Audio examples
Here are audio examples to help illustrate each chapter of the book:
01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12
01 Production Analysis
Music playlists coming soon.
02 Workflow
Music playlists coming soon.
03 MIDI Composition
A single MIDI note through a MIDI effects chain (chord maker, arpeggiator, random, scale quantiser, chord):
The above MIDI captured to a new clip with swing and humanisation applied:
Probability applied to notes triggering a high-hat:
Probability applied to kick and snare in a more complex drum pattern:
Matriceal style sequencer for endless variation from a simple loop:
Generative piece of music with no clips/notes for the melodic elements and additional effects modulation off-the-grid:
Polyrhythm: 8th triplet rim shot over a steady 4×4 beat:
Polyrhythm: Adding in a closed hat on alternating 8th note and 8th triplets:
Polyrhythm: Bringing in the usual snare on 2nd and 4th beat for some anchoring:
Polymeter: Rim shot pattern of 10 over 8:
Polymeter: Adding in a high hat pattern of 14 over 8:
Polymeter: Adding in a snare of 7 over 8:
Creative quantising of audio: unquantised loop from field recording of frozen puddles:
Creative quantising of audio: same field recording loop with 1/16th note quantisation and swing:
04 Synthesis
440Hz sawtooth tone decreasing in 0.5dB steps:
440Hz sawtooth tone decreasing in 1dB steps:
440Hz sawtooth tone decreasing in 3dB steps:
440Hz sawtooth tone decreasing in 6dB steps:
Sine wave frequency sweep from slightly beyond 20Hz to 20kHz:
Different timbres from the same note (A3) – piano, electric piano, organ, hybrid organ:
Sweep of different filter types – lowpass, highpass, bandpass, formant, comb:
Different slopes of a lowpass filter, increasing the steepness of slope by 6dB-per-octave each time:
Amp ADSR envelope – full sustain, 3s attack:
Amp ADSR envelope – no sustain, 3s decay:
Amp ADSR envelope – no sustain, 200ms decay:
Amp ADSR envelope – no sustain, 200ms attack, 200ms decay:
Increasing modulation sources to a lowpass filter – no keytracking; keytracking; velocity; LFO and random:
05 Digital Audio
Drum loop saved in different sample rates – 44,100Hz, 22,050Hz, 11,025Hz:
Bitcrusher effect automated to simulate sample rate reduction, bit-depth reduction, then both:
Gain staging, different input levels into character/analogue-style plugin chain (-18dB peak, -12dB, -6dB, 0dB):
Reverse reverb trick applied to a vocal sample, the reverse tails are sidechain compressed from the dry vocal:
Running delay – it takes to build up, the latter stages would be resampled (sidechain compression applied, ducking the kick):
Layering SFX – individual layers and combined impact sound:
Synth layering – mid-bass subtractive, sub bass FM, mid-bass distorted, bright FM, arpeggiated wavetable, sub taken out (some bus compression applied):
Drum layering to bolster the main kick and snare of a drum kit, differing sounds added to make them more punchy and rich:
06 Creative Audio Effects
Modulation effects family – chorus, flanger then phaser:
Tape-style delay effect, with modulation applied to delay time and filtering:
1/16 note delay as multiband effect, placed on upper band – crossover frequency at 551Hz, then rising to 1.75kHz:
Multiband distortion on drum loop – no effect, single band distortion, distortion only on mid-range:
Creative distortion on drum loop – mid-band distortion, varied settings on three bands, more extreme settings, added modulation:
Glitch effect example, stuttering and buffer jumps:
Pluck sound is binaurally panned in Logic Pro – starts doing 360° sweep after the first two cycles (requires headphones):
Ambisonic recording from Zoom H3-VR exported to binaural file (requires headphones):
07 Noise and Texture
Collection of found sounds in a musical context – door slams, balloons, fluorescent tubes, spray cans, old TVs, bowling pins:
Foley example of sounds that could be reimagined – plastic bag rustling (for moving through grass or snow):
Foley example of sounds that could be reimagined – vegetables frying in a pan (for part of rain composition):
Soundwalk in London from Liverpool Street station to Guildhall School on 28-02-20 (iPhone recording, some wind noise later on):
Effective noise reduction on field recording (before and after):
Extreme noise reduction for creative purposes (some dynamics processing added into the process):
08 Creative Dynamics
Automating the ceiling of a velocity MIDI effect (placed after an arpeggiator), triggering harder sounds in a multi-sampled instrument:
Ubiquitous sidechain compression technique, where a full bass sound is ducked from a kick drum – no sidechain first, then activated, then brighter timbres):
Ducked delay technique – in this instance, the delay is on an aux return bus and a compressor is sidechained to the vocal channel (more feedback is added):
Gated reverb technique a la 1980s – the snare is sent to a reverb return, then a gate with a reasonable decay time is added:
Rhythm-gate/trance-gate technique – short rim shot sound used to trigger a gate effect via its sidechain input (rim is then muted, gate release extended):
Sequencer-style modulator is instead applied to the filter cutoff of synth in above examples:
Rim shot is again used, but with an envelope follower modulation device used to sidechain the synth cutoff (it’s then muted):
09 Vocal Techniques
Ring modulator effect on a voice – the frequency of the modulation is decreased over time, making the alteration more obvious:
Vocoder effect with drums as the modulator – the sawtooth carrier played first, then muted, then chords and pitchbend are added:
Spectral resonator effect on the drum part – dry drums, untuned resonator added, MIDI sidechain to tune resonator:
Vocoder effect on vocal – the number of bands for the vocoder is reduced in each iteration:
Auto-tune style effect on vocal with additional ornamental notes to provide a form of melisma (dry sample first):
Vowel A shape formant filter shape automated in an EQ device (unfiltered sawtooth oscillator):
Formant filter movement in a synth (unfiltered sawtooth oscillator):
Vocal formant shifting: dry, -1 octave pitch-shifting, -1 octave formant shifting only, -1 octave both pitch and formant shifting:
Harmoniser effect on vocal sample (dry then three variations):
10 Temporal Processing
Granular synthesis – reducing the grain size:
Granular synthesis – making the grain shape more spiky over time:
Granular synthesis – introducing variation to the grain position (scatter/jitter/spray):
Clip/region stretching on timeline – 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x (optimum algorithm):
Clip/region stretching on timeline – 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x (old-school algorithm):
Clip/region stretching on timeline – 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x (percussive algorithm, transients preserved):
11 Spectral Processing
PaulXStretch app used to stretch a sample of paper tearing – 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x (FFT size 6237):
PaulXStretch app used to stretch a sample of paper tearing – 2x (FFT size getting bigger, 180, 512, 1452, 11616, 23232):
Different types of distortion applied to a pure sine wave – unprocessed, generating harmonic series, odd-numbered harmonics only:
Spectral repair in iZotope RX – original sample (with muted gap), standard noise reduction, spectral repair blurring of gaps:
Stem separation in iZotope RX – full, vox, bass, drums, instruments:
Piano loop – as sampled, then resynthesised with FL Studio’s Harmor, speed altered, partials smeared
Same piano loop, additive resynthesis using Logic’s Alchemy – partials reduced from 600 to 1 and back again:
Old drum loop with different number of compression bands – uncompressed, single band, 3 band then spectral compressor:
12 Dub Mixing Techniques
The original project – a dense and maximal 160BPM tekno track:
A stripped down arrangement at the same tempo:
The new arrangement with a heavy effects treatment, via aux sends:
Typical dub-style effects, used as auxiliary sends on a snare – dry, plate reverb, spring reverb, tape delay, plate + phaser + delay: