Exercise in futility .. Generative drumbeats with Bitwig native devices

[ras.s]

Hey folks,

I looked at WXLF's post in the tips & trick thread about creating drum beats using Cthulhu and I thought it's possible with native Bitwig devices.

And sure, it is.

Test tone -> LFO Mod (modulating amplitude in Tool) -> Replacer

The Replacer contains a Tool for cutting down the volume when there's no instrument, a Note Pitch Shifter for making it possible to route the MIDI data to other tracks and then there's the drum sound device.


Attached to this post is a instrument layer for making full drum beats. :P

There's quite a lot of moving parts, the LFOs are where the magic happens and the rate, phase and shape dictate how the test tone signal is shaped; the Replacer's threshold can also be adjusted to catch only some sounds. Adjust a LFO to 1/32 or above and you start getting superhuman drum fills. On each LFO the second one modulates the depth of the first one, so it can get quite tricky.

The test tone is obviously always on but it's not too difficult to either make it react to note on/note off or just replace it with something else.

[norv]

Thanks for a great tip

[sleepystevo]

great to see imaginative stuff like this. woohoo!

[ras.s]

I do seriously doubt its usefulness, though. ;)


I suppose the lesson that I learned from it was that the Replacer device is useful for other stuff than just for drum replacement. Basically, it's useful whenever there's a need for a note trigger from an audio signal. For example, when a delay goes into feedback frenzy, by putting a Replacer in the feedback chain, I can make it trigger a cow moo sample, or retrigger an LFO or whatever. Besides just a note trigger, it's possible to adjust the note number and the velocity of the Replacer output, those can be useful as modulation sources as well.


Another quirky use for the Replacer is to put a Multiband FX on a drumbeat, a combination of filter->gate->replacer into each slot and then depending on the material, it may be possible to turn it into MIDI.



I did take this beat generator a bit further and I made a chain that triggers different LFOs depending on which note is played. This chain outputs different beats but triggers just one target, it's more useful for creating hihat or percussion patterns. In the patch attached to this post C1-F1 do the triggering and there's a Note Pitch Shifter in the Replacer's generator box so that it's possible to record the MIDI to another track. It's not always on like the previous patch and it's possible to press down more than one note to produce a different pulse. Note that deactivating the E-Hat will produce a loud noise -- turn down the track volume when doing that.

I did try a combination of an instrument layer with a number of note filters triggering different arpeggiators and while that's better in how it's controlled, it isn't much use because I couldn't figure out a way to merge the output of the arpeggiators (so that it could control a single device or make it possible to record the sum of all the MIDI). If someone figures that out, please do post a patch.

[askewd]

Thanks Ras.s

Also let me take this moment to give some respect to the 'replacer' device, one of Bitwigs hidden gems. I use it in virtually every client mix project i work on. Makes things so simple for layering up snares and kicks on top of the clients original ones etc. THANK YOU REPLACER!

[stufflin]

Props to Ras.s !!

[Andrei Marchenko]

wrong post, sorry )