Korg SV-2 - First five minutes with Luke from Korg

Cubase: Using Chorder For Lo-Fi Chord Voicings

By John Walden

Chorder lets you play full chords with a single trigger note and, via the Record button on the MIDI insert slot, you can choose to record either just the trigger notes or the full chords.

Want lo‑fi style chord progressions? You need look no further than Cubase’s Chorder MIDI plug‑in.

There are various ways in which the lo‑fi genre embraces simplicity, but it also tends to favour more sophisticated, jazz‑influenced chord voicings. A quick web search will cough up a multitude of lo‑fi style chord sequences that you could use as an inspiration for your own musical experiments, but if the piano keyboard isn’t your main instrument, all these seventh, ninth, 11th... and beyond chords might be a bit of a stretch (sometimes literally!). Fortunately, though, Cubase can help you create progressions using these harmonically rich chords, even if your piano‑playing skills are extremely limited.

Trigger Finger

In fact, Cubase offers a number of options for triggering complete chords from single MIDI notes. The Chord Pad system, the Trigger Pads in HALion Sonic 7 and the Chorder plug‑in are all prime candidates. Each has its pros and cons, but in this workshop we’ll be exploring Chorder. The MIDI plug‑in is conceptually simple and it’s very easy to use too. You simply place it into one of the MIDI insert slots of the desired MIDI or instrument track, configure the required chords (a one‑time task for a particular chord set, which can then be saved as a preset) and get playing. Do note, though, that once Chorder is in place its MIDI insert slot acquires a ‘record’ button; more on that below.

Chorder offers three options for arranging chords across potential MIDI trigger notes. Lo‑fi progressions are generally built from just a few chords, with additional interest added via different voicings or different inversions of the underlying core chords, so the One Octave mode, in which you can configure a single‑octave range as chord triggers, makes a sensible starting point. I’ve also set the Playstyle control to ‘simultaneous’, meaning that all the notes in the chord are triggered simultaneously, but this control also allows you to randomise the playback timing in different ways.

Chord Creator

To keep our example simple, let’s focus on creating a chord set based around a single key, C major. The standard triad chords would be C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am and (everyone’s favourite!) Bdim. Using the One Octave setting, we can activate the Learn button for each trigger note in turn (the note gets highlighted in dark red), and then click in the upper part of the display to select which notes we want to trigger. The result of this is shown for the D trigger note in the first screenshot: the D, F and A notes have been selected to form a Dm triad.

Note that, in this first example, the Number Of Layers slider is fully left, so that only a single layer of chords (one chord for each trigger note) can be created. However, if we now move the Number Of Layers slider right, Chorder automatically adds chord layers above our first layer; these can be populated with additional chords. I’ll describe how we can trigger these various layers in a moment, but for our lo‑fi ambitions, layers for seventh (Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7, Am7 and Bdim7) and the equivalent ninth chords are good candidates. An example is shown in the second screenshot where, for the C note, the three layers contain C (three notes), Cmaj7 (four notes) and Cmaj9 (five notes).

You can go much further than this harmonically, though. If your knowledge of the notes required for more exotic chords is limited, there are some really helpful web resources. For example, the websites pianochord.org and songtive.com provide comprehensive guides on chord voicings, all laid out with piano keyboard‑style graphics.

Chorder lets you add up to eight layers of chords to each trigger note, with layer selection using either Interval or Velocity modes.

One Digit Or Two?

Chorder’s Layers setting offers three different options for triggering your newly configured chords: Single, Velocity and Interval. Whichever mode you use to trigger your chords, it’s worth noting that when recording your performance you can choose to record either the trigger notes or the full chords; the latter is achieved by engaging the record button on Chorder’s MIDI insert slot that I mentioned earlier. Once you have the full chords recorded in a performance you are happy with (bar any minor editing), you can simply disable Chorder during subsequent playback.

The Single mode applies only if you’re happy to limit yourself to defining a single layer of chords. If you’ve defined more than one chord layer, Velocity mode allows you use the MIDI velocity of your trigger note to control which layer is played. The Velocity Spread slider provides some adjustment of the velocity range associated with each chord layer. This all works in a very straightforward fashion but, as triggering the higher layers means using greater MIDI velocities, it’s perhaps not ideal if the specific virtual instrument sound you are using also delivers notable velocity‑sensitive timbral changes. That said, as noted above, once you’ve recorded a MIDI clip with the full chords, you can easily adjust the note velocity data as required.

Interval mode is an interesting alternative to Velocity mode, although, for triggering, it does require two fingers rather than just one. The lower note determines the base note of the chord, while the higher note determines which chord layer is used, based on the interval between the two trigger notes. In our example, if we played the C note trigger and the D# key above it as the second note (three semitones above the lower note), we would trigger Cmaj9 (that is, the chord associated with layer 3 on the C note trigger). This method does require a little practice (the process is somewhat quirky) but, again, you can always record the full chord performance and tidy up any issues with a little editing.

Inversion Therapy

As suggested by the earlier screenshots, at this stage I’ve simply created each of my chords by starting with the root note and then including the additional notes in sequence above this. Harmonically, these are correct, but in practice, when they’re played within a sequence, chords voiced in this very ‘linear’ fashion might not always provide the most musical of results (in the same way that simply playing the same chord shape up and down a guitar neck isn’t always the most musically interesting way to execute a chord sequence).

Chorder lets you explore alternative voicings or inversions of chords but, however complex the chord, it can be easily played via one (or two) trigger notes.

It’s at this point that you can start to get creative with the voicings used for each chord by rearranging how the notes are laid out across the piano keyboard. The final screenshot shows a Chorder example for a three‑layer version of a Cmaj9 chord. The first layer contains the five notes (C, E, G, B and D) arranged in ascending order, as before. In contrast, the two other layers take exactly the same combination of notes, but rearrange them to voice the chord differently. In layer 2, that’s simply been achieved by moving the lowest two notes (C and E) an octave higher, creating a second inversion of the chord with G now as the lowest note. In layer 3, the same notes have been spread out across a wider range of the keyboard to create a more ‘open’ voicing (and one that would clearly require two hands to play), an approach that’s often used when voicing chords across an orchestral string section, for example. All three versions contain the same notes, but when played, and particularly when played within a sequence, the musical effect can be very different.

Any chord with four or five notes provides plenty of scope for these sorts of voicing variations...

Lo‑fi Lowdown

Any chord with four or five notes provides plenty of scope for these sorts of voicing variations, and for lo‑fi style chord progressions this can often be where the magic happens. The simple audio examples available on the SOS website (https://sosm.ag/cubase-0723) that accompany this workshop include an illustration of the kinds of things that are possible. However, with Chorder’s ability to ‘build’ these chords for easy triggering, and the option to use layers for alternative chord voicings, you have a means to experiment with these sorts of chord sequences regardless of your piano skills, and the option to record your performance in a simple (and easily editable) format.

With your cool chord sequence in the bag, you can move on to some of the other elements that characterise the lo‑fi vibe. For example, Steinberg’s free Lo‑Fi Piano instrument for HALion Sonic 7, which I’ve used for the audio examples, is an excellent sound source. However, Cubase can also help when it comes to the styles of audio processing required to make your sounds suitably retro. That would make a good subject for a future column, but until then, why not compile a few chords into Chorder and let your jazz muse out, lo‑fi style? 

Published July 2023

Explore the Korg SV-2 - the evolution of a modern classic

Cubase: Beat Designer

By John Walden

Beat Designer: drum machine‑style pattern creation with a simple workflow.

Create drum machine‑style grooves in a flash with Cubase’s Beat Designer.

Classic drum machines such as the LinnDrum or those in Roland’s TR range helped to shape a whole smörgåsbord of electronic and dance music styles, but their influence didn’t only live in the distinctive sounds they offered: the grooves of their drum patterns were also a hugely significant factor. The feel of these grooves came from the grid‑based pattern creation process that lay at the heart of these machines — and with Cubase’s Beat Designer MIDI plug‑in you can emulate that workflow. What’s more, with a few key tricks under your belt, patterns can be created really quickly. So, without further ado, let’s explore Beat Designer’s, um... beat designing options!

Basics: Sounds & Beats

You can configure Beat Designer’s lane layout to suit your needs.Beat Designer is placed as a MIDI insert plug‑in on whatever instrument track you wish to use. You’ll need to load a suitable drum instrument, of course, and the bundled Groove Agent SE or a sliced drum loop within a Cubase Sampler Track both make good candidates. Beat Designer does include some good beat presets and, as I’ll discuss below, a single instance can host up to 48 different patterns (four sub‑banks of 12 patterns each). It’s easy to switch between patterns too, and if you set a cycle region and let Cubase loop playback, you can audition your pattern creations as you work. Initially, though, Beat Designer opens ready for you to start creating from scratch, without any pattern pre‑loaded.

The central part of Beat Designer’s GUI is occupied by the pattern grid. Arranged vertically on the left side is the list of eight individual drum lanes and you can add/subtract lanes as required via the small ‘+’ and ‘‑’ buttons on the far right of each lane. If the default drum selections don’t suit, you can use the drop‑down menu in each lane to pick the drum sound target from your drum instrument. You can also use the small speaker icon to audition each selected sound; it’s simple and easy to configure.

You can add hits by either clicking on a single lane/step, or clicking and dragging to add multiple hits (for example, on the hi‑hat lane). Where you click vertically within a step provides initial control over that step’s velocity (high velocities at the top, low at the bottom). Hits are colour‑coded based on velocity. Clicking and dragging up/down on a step lets you adjust velocity or, if you hold Shift while clicking/dragging, change the relative velocity up/down (until a step reaches min/max velocity values) for all active steps in a lane. You can also change the velocity on selected multiple steps by clicking/dragging vertically on one step, and then dragging sideways across other active steps before then moving up/down to set the velocity. Equally, you can add volume ramps up/down by repeating this same mouse movement while holding the Alt/Opt key. And, of course, clicking on an already active step deactivates it.

If you don’t want to roll you own, Beat Designer includes a good selection of pattern presets to explore and adapt.This whole process is really simple and obviously makes for very speedy rhythm creation, but there are further useful shortcuts on offer too. For example, holding Shift, clicking on a step within a lane and then dragging left/right allows you to move all the steps within a lane. You can also copy one lane to another by holding Alt/Opt and clicking within the lane label area, then dragging to the lane where you wish to place the copy. And, for some further interesting rhythmic experiments, hold Alt/Opt and drag left/right over a lane: this inverts all the steps (so active steps become inactive and vice versa).

Step, Swing, Flam & Offset

The number of steps and the step resolution can be set on a per‑pattern basis. Both settings are located top left of the GUI, and there’s some fun to be had here, particularly if you create a pattern using a tried and trusted 16 steps/16th‑note step‑length format and then change the number of steps or pick a triplet step‑length format. Equally, if you use two separate drum instruments, each with its own instance of Beat Designer but set to different step counts or step lengths, you can be rewarded with some very cool — and sometimes wonderfully odd! — rhythmic interaction.

Beat Designer can also apply swing on a per‑lane level to every second beat in a pattern, or every third beat if using triplet steps (so bear in mind that the number of steps you use influences how swing impacts). For each pattern, you can configure two levels of swing, using the sliders with the diagonal icons that are found at the bottom right. For each lane, swing can be set to off or to one of the two swing amounts, using the appropriate diagonal icon at the right end of each lane. This can be a great way to add a nice groove to your hi‑hats, for example, but more extreme swing settings on your hats, kick and snare also let you experiment with the more ‘uncomfortable’ rhythms used in some types of hip‑hop or lo‑fi music.

You can add one‑, two‑ or three‑note flams to any active hit — their timing and level are configured using the group of sliders located bottom left and set at the pattern level. If you hover the mouse over the bottom of any active step, a three‑dot icon will appear and you can click this to add one, two or three flams to that step.

The horizontal sliders found to the right of each lane (next to the on/off buttons for swing) apply a timing offset for that lane, allowing you to push/pull the timing of the active hits relative to the main grid. This serves two main functions. First, you can use it in a corrective fashion; for example if the lane is triggering a sample that contains a short rise to its peak level you might want each hit earlier in time for that sound. Second, you can use it more creatively to create a rushed (ahead of the beat) or laid‑back (behind the beat) feel to elements of your groove. Or if Dilla‑style hip‑hop beats are your thing, you can use it to explore just how ‘off but not off’ you can take your rhythms. As with the swing settings, offset settings are configured at the pattern level.

Pattern Performer

As mentioned above, a single instance of Beat Designer can hold up to 48 different patterns. These are managed using the four sub‑bank and 12 pattern buttons, found at the bottom centre of the GUI. Slots that contain a pattern are indicated with a small circle icon, and clicking on a specific sub‑bank/pattern button combination makes that pattern active for editing/playback. Dropping down the Pattern Functions menu (found at the top right) provides menu options for copying, pasting and clearing patterns. This makes it easy to create variations: just duplicate a pattern and then customise the copy.

There are a number of ways to copy the contents of a pattern, or all the patterns within one of the four sub‑banks, onto a Cubase MIDI or instrument track.

The Pattern Functions menu allows you to perform various operations in Beat Designer or export the MIDI patterns to your DAW tracks.This menu offers a couple of other useful functions. First, the top three entries let you shift an entire pattern left/right one step at a time or to reverse the whole pattern. Second, courtesy of the options at the base of the menu, there are a number of ways to copy the contents of a pattern, or all the patterns within one of the four sub‑banks, onto a Cubase MIDI or instrument track, and once there you can further edit the MIDI using the Cubase’s standard MIDI or drum editors. A particularly useful option is the Fill Loop With Pattern command: this inserts the current pattern as many times as required to fill the region between your left and right locators, and it’s a super‑quick way to get your initial Beat Designer drum groove up and running so that you can work on other elements of the track. (Once you’ve copied your pattern data to a MIDI track, remember to bypass Beat Designer, so as to avoid any double triggering of notes!)

If you prefer to create a performance by triggering pattern changes on the fly, enabling the Jump button (top right of the GUI) lets you use the four‑octave key range from C1 to switch between any of the 48 pattern slots. Once Jump is enabled, the GUI adds a Now button that allows you to toggle between instant pattern switching or switching at the start of the next bar, and you can record the trigger notes to capture your performance (and, if you wish, edit them after recording).

Get Creative

You can create all sorts of beats using the various tools I’ve outlined above (inverting lanes, different step lengths, shifting lanes left/right, etc) but the real beauty of Beat Designer is its speedy workflow — if classic drum machine beats are what your project needs, then it is well worth taking the time to explore it. Meanwhile, just to give you an idea of the sort of pattern variations you can generate really quickly, I’ve included some audio examples on the SOS website: https://sosm.ag/cubase-0823 

Published August 2023

Korg SV-2 - Vintage soul meets modern style

miniKORG 700Sm - The Synth The Started It All, Reborn.

Steinberg update Cubasis and Dorico apps

By John Walden

Toggling the bypass status for insert plug‑ins on multiple tracks: a great shortcut for A/B comparison.

Embrace the power of Cubase’s Project Logical Editor, and you can become a workflow ninja!

In last month’s workshop I demonstrated just how powerful the MIDI Logical Editor, found in both the Pro and Artist versions of Cubase, can be for manipulating MIDI data, but as I mentioned in that column Pro users also have something called the Project Logical Editor. This is a similar logic‑driven tool that allows you to simplify complex tasks, but in this case rather than work with MIDI data, it’s used to streamline project‑level tasks. As with the MIDI Logical Editor, if you’re not used to working with Boolean logic, the Project Logical Editor can feel intimidating at first, but exploring just a few example presets will soon get over that initial speed bump.

Better In Or Out?

We’ll start our introductory tour with a preset that’s conceptually easy to understand yet does a super‑useful job. ‘Toggle Inserts Bypass of Selected Tracks’ is found in the Mixing category of the Factory presets and does as the name suggests: action this preset and all the insert plug‑ins on the currently selected tracks will have their bypass status switched, with active plug‑ins put into bypass and bypassed plug‑ins made active. The first screen shows how this is achieved.

As with the MIDI Logical Editor last month, the options in the Event Target Filters panel dictate what objects are to be selected. The Event Transform Actions panel then specifies what changes are to be made to those selected objects. In the upper panel, the ‘Container Type’ is selected if it is ‘Equal’ to ‘Track’ and if its ‘Property Is Set’ to ‘Selected’. This means that only tracks that you’ve selected within the Project or MixConsole windows are going to be changed by any of the commands specified in the lower panel. In that lower panel, a single entry applies a ‘Track Operation’ to the ‘Inserts Bypass’ parameter: it ‘Toggles’ the status of the bypass setting. This preset can be a really useful function for A/B comparisons. For example, you can select all your subgroup bus tracks and quickly bypass their insert plug‑ins to check whether all those mix processing moves are helping as intended, or hindering. Another scenario is use it on one or more tracks to toggle between two instances of an EQ or compressor (or both) that are configured with different settings, to see which you prefer.

And since you can configure a key command to execute any Project Logical Editor preset, once you’ve selected the tracks you wish to work with, a single click lets you toggle the bypass status of all the insert plug‑ins. There are other (equally useful) presets within this Mixing category that provide similar ‘bypass’ options for the sends and EQ panels within the MixConsole — I’ll leave you to explore their potential!

It’s easy to clear out unwanted automation data for only the selected tracks in a specific song section.

Automation Reclamation

Have you ever got deep into a mix and decided that within one section of the song, the mix just isn’t quite right? Stripping out the automation data (for example, volume, pan, EQ, and any send and insert effects) in a single project section can be a time‑consuming process. Thankfully, there’s a Project Logical Editor preset for that: ‘Delete All Automation Data for Selected Audio, Instrument and MIDI Tracks inside Cycle’.

The name may be a bit of a mouthful, but this preset does what it says on the tin. Once you’ve placed the left and right locators around the appropriate section of the project timeline, simply select which tracks you wish to remove the automation data from, then execute the preset. As shown in the screenshot, four entries in the Event Target Filters panel do the heavy lifting. The first two selection criteria identify that ‘Media Type’ that is ‘Equal’ to ‘Automation’ data and that it is ‘Contained’ within an ‘Event’ (ie. an audio or MIDI clip). However, the selection process also considers the third and fourth criteria: the automation data must have a ‘Position’ ‘Inside Cycle’ (between the left and right locators) and the ‘Parent Object Is Selected’ (the ‘Parent’ property is the Track upon which the event sits), so only tracks you have already selected will be acted upon by the preset.

For the automation data that fulfils these combined selection criteria, no transformations are specified in the lower panel. But at the base of the UI, the ‘Delete’ action is specified. When we hit the Apply button, any selected automation data is therefore deleted and replaced by a straight automation line joining the nearest automation points before and after the left and right locators. As a means of cleaning up an unwanted mess of automation data within selected tracks in a portion of a project, it’s a pretty speedy solution.

When this revised version of the preset is applied, volume automation is reset but other automation data is left intact...

This preset is a great candidate for DIY modifications. For example, if you select the last of the current criteria, you can use the Insert button to refine the selection further. And if you enter ‘Name’ as the Filter Target, ‘Contains’ as the condition, and ‘Volume’ as Parameter 1, then only volume automation data will be selected. When this revised version of the preset is applied, volume automation is reset but other automation data is left intact — very useful if you just want to rethink the track levels within a song section. Of course, you could also apply the preset across your entire project by simply placing the left/right locators appropriately...

Ready to tidy up your unwanted muted parts?

Refuted When Muted

As I work through a busy project, I’ll often end up with lots of audio and MIDI clips that I muted as I ‘trimmed the fat’ while mixing. Once I’m happy that these elements are surplus to requirements, the ‘Delete All Muted Parts And Events’ preset (in the Parts And Events category) provides a speedy way to declutter. The screenshot shows the selection criteria used to find all the muted elements in your project (as with the previous example, no transformations are applied in the lower panel; the selected items are just deleted when you hit Apply). The key thing to note is how the selection criteria find only ‘Container Types’ that are ‘Equal’ to MIDI ‘Parts’ or (in the Bool column) audio ‘Events’ or ‘Audio ‘Parts’. The final entry then ensures only those Events/Parts that are currently muted actually get selected. Usefully, there’s also a Delete Muted Tracks preset (in the Tracks category) if your project requires a different ‘tidy up’ strategy.

It’s easy to add the date (or other details) to selected track names with the Project Logical Editor.

Make A Date

The final screenshot shows the ‘Add a Date to selected MIDI + Audio Track Names’ preset (from the Naming category). Given our earlier examples, the approach used in the four Event Target Filters panel should feel familiar. The four entries combine to identify all ‘Container Types’ that are ‘Tracks’, and that have the ‘Property’ of being ‘Selected’ and the ‘Media Type’ is ‘MIDI’ or ‘Audio’.

All tracks that meet these criteria (essentially all MIDI or Audio tracks that you have selected within the Project or MixConsole window) are then subjected to the entry in the Event Transform Actions panel. The Action Target is the track’s ‘Name’, and the Operation is set to ‘Append’ (that is, add something to the existing name). In this case, Parameter 2 is set to ‘Std. Names’ (if you click on this, a drop‑down menu of options appears) and Parameter 1 is ‘Date’. When you hit the Apply button, every selected audio and MIDI track has the current date added to its existing name.

For projects you’ll be working on over an extended period of time, adding the date to specific tracks can be a really helpful reminder of how the project has evolved. Which vocal take was the original? What’s the most recent version of the saxophone solo? And, if you work with collaborators and want to keep track of who added what to a project, you can simply adapt this preset by clicking on the ‘Date’ entry in the Parameter 1 column and type your own text such as your name or initials. Run both this modified version and the original ‘Date’ version, and every track you select can get your name/date added to its name, making it easy to see who has done what (and when) as the project moves between the various collaborators.

Surface Scratching

The above examples are very much the tip of the Project Logical Editor iceberg, but they should show you the potential for automating some pretty complex tasks. I hope they’ll encourage you to explore the various preset categories to find titles that might be useful to improve your own Cubase workflow. And remember, many of these presets can be candidates for the kinds of simple DIY customisation demonstrated above — even if you don’t feel ready to roll your own presets from scratch.

Combining the MIDI Logical Editor and Project Logical Editor with the use of key commands and the Cubase Macro features (both topics we have covered here in the past but are probably worth revisiting soon) can be absolutely transformative to your Cubase workflow — and bring Cubase ninja status within reach!

Published October 2023

KORG Module version 5: Added a new drum module

Cubase: Managing The Low Mids With Frequency 2

 By John Walden

With Frequency 2 inserted on the master bus, you can apply gain reduction only to the low‑mid frequencies, and only when they contain the most energy — this can be an effective tactic if faced with a muddy‑sounding mix and static EQ can’t get things where you want.

Wrestling with low‑mid mud? Cubase’s dynamic EQ can help.

Almost every instrument group in modern music productions can contain significant energy in the low mids (broadly speaking, around 250‑500 Hz), so when mixing you’ll often find that there’s an unhelpful build‑up of energy within this range — if there’s too much going on in this region, a mix might sound ‘muddy’, ‘muffled’ or ‘boxy’, and you need a plan to address that.

There are a number of ways in which this ‘too much mud’ issue might be approached, and careful arrangement and instrumentation choices can obviously play a big part, by which I mean you can write the parts and pick and layer your sound sources in a way that avoids an unhealthy build‑up of energy in the low midrange in the first place. But if further control is required, standard EQ applied at the master bus, on subgroups, at the individual instrument level or a combination of all three can be used to control the energy that sits in this frequency range. Cubase offers several EQ tools that can be used for that, including the Channel Strip EQ, StudioEQ and, for users of Cubase Pro or Nuendo only, Frequency 2.

In addition to normal EQ duties, Frequency 2 provides an additional level of control: dynamic EQ. Compared to a standard EQ, where any cut (or boost) is applied all the time, with a dynamic EQ, the cut (or boost) is only applied when the signal is at its loudest in the target frequency range. There are plenty of third‑party options for those using other versions of Cubase (such as Tokyo Dawn’s freeware Nova: https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-nova), but since Frequency 2 comes with Cubase Pro and its GUI makes everything really easy to configure, let’s use it to explore some dynamic mud management tactics.

I’ve also prepared some short audio examples (available on the SOS website at https://sosm.ag/cubase-1223) to illustrate what I’m discussing here.

Mud Master

If you think the correction required is a modest final tweak to an otherwise finished mix, or you’re already at the mastering stage of a project, some corrective low‑mid EQ on your master bus or stereo mix might be the most appropriate, or perhaps even the only option. But even if not, I find it’s often worth trying an instance of Frequency 2 on the master bus before you move on to a more finessed approach. You might be surprised by what you can achieve!

The first screenshot shows the settings I configured for this approach with the mix used in the audio examples. Note that I’ve switched the Frequency 2 display to Sing (single band) mode, as this provides easier access to the full range of EQ controls for a single EQ band (in this case, band three of the eight available bands), including the Dynamics section. The required settings will be dependent upon the source material, of course, but there are some useful guiding principles. I’ve used a peak filter centred at 350Hz and with a Q of 2.5 to deliver 9dB of gain reduction. No, that’s not a mistake! A 9dB cut on the master bus would almost certainly be too much with a conventional static EQ band; as can be heard in the audio examples, it would rob this mix of too much low‑mid energy, making the mix sound ‘thin’. But this won’t be a conventional EQ cut...

Before we engage the Dynamics section, though, there are a couple of points worth noting. First, with this combination of settings, the filter shape means the cut extends a little beyond the 250‑500 Hz range. You can control this by adjusting the Q (larger values make the filter narrower) or gain (smaller cuts also reduce the range of frequencies affected by the filter). Second, when you know you’ll be making the band dynamic, it’s actually not such a bad idea to start by applying a static EQ that produces rather more cut than you think you’ll eventually need. This makes it easier to hear the EQ change, and I find it helps when targeting the initial Freq and Q settings; it’ll be that bit easier to hear exactly where the problem lies.

Applying Frequency 2’s dynamic EQ to subgroup tracks gives you greater control over which instruments are ‘de‑mudified’.

Get Dynamic

Having brought our ‘mud spot’ into focus, we can now engage the Dynamics section. The main control options are Threshold, Ratio, Attack and Release, and will be familiar to anyone who’s used a conventional compressor before. Again, the settings could vary according to the material, but you probably don’t want the gain reduction to be too aggressive. In the example, I opted for a gentle 2:1 ratio, fast (3ms) attack and medium (150ms) release. With those set up, I simply adjusted the Threshold fader, to specify the signal level at which this band‑specific compression started delivering the amount of gain reduction that my ears suggested was required.

The degree of control is impressive and if you get the balance right, you can tackle the mud without making your mix sound thin.

The GUI provides some very useful visual feedback, and it’s worth noting that the original Freq, Q and Gain settings control the absolute maximum amount of gain reduction that can be applied, while our Dynamics settings control how often and how far the gain reduction moves towards that maximum position. When there’s more ‘mud’ — that is, more energy within the specified frequency band — more gain reduction is applied so, almost as if by magic, the unwanted mud is dynamically managed. You can hear the result in an audio example on the SOS website for which I applied different Threshold settings to adjust the level of mud reduction. The degree of control is impressive and if you get the balance right, you can tackle the mud without making your mix sound thin.

The Start control lets you combine static and dynamic EQ. I’ve exaggerated the settings here for clarity: the Start setting of ‑6dB (topmost thin white curve) forms the EQ starting point onto which any further dynamic cuts are superimposed.Before we move on, a final thing to note about the Dynamics section is the Start control. This allows you to combine your dynamic EQ adjustment with a static cut/boost. So, for example, if I set Start to ‑3dB, I would get a static 3dB gain reduction applied all the time and this would then form the starting point (hence ‘Start’) from which any further dynamic gain adjustment would applied. Again, the frequency display in the upper panel provides a very intuitive graphical representation of this so it’s easy to see what’s happening.

Group Therapy

If your usual approach to mixing makes use of the group channels to provide separate sub‑mixes of the drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals and so forth, then you can apply precisely the same basic principles at the subgroup level. Simply insert an instance of Frequency 2 on each of group channel and use each one to dynamically control the lower mids of each instrument group.

In principle, this should give you greater control over how and where your mud management is applied, and minimise collateral damage to sources that you don’t want cut. For example, you could use the approach on just your guitar and keyboard/synth buses (common culprits in mud supplies), while avoiding stealing any lower‑mid energy from other instrument groups. Equally, since you’re dealing with single instrument groups, you can generally be a little more conservative (for example, a higher threshold or lower ratio). Cuts are only applied to a specific instrument when that instrument exceeds the threshold, and when combined with similar cuts being applied in isolation to other channels, the overall result should, hopefully, be a mix with a little more clarity.

By the way, there’s nothing to stop you combining both the master bus and group bus approaches, although if the main mud management is done at the group level, you’ll find you can apply much more subtle settings at the master bus, just to catch the occasional 1 or 2 dB of excess mud.

Keeping Your Balance

So, where fader moves and conventional compression and static EQ boosts don’t seem to deliver a satisfying tonal balance (it’s rarely a bad idea to try such bread‑and‑butter tactics first!), looking to these Frequency 2 tactics to minimise the mud can be a great next step. Of course, you could extend the same basic approach down to the individual instrument channel level, though do use your ears to decide if its actually needed — there’s no point processing audio for the sake of it, and if there are complex phase relationships between different sources you should listen out for unwanted side‑effects; unpicking problems you only notice later can be time‑consuming and frustrating!

Another tactic is to use Frequency 2’s external side‑chain input options to duck one or more sources out of the way of a source whose low‑mid presence you want to retain (for example, using the guitar bus to duck a synth bus), but that’s perhaps a topic for another day.

Published January 2024

Introducing the KORG B2+ | Digital Piano with Upgraded Sound and USB-C

Cubase: Using Chord Pads

By John Walden

The updated Chord Pad window incorporates the Chord Assistant, including its handy Circle of Fifths display, in a panel on the right.

The revamped Chord Pad offers even better support for songwriters than before.

Cubase’s Chord Pad facility has always made experimenting with different chords easy for anyone, regardless of their version of Cubase (it’s included in the Pro, Artist and Elements editions) or their level of keyboard competence — you can create (or load) a palette of suitable chords, which can be as simple or as complex as you like, pick a key, and then all you need to experiment with different chord sequences is a single finger. Thus, it can be a very powerful aid to songwriting... and Cubase 13 brought some interesting refinements that are aimed squarely at this use‑case scenario.

Strike The Right Chord

As shown in the first screenshot (above), the Chord Pads can be accessed in the Project window’s Lower Zone. At its simplest, you can use the pads, each of which is associated with a MIDI note, to trigger a full chord on the currently active MIDI/virtual instrument track. However, you can now specify a larger number of pads (configured in the Chord Pad Remote Setting dialogue box, accessed using the MIDI connector icon located top right). You can also opt for a grid‑based layout (in the Chord Pads Display Setting dialogue, accessed very top right), which may be helpful if you are using a drum‑pad‑style device to trigger your chords.

The top bar menu system has been reorganised to provide better access to options for transposing or re‑voicing chords on selected pads. There are also improved pattern performance options (very neat, but a topic for more detailed consideration another day...) and options to configure both how chord triggers are quantised and how note overlaps are handled.

Steinberg have added a bunch of new Chord Pad presets that are well worth exploring but it’s easy to build your own selections, and we will look at one songwriter‑friendly route for doing this in a moment. Before we do, I want to offer you a quick reminder about the Adaptive Voicing (AV) feature. In essence, if this is active when you trigger chord changes, then Cubase will attempt to make those changes smoother by using the smallest shifts in pitch required to move between chords — much like a competent piano or guitar player might do. This can be activated on a per‑pad basis using the AV buttons in the toolbar. But sometimes you’ll want more specific control over the voicing used on a specific pad (for example, by setting the notes used with your MIDI keyboard), and in that case you can deactivate the AV system for that pad altogether and, as an extra ‘failsafe’, use the Lock button to ensure your chosen voicing doesn’t get altered.

You can now create larger sets of Chord Pads and the Chord Assistant’s List display makes it easy to add more harmonically complex chords to your selection.

Test Your Theory

From a songwriting perspective, the new ability to open the Chord Assistant directly in the Chord Pad system is very useful. This can be toggled on/off using the ‘right panel’ button, located at the top right of the window. There are three display options available here: Chord Editor, List and Circle of Fifths. They all have their uses, but for creating an initial chord selection from scratch, I think the Circle of Fifths display is particularly useful.

To start with a blank set of pads, use the Select All button on the left of the lower row of toolbar items, and then hit the Delete button. You can then select the root note of the key you wish to use from the drop‑down box at the top left of the toolbar, and choose between major or minor keys in the Chord Assistant. The Circle of Fifths display will automatically adjust to place your root‑note chord at the centre of its display.

The arrangement of the chords gives you a clear indication of which chords are most likely to work well together in your chosen key.

The beauty of this display is twofold. First, even if your music theory knowledge is a work in progress, the arrangement of the chords gives you a clear indication of which chords are most likely to work well together in your chosen key. The seven basic triad chords in the selected key are shown in the upper quadrant of the display, and are also indicated with Roman numerals that show the position of their respective root notes in the scale (three major, three minor and the ‘harmonically challenging’ diminished VII chord). As you move further away from this upper quadrant, all the chords shown stray progressively further ‘out of key’. As a result, they might be more difficult to place in a chord sequence with your ‘in key’ chords — but, equally, the occasional unexpected chord choice can often be really helpful in giving a sequence a unique, engaging feel. The ease with which this sort of experimentation can be explored is one of the real advantages of the Chord Pad system.

Second, you can now assign a chord to a Chord Pad simply by dragging from the Circle of Fifths display to an empty Chord Pad. And with the Circle of Fifths display to guide your choices, you can simply repeat this process until you’ve built a set of chords to explore.

Colourful Chord Changes

As shown in the second screenshot, I’ve done this for all the basic chords in the C major scale, starting at Chord Pad C0. For simplicity in triggering, I’ve confined the triggers to the white notes. But having expanded the number of Chord Pads (as mentioned earlier) to span two octaves, I’ve then added a second instance of each chord, with adjustments that give me access to something beyond the basic triads. If I want to add some more harmonically interesting chords in my sequence, it’s now just as easy as triggering the basic triads.

The two sideways arrow buttons in the toolbar (Less Tensions and More Tensions) can be used to create these extended chords. But if you switch from the Circle of Fifths display to the Chord Editor display in the Chord Assistant panel, then you get even more control over these extended chord options. Usefully, the chords automatically audition themselves as you make selections.

From a ‘songwriting assistant’ perspective, there are a couple of other really useful additions to the pads display. First, in the Chord Pad Display Settings dialogue, you can add either Roman Numerals or Nashville Number System labels to the pads, either as the primary or secondary label. Chord sequences are often abbreviated to these number sequences (for example, the classic I, V, iv, IV that’s been used in a gazillion hit songs) because it provides a concise summary of the chord sequence that would work, whatever the key. It can be super‑useful to see these labels on the pads themselves as you explore your own chord sequence ideas.

The other addition, which I reckon is a really clever one, is the interactive colour coding of the Chord Pads. When you trigger a pad, Cubase applies a little bit of music theory in the background and instantly colour codes (at the bottom strip of the pad) the more obvious ‘next chord’ destinations for you. A shade of green indicates the most obvious destinations, while yellow, orange or red suggest chords that will create a progressively more dramatic change. This process happens in real time as you play, so as you search for some chord sequence ideas, you’ll find that your ‘virtual assistant’ has always got your back with a suitable idea or two as to where to go next! Whatever your level of music or harmony knowledge, and whether you wish to use it to follow the suggested wisdom or deliberately choose not to, I think this is genuinely useful.

Did I Play That?

From this point on, it’s all about having fun and letting the creative process happen, and with these enhancements to the Chord Pad feature set it’s even easier to experiment with chord sequences than ever. You needn’t worry about your keyboard chops or struggle to draw on a partial knowledge of music theory — it can be a really liberating experience. And when you are happy with your chord sequence, hit the record button, trigger your one‑finger chords, and the full triggered chords, however complex, will be present and correct in the resulting MIDI clip.

Once you’ve created a useful Chord Pad configuration, don’t forget to save it as a preset. And if you decide the key needs adjustment when you try to sing a topline over your chords, you can simply change the root note from the drop‑down mentioned earlier — the Chord Pads will just transpose to suit (note that you can defeat this automatic change, if required).

Over multiple releases, the Chord Pad system has gradually evolved into a really powerful feature in Cubase, but the ‘songwriting assistant’ workflow that I’ve described above is just one way it can be used — so I’ll return to explore other applications for the Chord Pads in a future workshop or two. Until then, let your one‑fingered chord sequence writing run free and generate some new song ideas. 

Published February 2024