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  • The ART of Audiomatic Retro Transformer

    The ART of Audiomatic Retro Transformer

    audiomatic
    Audiomatic versus the Combinator version

    Like many others I am a fan of the Reason Rack Extension called ART (Audiomatic Retro Transformer). It’s like using Instagram or a Snapchat filter for sound.

    I always thought that Audiomatic was some kind of Combinator that cannot be unfolded + additional scripting + Impulse Response for some of its presets. But I was wrong about the additional scripting and IR. ART is a Rack Extension which was modelled from Combinator patches.

    Reason user Selig (Giles Reaves) shared his story on creating 2 presets for Audiomatic: Tape and Wash. Here’s the Combinator version of Tape you can download for free:

    Selig ART: Tape Combinator (unknown, 1,660 hits)

    And Selig shared the nifty details behind the famous Wash preset he created:

    Don’t know if this will help much, but basically the input is split and one path goes to a delay/low pass filter, while the other is a bit more complex: it goes to an EQ with a low mid boost, into a bit crusher, then a LPF set to a mid range frequency with some resonance, then a HPF set low with high resonance, then to a room reverb with one output feeding a distortion and the other feeding a compressor! I’d have to do more in-depth analysis so get more exact numbers – the bit crush and room reverb are probably the wild cards here, as they may be more difficult to find accurate replacements in the Reason world.

    — ReasonTalk.com

    — ReasonTalk.com

    Very well programmed Combinator patches. That’s ART!

  • Like Instagram for audio: Audiomatic Retro Transformer

    Like Instagram for audio: Audiomatic Retro Transformer

    audiomatic
    click for larger image

    What sounded wrong in the past sounds perfectly normal today. Many years ago I disliked tape-noise, hum, overdrive but somehow I started to appreciatie it when I became more aware of the pros and cons of digital sound. To make a long story short: in the analogue domain things get lost, the sound is affected. High frequencies for example, so therefore we preferred to use open and bright sounding condenser microphones for the compensation of that loss. And the louder output of those condenser mics results in less noise.

    In digital we don’t have much loss. Okay, we might introduce a bit of quantization noise when we’re recording at a very low level. But in general that should really never be an issue. And when we’re recording on a too loud level we might introduce clipped bits which sounds harsh and digital. But when we stay within safe limits our audio recordings will end up sounding very dynamic and will be a perfect source for further processing.

    Dynamic and ribbon mics are nowadays sometimes a better choice for recording than ever before since they offer that natural high frequency roll-off.

    These days we’re processing the files like how photographers are processing photos using tools like Photoshop or Instagram. Modern cameras are using the RAW-format which is like the AIF/WAV format for photos. An uncompressed format. Not like JPG which is a compressed format and can be compared to MP3.

    Our source recordings are perfect for further processing. For example by adding lovely artifacts of the old days. This is where the new Propellerhead Rack Extension Audiomatic comes in handy. It’s a “Retro Transformer”, making your recordings sound like the were recorded through equipment which adds much colorization to the sound. You can download this Rack Extension for free when upgrading or buying Reason 7.

    Like how Instagram adds and old layer to our pictures by applying filters to it, we sound people are doing the same thing. We apply artifacts as layers to our music and sounds. Because it sounds good. And what sounds good is good.

    I’m using Audiomatic for some time now and love it. Thanks to it’s mix parameters it can be used as a subtle blend with the original signal. But you can also apply it 100% wet.

    Listen to this track I’m working on which uses the VHS tape effect of Automatic. It adds some obvious compression and radical changes in the frequency range of the track. I applied it over the whole mix as a Master Insert.

    For more information about Audiomatic: download the manual (English, PDF format). For the PDF in other languages and for additional information about Audiomatic check this page on the Propellerhead website.

  • List of saturation devices in Reason prone to aliasing (or not)

    List of saturation devices in Reason prone to aliasing (or not)

    image by Moxfyre / under Creative Commons BY-SA (Wikimedia)
    Image by Moxfyre / under Creative Commons BY-SA (Wikimedia)

    This week I wrote 2 blogposts on aliasing in amp simulation. I focussed on Reason for part 1 and focussed on Ableton Live for part 2. Aliasing is ruining perfect sound, making digital sound uhm… digital!

    For today, for part 3 of what seems to have become an aliasing series, I want to focus on all the Reason rack devices which can saturate an audio signal. Testing both the native Reason devices as well as the rack extensions I have bought. To see (hear!) if they are prone to produce these annoying aliasing sounds. This time I didn’t make samples.

    What I found out is that all standard Reason devices are producing aliasing sounds. Yes ALL of them!

    Here’s the list of all the default Reason devices I have tested:

    Pulveriser (Dirt module): aliasing!

    The Echo (Color module): aliasing!

    Aligator (Drive module): aliasing!

    Audiomatic (VHS & Cracked modes): aliasing!

    Scream 4 (all modes): aliasing!

    D-11 Foldback Distortion: aliasing!

    Synchronus (DIST module): aliasing!

    Thor (Shaper: all modes): aliasing!

    Malström (Shaper: all modes): aliasing!

    And here’s the list of the additional rack extensions:

    Cakewalk RE-2A: no aliasing

    Primal Audio ACID Diode Ladder Filter: no aliasing

    Primal Audio Ladder Multimode Filter: no aliasing

    Primal Audio PMS-20: aliasing in both modes, see back of the device

    Softube Saturation Knob: no aliasing

    Battle-Axe Sound Destroyer: aliasing on all saturation modes (Cleave, Trash, Decap)

    Conclusion

    The Primal Audio PM-20 and the Battle-Axe Sound Destroyer REs are bummers! I hope the companies add an oversampling switch to these devices one day. Possibly with a switch on the back of the devices. 2 times oversampling is often enough to prevent them from aliasing. So it should be a super easy fix right?

    It is 2016, stuff shouldn’t sound low res digital anymore. Simple as that.

    image by Moxfyre / under Creative Commons BY-SA (Wikimedia)

    P.S. these tests are done using a sample rate of 44.1 kHz. Sometimes I use 48 kHz for video projects.

    UPDATE (Nov 18, 2020): By email someone asked me if the Sononics Revival RE is causing aliasing errors. I am very fond of its sound. Not only for retro organ sounds, but also as an effects processor. See my review:

    Warm saturation in Reason: Pulveriser versus Revival

    Today I decided to put my nerd hat on.

    When pushing the drive of the Gold, Red and Brown modes on the Preamp section to the max I could not detect any noticeable aliasing. However with the SilverHG and BlueHG (high gain) modes aliasing became very much noticeable.

    I think this device doesn’t use oversampling techniques. The Gold, Red and Brown are filtered overdrives so the filtering in combination with the moderate amount of saturation seem to be a safe combination.

    I tested this in a project at 44.1. At 96 kHz the aliasing errors shift to a higher frequency spectrum which might solve the issue you might have when using the HG modes. See my post:

    https://melodiefabriek.com/blog/solving-aliasing-oversampling-upsampling/

    I must say I never use the HG modes, only the Gold, Red and Brown modes. So for me this isn’t a problem at all.

  • The cool stuff of Reason 9 (including my sounds)

    The cool stuff of Reason 9 (including my sounds)

    As you probably already know this week Propellerhead Software has released Reason 9. It includes some very useful new tools and some of the older stuff that every Reason should have (and thanks to this update now has!).

    New stuff: Pitch Edit

    Let me tell you I am not a big fan of the Autotune. Sure, there are many creative examples, but in general I dislike the soulless (read: no vibrato!) robotic tone which is often chosen as an effect. There are examples where it fits the song nicely, for example on this one: Happy by Pharell Williams.

    But Pitch Edit is a different ballgame! It sounds killer. Mind blowing! During beta testing (I was not allowed to talk about this for months because of the NDA) many super users opted that this is possibly the best sounding pitch edit ever done in software. You can do some serious re-pitching, including transposing and shortening of frases and changing the vibrato without getting it to sound robotic unless that’s your goal. Yes, it can do robotic voices as well: simply auto correct everything and remove the vibrato on all notes.

    Here’s the real deal, my advice: you don’t have to pitch edit the whole track, but you can use it to correct only a few issues. In my opinion this is a musical way to use it. Just listen to how it sounds and decide the amount of drift and humanness you want. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Gotta love the time in which we’re living’ right? These creative tools will change the music, how it’s being made and how it sounds.

    Pitch Edit is obviously also a great tool which can help you learn how to sing better. This tool will show you exactly what is going on. You will see the pitch drifting, you will see the vibrato, the timing. What You See Is What You Get.

    You can bounce your vocal tracks via the Bounce Audio Clips to MIDI method. This will create a MIDI track with a Subtractor. This makes it easy to create melodies using your own voice. Very cool!

    pitch-edit

    Players

    The Players are MIDI tools which will filter the input to generate patterns (Dual Arpeggio), note repeats, strums and chords (Note Echo) or to harmonise (Scales & Chords). Very cool, helpful and “deep” devices imo.

    For example Scales & Chords will help a lot of people finding chords. And it will help you to stay in the right key because non-scale notes will be skipped when selecting a key and mode, except when in chromatic mode of course.

    I am schooled as a jazz guitar player so my knowledge of harmony is very much okidoki but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a tool which makes it easier to stay-in-key or to generate one-finger chords. I am not a great keyboard player, so yeah, I LOVE one-finger chords (check for example that old patch of mine called One Finger Herbie, which is now included in the Factory Sounds ReFill that comes with R9). And it is also super NICE to be able to change the key and mode you’re in, great for experimentation. Play some complex chords real fast, like a melody? A “real” player would never do that, but with modern software… why not?

    Note Echo is also great. My favourite feature is to make it generate a chord based on single notes as input. This way it’s super easy to generate parallel chords. Which I love. And if I want to make them modal, stay in key, I only need to add Scales & Chords Player and select the right key. Just like that, simple as pie! In the same way you can use a Dual Arpeggio with a Scales & Chords Player so everything stays in key. Love that.

    Softube Amp, Bass Amp, Audiomatic and Pulsar

    For a sound designer/soundware/sound person like me it’s great to know that now every R9 user also has the Softube Amp & Bass Amp, Audiomatic and Pulser Rack Extensions on their system so I/we can design better, interesting and more complex sounds.

    Softube Amp & Bass Amp

    I like the Softube Amp & Bass Amp Rack Extension and I have been involved in beta testing these devices. And I remember it getting better with every beta version. One thing I didn’t understand though: the presets that come with the RE are, sorry to say, but rather shitty! And because of this, out of pure frustration I started programming my own patches which I turned into a custom Boutique Amp ReFill. Because guitar players like myself deserve a better sound!

    The old Line 6 amp and bass amp simulator devices in Reason are no longer available in Reason 9. It leaves me wonder why. Wasn’t much of a fan of these devices but this feels like a business conflict to me. Strange!

    Audiomatic

    I have blogged about the lovely Audiomatic a few times. Its presets are in fact Combinator presets which were converted in a Rack Extension. It shows the power of the native Reason devices (read: superb sound and totally modular design)!

    Pulsar

    Many sound designers like myself are adding a Substractor or Malstrom device to a Combinator often only for its LFO. In R9 this is no longer needed because the Props have added Pulsar, the supa dupa LFO unit as default device to Reason. Fantastic!

    Reason 9 Sounds

    The ReFill Reason 9 Sounds ReFill that comes with Reason is a cool one. And a weird one. Weird since the name suggests that it contains new sounds for Reason 9. Which it does but it also contains sounds which are like 13 years old! Huh? Yes! Nothing wrong with them because they still kiss #ss but just plain weird to call these Reason 9 Sounds in my opinion.

    Many of my old patches are now both(!) in the Factory Sounds ReFill (the Props renamed the old Factory SoundBank) and in the Reason 9 Sounds ReFill. Yes, redundant stuff and both containing a different skin/Backdrop to make things even more confusing: the version in the Factory SoundBank contains the old skin and the one in Reason 9 Sounds ReFill contains the new skin. But both version are exactly the same.

    But the cool thing is that some of my classic patches are now ALSO included in Reason 9 Sounds, for example: MACCA Beatle Bass.cmb, Return of the LowDown FUZZER.cmb, BlowByBlow.zyp, Flutely.thor, BackWardsDream’.xwv, Beauty.xwv, Boards Pad.zyp, MillionStrings.xwv, Sakamotions.thor, That Lost Phone of ET.thor, Lost In Translation.thor, Detail String.thor, Sun kids.thor, The deep trips.thor, Awakenings.thor, Music For Children.thor, Electro Do Brazil 2004 [Run], Ethno Beet Machine [Run], Celli+Contras.zyp, Femenine.thor, Old Hollywood.cmb, The White Sharks.cmb …

    And what is also cool is that the promo video the Props have put on the Reason page starts with this video:

    shaker-shotYou see this guy dragging a shaker-loop to the timeline. That’s Shaker_08_120-MF.rx2 and it’s the one of the shakers I created for Reason many years ago. MF = Melodiefabriek. #proud

  • Automatic for contrasty sounds

    Automatic for contrasty sounds

    audiomatic-tapeI am a fan of the Audiomatic device which ships as a free Rack Extension with Reason (version 7 or higher). Not only does it sound great using the warm Tape, the pumping VHS, the noisy and tickling Vinyl, the trippy Psyche or any of the other super useful presets, it is in fact the most simple way for creating contrasty sounds in a mix.

    Over the years I have learned that contrasty sounds are the most important thing for creating an interesting mix. It’s that tension in sound you can get by blending/mixing sounds together which are each others opposites. It’s a challenge to make the extremes to blend together nicely.

    It’s a must to have both thin sounding and thick sounding sounds in a mix. Or to blend distorted with none-distorted tracks.

    The Audiomatic is also a great device to overcome decision stress. You can simply limit yourself by using nothing but Audiomatic devices for mixing when working in Reason. Using the Bright preset when you need more high end (don’t forget to explore the lovely saturation the Bright preset can add to the sound!). Or user the Bottom preset for quickly adding more weight add the bottom range.

    This method offers the kind of layered approach like when you’re using sampled loops from all kinds of sources. Or the cool sounds you cab get by using a mixture of old and new hardware. Use the Cracked preset to make some stuff sound really dirty. Or use the Circuit preset for creating a low bit sampled sound.

    Trust me: it is fun and real easy!

  • TV Babies [disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica]

    TV Babies [disquiet0137-oldtimeelectronica]

    This week’s assignment for the Disquiet Junto Project was created in Reason. No samples were used only synths (mainly Reason Thor) running through wonderful Pulveriser and The Echo effect devices for distortion, rumble and filtering. Reason Audiomatic was used on master using it’s godzilla VHS setting.

    https://soundcloud.com/raaphorst/tv-babies

    Or listen to the full set with all entries:

    More on this 137th Disquiet Junto project — “Produce an original piece of music that fits the genre ‘old-time electronica’″ — at:

    disquiet.com/2014/08/14/disquie…ldtimeelectronica/

    More on the Disquiet Junto at:

    disquiet.com/junto

    Join the Disquiet Junto at:

    soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

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