KVR Audio

mimetik · Post by **mimetik** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 11:13 am

Hi everybody,
I've been lurking around this forum for some time now, so I've decided to register, and here comes my first post.

I have been interested in electronic music for a while now, in particular anything that is gltched appeals to me a lot, from atmospheric textures to more rythmic use of it. I've done quite some sound design, and progressed a lot in the last year or so. But I have got to say that there are some sounds that still baffles me. On of this is the glitched ringing sounds you can hear in this track

around 3:12. I can hear a lot of short delay which gets automated until it is few millisecond, hence starting ringing, but I have not been able to produce such a clear ringing effect. The closest I got was to use Ableton's Live simple delay in repitch mode, and automate the time parameter, but as I said I don't get a ringing, but rather a sort of buzz.
Maybe there's an LFO modulating the delay in sync with the host tempo, and that's producing the ringing? Anyway, the track is from 2005, so I suspect it is hardware obtained, via some drum machine, maybe an Electribe.
Anyway, I will be very curious to know what do you think about.
Thanks a lot for reading.

mimetik · Post by **mimetik** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 10:12 pm

Anyone wants to give it a try?

mimetik · Post by **mimetik** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 1:56 pm

I can deduce that this question isn't that obvious.
Good to know.

t3toooo · Post by **t3toooo** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 2:07 pm

you can use probably a lot of different software to create something like this but camelaudio alchemy comes to my mind.

cron · Post by **cron** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 2:28 pm

You can achieve something similar in a sampler.

Load a short glitch noise with a short bit of silence after it, then loop the entire thing. Play it back while automating transpose skyward within the sampler.

You can keep it rhythmic by ensuring that the length of your sample (glitch + silence) corresponds to a meaningul rhythmic measure (i.e. quarter note or eigth note) in the context of your track when it's played back at its original pitch. This way, when you speed it up during playback, as long as you end your transpose sweep at +12/24/36 semitones (any octave, basically), your quarter note becomes an eighth/sixteenth/thirtysecond note.

P.S. Welcome to KvR. Stick around!

mimetik · Post by **mimetik** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 7:00 pm

cron wrote:You can achieve something similar in a sampler.

Load a short glitch noise with a short bit of silence after it, then loop the entire thing. Play it back while automating transpose skyward within the sampler.

You can keep it rhythmic by ensuring that the length of your sample (glitch + silence) corresponds to a meaningul rhythmic measure (i.e. quarter note or eigth note) in the context of your track when it's played back at its original pitch. This way, when you speed it up during playback, as long as you end your transpose sweep at +12/24/36 semitones (any octave, basically), your quarter note becomes an eighth/sixteenth/thirtysecond note.

P.S. Welcome to KvR. Stick around!

Thanks for the comment!
Actually, yours is a good call, and let me learn a new technique, so thanks a lot for that. Neverthless, I wasn't able to the get the smoothness of the effect as in the track above. The point is, when the transposition increases, and the looper plays faster, the sound acquires a percussive character, similar to a square wave. I have tried several samples, and used crossfading also, which helps, but not much, the texture of the sound is just different. But listening again, I think you must be right, there's no short delay, but it's rather the sampler looping, with some release envelope, which gives a similar effect to a very short delay.
Anyway, thanks again, I'll put to good use your suggestion for future experiments.

cron · Post by **cron** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 7:20 pm

Pleased you found the technique useful.

Apologies for the dead horse flogging, but I'm absolutely convinced this is a sampler based effect. Try increasing the length of the silence in your sample to help with each repetition remaining a distinct sonic event - you'll have more transpose room before you hit that 'rhythm/tone' crossover point where you lose perception of each repetition and instead hear a continuous buzzing tone. Saying this though, you shouldn't need to go beyond 24 semitones to get this sort of effect. That rhythm/tone crossover point is a very interesting area to play with in itself though...

You could also stick a bit of bitcrush style sample rate reduction in the chain after your sampler, which should give the sound a consistent ringing/glitchy tone independent of the transposition. That little addition might also help to 'gel' the effect as a single sonic gesture while 'softening the edges' a bit.

I'll leave that poor dead horse alone now

(and apologies for the 15 million edits to this post in the last 10 minutes)
(make that 15 million and two)

mimetik · Post by **mimetik** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 7:52 pm

cron wrote:Pleased you found the technique useful.

Apologies for the dead horse flogging, but I'm absolutely convinced this is a sampler based effect. Try increasing the length of the silence in your sample to help with each repetition remaining a distinct sonic event - you'll have more transpose room before you hit that 'rhythm/tone' crossover point where you lose perception of each repetition and instead hear a continuous buzzing tone. Saying this though, you shouldn't need to go beyond 24 semitones to get this sort of effect. That rhythm/tone crossover point is a very interesting area to play with in itself though...

You could also stick a bit of bitcrush style sample rate reduction in the chain after your sampler, which should give the sound a consistent ringing/glitchy tone independent of the transposition. That little addition might also help to 'gel' the effect as a single sonic gesture while 'softening the edges' a bit.

I'll leave that poor dead horse alone now

(and apologies for the 15 million edits to this post in the last 10 minutes)
(make that 15 million and two)

I actually tried something that got me closer probably to the desired effect: I have not only automated the transposition, but also the rate of a sine LFO controlling the frequency of a HP filter. This helps indeed to smooth the edges of the sound, and when in sync it gives a definite rythmic pulse. Bitcrusher also helps.
Thanks again for the comments, really helpful!

cron · Post by **cron** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:07 pm

Nice idea on the filtering.

justin3am · Post by **justin3am** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:10 pm

I'd suggest MFM2. Watch the video in this thread...
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4894921

mimetik · Post by **mimetik** » Sat Apr 28, 2012 2:22 pm

justin3am wrote:I'd suggest MFM2. Watch the video in this thread...
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4894921

That's a cool delay plugin, indeed.
I have settled with what cron suggested, though: I'm getting closer and closer to what I'd like to get...

Glitchy ringing sound