, including sound samples and videos. Registered Reason users can log in and fill out a request form to participate in beta testing. If I get chosen as a beta tester you'll definitely hear about it. And if you get your hands on a beta copy before I do - shoot me an email and I'll come over and clean your house and wash your car for a year or two... ---------- Digital Audio Videos on YouTube I've recently noticed quite a lot of digital audio videos showing up on YouTube, including some very cool tutorials. Many of these are promotion videos from the companies themselves, some are samples from companies like HowAudio.com that offer complete online courses and DVDs and some are user-created demosrations of techniques, tips and tricks. A few are "bootlegs" of commercial videos - don't watch those. Here's some links to lots of great digital audio content: Reason videos on YouTube Ableton Live Videos on YouTube More Ableton Live Videos on YouTube GarageBand Videos on YouTube Pro Tools Videos on YouTube Digital Performer Videos on YouTube ---------- Battery 3.02 Update For those of you who own or are thinking about buying the Battery Drum Sampler Native Instruments has released an update to the Battery that contains three new kits, including a kits created by Gorillaz producer Curtis Lynch and industrial music pioneers Einsturzende Neubauten Battery Update Article ---------- Audio Hijack Pro In the More Useful Software chapter of Mastering Digital Audio Production I covered the excellent Audio Hijack program. Audio Hijack is very similar to the WireTap program I talked about in MMwOSX installment 4 and can be used in many of the same types of situations. Audio Hijack comes in two versions: a basic version called "Audio Hijack" and a more robust version called AudioHijack Pro. The basic version costs $16 and is very simple and easy to use.If you are looking to quickly capture streaming audio off the Web or from a CD or DVD the basic version is all you'll need. Audio Hijack vs. Audio Hijack Pro comparison chart Audio Hijack Pro, which was just updates a few days ago to version 2.7.3 is a very useful application for all kinds of things including recording directly into MP3 and AAC formats, quickly recording your Skype and iChat conversations and recording multiple sources on your Mac into one sound file. For example, if you were doing an interview via Skype for a podcast you could add audio from iTunes or sound effects from GarageBand or another audio program in real time. You can download a fully functional demo here. Audio Hijack Pro Once you've tried it out you can register the program for a $32. ---------- eSession.com There's a new site that I've been checking out recently called eSession.com. The idea behind the site is that musicians and songwriters can access a talent pool of other musicians, as well as mixers, engineers and producers and then collaborate on-line by uploading audio files and even complete sessions in Pro Tools, Logic, GarageBand and other DAW formats. The way it works is that you can use the eSession interface to browse through their talent pool and once you find a musician or engineer you want to work with you can send them a work request and negotiate a rate for a session or sessions. If you've got the budget they have some pretty big name producers and studio musicians up there. One of the aspects of this site that's particularly appealing to me is the possibility of using it for online collaboration. You're not limited to working with their high-end talent - you can "invite" anyone who's registered on the site to work on a session and you can invite your friends to join by emailing them directly from the eSession interface. They also offer a number of hosting options starting a $10 a month for 10 GBs of file storage. With all of these options in place this site seems like it could be a great way to collaborate with friends, musicians and studios in other cities and countries. eSession.com is in public beta mode right now, which means you can create and account and check it out, though all of the features may not be 100% bug-free. If you are interested in the online storage feature: once you've created an account go to My eSession, click on SongSpace and then click on "Up Your Space" There's also a "live tour" seminar every day at 2 PM Central Time that you can sign up for right on the site's front page. ---------- That's all for the week - thanks for listening and I'll be back in a week (or so) with more news you can use for making Music with OS X. Category: Blog -- posted at: 11:01 AM Comments[1] |
Tue, 5 June 2007 Hello and welcome to episode 10 of Making Music with OS X. This week I'll be talking about audio file formats and file conversion, MMwOSX's addition to the excellent Home Recording Network and my recent experiences with upgrading the RAM in my home studio's G5.The Home Recording Network First off a big thank you to Derek Miller and Geoff Hankerson of the Inside Home Recording and Fundamentals of Digital Audio podcasts, respectively for adding MMwOSX to the Home Recording Network at www.homerecordingnetwork.com. The HRN is 17 different audio podcasts and some of them have been around for a while so there's lots of catching up you can do if you've never been there before. Whatever your interest or operating system, instrument or DAW program you'll definitely find lots of great information up there. ------- Contest Winners! Congratulations to Jeff and Rob the two winners of last week's contest. You guys will both be receiving free copies of Mastering Digital Audio Production. Here's the sound that I recorded outside of my window last week that they correctly identified. Contest Sound And yes, that's the sound of a jackhammer on concrete. And I'd especially like to thank the fine folks at the San Francisco Public Works Department for giving me such consistent access to this sound for the last year and a half. It's been a real pleasure to have a combination 7 AM alarm clock, background sound effect and impromptu percussion tracks for any recordings I might be working on. ------- File Formats There are an incredible number of audio file formats out there. You don't see too many of them on a regular basis but over the years many different digital audio file formats have been created. To make things even more complicated, within each format there are always going to be a number of options such as bit depth and sample rate, variable bit rate settings, stereo or mono. There are even subsets of popular file formats that I don't quite understand (if you can tell me the difference between an AIFC and AIFC file please shoot me an email or a link). So, the point of all of this is that sooner or later you may run across a file or many files that are incompatible with your particular host program. You may want to use a REX (.rx2) file in GarageBand or an Ogg Vorbis file in a Pro Tools session. I've mentioned a few times here that I like working with audio samples from movies. Sometimes for fun I'll use the Internet to search for famous quotes from movies like Dirty Harry or Taxi Driver. These kinds of things can't be used in commercially available recordings but they're fun to work with. I've found that when I'm using the Internet to search for audio files from movies that they are often incompatible with the programs I'm trying to load them into. This often has to do with the Sample and Bit Rates they've been encoded at and sometime the file formats. Sound Converter For quick and easy file conversion to or from just about any format you're likely to run across try the Sound Converter app from www.dekorte.com. For 10 bucks this program is a steal and a good thing to have around just in case you run into a file that you need to convert quickly. There's a list on their Web site of all of the different audio file formats the program can read and export to. The demo version will work on smaller files and give you a chance to check out the program's interface and conversion possibilities. Download Sound Converter Batch Conversion Batch conversion is the process of converting multiple files at once. This is something you might want to do if someone gave you a large collection of loops and samples that weren't loading properly in your DAW or sampler. In my case as I'm working on creating a loop library I'll use the batch conversion in the Apple Loops Utility to create multiple Apple Loops at once. I've also found that Sample Manager and AudioFinder can be very useful for working in the opposite direction, batch converting Apple Loops to WAV loops. The AudioFinder program, which I've mentioned in previous episodes is my go-to for batch converting. Among many other things, AudioFinder can convert files to REX files to AIFF format (and from there to WAV or SD2). Sample Manager can also covert REX to WAV or AIFF, and gives you great control over Bit Depth and Sample Rates. www.IcedAudio.com www.audiofile-engineering.com Using iTunes To Convert Files Apple's iTunes makes a great Swiss Army Knife for file conversion. For example, depending on what DAW program you're working with, you may or may not have the ability to export directly to MP3 format. My understanding of this is that in order to include the MP3 export option, software companies have to pay a licensing fee for every copy of the software they sell. Digital Performer, and Logic Pro and Express include MP3 export, while Pro Tools users have to pay extra for the MP3 export option. Live, Reason and GarageBand users are just totally out of luck. While the AAC format is great, and I use it a lot (for these podcasts, for example) it's not as universal as MP3 and there are many portable audio devices and some digital audio jukebox programs that don't support it. So, for example, if you're posting songs to Web site and you want to reach the widest possible audience you're going to want to convert your files to MP3. You can also use iTunes to create higher quality or lower quality AAC, WAV and AIFF files. This can come in handy in any number of situations. For example, you can reduce the file size of a podcast by half by converting it to mono and you can quickly convert incompatible WAV or AIFF files to standard Sample Rate and Bit Depths for use in your DAW programs. Here's a quick tutorial on using iTunes to convert file formats: Use iTunes To Convert File Formats 1. Drag your file to the iTunes Browser to add it to the Music Library 2. Go to iTunes > Preferences > Advanced and click on the Importing tab. 3. From the "Import Using" drop down menu select the file to you want to convert your files to. 4a. To convert files to a format that can be used in any DAW program choose "AIFF" or "WAV" and leave or change the "Setting" drop down menu as "Automatic." 4b. To raise or lower the Sample Rate or Bit Rate, select "Custom" from the settings drop down menu and choose your custom settings. 5. Once you've made you adjustments, close all of the Preferences windows and return to the iTunes Music Library. 6. Locate your file in the iTunes Music Library. 7. Choose Advanced > Convert selection to (whatever file type you've chosen in iTunes Preferences) 8. You should now have two versions of the file in iTunes - one will be the new file format. You can find out which is which by selecting a file and choosing File > Get Info. Click the Summary tab and you'll see the file's format and file size. When you're done, make sure you go back and reset your iTunes importing preferences, otherwise every new CD you import will automatically be added using the settings you've left in place. ------- Upgrading Your Mac's RAM The very first chapter of MDAP is called "Optimizing Your System" and it details various things you can do to get the most out of your OS X Mac for creating and recording music. Probably the single best thing I did for my home studio this year was adding more RAM to my G5. I originally bought my G5 with 1.5 GB of RAM installed, which was fine for a while. I realize that this was a lot less RAM than many people with setups that are similar to mine use. But because of how I was working and the kinds of things that make up my typical workflow I was able to get by without needing too much power. Plus, around the same time that I bought the computer I went way over budget buying new music software. I'm sure some of you can relate...Having to choose between more RAM and buying food, I went with food. With a 1.5GB of RAM I was able to run sessions combining Logic or Pro Tools 7 with Reason and Live simultaneously without too many problems and I rarely ran into situations that my system couldn't handle. Most DAW programs have a built-in function that lets you know how much of your computer's resources are being used up. For example, in Pro Tools you can choose "System Usage" from the Window menu, in Ableton Live there's a percentage display in the top right corner and in GarageBand you'll see the rectangle at the top of the Timeline indicator turn from clear to yellow to red as your system starts to run out of power. When I started working with AmpliTube 2 along with either the Addictive Drums demo or BFD Lite things started to get a bit weird. I was getting a lot of error messages in Pro Tools saying that my Digi 002 had disappeared momentarily. I got frozen or hanging tracks (really annoying when you want to record an idea before you forget it!) and I found that I had to restart a lot when things got too slow or hung up. Finally, when I made the decision to purchase Reaktor I knew that it was time for a big upgrade. I thought I'd take a minute here to share some of the advice that's covered in MDAP and some new things I learned along the way. Depending on which model of Mac you have, installing RAM yourself may be very easy. However, it's important to take into consideration that installing RAM yourself may void your computer's warranty or the AppleCare extended warranty. On some Macs (such as the new MacBooks) RAM considered a "user replaceable" part and on others it's not. If you don't want to void your warranty, check your documentation, the Apple Web site or talk to your local Apple store or Apple repair technician to find out more information before you attempt to install more RAM yourself. Make sure you get the right RAM for your specific model and buy it from a reputable dealer. You can buy cheap RAM from a number of places including eBay. Cheap RAM may work out just fine, but then again it may not. Bad RAM can be a giant hassle and lead to all kinds of problems, some of which may not be noticeable at first. I talked to an IT friend who suggested www.crucial.com as a reputable dealer for getting a high quality RAM at a discount price. You can also use the Crucial Web site to quickly find out the right RAM for your specific make and model. Having dealt with bad RAM before I can assure you that the $50 bucks or so I might have saved elsewhere isn't even remotely close to being worth the hassle. Apple has instructions for installing RAM on different models on their Web site, including detailed PDFs for some models. Here's a link to the Apple Hardware Support page. Select your model and look for the "how-to" link or links. Apple Hardware Support Page It's also very important to read the instructions carefully and thoroughly before you start. Installing RAM incorrectly or not following the instructions step-by-step from start to finish can seriously damage your computer. If you don't feel comfortable opening up your computer yourself, you can also pay someone to install RAM. Check around on this though - I saw an article recently in the local paper about wildly varying rates that different places will charge for this. With 3GB of RAM installed I'm pretty set for a little while. It's more than enough to get great track counts in Pro Tools and Logic, though I can still max things out pretty quickly with Reaktor. The real shocker for me was with GarageBand though. I've installed a second instance of OS X on an external FireWire drive and I've messing around with sessions in GarageBand with 40+ tracks, with minimal problems. There's more on RAM, external drives and lots of other information in Mastering Digital Audio Production's first chapter, "Optimizing Your System." ------- That's all for this week. Next week I'll be back with some software updates, some interesting new Web sites and resources and more. -Cliff Email: "cliff at mmwosx dot com" Category: Blog -- posted at: 10:44 PM Comments[0] |
Tue, 29 May 2007 Hello and welcome to installment 9 of Making Music with OS X. This week I'm going to talk about some Internet resources for free audio and video content, finish up my Focus on GarageBand series and start things off with the first Making Music with OS X listener/reader contest. Contest - Free Copies of MDAP! I've got a couple of copies of my book Mastering Digital Audio Production to give away. So what I've done is I've put a sound file here for you to identify. This is a sound that I recorded outside my window a few days ago and the first two people to identify the sound correctly, then send me an email will each get a copy of the book. Once the contest is over I'll remove the sound file - so if you don't see it that means the contest is over. It's over! Wow, that was quick. Congratulations to Jeff and Paul! Internet Resources Here are a couple nice sites I've been enjoying recently. One for tutorials and the other for free loops and samples: AudioForce AudioForce.net Someone just told me about this site recently. It's a big collection of links and free tutorials and videos on digital audio, including a very nice little GarageBand tutorial. It's for an earlier version of GarageBand but for audio There's some pretty neat stuff on there. Even though you may have seen some of it before, it's pretty nice to have it all in one place. SampleSwap www.sampleswap.org Another site I've been meaning to mention here is SampleSwap.org. This is a giant collection of 4.6 GB of downloadable loops. You can download files directly on the site or for a $30 "donation" you can have them send you all 4.6 GB of loops and samples on a single DVD. SampleSwap also encourages users to upload their own loops and add them to the collection, which is a very cool thing. There's even an OS X upload application that you can download and use to quickly add loops to the site. Because anyone can upload anything to SampleSwap I'm not 100% convinced of the legality of all of the loops on there, so you might want to be careful about using anything you download in any commercial recordings. There are also more links to free and demo Apple Loops on my Web site: Free Apple Loops ---------- Public Domain Audio and Video At www.archive.org Another great resource for audio (and video) is www.archive.org. There's a lot here, and much of it is not related to audio but still very useful. On the front page there's the very scary "WayBackMachine" which lets you look at Web pages as they were "way back when." So in case you've forgotten what your the first Web site you built looked like or you want to see what someone's page looked like in 1998 there's a good chance that it's on here. www.archive.org Up at the top of the page you'll see some links to specific areas of the site. One interesting feature is the Open Source Audio collection. To get there click the audio link at the top of the page then the Open Source Audio link that appears just below it, or click the direct link here: Open Source Audio There's a lot of concert recordings, spoken word and audio book stuff on the site, but if you go to the search field and type in the word "loops" you'll find some free loop collections. Everything that's uploaded here will be under one form of Creative Commons licensing. Some will be usable in any context, while some require attribution or be for non-commercial use only. You can find more information on Creative Commons, the different types of licenses and what they mean at www.creativecommons.org. The audio archive is definitely interesting but for my purposes I really like the video (Moving Pictures) archive, and specifically the Prelinger Archive section. Moving Pictures Prelinger Archive What you'll find there is a huge collection of movies and ads and public service videos that are now in the Public Domain. The short version of what Public Domain means is that you can use the included sounds and images in any way you want. This makes them excellent source material for creating copyright free loops and samples. Public Domain on Wikipedia There are lots of movies out there that are public domain. Movies contained in large, cheap collections such as "50 Horror Classics" are almost always Public Domain. In the book I cover using Audio Hijack to record audio from a DVD and in installment 4 of this blog I covered using WireTap Pro, which can also be used to capture audio from any source including streaming audio and video, QuickTime movies and DVDs. Both of these programs can be very useful for extracting audio from Public Domain videos and DVDs. What I like to do is go to Prelinger Archive page and use the search field at the top to search for a specific keyword (try "Bomb" to see some interesting US War Department films on the A-bomb). On the left side you'll see different options for downloading larger or smaller versions of each film. There are a few ways to get the audio out of these videos. Many DAW programs will let you drag and drop or import the entire video file. As I mentioned last week the latest version of Audacity now supports getting the audio for MPEG4 files. Having these videos available in multiple formats and different quality and file sizes also makes the Prelinger Archive a great place to find source material for creating videos and for finding content to work with to help in learning video editing programs. ----------- Focus on GarageBand Pt. 2 This week I'm going to cover some more resources I missed last week and talk about expanding your GarageBand instrument Library with virtual instruments and Sound Fonts. GarageBand Videos Last week I mentioned that there is a great video for learning GarageBand at www.MacProVideo.com. I've also come across some other videos for GarageBand 3 and I'll list those here: Atomic Learning Apple's Video Tutorials GrooveBox GarageBand 3 Video Training Course Free Instruments In episodes one and two I talked about some of the free instruments and effects that are available for OS X DAW programs and most of what I covered will work in GarageBand. GB uses the Audio Units plug-in format, which along with the VST format is one of the most popular for free virtual Instruments and plug-ins. Here's a pretty complete list of most, if not all of the free Audio Units available for GarageBand and othe AU-compatible host programs: I'm not exactly sure what causes some systems to have problems with certain instruments or plug-ins. I've installed and worked with GarageBand on a lot of computers and sometimes third-party instruments work well on one system and not on another. If I had to choose one favorite free instrument for GB it would be the Crystal Synthesizer, which has lots of editable parameters and other interestting features and can be expanded with SoundFonts. You can find links to the Crystal synth and other freeware virtual instruments here: Free Virtual Instruments for GarageBand My List of Free Instruments and Effects Crystal Synth Installment one of this podcast has specific instructions for downloading and installing Audio Units. Once the instrument is installed you can add it to your GarageBand sessions by creating a new Software Instrument track, double-clicking the track header and choosing the instrument from the Generator drop down menu. Using SoundFonts in GarageBand Another way to expand your GarageBand instrument collections is by using the included Audio Unit instrument called the DLS Music Device to play soundbanks created in the SoundFont format (the same format you can use to expand the available sounds in the Crystal synth. You can read more about the SoundFont format here: SoundFonts Download Sonfonts from these sites: www.hammersound.net www.soundfonts.it To use the DLS Music Device in GarageBand: 1. Download any SoundFont .(sf2) file from the Internet (there's one here). 2. Move the file to the folder /Library/Audio/Sounds/Banks 3. Create a new Software Instrument and choose DLS Music Device from the Generator Drop Down in the Track Info window. For more detailed instructions go here: Apple's DLS Music Device Tutorial If you are interested in creating your own SoundFonts there's a program called Polyphontics from Sonic Amigos that costs 60 bucks. The same company also makes a program for about $25 called Polyphontics GB, which can be used to make GarageBand instruments. Sonic Amigos Extracting Audio From a Video File Earlier in this episode I mentioned the Prelinger Archive as a resource for Public Domain videos. You can easily extract audio from these and other .mp4 (MPEG4) videos in GarageBand: 1. Create a new Movie Score project 2. Drag any MPEG4 version on to the video track - an audio track will be created. 3. Once the file is through importing, delete the video track. 4. Use the Track Editor to edit the audio or edit directly in the GarageBand Timeline. ---- That's all for this week. Congratulations in advance to the contest winners! I hope you enjoy the book. I'd also like to ask that for any of you out there who already have Mastering Digital Audio Production, if you read it and enjoyed it feel free to stop by the book's Amazon.com page and write a quick review. Next week I'll be back with more helpful hints, tutorials and Internet resources for Making Music with OS X. Category: Blog -- posted at: 3:53 PM Comments[0] |
Tue, 22 May 2007 Hello and welcome to installment 8 of Making Music with OS X. This week I'll be covering some of the recent changes, updates and upgrades to some of the OS X audio programs and plug-ins I covered in my book, reviewing Digidesign's Strike virtual drum instrument and starting a two-part series on GarageBand resources and tips. Software Updates As you're probably aware things move pretty quickly in the music software world. I'm going to give you guys a quick update here on some of the recent developments concerning the software I covered in MDAP. Sample Manager and Wave Editor One of the best new programs I came across while researching the book is Sample Manager from Audiofile Engineering, which I covered in Chapter 7 "More Useful Software." If you've listened to the two part series I did on using and creating Apple Loops in episodes 5 and 6 you might have heard me mention that I've used Sample Manager as a quick way to batch convert loops and sample files, batch normalize and create cross-fades. There's been a few updates to the program since the book was released including a pretty major overhaul of the Sample Manager interface. Audiofile's Wave Editor program has also had some minor updates and bug fixes. You can find the updates and demo versions of both programs at www.audiofile-engineering.com Wave Editor Sample Manager Audacity The OS X version of the freeware audio editor Audacity has just been updated to version 1.3.3. The new version has some cool new features including the ability to import AAC and .m4a files. There's a link to the Audacity Web site on my blog page and a link to the MacMusic.org page, which details the new and fixed features for Audacity 1.3.3 Audacity Audacity page at MacMusic.org FabFilter In the book and I think on the cool demos for OS X installment of the blog I mentioned The FabFilter instruments and effects. These include the Timeless delay and the Twin virtual synth, two excellent and reasonably priced programs. These and all FabFilter instruments and effects are now available in RTAS format. FabFilter Web Site Rax One of the programs I covered in Chapter 7 "More Useful Software" was an Audio Unit host program called "Rax" from Plasq software, which I've just found out has been discontinued. Rax let you load and use Audio Unit instruments and effects outside of a DAW program. I found it to be a really useful and fun program and it was pretty cheap too. Judging from a recent message on the Plasq Web site there's a good chance that Rax will make a comeback as a product from another company soon. I'll be keeping my eyes on it. www.plasq.com Along those lines, if you're interested in a VST version of Rax you should check out the program VSTi Host, which lets you run VST instruments and effects outside of a host program. It's also got ReWire functionality, so it's possible to use it to route your VST instruments into Pro Tools. I've done this successfully myself, though it's a bit buggy. Using VSTi Host is also covered in Chapter 7 of MDAP. VSTi Host By the way - if you're thinking about getting MDAP now would be a good time to pick up a cheap copy. I've noticed that there are some used and new copies available on the right side of Amazon page for around $20-25. ---- Focus on GarageBand Pt. 1 One of the things I've noticed as I've been promoting my book is a lot of interest from folks who are using or wanting to learn more about Apple's GarageBand. So it seemed like this would be a good time to talk about some resources and tips I've found that have helped me create music (and these podcasts) with GarageBand 3. GarageBand Resources The following Web sites and forums are excellent places to find out all you need to know about using, expanding and troubleshooting GarageBand: Apple's GarageBand Forums iCompositions.com MacJams.com MacIdol.com The Garage Door Hang Time's GarageBand FAQ - Link One Hang Time's GarageBand FAQ - Link Two Mac Audio Guy MacBand.com GarageBand Books There are a number of books on GarageBand out there but as far as I can tell there are only a handful that focus specifically on GarageBand 3. Here are links to the books I've found on GarageBand 3. If you know of any others shoot me an email and I'll add them to the list. Mastering Digital Audio Production (obviously) Apple Training Series: GarageBand 3 Apple Training Series: iLife '06 GarageBand Tips and Tricks Video If you you prefer learning by video MacProVideo also has a couple of GarageBand video tutorials narrated by Paul Garay from the Inside Home Recording podcast. One is called GarageBand 101: Mastering GarageBand and the second is GarageBand 203: Podcasting in GarageBand. They're available separately or as a bundle. You can watch excerpts from the videos at www.MacProVideo.com GarageBand Bundle "Automating" Plug-in Effects Unlike the more expensive DAW programs GarageBand doesn't have plug-in automation so basically this means that if you put an effect on a track that's what you get for the whole track. I've come up with a bit of a workaround for that by duplicating my tracks tracks and then putting the effect on the duplicate track. This can be really useful for bring effects in and out of a song. 1. Create a new GarageBand Music Project. 2. Use the Loop Browser to locate any Software or Real Instrument drum loop and drag it onto a track. 3. Create a 3 measure loop. 4. Select the Track Header and choose Track > Duplicate Track 5. Use GarageBand's Split Track (Edit > Split or Apple +T) functionality to split the middle section of the track. 6. Drag the split section to the duplicate track. 7. Double click the duplicate track's Track Header to open the Track Info window and use the effects drop down menus to add a plug-in effects. Here's a screen shot of what your tracks will look like: Split Track Screen Shot You can use this same method to duplicate and split any Software or Real Instrument tracks and put an effect on a section (or sections) of any vocal or instrument performance. ReMidi Arpeggiator An arpeggio is a series of notes that make up a chord, played one after another instead of simultaneously. Some DAWs and many virtual synths have built-in arpeggiators but in GarageBand you'd need to either create your arpeggios by hand with MIDI notes or use the built-in functionality of one of your third-party synths. Another option for GarageBand users who have a MIDI keyboard is to use the ReMIDI Arpeggiator. The ReMIDI is pretty cheap - it costs $15 to register. You can try it out by using the unregistered version, which throws in random bad notes. Download ReMIDI Here are two tutorials that you can use to get started with the ReMIDI, one is a very cool way I've found to use ReMIDI's Strumming functionality to create a pretty good sounding guitar performance. ReMIDI Basics 1. Download and install ReMIDI 2. Start GarageBand then start ReMIDI 3. In GarageBand create a new Software Instrument track and in the Track Info window choose the instrument Synth Leads > Arena Run. Make sure the track is armed for recording. 3. In the ReMIDI window put a check mark in the "Active" box and select the correct MIDI source from the drop down menu. This will be whatever MIDI keyboard you are using to generate a MIDI signal. 4. At the bottom of the ReMIDI window, for "MIDI destination" select "ReMIDI virtual source." 5. In the Chord Assistant field select "One Finger" 6. From the Performance Assistant drop down menu select "arpeggiator." 7. Put a check mark in the "Latch" and "Loop" boxes. With these selected you can play any single note on your MIDI keyboard to create a looping arpeggio. You can click the Stop button at any time to stop ReMIDI. You may want to change the ReMIDI's Performance Assistant parameters as follows: Mode = Up-Down Note Interval = 1/16 Note Duration = 1/2 8. Click GarageBand's Record button to record a performance. 9. Finally, you'll want to use GarageBand's editing features to fix, loop or edit the performance. ReMIDI is a neat little program but it doesn't have a sync feature to lock it in with GarageBand. You can match the tempo to your session's tempo in the ReMIDI interface, but ultimately you'll probably find that you have to use the Track Editor to get your arpeggios to fit with your songs and sessions. ReMIDI as Virtual Guitarist ReMIDI's Strummer functionality can be used to create MIDI guitar tracks: 1. Start GarageBand and create a new Music Project 2. Click the Track Header of the default piano track and choose the Guitars > Electric Tremolo instrument. Make sure the track is armed for recording. 3. Start ReMIDI. 4. Put a check mark in the "Active" box. 5. In the ReMIDI window select the correct MIDI source from the drop down menu. This will be whatever MIDI keyboard you are using to generate a MIDI signal. 6. At the bottom of the ReMIDI window, for "MIDI destination" select "ReMIDI virtual source." 7. Select "Strummer" from the Performance Assistant drop down menu. 8. Use your MIDI keyboard to play the chords. Use the slider to adjust between quick or slow strumming. 9. Click GarageBand's Record button to record a performance. Using Virtual Drums in GarageBand One of limitations of GarageBand is in the way it handles using the MIDI drag feature that's found in many virtual drum programs. BFD, Addictive Drums EZ Player and other virtual drum instruments all contain the ability to drag a MIDI pattern directly from the plug-in's interface on to a MIDI or Instrument track. This can be really helpful for quickly creating drum sequences. You can build arrangements by finding a pattern you like or creating a new one in the plug-ins interface, then dragging the pattern directly on to the track that is triggering the drum instrument. GarageBand doesn't give you this option. Dragging a MIDI file from the plug-in's interface will create a new Software Instrument track that for some reason defaults to the Pop Flute instrument. What you can do at this point is to drag the MIDI loop from the Pop Flute track onto the track that's triggering your drum instrument. If none of this is making sense to you here's a quick tutorial using Izotope's iDrum virtual drum machine: If you don't have iDrum already installed go to www.izotope.com and download and install the 10 day trial demo. The iDrum demo is also on the included DVD that comes with MDAP. 1. Create a new GarageBand Music Project session 2. Create a new Software Instrument Track 3. Click the Track Header to open the Track Info window 4. Choose iDrum from the Generator drop down menu 5. Click the Edit Preset button to view the iDrum interface. 6. Locate the MIDI Drag button on the bottom right of the iDrum interface. 7. Click the MIDI Drag button and drag the MIDI file on to the GarageBand timeline. 8. Move the MIDI pattern from the Pop Flute track to the iDrum track. 9. Delete the Pop Flute track. 10. Click the folder icon on the top left the iDrum Interface and choose "Clear Entire Pattern" from the pop-up menu. Otherwise you'll be hearing both the triggered pattern and the pattern in iDrum, which creates a "washy" sound. 11. Create a new pattern in iDrum and use the MIDI Drag to drag the new pattern on to the GarageBand Timeline. Once again, drag the pattern from the newly created Pop Flute track on to the iDrum track and delete the Pop Flute track. 13. Choose "Clear Entire Pattern" again in iDrum. Using this method you can drag as many different MIDI patterns as you want in iDrum and use them to create simple or complex drum sequences. As I mentione previously programs such as BFD, EZ Player and Addictive Drums also contain the same kinds of MIDI Drag functionality. ---- Digidesign Strike A few episodes ago I mentioned that I'd be buying either Addictive Drums or BFD soon. Well, it turns out that I didn't. I was messing around at the studio after a session last weekend and noticed that someone had installed Digidesign's Strike virtual drum program. I hadn't really thought about this as an option, mostly because I'm not a big fan of plug-ins that can only be in one program and since Strike is made by Digidesign it's available only in RTAS format, for Pro Tools 7 and higher. I wasn't too impressed with the audio demos I'd heard either. It's still a bit early in the game for me with this plug-in but I think it's really amazing. Setup was pretty smooth and the programs main interface is easy to understand. My big thing is adding lots of room sound to get a more realistic, dirty rock n' roll drum sound and Strike makes that very easy with well-placed knobs that let you bring in more overheads and room mics and lower the close mic'ing settings. They even have a Talkback mic knob that probably makes most engineers go "ugh" but is exactly what I've been looking for in this kind of plug-in. Within 3 or 4 hours I had an early version of the kit I plan to use and had created or altered the patterns I need for the demos I'll be working on this summer. Once I get clear as to what the differences are in the various settings groups My only complaints are that Strike doesn't have the range of sounds that Addictive Drums has and it doesn't seem to have the realism of BFD. Instead of going in to too much more detail, here a link to the review from www.groovesmag.com that tipped the scales for me. After buying and using Strike for a bit I can pretty much say that Casey Rea, who wrote this review, really hit the nail on the head: Groovesmag.com Strike Review ---- That's all for this week - thanks for stopping by! -Cliff Email: "cliff at mmwosx dot com" Category: Blog -- posted at: 10:12 PM Comments[0] |
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Mon, 14 May 2007 Welcome to installment 7 of Making Music with OS X. This week I'm going to do a quick recap of episode one's introduction, continue to relentlessly promote my book, talk about a bit about virtual amplification and introduce a new semi-regular feature called the Cheap Software Spotlight.Recap I haven't mentioned this in a few episodes and I know there are some new readers and listeners out there. So if you are new to this blog and podcast and especially if you're new to digital audio in general, I suggest going back and reading/listening to episodes one and two, where I cover some of the basic information you'll need to get the most out of this podcast and blog. Most of the podcast episodes are in enhanced AAC format so if you listen in iTunes you'll see links to some of the programs and the different stuff I'll be talking about in the Show Artwork display on the lower left of your iTunes window. This blog is basically each week's episode in written format with all of the links and sometimes more in-depth tutorials. Also, in episode 1 and 2 I covered some basic information about plug-in formats and installing and using virtual instruments and plug-in effects. So if you're new here they're definitely worth checking out. New Web Site/Free Sample Chapter If you haven't seen the interim blog entry from last week, I've got a new web site up for my book Mastering Digital Audio Production (and for the podcast) at www.MasteringDigitalAudio.com. You can check out the book's table of contents, the index and even download all of Chapter 9 "Virtual Instruments". If you've been listening to or reading previous installments of MMwOSX then you might be be especially interested in this, since Chapter 9 covers a lot of the things I've been talking about here, but in more detail. So, along those lines, today I'm going to talk about something else you learn more about in Chapter 9, virtual amplification... Virtual Amplification First off, I think I'm going to this opportunity amend a statement I made in the book. There's a sidebar on page 399 called "Problems With Virtual Amplification," and the last sentence reads "...if replicating analog guitar recordings is your goal, you are probably better off investing in the ability to record live guitars." I'm not so sure about this anymore. Part of why I wrote that was based on my personal experience up to that point of tracking guitars with virtual amps. I create a lot of different styles of music, often using virtual amps and sometimes with pretty good results. At the same time a lot my focus for much of the last few years has been playing in a punk/rock n roll band called the Black Furies. For the kind of music we play virtual anything is pretty much out of the question. So while I've used virtual amp plug-ins for band demos I've never tried using them in live recording sessions. The band's been out of commission for a bit, but this weekend we got together in the studio started working on some new material. After reading some interviews with engineers who are getting really good, natural sounds with virtual amps I decided to give it a shot myself this weekend, using AmpliTube 2. Judging by the sound of most virtual amp presets it seems like they're aimed at people who are looking for a more processed guitar tone. I've tried out just about every virtual amplifier out there and I've yet to find many presets that I'd even consider using, especially for straight ahead rock n roll. On the other hand, scrolling through presets can be a good way to get an idea of what a plug-in is capable of. - and inspiration. I realize that what constitutes a "good" guitar tone is an incredibly subjective thing. For me, the sounds I'm trying to emulate have been very elusive with plug-ins. For the kind of music we play I'm looking to emulate guys like Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols and Johnny Ramone - essentially the sound of a guitar being played directly through an amp. I think it's kind of ironic that the simplest thing to accomplish with a "live" set up seems to be one of the hardest to get at with a virtual set-up. The way that I've found that work best for me is to start with a preset that's close to what I'm looking for. Once I've found a sound that could work, the first thing I'll do is go in and find any effects and delete them or turn them off. AmpliTube 2 also has a very cool set of presets called "Pure Amps," which are just that - no effects. Using Amplitube 2's "Loud 30" and "British Lead 1" presets as starting points I'll then check out the various settings that are available for modification. Higher end virtual amps such as Amplitube and Native Instruments Guitar Rig let you choose all sorts of different configurations, including amplifier, cabinet, microphone and microphone placement. Finding the right combination can take some time, once I got one I like or might use I'll save it a preset. I've found that you can never have too many presets, even if many contain only really small differences. One of the best things about working with virtual amps is the ability to record something and then alter it slightly or significantly, depending on what works best for the song at hand. It took a while but in the end I was able to get some pretty good raw guitar sounds. And with the presets saved it'll be a lot faster for future sessions. I have to say though, I really missed the part of the session, usually a few hours in, when a tube amp starts to get warmed up and you really start to notice the sound improving. Something I don't think they'll be able to build into a plug-in any time soon Here's a demo we recorded this weekend of the punk classic 12XU by Wire using AmpliTube 2: 12XU AmpliTube 2 is available in a 10 day limited use demo version. Since I wrote the tutorial in Chapter 9 it looks like they've eliminated the need for a USB key to use the demo. Here's some other great virtual amplifiers for OS X: Native Instruments Guitar Rig 2 Waves GTR Nomad Factory Rock Amp Legends Your DAW's Built-In Amps Almost without exception I've found that the virtual amplification that comes with many of today's DAW program's is not that great. I generally try and avoid these altogether, but I will use them in a pinch or for a quick demo. I'll use the same strategy here. For example, I've done some stuff recently using GarageBand's built-in amp simulation, including that Survivalism remix I posted here a few weeks ago. Basically I just plugged directly into the G5's line-in and tried out the different presets, eventually settling on "Barroom Lead." I turned of the preset's reverb (why do so many virtual amp presets include reverb? It sounds terrible...) and saved it so I could use the same settings to double the guitars on a second track. Guitar Combos One nice alternative for folks like me who are looking for a simple, direct guitar tone are Native Instruments Guitar Combos. These are three very nice, simple plug-in's, each based on a different classic amp, Marshall Plexi, Fender Twin Reverb and Vox AC30. These have actually been discontinued by NI but they are still available from a lot of places. In fact, they may even be cheaper now that they're not officially available. I've seen them at zzounds.com about 60 bucks. Guitar Combos on zzounds.com Chapter 9 has more information on Amplitube 2, Guitar Rig and other virtual amps: www.MasteringDigitalAudio.com Cheap Software Spotlight Here's something new that I'm going to try - spotlighting one piece of inexpensive but worthwhile software every week or two. I got thrown for a loop as I was sitting down to write this first one, because I was planning on inaugurating the Cheap Software Spotlight by talking about Native Instruments B4 Xpress, the light version of NI's amazing B4 virtual organ. B4 Xpress was a part of the Xpress Keyboards package, which was about a $100 and included a light version of the Pro 53 and the FM7. Unfortunately (especially for me since I mentioned it in the book) the Xpress Keyboards package has been discontinued. I wasn't a big fan of the other two instruments but the B4 Xpress was great, especially if you were looking for a few excellent classic organ tones but didn't really need the full version of B4. And it was available as a download on it's own for $49. I did find a boxed version of the whole package on eBay for a little over $100. Ahh, well. I guess I ended up talking about the B4 Xpress anyway. Lounge Lizard Session The Lounge Lizard Session ($99) is a virtual electric piano from Applied Acoustics and a light version of the Lounge Lizard EP-3 ($249). Like the B4 Xpress, the Lounge Lizard Session is a great alternative for someone whose looking to add some high quality sounds to their sonic pallette without breaking the bank. The LLS works as an AU, VST and RTAS (Pro Tools 7+ only) plug-in and can also be used as a standalone instrument. As with just about every electric piano plug-in, the Lounge Lizard Session has settings that replicate the familiar classic sounds of Rhodes and Wurlitzer instruments. The main difference between the Session version and the EP-3 is programmability, so if that's something that's important for you you might want to check out the EP-3. The Lounge Lizard Session also has fewer options for using the plug-in's built-in effects but that's kind of a non-issue since your DAW probably has plenty of effects available. If you decide later that you want to purchase the more full-featured LL EP-3, you can upgrade at any time for another $149. Lounge Lizard Session at www.applied-acoustics.com That's all for this week - thanks for stopping by! -Cliff Email: "cliff at mmwosx dot com" Category: Blog -- posted at: 9:47 PM Comments[0] |
Tue, 8 May 2007 I've got a new website up for Mastering Digital Audio Production: The Professional Music Workflow with Mac OS X and the Making Music with OS X podcast and blog.You can take a look at the book's table of contents and index and even download all of Chapter 9 "Virtual Instruments." Also - any magazine writers, digital audio webmasters, podcasters and school instructors can use the resources links to request a free review or evaluation copy of the book! Check it out: www.MasteringDigitalAudio.com Category: Blog -- posted at: 3:21 PM Comments[0] |
Sat, 5 May 2007 Hello and welcome to installment 6 of Making Music with OS X. This week I'm going to cover some of my methods for creating Apple Loops, the many different options available for creating drum tracks in OS X DAWs and a bit about the history of digital audio. If you've been reading or listening to any previous installments you've probably figured out by now that I have book for sale. After proofreading this week's installment I'm thinking about getting a sound effect for the podcast, so that instead of actually mentioning the book I'll just trigger a bell sample or some other sound in place of me saying "and by the way...I cover this in much more detail in my book..." Apple Loops Pt.2 - Creating Apple Loops In my book (ding!) I detail some of the processes you can use to create Apple (AIF) Loops and Acid (WAV) format loops using Reason, Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton Live and GarageBand. Generally this consists of creating a one or two measure section of music (which could be a drum loop, an instrument loop or a sound effect) and then using the export functionality of whatever program you're working in to export an AIF or WAV file. Logic and GarageBand have built-in functionality that allows you to automatically add any loops you create within a session to their Loop Browsers. I prefer not to use this for a number of reasons, which I'll get to in a minute. Ableton Live 6 and Logic Pro both contain the ability to export sections of audio as loops while Reason, Logic Express and Pro Tools can also be used for loop creation by using selecting a section of audio, soloing it's track and using their export or "bounce" features to render the audio. The main reason I don't like to add loops directly to the GarageBand and Logic Loop Browsers from within my sessions is that I prefer to have more control over my loops, especially loops I create myself. What I mean by this is that I like to make sure the volume levels are consistent and make sure they are edited properly. Also, since I use my loops in multiple programs I like to keep them organized in my own way and not be dependent on GarageBand and Logic's not always perfect Loop Browsers to find what I'm looking for. As far as the mechanics of creating loops goes, I hvae three basic ways that I work and these can be used in any DAW. Drum Loop Mode. This is pretty straightforward - I add a virtual drum kit to a track, possibly using Battery, iDrum or one of the built-in kits or samplers that you'll find in most DAWs these days. Then I create a drum pattern and use my DAWs loop functionality to play the pattern back. Much of your success in creating drum loops depends on the sounds or kits you use and your ability to program drums. Once I have a drum beat that i like, I'll export it as an AIF or WAV file. Drum loops rarely require much editing after the fact. Once you get the basics down you can create a lot of drum loops quickly. One trick I like to use is to create a drum loop using one kit, then switch to an entirely different kit but keeping the beat I've created in place. You could do something similar in GarageBand by loading a Software Instrument drum loop and then using the Track Info window to switch kits. Single Instrument Mode. My second method of working is to have a have a specific instrument in mind that I want to create loops of. For example, I may sit down and say "today I am going to create dub-style guitar loops." I'll then create a new session in my DAW add a drum loop that complements the style or instrument and then play my virtual or real instrument over the drum loop. Once I have a 2, 4 or 8 bar section or sections of music that I like, I'll solo the instrument track, select a section and export a loop. Song Mode. Probably my favorite way to work is to create an actual song or musical piece, adding elements as I go. Sometimes when I'm strapped for ideas I might start with someone else's loop or melody then build something around that by adding my own bass, drums, guitars, synths etc. At some point in the process I'll take out all of the un-original elements and then continue working on my own parts. Finally I'll solo each track, select sections and export them as individual, original loops. Now What? After my loops are exported there are a few more things that have to happen - normalization, cross-fading and adding the Apple Loop metadata. The first two are done in an audio editor, the third by using the Apple Loops Utility. Normalization is the process of making the loop as loud as possible without clipping (distorting). This is an important step if you want to have a collection of volume consistent loops. Ableton Live has normalization built-in to the exporting process, but with other program's it's necessary to use an outside audio editing program. I use AudioFinder to normalize my loops but it's something that can be done in just about any audio editing program. After normalization I then cross-fade all of my loops. Cross-fading helps create a seamless loop, without any of the pops or clicks you'll often hear at the end of a poorly created loop. Cross-fading is basically creating a extremely (and I do mean extremely) quick, inaudible fade-out at the beginning and end of a loop. Cross-fading is something I also do in AudioFinder but like normalization, can be accomplished in any audio editing program. Some audio editors will have built-in cross-fading functionality. The basic method I use for cross-fading is to zoom in at the end of track as much as possible and then create a very quick fade-out. If necessary, I then use the same method to create a fade-in at the beginning. It's very important that these fades be so quick as to be inaudible. Here's a list of some free, mid-priced and expensive audio editors for OS X: Audacity AudioFinder Wave Editor Peak LE Peak Pro Sound Studio I've also found the program Sample Manager to be extremely useful for normalizing, cross-fading and also batch converting loops. The Apple Loops Utility The last step in creating an Apple Loop is using the Apple Loops Utility. This tool is available for free from Apple as part of the Apple Loops Developers Kit: Download the Apple Loops SDK here. Or Click Here and scroll down the page to download the Apple Loops SDK. The Apple Loops Utility is used to add the metadata that turns an AIF file into an Apple Loop. With the Apple Loops Utility you can change loop files into one-shots or one-shots to loop files, assign the keywords used to find the file in the GarageBand and Logic Loop Browsers, double the loop's default tempo or cut it in half. You can also use it to set the markers that decide how and where loop is sliced. The Apple Loops Utility can convert any AIF or WAV file into an Apple Loop and it can be used to batch convert and assign metadata to multiple files at once. If you are interested in finding out more about the Apple Loops Utility, I cover using it in detail in Chapter 10 of my book. (ding!). Virtual Drums for OS X When it comes to creating music in the digital environment few aspects of the process are as cool and simultaneously frustrating and confusing as creating virtual drum tracks. There's a pretty amazing range of options at your disposal today, including creating your tracks with drum loops, using a virtual sampler or virtual drum machine. The fairly recent addition of the virtual drummer has been an incredible opportunity for those of us who may not have the greatest drumming or programming chops but would still like to have access to live, human sounding performances in our home studios. All of these options require a bit of a learning curve but I've found the rewards of taking the time to learn as much as possible are well worth the effort. First off, many DAWs come with virtual drum kits or samplers that can load virtual drums as part of the program. Pretty much across the board I've found that they all seem to be lacking in some area, whether it's choice of sounds or ease of use. That said, GarageBand's built in kits, Live's Impulse drum machine and Logic's EXS24 sampler are all perfectly good options for creating decent drum tracks, especially if you are working in genres that don't necessarily require "live" sounding drums. Another option is to use virtual samplers such as Kontakt and SampleTank as plug-in virtual instruments. These kinds of sampler will come with a number of drum kits and expansion packs are always available for any virtual sampler. One of my most frequent "go to" tools for creating drum tracks is Reason. Using ReWire to route Reason into any DAW, you can access all of the included drum kits. There are also lots of ReFills available with drum samples and complete kits for the Redrum drum machine and the other built-in samplers. While there isn't much you can't do with Reason, my experience has been that for live sounding drums Reason isn't always the best choice, though with the time, effort and the right kits or samples Reason could certainly get the job done. Drum Machines Vs. Samplers I want to take a minute here to cover the difference between using a virtual drum machine and using a sampler. A virtual drum machine, like Reason's included Redrum and Izotope's iDrum (which I'll get to in a minute) can load individual samples to create drum kits. For example you could create a kit using a kick drum sample, a snare drum, a hi-hat and a ride cymbal. You can then use the the program's built-in functionality to play a pattern. Within the program, or using your DAW's MIDI editing features you can perform basic adjustments, such as how hard each sample is triggered. This can be good for creating a more realistic performance but it can only go so far. In reality, very different sounds are made when a drum is hit softly compared to when it's hit with more force. Multi-sample drum kits, such as those you'd load into Reason's NN-XT or NN19 samplers or Kontakt or SampleTank 2 will contain multiple drum hits that are assigned to the same MIDI note. A note with a harder velocity will trigger the sound of a drum being hit with force, a MIDI note with a softer velocity will trigger a very different, quieter sound. Using intricately multi-sampled drums is crucial to getting a realistic sounding virtual drum track. Battery 3 is an example of a sampler that is specifically built for working with drums. iDrum One program is one that I highly recommend if you're in the market for a cheap but effective virtual drum machine is iDrum. iDrum works as an Audio Unit and as an RTAS plug-in and the price is right - $69.99 from www.izotope.com. iDrum also works as a standalone, which makes it a great tool for messing around and creating and exporting drum loops. I do have some minor complaints about iDrum. First of all, the drum kits and patterns that come with iDrum are not particularly appealing to me but that's really a matter of personal taste. I'd like to see a blank or empty kit included on the list of available kits, because on of the real strengths of iDrum (to me anyway) is the ability to load your own sounds and sample to create your own kits. In my book (ding!) I cover the process of creating a default blank kit, as well as some other simple but effective ways to use iDrum in your DAW. I've found iDrum to be useful working in just about any style. It also has a very cool MIDI drag feature that allows you to create a pattern and then drag the MIDI file directly from the iDrum interface onto a track in your DAW. This is something else I cover in my book (ding!) and it can really come in handy for creating easy or difficult drum arrangements. BFD and Addictive Drums My next purchase is going to be one or the other of these programs so I've been working with both demos pretty extensively. As I mentioned last week, one very cool thing about the BFD and Addictive Drums demos is that they contain all of the features of the full versions of these programs and they don't time out. The main limitation is that the demos come with a limited number of drum sounds and MIDI files. These, and the other programs I list at the bottom of this section are your best bet for creating real, human sounding drum tracks. Because both BFD and Addictive Drums use up a huge amount of RAM they may not be the right solution for project studios that don't have a lot of RAM installed. I've used the BFD demo sucessfully on my iBook with only 512 MB or RAM by using Ableton Live's "freeze track" option. Freezing a track renders the track to your hard drive, freeing up your processor resources and RAM. Logic and GarageBand both have similar functionality. The full version of both programs come with huge drum libraries so you'll also need a lot of extra room or an external hard drive to store the samples and kits. The main thing I love about BFD is how easy it is to control the different microphone sounds, especially the ability to bring the room mics up for a more natural sound. If there's a downside it's that the BFD interface is pretty confusing. This is not a program you can use without reading at least some of the manual (or at least the tutorial in my book that covers a quick way to get BFD up and running in your DAW). The upside of this is that BFD has a ton of features, so if you have the time and the inclination, then there's a lot to work with here. Addictive Drums definitely has the advantage over BFD when it comes to ease of use. It took me a very short amount of time to figure out how to get it going. It's a much more intuitive interface. I also like the included example kits that show how the program's effects can be used to drastically alter the sound of a kit or single piece. Comparing the sound of the two instruments based on the demo versions is a bit unfair, since the full version of each program comes with many, many more sounds. In reading about both programs and various users opinions I've come to the conclusion that it's really a matter of personal taste. In general. users of each program seem to swear by whichever one they own. Addictive Drums costs about $250. The new version of BFD is coming soon and as result the current version is on sale right now for around $200. Addictive Drums BFD Some other options for creating realistic sounding drum tracks included: EZ-Drummer - VST, AU, RTAS Strike - RTAS only Groove Agent - VST, AU, RTAS One last note - if you're music is more in the electronic, soundtrack or ambient styles you should definitely check out Guru or Stylus RMX. Battery and EZ-Player Free I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I just bought Native Instruments Battery 3 drum sampler. Battery is not a virtual drum machine or drummer - it's a pretty complex virtual drum sampler, but it doesn't have any of it's own internal sequencing abilities. The big selling point for me was that it comes with 13 GB of drum samples along with extensive editing options. If you've got the skills and are comfortable enough to program your own beats Battery 3 is a great choice and a good deal. I found a brand new, unopened copy of Battery 3 on eBay for about $170 (not the Academic version, either). Since my drum programming skills still need a lot of work, I've found that what's working best for me right now is using pre-created MIDI files to trigger Battery. Along those lines I've found an excellent new tool called EZ Player Free. EZ Player Free lets you take any MIDI file on your computer and easily route it to any Virtual instrument. For example, with EZ Player Free you can use the MIDI files that come with BFD to trigger Addictive Drums or you could use the MIDI files that come with Addictive Drums to trigger Reason or Battery. Download EZ Player Free I've been using EZ Player Free mostly with Pro Tools and Live and it took me about 3 minutes to get it working in each program. The manual is very easy to follow and also includes instructions for Cubase, Logic and Digital Performer. To try out EZ Player Free free I suggest downloading the Battery 3 demo as well as Addictive Drums, and/or the BFD demo. The Battery 3 and BFD demos are also on my book's included DVD (ding!). Once you've installed all three programs start your DAW, then following the instructions in the EZ Player Free manual, add Battery and EZ Player Free to your session. Use EZ Player Free's interface to locate and add the BFD's included MIDI files to the program's browser. You can click the play button on the lower right of the interface to play any selected MIDI file or you can drag MIDI files directly from the browser on to your DAW's MIDI tracks. I've been having a blast using MIDI files from various programs to trigger some of Battery 3's stranger drum kits. You can also buy MIDI drum loop collections from the following sources and and them to the EZ Player Free browser: Prosonic Loops Smart Loops Groove Monkee History of Digital Audio Last Monday night I attended an event at the Recombinant Media Labs here in San Francisco honoring Max Mathews, one of the pioneers of digital audio. Some of you probably know who Max Mathews is, but if you've never heard of him that's not too surprising either. I was only somewhat aware of who and just how important he is to the history of digital audio. I did know that he was the Max that the Max/MSP programming environment was named after and I had a vague idea why. If you are wondering what Max/MSP is, it's a programming environment that can be used to create digital audio and video applications, including many audio plug-ins - the Pluggo suite of plug-ins I mentioned in episode one are just one example. Before I went to the event I decided to read up on Max (the person) and what I found out was that while working at Bell Labs in the 1950's he was one of the first people to write a program that made music with a computer. Most of todays virtual instruments and digital music programs can be traced directly back to the work and experimentation of Max Mathews and his contemporaries. He was also the first person to ever make a computer "sing," and his experiments sound an awful lot like the results of the tutorial I wrote back in Episode 4 of this blog. Max's experiments and recordings of his computer singing "Daisy" were the inspiration for the HAL computer's voice and singing in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. What this event and the research I've been inspired by it to do made me realize is that I don't know nearly as much as I should about the history of the digital audio or about the evolution of the concepts and the technology behind the programs I'm using. My guess is that this is probably true for many people out there. Just the small amount of research and reading I've been doing over the last few days has given me a lot of great insight into how things work and how some musicians have been using this technology in interesting and creative ways. Just one example - I had no idea that two of my favorite bands, Radiohead and Wilco had used instruments they created themselves in the Max/MSP environment on their recordings. I've put some links on my blog that are relevant to the past, present and future of digital audio. If you are interested, I'm sure there's a ton of other resources out there as well. Computer Music Max Mathews MUSIC-N Csound Max/MSP Bell Labs John Chowning Miller Puckette The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music Electronic Music Pioneers Wendy Carlos Robert Moog Well, that's all for now. Next week...I have no idea what I'm going to talk about. -Cliff www.clifftruesdell.com Email: "cliff at mmwosx dot com" Category: Blog -- posted at: 10:29 PM Comments[0] |
Wed, 2 May 2007 Just a quick follow-up to my "What's in the Book?" post. Here's a
complete list of the demos, applications, plug-ins, samples, and
loops that are on the included DVD that comes with "Mastering Digital Audio Production: The Professional Music Workflow with Mac OS X."Ableton Live 6 Native Instruments' Absynth 4 Arturia's Analog Factory Audacity AudioFinder AVOX Plug-ins (Choir, Duo, Punch, Sybil, Throat) Native Instruments' Battery 3 Fxpansion's BFD Buzzer CamelCrusher Cameleon 5000 Camel Phat Camel Space DestroyFX (11 free plug-ins!) Finale Notepad Guitar Pro Fxpansion's Guru iDrum Bias Peak LE Bias Peak Pro PlugAdmin Pluggo Jr. Native Instruments' Reaktor 5 Sibelius Sonic Birth SoundToys Plug-ins Universal UVI player WireTap Pro and Zoyd Plus free loops, samples and ReFills from AudioWarrior, GDrive, Drums on Demand, Flatpack, Loopmasters, Sonic Flavors and Sonivox. Category: Blog -- posted at: 11:12 PM Comments[0] |
Tue, 1 May 2007 Welcome to installment 5 of MMwOSX. First off, a quick update to last week's episode. Nine Inch Nails have just released 3 more tracks - this time in GarageBand 3 and Logic format. For Pro Tools, Digital Performer, Cubase and PC users they've also released "generic format" versions. All of the new songs are available at www.nin.com/current. My first NIN remix is here:Survivalism Also, I have a very close, old friend in Los Angeles named Michael W. Dean who's a writer, a filmmaker, a musician and along with his lovely wife Debra Jean, he's now a podcaster. Michael and Debra Jean have got a very interesting (and sometimes adult-themed) podcast called "Clone The Homeless" and episode 38 features Michael and Debra Jean interviewing me (actually it's more of a conversation, really). It was a lot of fun and we talked about a pretty wide range of stuff. You can find Michael and Debra Jean's podcast here: Clone The Homeless Reaktor 5 As I mentioned last week, I just bought Native Instruments' Reaktor 5 program. Buying new software is always a tough call for me, especially expensive software like Reaktor. Even though I make it a habit to work extensively with demos whenever I can, sometimes there's really no way to know for sure how well a program, plug-in or virtual instrument is going to work for you until you start using it for real sessions or projects. What finally tipped the scales for me with Reaktor was that I noticed a pretty significant price drop on zzounds.com. From what I've seen in a few forums recently the general consensus is that Native Instruments is probably getting ready to release Reaktor 6 soon, which may explain why I was able to find version 5 for much less than the list price of $449. Even if Reaktor 6 is coming soon (and there's really no way to know for sure) it's still a good deal, since the upgrade for Native Instruments' Software is usually around $100-$125. If you've been thinking about getting Reaktor check out: www.zzounds.com What Reaktor Can Do Reaktor is not like any other music program. Along with Propellerheads' Reason it's probably the most in-depth collection of virtual instruments and effects available in one package. Like Reason you can combine instruments and effects, but unlike Reason you can also load and use any single Reaktor instrument or effect, either by itself or within a session in your DAW host program. Here are just some of the things you can do with Reaktor: Use the included instruments and effects as standalone units or as plug-ins in your DAW host program. The instruments include synths, samplers, rhythm machines and more. Download and use any of the thousands of user-created instruments and effects. Configure your own "Ensembles" by combining and saving multiple instruments and effects. Build your own instruments, effects and Ensembles from scratch or from Reaktor's included modules. Reaktor's unique ability to "get under the hood" of the included instruments and effects and the ability to build your own from scratch, make it an amazing learning tool for understanding what goes into creating synthesizers and both real-world and virtual electronic instruments. The Bad News If you've done any research at all into Reaktor you probably know what I'm going to say here. This program can be a giant RAM hog. There are thousands of instruments to choose from and some of the more complicated ones can easily take up huge amounts your processors resources. At the same time, there are plenty of included and downloadable instruments and effects that will work without maxing out your system. The system requirements say you need at least 512MB of RAM. I would suggest having at least 1 GB, especially if you are planning on using Reaktor as part of any sessions that contain other virtual instruments and plug-ins. The other common gripe is that the included manual leaves a lot to be desired. I've started working with the manual about a week ago now and it's pretty confusing and frustrating, especially when it come to learning to build your own instruments. For just using the included instruments and effects you can get up to speed pretty quickly, but for anything more complicated a better manual or tutorial movies would be a big improvement. Working with the Demo Version If you're considering buying Reaktor or you're just interested in seeing what the program can do you should check out the demo version. The demo's limitations are that it times out after 30 minutes, you can't save and you can't download or use any of the user created instruments and effects. It's also a pretty big download. The Reaktor 5 demo is also included (along with 4GB of other programs, loops and plug-ins) on the DVD that comes with my book. Here's a quick tutorial on using Reaktor 5 as a plug-in VI in your host DAW program. Using Reaktor's Included Synthesizers Reaktor works as an RTAS, VST and Audio Unit plug-in any host program that utilizes these formats. This means you can access all of Reaktor's ensembles, instruments and effects in Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Logic and GarageBand and just about any other DAW host program. Once you've installed Reaktor or the Reaktor demo here's how to use Reaktor in Pro Tools, Logic, Live and GarageBand. Using Reaktor in Pro Tools Too add a Reaktor Instrument to a Pro Tools (7 or higher) session: 1. Create a new Pro Tools Session and add a stereo Instrument Track. 2. Make sure Instrument and Inserts view are visible (use View > Edit Window if they are not). 3. Add Reaktor as an insert by choosing multi-channel plug-in > Instrument > Reaktor5. 4. Click the Ens. (Ensemble) button on the top right of the Reaktor interface and select Factory Ensembles>Classics>Synthesizers in the Browser. 5. Double click any Ensemble to add it to your session. 6. Use your MIDI keyboard to play the synth or use Pro Tools Pencil tool to draw notes on the MIDI track. To add Reaktor as a plug-in effect in a Pro Tools session: 1. Create a new Audio track or select an existing track with audio recorded. 2. Add Reaktor as an insert by choosing multi-channel plug-in > Instrument > Reaktor5. 3. Click the Open Ensemble button on the lower right side of the plug-in window. 4. Choose Factory Ensembles > Classics > Effects then choose an effect. 5. Choose from included presets or create your own by adjusting the parameters of the effect. Saving any changes you make as a preset in Pro Tools will allow you to recall instruments, effects and complete ensembles instantly. Using Reaktor in Logic Reaktor works as an Audio Unit plug-in effect or virtual instrument in Logic. To use the Reaktor synthesizers in Logic: 1. Create a new Logic session. 2. Double click any Audio Instrument track to open the Track Mixer. 3. Select the first open Audio Instrument track and add Reaktor as an insert in the tracks I/O by selecting Stereo > AU Instruments > Native Instruments > Reaktor5. 4. Click the Ens. (Ensemble) button on the top right of the Reaktor interface and select Factory Ensembles > Classics > Synthesizers in the Browser. 5. Load one of the included Reaktor synthesizers by double-clicking in the Browser window. 6. Use your MIDI keyboard or the Caps Lock keyboard to trigger the Reaktor synth. Adjust the parameters of the synth or choose any of the included presets. 7. Record a performance as you would with any Logic virtual instrument or third party Audio Unit. Using Reaktor in Live Reaktor can be used as either an Audio Unit or VST plug-in in Ableton Live. To add a Reaktor synth as an Audio Unit to a Live session: 1. Use the plug-in device browser to locate the folder Plug-in Devices > Audio Units > Native Instruments 2. Drag the Audio Unit Reaktor 5 onto any open MIDI track or any blank space in the Clip/Device Drop Area. 3. Click the Ens. (Ensemble) button on the top right of the Reaktor interface and select Factory Ensembles>Classics>Synthesizers in the Browser. 4. Select and load an Ensemble from the Synthesizer folder. 5. Click the Arm For Recording button in the Mixer Section at the bottom of the track. 6. Use your MIDI controller or the Apple keyboard to play the Reaktor instrument. 7. Record a performance or use the MIDI note editor to create a new clip. You can also use Reaktor's included effects by using Live's Browser to locate Plug-in Devices > Audio Units > Native Instruments>Reaktor 5 fx and drag that onto any Audio or MIDI track. Using Reaktor in GarageBand 1. Create a new GarageBand Session 2. Select New Instrument Track and choose Software Instrument. 3. Double click the Track Header to open the Track Info window. Make sure the Details view is showing in the Track Info window. 4. Choose Reaktor 5 from the Generator drop down menu at the top of the Details view. 5. Click the Edit Preset button to open the Reaktor interface. 6. Click the Ens. (Ensemble) button on the top right of the Reaktor interface and select Factory Ensembles>Classics>Synthesizers in the Browser. 7. Double click any instrument to load it, then play the instrument using your MIDI keyboard or GarageBand's Musical Typing feature. Apple Loops, Pt. 1 Apple Loops are Apple's loop format, originally created for use with the Soundtrack program (now only available with Final Cut) and then incorporated into both the GarageBand and Logic programs. Apple Loops are basically AIF files with a bit of extra information encoded in the file that can include the tempo, how the loop is stretched or compressed and orginizational information, such as genre or descriptive keywords. Any program that can use Apple Loops can also use their PC equivalent, Acid Loops. Acid Loops are WAV files that contain essentially the same type or extra information. Depending on what program you are using Appl e Loops and Acid Loops may behave a bit differently. I cover working with Apple, Acid and REX format loops is much more detail in Chapter 10 of my book, and I'll be going into more detail next week about creating Apple Loops. Working with Apple Loops I've been creating music with loops for a long time now. Just about all of the music that you hear between segments on this podcast is created with a combination of Apple Loops, Acid Loops and my own original loops, working GarageBand, Ableton Live and Logic. Over the years I've found some good methods to help me in creating good sounding loop-based music: Buy some loops. First of all it's really important to start with good quality stuff, and this means you'll probably have to buy a few loop libraries. There are huge amounts of free and demo loops out there and when I was getting started I spent a lot of time working only with demo loops and loops I downloaded from free sites. Ultimately the result was that I made a lot of bad sounding music and then found out that there were many, many other people out there using exactly the same loops I was to create their own bad sounding music. I suggest doing lots of research and downloading of demos., then purchasing a few loop libraries that are high-quality and sound good to you. Here are couple places you can start: My Loop Resources Page DMOZ List of Sample and Loop Sites Mix it up. Try not to use more that one or two loops from the same Library in a single session. Drawing on a number of sources for your projects is a good way to maintain originality. I'll use a drum loop from one library, a synth loop from another, maybe a guitar from a third. And then... Add original content. Unless I'm just messing around for fun or checking out a new library I almost never create music entirely based on other people's loops. I'll often start with a drum beat (I use a lot of drum loops) then look for a melody, a hook or a chord progression to go on top of that. Once that's done I'll either add a virtual instrument to the session and create some original content, plug-in a guitar or bass and play along or browse through my collection of homemade loops. On a side note - in particular, I almost always create my own bass lines using a virtual instrument or live bass. I've found that bass loops in particular don't stretch very well, and that as the foundation of a song it's very important to have a solid groove that's built specifically around the drum pattern and supports the melody. Use loops at close to their original tempo. Stretching a loop too much can lead to unwanted sonic artifacts. Sometimes this can be used to your advantage, creating a more interesting or unusual sound and disguising the origin of the loop. But it can also make your sessions sound amateur and unpleasant. If you haven't already, check out last week's tutorial on using AudioFinder to preview and collect loops by hearing them at their original tempo. Work in 2's, 4's and 8's. The human ear (or I should probably say the Western ear) is accustomed to hearing thing's in 2,4 and 8 bar increments. This far from a hard and fast rule (and like all rules in music I think it's one that should be learned and then broken as often as possible) but when you're working with loops it often makes sense to work in even increments. For example, a typical track might start with 2 measures of drums, followed by 2 measures of drums and bass together, then adding a new element every 2nd or 4th measure. A 2 or 4 measure drum or instrument solo is always a great way to break up a monotonous track. Build a stockpile. As I mentioned, I have a collection of homemade loops that I use for many of my projects. Once you get the process down, creating your own high-quality loops can be pretty easy and a good way to create consistent and original sounding music. Next week I'll cover some of the basic concepts and the free and inexpensive tools I use to create loops. Demo Software for OS X As I did with Reaktor 5, I spend a lot of time working with demo software before I buy it. Unfortunately, because so many software companies lose so much money to cracked and pirated software different companies have have had to come up different ways to protect their demo versions. Sometimes this can make it hard to get a good idea of what a specific instrument or effect is really capable of or useful for. In the course of writing my book I tried out just about every demo version of every conceivable type of audio application, plug-in, DAW and virtual instrument. In the process I found some great software, and I have a list a mile long of programs and effects I want, that I'm slowly accumulating. Most of the software on my list are things I was able to use for a week or a month without restrictions, then once the demo expired I found myself missing the software and checking my bank balance. Here are a few of my favorites: OhmForce - Great synths and effects. The OhmForce plug-ins will give you about 4-6 hours of use before inserting a background noise that gets louder over time. MX4 Synthesizer - Mark Of the Unicorn's MX4 is an amazing and very complex synth with a huge banks of cool presets. 14 days. iDrum - A very simple, yet powerful drum machine. The interface looks a lot like GarageBand and it makes a great complement to GB. 10 days. Fabfilter - These guys make great sounding affordable effects and synths. 30 days. Virtual Drum Demos With sampler and virtual drum programs some companies offer demo versions that are essentially full working versions of the program with access to limited sounds. I covered a couple of these in episode 2, Sampletank 2 Free and the Universal UVI Player. These virtual drum programs are available as demo versions that never time out: Addictive Drums BFD Guru If the downloads are too big for you to handle, BFD and Guru demos are on the included DVD that comes with my book Mastering Digital Audio Production: The Professional Music Workflow with Mac OS X. -------- That's all for this week. Next week I'll be covering creating Apple Loops, more info on the virtual drum demos I mentioned this week and talking a bit about the history of computer music. -Cliff Email: "cliff at mmwosx dot com" Category: Blog -- posted at: 3:43 PM Comments[0] |
Sun, 22 April 2007 Welcome to week 4 of Making Music with OS X. As always, this is the companion blog that goes along with the MMwOSX podcast. And of course, as always, much of what I cover here can be found in greater detail in my book "Mastering Digital Audio Production: The Professional Music Workflow with OS X."There's going to be a slight lag this week in posting the podcast because I've been upgrading some of my gear. I just bought Native Instruments Reaktor 5 and Battery 3, so I figured that this would be a good time add more RAM and re-install OS X. Conveniently (but not surprisingly) my Internet connection decided to stop working. So I'll be posting this from the local coffee shop, then heading home to wait for the Comcast guy. Grrrr. Allllrighty then... New Nine Inch Nails GarageBand Track Back in April 2005 Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails released the single "The Hand that Feeds" as a GarageBand 2 file, encouraging fans and GarageBand users to create their own remixes. After the success of that experiment he then released the next single "Only" in multiple formats including a Pro Tools version and versions for Windows based DAWs, such as Sony's Acid program. Last month in anticipation of the new album "Year Zero" Nine Inch Nails released the new single "Survivalism" as a GarageBand 3 session. You can download the GarageBand 3 session file for "Survivalism" here: www.nin.com/current Even though the session's tracks have all been converted to Apple Loops to accommodate GarageBand's limitations and slower computers, it's still a great way to get a look inside a complete recording session and see the different elements that make up a song. It's also a lot of fun to mess around with the included tracks, taking out stuff and adding new elements. I've been having a great time with this track and I'll be uploading my remixes soon. You can still access the "Only" and "The Hand That Feeds" files here: www.nin.com/downloads One interesting way I've found to work around some of the limitations of GarageBand is to access the included loops and process them in Ableton Live and Pro Tools, then bring the altered loops back in to the GarageBand session. If you want access the session's loops individually, Control+Click on the Survivalism GarageBand file and choose "Show Package Contents." Inside the GarageBand file you'll see a folder named "Media." This folder contains all of the individual Apple Loops that make up the song. Drag the Media folder to your desktop and you can open up the individual Apple Loops in any DAW or audio editing program. According to the NIN Web site they'll be releasing the entire CD as GarageBand sessions. It'll be very interesting to see what people come up with working with these tracks. Recording Your Mac's "Voice" With WireTap Pro Many of you are probably familiar with Radiohead's OK Computer album. Track 7 on OK computer is a piece called "Fitter, Happier" that features a computerized voice that "speaks" the lyrics. The sound of that voice is actually generated by a Mac, and you have the same voice and others installed as part of your operating system. OS X has a built-in function called "Text to Speech" that you can use to get your Mac to say anything and even sing (though pretty badly). It's a potentially interesting element to add to your tracks or Podcasts. So here's a quick tutorial on accessing and then recording your Mac's voice with Ambrosia Software's WireTap Pro. You can follow the instructions here using the demo version of WireTap Pro. You can get WireTap Pro here: Download WireTap Pro Once you've downloaded and installed WireTap: 1. Open your Mac's System Preferences and click the Speech button. 2. Select the Text to Speech tab. 3. Choose a voice from the drop down menu and click the "Play" button to preview the voice. The "Fitter, Happier" voice is called "Fred." There are also a number of musical voices, such as "Cellos." 4. Put a check mark next to "Speak selected text when key is pressed" then click the "Set Key..." button. 5. Choose a key command to use to get your computer to "speak" any selected text. You'll want to choose a combination of keys, preferably not something your Web browser or text editor already uses (I Use Shift+Control+D). 6. Create and select some text in a Word document, Text Edit document or email, or select any text in your Web browser. 7. Start WireTap Pro and press the Record button on the top left of the interface. 8. Use the key command you chose to make your Mac "speak" the selected text. 9. Click the Stop button on the top center of the WireTap interface. Choose a location and name the file. You can now edit the new file using your preferred audio editor or add it as is to a session in your DAW. WireTap Pro has a lot of other uses as well, including recording Podcasts, capturing streaming audio and sampling audio from CDs and DVDs. Registering the program costs only $19 and will give access to much more functionality. AudioFinder 4.5 One of the programs I covered in my book is the great AudioFinder application from IcedAudio. I originally got hooked on AudioFinder as a way to organize my giant collection of loop and sample libraries. It's turned out that AudioFinder has a number of other uses as well, and it's become essential part of the music making process for me. Along with sorting and locating loops and samples, AudioFinder especially helpful in creating loops, batch converting (converting large numbers of files at once), normalizing and cross-fading. Another great thing about AudioFinder is that when you buy the program (a steal at $69.95) you're buying updates for life and the ability to install it on as many Macs as you own. Some of AudioFinder's included features: An Audio Editor - Great for creating quick cross-fades and fixing imperfect loops A Plug-in Manager - Useful for organizing all of your plug-ins and de-activating problem plug-ins File Conversion/Batch conversion - Convert your loops and samples to and from WAV or AIFF format. Also converts REX files to WAV and AIFF Audio Unit Support - Process your files with any of your computer's Audio Unit effects And lots more. You can find a complete list of features and download a demo of the latest version here: Iced Audio Browsing With AudioFinder The latest version of AudioFinder contains a big update to it's interface. At first I wasn't really happy about this, but now that I've gotten used to it I can see that it's a definite improvement. Previous versions had two choices for viewing files, a Browser window and a Scanner window.The Browser window let you either browse your hard drives or selected folders, much like OS X's column view. With the Scanner window you could scan your system, individual hard drives or a selected folder then search the results. AudioFinder 4.5 combines these two options in a single window, which ultimately does simplify the process of searching for and organizing your files. One of the things I use AudioFinder for is to quickly browse through my loop libraries, selecting 20 or 30 loops to use as the basis for new songs, copying them to a folder on my desktop as I browse. Unlike GarageBand or Ableton Live, AudioFinder allows you to preview your loops at their original tempo, instead of stretching the loop to match your current Live or GarageBand session's tempo. Previewing loops at their intended tempo can sometimes give you a much better idea of the quality and usefulness of a loop. Here's a quick rundown of how I use AF to preview and copy loops: Locating Loops 1. Start AudioFinder and select "Browse" in the Library menu on the left side of the interface. Make sure the Folder Column Browser is visible (Library > Show Folder Column Browser). 2. Use the Key Command Apple+F to detach the Audio Viewer so you have more room for the Browser. 3. Use the Browser to navigate to any folder containing loops or sample that you might want to use. For example, to preview any of your GarageBand loops locate the folder your hard drive/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple loops For GarageBand or: your username/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple loops For GarageBand *Another way to locate your audio, loops or sample files is to use the Scanning functionality. Use the Browse feature to select your hard drive or a specific folder then choose "Scan (selected drive or folder)" from the Library menu. Copying Loops Once you've located any loops you want to use, you can copy them to a specific folder anywhere on your computer. I usually create a new folder on my desktop for easy access. 1. At the bottom of the AudioFinder interface you'll see three buttons marked "Copy" "Move" and "Alias," then an arrow. Click the field next to the arrow and choose "Other..." from the pop-up menu. 2. Use the dialog window to select your desktop, click the "New Folder" button and name your new folder "Project Loops." 3. Click the "Choose" button to make "Project Loops" the current output folder. Now, when you select any loop in the browser and click the "Copy" button a copy of your loop will be created in the Project Loops folder. Considering the incredible range of stuff that it does, the consistent (free) updates and improvements and the overall price, I consider AudioFinder to be one of the most essential and helpful programs out there for creating music on a Mac. OS X Audio Resources This week I finally got around to updating my website and there are two new pages up. One is a list of sites that have free and demo Apple Loops, as well as Acid and REX format loops. I'll be writing more about that (and about Apple Loops in general) next week. The free loops page is here: Free/Demo Loops The other new page is a work in progress called OS X Audio Resources. This is a list of websites, magazines, forums, podcasts etc. that have useful information on...making music with OS X. There are some great sites out there and I'd really like to hear about the resources that you have found to be the most useful. Email me at "cliff at mmwosx dot com" if you have suggestions. My OS X Audio Resources page is here: OS X Audio Resources And finally, for you podcasters out there, Apple has a great online seminar on podcasting that features Paul Garay from the excellent Inside Home Recording podcast. You can check that out here: Podcast Recipe Thanks for reading! See you next week... -Cliff Category: Blog -- posted at: 3:40 PM Comments[1] |
Fri, 20 April 2007
I've gotten some emails recently from people who are interested in "Mastering Digital Audio Production:
The Professional Music Workflow with OS X" but want a bit more
information about it. I figured it would be a good idea to give a quick rundown of what's inside the book and what's
on the included DVD. One of the main ideas behind the book is to teach the reader how to expand their digital recording arsenal, both by using virtual instruments and plug-in effects and by using multiple programs at once, through the ReWire protocol. It also covers the entire digital music making process - from setting up your computer through having your CDs pressed. What I've tried to accomplish is to create a book that contains information that will be useful to just about everyone who's making music on a Mac, from absolute beginners to experienced professionals. Here's a quick rundown of each chapter: Chapter 1 is all about optimizing and maintaining your OS X Mac for creating music. Chapters 2 - 6 cover some of the most popular music programs for OS X - Propellerhead Reason, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic and GarageBand. Each program is covered in detail, including basic operation, tips and tricks and details on how to use any included plug-in effects and instruments. Each chapter also covers using multiple programs in a single session (for example, Live, Reason and Pro Tools) via ReWire. Demo versions of Ableton Live and Reason are on the included DVD and instructions for downloading and configuring a 30-day fully-functioning trial version of Logic Express is covered in Chapter 5. Chapter 7 is all about some of the great free and commercially available programs you can use to make music and to enhance your music-making ability, including Audacity, AudioFinder, Sample Manager, ReCycle, Rax and Melodyne. Chapter 8 contains everything you need to know about plug-in effects, including which ones will work in your host programs and how to find and use the right free and commercial plug-ins in every possible category. Many freeware and demo plug-ins are also found on the included DVD. Chapter 9 contains everything you need to know about plug-in virtual instruments, including samplers, synths, virtual drum programs, virtual keyboards and virtual amplification. There are detailed tutorials and information about many free and commercial instruments. Chapter 10 covers using and creating Apple Loops (and REX and ACID loops) as well as resources for expanding your Apple Loops collection (the included DVD also contains lots of Apple Loops). Chapter 11 explains MIDI in simple straightforward terminology and details how to access your host program's MIDI functionality. Chapter 12 covers laptop recording, including how to build a laptop studio and tips on mobile recording, traveling with your Mac and more. Chapter 13 is all about what happens when your music is finished - how to master your own CDs or how to prepare your music for a professional mastering house, file formats, creating high-quality Red Book compatible CDs, getting your music on iTunes and more. Finally, the included DVD contains over 4GB of loops and samples as well as fully working programs and demo programs, many of which are covered in the book. -Cliff Category: Blog -- posted at: 1:37 AM Comments[1] |
Sun, 15 April 2007 Welcome to installment 3 of the "Making Music with OS X" blog and podcast.As there is every week you also download a companion podcast to this blog installment that I'll be posting at (around) the same time. Everything I'm covering here is also covered in my book "Mastering Digital Audio Production: The Professional Music Workflow with OS X" in greater detail with more examples and information about virtual synths and other virtual instruments. The book is available on Amazon.com and from my website www.clifftruesdell.com. I'm going to be posting this weeks podcast in MP3 format instead of the usual Enhanced AAC format because everything I cover this week, including the virtual synths I'll be using, will be applicable in the Windows environment as well. This week I'm going to try to cover the basic use of virtual synthesizers, describing some of the common parameters that you will find on most virtual synths. Because there are so many different types of synthesizers and so many possibilities within each one it's a challenge to stay on point and stick to covering the things that are universal to most virtual synthesizers. I'll be using the terms "usually" and "most of the time" a lot here because while most synths have certain things in common there are pretty wide variations among different instruments. On that note I should also mention that one very cool side effects of learning these parameters is that they are often found on virtual samplers, keyboards and other virtual instruments. What You'll Need For this week's installment you'll need the same things I suggested in installment one "Introduction and Audio Freeware, PT. 1." To briefly recap, you'll need A Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) host program, such as Ableton Live, GarageBand, Pro Tools, Logic or Cubase and a MIDI keyboard. If you don't have a MIDI keyboard most DAWs have the ability to use your computer's typing keyboard to play virtual instruments. You'll also need to install two of the free virtual synthesizers (Remedy and FreeAlpha3) that I covered a bit in installment one. These synths will work in just about any OS X or Windows DAW program. If you haven't already downloaded and installed the Remedy and FreeAlpha3 I suggest you stop here and download those before continuing. Remedy is available from www.keytosound.com on their download page and FreeAlpha3 is available from www.linplug.com at the bottom of their download page. Synth Basics There are multiple types of synthesis, including subtractive, FM, granular, wavetable, sample-based and others. One very cool but confusing thing about virtual synths is that, unlike their analog counterparts, they can (and often do) combine different types of synthesis in one interface. The parameters we'll be covering today relate to subtractive and FM synthesis and are generally found in one form or another in just about every virtual synthesizer. So...what are subtractive and FM synthesis? Simply put, in subtractive synthesis an oscillator creates a sound and then some of the sound is filtered out or "subtracted." In Frequency Modulation synthesis (FM) a waveform is used to create a sound and then a second waveform is then used to alter or modulate the first. Obviously things get a bit more complicated than that, but those are the basics of subtractive and FM synthesis. Patches A patch is a synth sound, made up of various settings and adjustments to the synths parameters. Patches are saved either within the instrument's interface or in your DAW. Your virtual synths will come with a number of preset patches, which you can use to get an idea of the different types of sounds your synth is capable of. What we're doing today is breaking down the information you need to effectively edit existing preset patches and to start creating your own from scratch. Oscillators Let's start things off by adding the Remedy to a virtual instrument or MIDI track in your DAW host program. Click the word "default" in the top center of the interface to view the included preset patches. Use your mouse to select the words "Gentle Sine," then double-click to load the Gentle Sine patch. In subtractive and FM synthesis the sound starts with an oscillator. The oscillator generates a waveform, which is the first building block of each synth patch or sound. Most synths have multiple oscillators, usually in a section marked OSC. In the oscillator section you'll have a choice between different waveforms, sometimes accessed by a knob or drop down menu. If you look at the OSC section of the Remedy you can see that there are 2 oscillators, OSC1 and OSC2. Oscillator 1 contains many of the "usual suspects" you'll find as waveform choices in many synths. These are from left to right: Saw Square Triangle Sine Noise You can often drastically change an existing synth sound by choosing a new oscillator or oscillators. When creating a patch you'll often start by combining, then altering multiple waveforms in the OSC section or sections. The current patch (Gentle Sine) is a basic sine wave, slightly altered. Use your mouse to turn the OSC section's Mix knob all the way to 1. Then, while using your MIDI keyboard or your DAW's Apple keyboard functionality to play the Remedy, use your mouse to switch between the different waveforms to get an idea of what each one sounds like. Now let's go ahead and add the FreeAlpha to a track in your DAW. If you look at the FreeAlpha interface you'll see that the Oscillator section is on far left. Each oscillator section here has two oscillators that are accessed by clicking on the name of the waveform. Looking at the list of waveforms, you can see that the FreeAlpha also has a number of variations of the standard waveforms that you can use as your building blocks for creating patches. Filters In subtractive sythesis the sound that is generated by the oscillators is then sent to the filter section. Let's take a look here at the filter section of the FreeAlpha. Most virtual synths will contain at least two filters - a Low Pass filter, and a High Pass filter. Other types of filters, also seen here, include Band Pass and Notch. A Low Pass filter (often marked LP12 or LP24) cuts high frequencies and lets low frequencies pass through (hence the name). A High Pass filter does the opposite. While there are no hard and fast rules for this kind of thing, a Low Pass filter will certainly be useful in creating bass sounds and a High Pass filter may come in handy when you are creating lead lines. Like many synths, the FreeAlpha' Filter section also includes Cutoff and Resonance knobs. The Cutoff knob determines the range of frequencies that will be eliminated. The Resonance knob raises or lowers the frequencies near the cutoff point. Envelopes After the the Filter section most virtual synths will then route the signal to the Amplitude envelope often marked AMP. The AMP Envelope section will commonly have at least 4 parameter knobs or sliders, usually marked ADSR. ADSR stands for: Attack - The amount of time it it takes for a sound to reach its full volume Decay - The amount of time it takes for a sound to go from full volume to it's sustain level Sustain - The steady volume the not will stay at until released Release - The amount of time it takes for the note to fade. AMP envelopes will sometimes contain other parameters such as Hold and Velocity. Going back to the Remedy, try adjusting the ADSR properties of the Gentle Sine patch. For a slow building sound try raising the Attack knob. For a a quick stabbing sound try lowering all four parameters. You can often eliminate an unwanted "click" or harshness at the start of synth sound by raising the Attack slightly. As with many virtual synths the FreeAlpha also contains envelope knobs that can be used to apply these same parameters to the Filter as well. LFOs LFO stands for Low Frequency Oscillator. Common uses for the LFO section include altering the volume or EQ of a waveform, causing the sound to cut in and out or to create "sweeping" modulation effects, such as tremolo. Some synth's LFO sections give you the option to choose different waveforms, just like the main sound generating oscillators. In fact, if you look at Remedy's LFO section you'll see the exact same waveforms as those in the OSC1 section. Try raising the Pitch and Rate knobs to hear an LFO being used to alter the pitch of the original waveform. Effects The final stage of creating a synth sound often involves adding an effect or two, such as a delay or modulation effect like chorus, phasing or flanging. Sometimes this will take place within the effects interface. The FreeAlpha contains a Chorus section, which is a very basic modulation effect. If the synth you are using has few or limited effects, you can use your DAW's plug-in effects as well. Adding an effect or two is a great way to make your synth sounds unique. Delays are particularly great for creating ambient sounds and textures. Putting It All Together To wrap up the basics of virtual synthesizer signal flow, your patches will often be some variation of: Oscillator > Filter > Amplitude Envelope > LFO > Effects Saving Patches Once you've created or altered a patch and you'd like to save the results you can do so in one of two ways, either within the synth's interface or within your DAW. Look for a folder icon or, such as the one in the bottom center of the FreeAlpha or a "Save" button, such as the one that's accessed by clicking on the preset's name in the preset display at the top of the Remedy interface. You'll see the Save button on the left side. You can also (usually) save patches within your DAW. Each DAW will have different options for saving patches often by selecting "Save Setting As" or a similar option. If you are familiar with accessing and saving presets for your plug-in effects you can follow the same procedures to save your virtual synth patches. That's all for this week. Thanks for reading and be sure to check in again next week. Questions, comments or suggestions? Email: "cliff at mmwosx dot com" Category: Blog -- posted at: 7:30 PM Comments[0] |
Sun, 8 April 2007 Welcome to week 2 of the "Making music With OS X" blog and podcast. If you haven't already read (or listened to) week one's installment, I suggest doing so now, since much of the basic information I covered last week will come in handy this week as well. Thanks for reading! Category: Blog -- posted at: 9:00 AM Comments[1] |
Sun, 1 April 2007 Hi there. Welcome to the first Blog edition of Making Music with OS X! I'm also going to be creating a companion podcast to go with each blog entry, which I'll be posting simultaneously. First off, a little about me and what I'm doing here - I'm a recording engineer, a musician and a writer. I just wrote a book for the Sybex publishing company called "Mastering Digital Audio Production: The Professional Music Workflow with Mac OS X." It's available now in bookstores and on Amazon.com. I'm also working on a loop library series in the Apple Loops, Acid and REX formats. All this and more can be found on my website: www.clifftruesdell.com. This blog/podcast (blogcast?) is going to be a combination of things. It's promotion for the book, it's a chance to expand on some of the more interesting stuff I didn't get to go into detail about in the book and it's an opportunity to keep up to date with the constantly changing world of audio recording and music software. For example, in the book I cover a huge amount of software. I finished writing in January, and it came out just a few days ago. Without even looking at it I can think of 3 or 4 programs that have had new updates, as well as plug-ins and virtual instruments that are now available in more formats than they were when I was writing about them just a few months ago. That's not to say the book is out-of-date. Far from it (no, really). It's just that of all the current rapidly changing technologies, digital recording may be one of the hardest to keep up with. There's always more to learn and new and exciting things are happening all the time. So here we go... What you'll need to get the most out of this blog and podcast 1) A Mac (sorry, PC). Preferably running OS 10.3 or higher. You can do a lot with an earlier Operating System but, as I mentioned, a lot of what I'm going to cover gets updated frequently or is recently introduced. By the way, I don't recommend installing 10.4.9 yet (or Leopard right when it's released). I've seen a lot of stuff about 10.4.9's incompatibility with various software and plug-ins. As with most updates it's best to wait a while and let other people be the guinea pigs. 2) A Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) program. This can be GarageBand, Logic Pro or Express, Digital Performer, any version of Pro Tools, Cubase, Metro, etc. I'm mostly going to focus on virtual instruments, plug-ins and software that can be used in any DAW, as well as a number of ideas that can help enhance your music creation inside and outside any DAW. I currently use Ableton Live, Logic Pro and Express, Pro Tools LE and HD and GarageBand. 3) A MIDI keyboard. Not 100% necessary, but it'll help. All DAW programs have either the ability to use your Apple keyboard to "play" virtual instruments, or the ability to draw MIDI performances, or both. That said, basic MIDI keyboards are easy to use, getting cheaper all the time and will greatly enhance your ability to create music. If you have a deep and abiding fear of MIDI, stick around. I've got "The MIDIot's Guide" planned as episode 3 or 4. Free virtual instruments and plug-in effects for OS X What i'm going to cover in these first two Blogs are some of the great free stuff that's available for OS X. A lot of this is in my book, but as I mentioned, in the last few months even more freeware has become available and I may have actually missed a thing or two (it's a big, long book). Let's start by taking a quick look at the different formats that plug-ins come in. For OS X compatible DAW programs there are multiple formats for plug-in instruments and effects. I'll be covering the three most common formats: Audio Units, VST and RTAS. AU (Audio Units), Apple's plug-in format format. OS X actually includes a number of AU plug-ins that can be accessed in any host program that supports the AU format. Some programs that utilize the AU format include GarageBand, Logic (Pro and Express), Ableton Live and Digital Performer. VST (Virtual Studio Technology), is the plug-in format invented by Steinberg, originally for use with their Cubase program. VST plug-ins are by far the most common free plug-ins on the Windows operating system and a close runner up on OS X. Programs that use the VST format include Cubase, Ableton Live, Metro, Traktion and Audacity. While programs like Logic and Pro Tools don't support the VST program Fxpansion (www.fxpansion.com) has a "wrapper" program that can convert VST to RTAS format. This makes an excellent solution, giving you the ability to utilize some of the many free and commercial VST instruments and effects not currently available in the RTAS format. Fxpansion also makes a VST to AU wrapper if you want to use VSTs in Logic, GarageBand or and AU-compatible host. RTAS (Real Time AudioSuite), pronounced ar-tass, is Digidesign's plug-in format. RTAS plug-ins can only be used in the Pro Tools environment. While different versions of Pro Tools make use of different formats (such as the higher end TDM and HTDM formats) RTAS plug-ins can be used with all of the current versions of Pro Tools. Until fairly recently most of the of the freeware plug-ins and instruments available were for either AU or VST, sometimes both. While commercial versions of RTAS plug-ins have always been available, freeware was a bit harder to come by. That seems to be changing. I've definitely noticed many more freeware recently becoming available in all three formats. Installing Freeware Most freeware will come with an installer package. As with most commercial software installation will be as easy as clicking and following the included instructions. However, some freeware will require manual installation. That means you'll download a .zip file or .dmg file containing a .vst or .component file that you'll have to drag and drop to proper directory on your hard drive in order for your host program to locate it. Good examples of freeware that requires manual installation can be found at www.apulsoft.ch/freeports. There are a whole bunch if cool, free plug-ins and effects here. To get started, scroll down the page and download the Chip32 LoFi Wavetable Synth .dmg file to your desktop. When you open the file you'll see two folders: one named VST and one named AU. Open the VST folder and drag and drop the Chip32.vst file to the directory Your Username/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST or Your Hard Drive/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST To install the Audio Units version open the AU folder and drag and drop the Chip32.component file to the directory Your Username/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components or Your Hard Drive/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components Now, when you start your AU or VST compatible host DAW program you can access the Chip32 as you would any other virtual instrument, such as GarageBand's Software Instruments or Logic's included synths. If you need more information on using virtual instruments in your specific DAW consult your program's included documentation (or buy my book). You'll drag and drop .vst and .component files to theses same directories when installing any freeware plug-in effects that don't come with installer programs. Free Synthesizers In the free virtual instrument category by far the most common is the virtual synthesizer. The following free virtual synths are a lot of fun and pretty easy to get started with. If you have a basic knowledge of how virtual synths work many freeware synths can be a great resource for creating lots of sounds. Most come with a set or sets of preset patches to get you started and to give you an idea of some of the instrument's abilities and features. I'll be using these instruments to cover synth programming basics in the next few weeks. Remedy (AU, VST, RTAS) - Remedy is a very basic freeware synth from Key To Sound (www.keytosound.com) the latest version is RTAS compatible and apparently a lot of the bugs from previous versions have been worked out. This is a very straightforward and easy to use synth. In fact, I'll be using this one in Episode 3 to talk about the basic features and signal routing you'll find in most virtual synths. Orca (AU, VST, RTAS) - Another synth that has been released as an RTAS plug-in in recent weeks. This one comes from Fxpansion (www.fxpansion.com) and is is a really fun instrument with a unique interface. Orca is great for creating weird ambient sounds and other random sonic experimentations. I especially like it for bass tracks. There's actually a pretty incredible range of possibilities within what seems at first to be a limited interface. Free Alpha3 (AU, VST, RTAS) - The "little brother" to LinPlug's Alpha3 synth. A very cool instrument with lots of features and great sounding patches. Free Alpha3 is definitely geared toward the Trance/Techno/Dance crowd but with lots of sonic possibilities built-in. Download the Free Alpha3 from www.linplug.com. Crystal (AU, VST) - The Crystal synthesizer from Green Oak software is a pretty amazing instrument and considered by many of its users to be the equal to or better than many commercially available synths. Unfortunately no RTAS version. Crystal's pretty complex but well worth the investment of time. It's also expandable - you can load Sound Fonts (.sf2 files) and use them to create new sounds and patches. Download Crystal at www.greenoak.com/crystal. That's all for right now. Next time I'm going to cover some of the other instruments and samplers that are out there, then after that the best of the many free plug-in effects available for OS X. --- I've compiled a list of some of my favorite free Virtual Instruments and plug-ins on my website. Click here to view the list. -Cliff Truesdell Category: Blog -- posted at: 8:50 PM Comments[0] |
