Pattern-based Sound Design In Cubase

By John Walden

Screen 1: The StepFilter can easily add a cool rhythmic element to even the most basic sounds.

Cubase's stock tools offer plenty of creative potential for pattern-based sound design.

Creative use of effects is a great way to inject some sonic interest into many modern music styles, and it can be particularly effective when effect changes are applied in sync with the project tempo. Some brilliant third-party effects plug-ins are designed for just this task (Sugar Bytes' Turnado and Effectrix, for example), but Cubase Pro and Artist users should find that the stock toolset can also be put to very good use.

Filter Lane

The humble filter is always a good bet for this kind of task. The old favourite Tonic plug-in (see SOS November 2004) is sadly now long gone, but Pro and Artist users do have access to the StepFilter plug-in, which can achieve similar things. Considered purely as a filter, StepFilter is perhaps better described as 'minimal' than 'cutting edge'. At its core, you get three simple filter types (high-, low- and band-pass) plus two 'modes' (classic and modern), and controls for the filter cutoff frequency and resonance. But its two step-based pattern grids allow you to sequence changes in the cutoff and resonance, and combining this with some of the other controls allows you to conjure up some very interesting rhythmic filter effects.

Let's consider an easy example to illustrate the possibilities: using StepFilter to liven up an otherwise static synth pad. In the first screenshot, I've selected HALion Sonic SE's Humble Analog pad sound, which is a perfectly useable but somewhat undramatic pad. Insert an instance of StepFilter on the channel, though, and things can be made much more interesting. For example, the Synced Step preset is shown in Screen 1 (above). This uses a low-pass filter, with the cutoff step sequence set to simply alternate between extremely high and low values relative to the Base Cutoff setting. In this case, with the transport running (you'll only hear StepFilter working when Cubase is in playback), when you play a MIDI Note in HSSE, the pad plays back with a steady, tempo-sync'ed 'pulse'. But you can create more interesting rhythmic results by editing the cutoff step pattern, and its tempo-sync rate can be adjusted via the Rate knob.

By adjusting the Base Cutoff setting (this is the cutoff value around which the step pattern will add variations), you can change the timbre of the sound, while the Mix slider allows you to make the effect more subtle by adjusting the wet/dry balance. In addition, with this sound source, the Glide knob — which smooths the transitions between each step — can take you from a wah-like effect at high values, through a really smooth pulse at intermediate values, to a more percussive, 'clicky' sound at very low values.

Screen 2: In Modern mode, the Hard Clip control can be used to drive the filter into some useful distortion.Despite the modest-looking control set, StepFilter is capable of creating much more dramatic effects than this simple rhythmic pulse. Using the same HSSE pad, Screen 2 shows a different StepFilter configuration, and a couple of things are worth noting. First, I've switched to the Modern filter mode, which activates the Hard Clip knob. With higher settings, you can use this to push the filter into a distortion that responds to both note velocity (volume) and the step-pattern settings. This can yield some very dramatic timbral shifts. Second, I've set the pattern length to 15 steps, and the Rate to 16th notes. Why? Well, for example, in a conventional 4/4 project, this means that the pattern continuously shifts against the timing of other elements in your project, and this can result in some cool evolving rhythmic effects. Or you could use the same approach to to create something quite unsettling; the choice is yours.

Of course, pretty much everything in StepFilter can also be automated. This includes the pattern selection (each instance can store up to eight different step patterns), Mix, Base Cutoff, Base Resonance, Rate, Glide and Filter Type parameters. Right-click on any of these and you can assign them to a Quick Control slot (for hands-on control via an external MIDI control surface) or display an automation track ready for editing. Considering it has such a simple control set, StepFilter really is a surprisingly powerful tool. Of course, the synth-pad cliché is just an example — you needn't limit yourself to such sources, as the approach holds potential for processing any sound source; you could even try using it as a spot effect on your master bus.

Filter Out

For something a little more colourful, Artist and Pro users can try LoopMash FX. As I described in SOS November 2015, this plug-in provides a selection of 19 DJ-style glitch effects that can be sprinkled at key spots in an electronic or pop track. You can trigger these effects in real-time via MIDI input. But one of the attractions of some of the better creative multi-effect plug-ins such as Effectrix is the option to use step-based patterns to control how the individual effects are triggered. There are a number of ways to emulate this effect in Cubase, but perhaps the most interesting one is to create patterns in Cubase's BeatDesigner MIDI plug-in, and use these to trigger LoopMash FX's effects. The initial configuration requires a few steps, but once done the BeatDesigner interface is great for rapid pattern creation and editing, and there's lots of fun to be had.

Screen 3: The combination of LoopMash FX and BeatDesigner can deliver some very creative pattern-based effects.First, instantiate LoopMash FX on the track whose audio you wish to 'mash'. This could be a VSTi (for example HSSE) or an audio track. It's a good idea to match the LoopMash FX triggering interval (indicated by the note icons in the middle of the display) with the step interval of your BeatDesigner patterns. Setting both to 16th notes works best but feel free to experiment, as mismatched intervals can create some very happy accidents! Second, create a separate MIDI track and load BeatDesigner into one of the track's MIDI insert slots. The MIDI output of this track should be routed to the instance of LoopMash FX via the Inspector. (This MIDI destination becomes visible once LoopMash FX has been inserted on a track.)

The LoopMash effects are mapped from F2 to B3 and, if you create a BeatDesigner pattern that triggers notes in this range, they'll activate the appropriate effect in LoopMash FX (Screen 3). During playback, the pattern will loop and if you activate the Jump button (top-right of the BeatDesigner interface), you'll enable pattern switching via MIDI (notes C1 to C4), so you can easily switch between different patterns (including a blank one for when you want no effects to be applied). Note that different patterns in a single instance of BeatDesigner can have different settings for step numbers/divisions, so you can do some interesting things in terms of timing and also create extended patterns (up to 64 steps in length).

Used in this way, LoopMash FX can do all sorts of interesting things to spice up even the blandest source. That said, there are a few catches! First, by default, BeatDesigner only shows 11 rows. Clicking on the '+' icon on the far-right of the bottom lane will add a lane and you can simply expand the pattern grid until it shows 19 rows (one for each of the LoopMash FX triggers). Second, BeatDesigner's grid shows drum labels alongside its MIDI note numbers rather than labels for the LoopMash effects. However, if you add a Drum Map via the Inspector of the track containing BeatDesigner, you can create a custom Drum Map containing the LoopMash effect names (Screen 4). These will then be displayed for ease of reference.

Screen 4: Creating a LoopMash FX-friendly Drum Map makes BeatDesigner patterns easier to follow.

Third, notes in a BeatDesigner pattern are of a fixed length, set by the step division. This doesn't stop you creating cool effects, but some of the LoopMash FX options produce interesting results when triggered for whole beats or even bars. There's no way to 'tie' notes in BeatDesigner. But having used BeatDesigner to create a collection of a patterns, you can drag and drop each pattern from its small virtual MIDI keyboard onto a MIDI track routed to LoopMash FX's MIDI input (you need to turn off the Jump setting for this drag-and-drop process to work). You can then use the standard MIDI Key Editor to edit the pattern further, including extending the length of some note triggers if required.

For those of a particularly experimental bent, a final thing to try is a second MIDI track with a further instance of BeatDesigner routed to the MIDI input of the same LoopMash FX plug-in. If you create patterns with slightly different step numbers in the two different BeatDesigner instances and run them at the same time, your effects triggering will evolve as the different step counts cycle through. This can (sometimes!) create some wonderful results. 

Published March 2019

Patch of the Week 84: No More Tears intro on wavestate

Cubase: Exporting Different Mixes From A Project

By John Walden

The Arranger Track now allows you to construct multiple Arranger Chains — alternative arrangements of your track — in a single Cubase project.

Need to export different mixes from the same project? Cubase Pro 10 makes it easy…

Engineers often need to create alternative mixes of a project. It's common, for example, for a professional engineer to be required to provide a 'vocal up' version of a mix, but there are various reasons any of us might want to create alternative versions of a project — different arrangements that extend or shorten a song, different effects options, or perhaps broadcast-friendly edits to disguise expletives! Whatever the reason, Cubase has a number of tools that can help, and in this article I'll explain how the Arranger Track and Cubase Pro 10's MixConsole Snapshots can help you create alternative mixes and arrangements more easily. Most of what Cubase offers is good, but I'll also discuss workarounds for a few 'cons'.

Power Arrangers

I looked at the Arranger Track (in Pro, Artist and Elements) in SOS July 2010 (https://sosm.ag/cubase-0710), when considering how to create advert-friendly, 30-second cues from a longer project. It basically provides a way to move the playhead to different points in your arrangement on playback, so it can be used for any kind of timeline-based re-sequencing of a song's structure. Having created an Arranger Track (in the same way you create any other kind of track), creating a new arrangement requires just a few simple steps.

First, create some events on the Arranger Track. Each one defines a time/bar range, and they can be played back by the Arranger Track in any sequence you define. Events can be given unique names to replace the defaults (A, B, C etc.), and it's fine for events to overlap — for instance, you could create separate four- and eight-bar events starting at bar 12, beat one. Next, in the Arranger Inspector panel or in the Arranger Editor window, create a chain of these Arranger events; add and move them into the sequence you want to hear on playback. For each instance of each event, you can choose the number of times it should loop before moving to the next event in your chain. Finally, toggle on the Activate Arranger Mode button (next to the 'e' edit button for the Arranger Track in the Project window's channel list). Now, on playback, instead of playing in linear fashion along the timeline, Cubase will follow the nonlinear sequence of events specified in your Arranger chain.

This is all super-easy to do, but it's a really powerful feature because it allows you to experiment with all sorts of timeline-based variations of your musical arrangement without dragging parts around your arrange page. There are a few more detailed considerations though...

Since I first wrote about this in my SOS July 2010 article, Steinberg added the ability to create multiple Chains via the Arranger Track's Inspector panel. Individual Chains can also be duplicated and renamed. So, assuming your Project contains all the necessary materials (audio tracks, virtual instruments, etc.) for all the different mix versions you wish to create, you can now keep all your arrangements in a single master project, simply switching between the different Chains to choose which you'll hear on playback.

Arranger Chains can be 'flattened' into a traditional linear arrangement prior to audio export.

At some stage, you'll want to render your various arrangements using Export/Audio Mixdown, and there are three steps to this process. The first requires you to use the Flatten Chain option (in the Arranger Editor window or the Arranger Track's Inspector). This lays out the current Arranger Chain as a conventional linear project on the timeline. You can choose in the Arranger Editor to create this flattened version in a new Cubase project or, if you prefer to keep everything in a single master project, you can select the Current Project option as the Destination. Once flattened, you can use the Export/Audio Mixdown command, as usual. A third step is to visit your project's History panel and move back to the step where you flattened the project — this will return you to the un-flattened version in the Project window while, critically, retaining the audio mixdown you just created via the export process.

Even if your Arranger Track sequence plays back smoothly, listen carefully to the flattened version prior to the final export. Problems can occur, for example, where audio or MIDI clips have elements that are cut at the start or end of any Arranger Events, and you might find that some minor editing tweaks are needed to address this. If the flattened version requires any major surgery, this is perhaps one occasion when flattening to a new project is a more sensible choice, since it would otherwise require you to undo a lot of steps to move back to another arrangement.

Snap To It

Cubase Pro 10's new MixConsole Snapshots system makes it easy to experiment with different level, pan and processing options, amongst other mixer settings.But what if you're happy with the arrangement and simply want to create and recall different mix versions? This is where Cubase Pro 10's new MixConsole Snapshots feature comes in to play. You can create up to 10 MixConsole Snapshots in a single project, and these are saved within the project file. They're set up via a dedicated tab in the main MixConsole's left zone (alongside the MixConsole History tab, which can also be useful when experimenting with different mix options). The MixConsole toolbar has a button (the small camera icon) for creating Snapshots, and there's a dropdown menu for other Snapshot tasks, such as selecting, updating or renaming. In the main MixConsole tab, you can add notes to each Snapshot too, and that's a great habit to get into, as it's easy to lose track of lots of specific mix changes in different Snapshots.

The key thing you need to note if you're to get the best from this new feature is what information is and isn't stored as part of the Snapshot. Obviously, basic volume and pan settings are stored in a Snapshot, so typical mix-variation tasks (eg. vocals up, guitars panned wider, drums down) can all be managed using Snapshots. More impressively, though, all the main insert, EQ, Channel Strip and send settings are also included. So you can easily audition different send levels to a reverb/delay, different EQ settings or different combinations of insert effects on any tracks. The last of these is a great way to try out different compressor plug-ins on, for example, your drums or lead vocals, or for exploring different stereo-bus processing chains.

What's Not To Like?

It's important to understand that Snapshots recall settings of the MixConsole only, not of the Cubase project as a whole. In particular, note that you can't try different automation moves on, say, a track's volume or send levels and store each version in a Snapshot. And for every track that remains Read enabled, any automation data in your project will override the static settings of your Snapshots. The exception is if you've created automation for an insert effect and then load a Snapshot that doesn't include that instance of the insert effect — in this case, the insert's automation data will be deleted. Cubase can warn that this is about to happen, but it's well worth being aware of! The workaround is to use and save the bypass status for insert effects, sends and the main Rack sections, rather than actually removing the plug-ins. If you want to retain the sort of detailed level automation you might use for a lead vocal, but still create a 'vocal up' mix, then another strategy is to use a VCA Fader to boost/attenuate the vocal track — store the static VCA Fader setting in the Snapshot.

The status of the channel Mute, Solo, Read and Write button are not (yet?) stored/recalled by Snapshots, something which would have been really useful. Taking the Mute buttons as an example, storing the mute status would be handy if you wished to experiment with alternative tracks. Say you had two completely different lead vocals, or perhaps a guitar solo and a sax solo to choose between — you'd be able to simply mute the required combinations of tracks in different Snapshots. Of course, you can achieve the same end result using fader settings and insert/EQ/Channel Strip/send bypass buttons, but that's a little more fiddly.

The MixConsole Snapshot system doesn't include automation data. This is only an issue for insert effects, and then only if you add/remove insert effects via Snapshots when those inserts already have automation data created for them.

Make Your Mind Up

While creativity and experiments are good fun, we all have to exercise a little discipline eventually — you do actually need to declare a mix 'finished' at some point! But having the ability to keep some fairly major mix and arrangement options open until the very end can be incredibly useful in some projects. Despite a few limitations, the Arranger Track and the MixConsole Snapshots facility are incredibly powerful tools that make this possible with a minimum of fuss, and without littering your drive with different project files. 

Published April 2019

Patch of the Week 83 – More Human than Human synth line on wavestate

Cubase Pro: Using VariAudio 3 Pitch-correction

• DAWs > Cubase

By John Walden

VariAudio 3 massively enhances Cubase Pro's pitch-correction capabilities.

Cubase Pro 10's VariAudio 3 competes with the best pitch-correction plug-ins around. Find out how by reading our article and watching the videos.

A headline improvement in Cubase Pro 10 was the major revamp of VariAudio. Despite under-the-hood refinements to its pitch-manipulation algorithms, perhaps the most significant improvements are those which allow a far more efficient workflow. Before we dive in, it's worth saying that while VariAudio's capabilities have improved massively since I wrote about it in SOS August 2009 (https://sosm.ag/cubase-0809), some of the advice I gave 10 years ago still stands. In particular, before you start doing detailed work in VariAudio, try to get other 'housekeeping' tasks out of the way first — things like comping from multiple takes, for example, or editing breaths, plosives or sibilance. Then use the render or export options to generate a new, 'cleaned' audio event that's ready for pitch-correction work.

Smart Thinking

At the heart of VariAudio 3's operation is a large collection of Smart Tools.

Although the Sample Editor's VariAudio panel contains new options, the first step remains the same: click on the Edit VariAudio button. This activates the initial pitch-detection process that superimposes pitch segments and a pitch curve on the waveform display. But the real workflow magic of VariAudio 3 lies not in the panel but in the new Smart Tools. To get the best from these, select the All option from the panel's small Smart Controls drop-down menu. Now, when you hover over a pitch segment, some 12 controls (the Smart Tools) appear around the edges of the selected segment or segments.

There's a lot to take in the first time you use this, so I've annotated the opening screenshot as a handy summary of the functions offered by each Smart Control. Hopefully, this is a useful reference, but it also serves to indicate just how many pitch-manipulation options are instantly on offer without ever moving your cursor away from the segment in question. I obviously can't explore all of these tools in detail in a single article, so instead I'll illustrate their potential by taking you through how these tools can be used to perform a few common vocal pitch-correction tasks and offer some video tutorials too.

Eager Cleaver

Hovering over the bottom of a segment provides a scissor tool, so you can easily split segments such as this example that seem to contain two different pitch zones.A common first task, before performing any actual pitch correction, is to identify any pitch segments where the detailed pitch curve suggests that multiple notes exist within the same segment. Splitting such segments into two (or more) notes will provide you with a greater degree of control over your pitch adjustments. This is easy: hover the mouse over the horizontal line towards the base of the segment, and a scissors tool will appear; then click where you want to split the segment. Incidentally, if you hold Shift while doing this, you also have instant access to the option to glue two adjacent segments together.

Snap!

Most of the remaining pitch-correction tasks will typically done in iterative fashion, but a good starting point is to decide which pitch segments need a general nudge to tighten their overall tuning. Set the Pitch Snap Mode to Absolute or Relative (both are useful, but Absolute is my default) and as you click and drag on a segment it will snap to the nearest note centre. That might give you the most technically correct pitch in algorithmic terms, but it won't always be the most musical-sounding result — you must let your ears be the judge here.

Two useful options give you more control over any general pitch adjustments. First, holding Shift while dragging the segment up/down will override either Pitch Snap Mode, leaving you free to adjust the segment's pitch centre as you wish. Second, clicking and dragging the Smart Control that's bottom-centre of the segment gives you precise control over pitch quantisation; you can very gradually nudge the segment's pitch centre towards the nearest scale note.

Set Things Straight

The Straighten Pitch tool lets you reduce (or expand) the pitch variation anywhere inside a segment, the range being defined by the two Set Range marker tools. Once you click and adjust a Smart Tool, the various tools disappear from view, but you do get feedback on the adjustments you're making.The Straighten Pitch Curve Smart Control mimics that in the VariAudio panel, but it's now also available in the segment (the square node, top-centre). This is used to adjust the amount of pitch variation inside a segment, to reduce unintentional pitch wobble, or tame/enhance deliberate vibrato. But in combination with other Smart Controls, you can shape the pitch curve with much greater finesse. For example, the two triangular Smart Controls (top left and top right) can be placed anywhere on the segment to define the time range on which the Straighten Pitch Curve control operates. A handy application is to exclude note onsets and endings; these often contain important information about the pitch transition from/into the previous/next note, and being too aggressive with pitch straightening here soon results in an unnatural sound. (If T‑Pain/Cher is what you're after, be as aggressive here as you want!) Perhaps more useful is that you can place Range Smart Controls around the note start or end, allowing you to control any pitch 'scoop' as your vocalist transitions into notes.

What's more, you can first straighten one region, and then define a different one and apply a different amount of straightening to that. A useful application is to fine-tune note vibrato: for example, apply straightening to the first half of a sustained note (excluding the very start), and then enhance any vibrato in the second half (excluding the very end). This gives you very precise control over the amount and onset of vibrato.

Full Tilt

You can also tilt portions of the pitch curve to remove pitch drift.Another common issue is pitch drift, by which I mean there's an overall trend up or down of the pitch (with or without vibrato) of a sustained note. The Tilt and Tilt Anchor Smart Controls (the top left/top right squares and top diamond, respectively) allow you to adjust this in various ways. If the pitch drift extends through the whole segment, hold down Opt/Alt while clicking and dragging up/down on one of the Tilt Smart Controls to 'tilt' the whole pitch curve for the segment. This is another 'use ears, not eyes' adjustment, and note that the Straighten Pitch Curve Range Smart Controls don't constrain the tilting range; tilting will affect the note start/end sections. If you only need to adjust the drift (tilt) towards the start or end of a note, the left/right Tilt Smart Controls can be used without holding down Opt/Alt. In this case, the position of the Tilt Anchor Point Smart Control defines the point from which tilting is performed — reposition this by dragging the Smart Control left/right.

That's Not All Folks!

Natural-sounding pitch correction inherently requires plenty of manual input and critical listening, but VariAudio 3's new Smart Tools make this easy. A combination of dividing multi-note segments, pitch snapping, tweaking any 'wobble' with pitch straightening, and finessing pitch drift (tilt) will get you a long way towards that perfectly pitched vocal, and you can do all of this without moving your cursor away from the segment(s) you're adjusting. But what's really note-worthy is the speed with which this can all be done. For me, VariAudio 3 now sets the bar for efficient vocal pitch correction.

Finally, I mentioned above that I hadn't space to go into detail about everything here. Indeed, VariAudio 3 has so much more to offer than what I've described above — I've not touched on the options to warp segment starts/ends for fine-tuning the timing and/or phrasing of your vocal, the ability to adjust the volume of a segment or change its formants, the possibility of extracting detailed MIDI data from your pitch-corrected vocal, or the option to superimpose a MIDI reference track as you perform your VariAudio edits — so I'll probably pick up on these in another column soon. 

Published May 2019

Patch of the Week 82: Celebrating Halloween, and the Theme that embodies it!

Steinberg Cubasis 2.7

By John Walden

Steinberg's Cubasis is one of the more popular and powerful DAWs/sequencers for the iPad — and since its first release, this app has just felt 'right', striking a sensible balance between the range of features, the scaled-for-touchscreen GUI, and resource demands that are appropriate to this platform. As the platform's capabilities have evolved with each generation of iPad, so too has Cubasis, and with appropriate external hardware (such as mics, monitors and audio interface), Cubasis running on an iPad is now capable of some pretty serious recording tasks.

Mark Wherry summarised the key developments when Cubasis v2 was released (SOS January 2017: https://sosm.ag/cubasis-2-0117), but Steinberg have continued to expand the feature set with various .X updates. The latest of these takes us to v2.7, and as well as the usual array of maintenance-style tweaks there have been a number of new additions, many focused on AU plug-in support. As AU under iOS is still to become the ubiquitous technology that AU and VST have become on the desktop, this progress is welcome.

Indeed, the most obvious new feature since 2.0 — support for full-screen AU plug-in displays within Cubasis — could be an important change for other iOS music app developers, particularly those with sophisticated virtual instruments in their catalogue. While we've seen lots of existing audio processing/effects apps developed for iOS AU v3, fewer of the big-hitting synths have made the transition because of their more complex UIs. Hosts capable of full-screen AU plug-in support should make life a little easier for developers.

It certainly ought to make things easier for the user and that's easily demonstrated, because a further addition is support for the free ROLI NOISE app within Cubase. This gives you a touchscreen version of the innovative ROLI Seaboard as well as a neat Drum Grid visualiser. And (yay!) this includes a full-screen option. No, it's obviously not as tactile as a hardware Seaboard, but it is a lot of fun, and with more room for your fingers to work it is much easier to play. Here's hoping that more developers follow suit and embrace the capabilities offered by the full-screen AU format.

Cubasis running on an iPad is now capable of some pretty serious recording tasks.

The other major AU-related change is support for MIDI CC control of AU effects plug-ins via external controllers (provided, of course, that your plug-ins also support it). Again, this ticks another familiar and useful desktop feature off the list.

The gradual improvements for AU plug-in support in each Cubasis update are great to see. Hopefully, this is another useful step forward in bringing the required maturity for AU under iOS.

A further welcome addition, albeit as an in-app-purchase ($4.99), is the Micrologue Arp virtual instrument (pictured above). Based on the synth of the same name in the desktop version of Cubase, it's scaled for the iPad and ships with over 70 very usable presets. As the name suggests, it features a built-in arpeggiator — and for all the wonderful third-party synths now available for iOS, Micrologue Arp is well worth adding to Cubasis; it's compact, low on resource demands and sounds great, and the arp function is really rather cool.

OK, so Cubasis might not quite be Cubase Pro on an iPad, and it's easy to think of workflow features I'd love to see transition from the desktop version by the time v3.0 rolls around (Folders and Group Channels would be top of my list). But it still offers a heck of a lot of features for a modest price and, in my own experience at least, is both stable and slick in use. All in all, a very impressive app for iPad-based music makers.

$49.99.

www.steinberg.net 

Published June 2019