Creating Music with a Sound Design Approach in Bitwig Studio

Tutorial | Mar 18, 2020

In this video, I show viewers how to use a sound design approach to create music in Bitwig Studio. We start with a generative patch to create random patterns of notes and sounds. Then, we bounce this out as an audio file and use it as a sample source. We add a simple kick drum pattern and use an audio sidechain to modulate the amplitude of the music group. Next, we create a bassline using the Phase-4 device and add a Classic LFO and FX2 device for added effects. We bounce out the created sounds and create collages of these sounds to keep the track interesting. This approach doesn't focus on harmony or chords but rather heavily relies on the sound itself. You can create more sounds and variations to make the song even more interesting. Overall, this is a sound design-based approach to music creation in Bitwig Studio.

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Questions & Answers #

Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

Questions and Answers #

1. What is the sound design approach in Bitwig Studio? #

The sound design approach in Bitwig Studio focuses on designing sounds rather than focusing on the musical side. Instead of creating notes and harmony, you start by designing and creating sounds. These sounds can be created using generative patches, sampling yourself, or creating sound design patches. The approach ensures that the resulting sounds are interesting and can be used to make interesting tracks.

2. How do you bounce a generative patch to an audio file in Bitwig Studio? #

To bounce a generative patch to an audio file in Bitwig Studio, you need to select the track that the generative patch is in, select a region of the track, right-click, and hit "Bounce." Choose "Postfader," "32 bit," and deselect "Data." Then click "OK" and Bitwig Studio will start bouncing the generative patch out to an audio file.

3. How do you use generative patches as a sound source in Bitwig Studio? #

To use generative patches as a sound source in Bitwig Studio, you need to load up the generative patch on an instrument track, create a clip, and then bounce the generative patch out to an audio file. Once you have the audio file, you can use it as a sound source on an audio track. You can treat it like any other audio file and process it further.

4. How do you create multiple sounds and collages in Bitwig Studio? #

To create multiple sounds and collages in Bitwig Studio, you start by creating different sound sources. You can use generative patches, synthesizers, or any other sound design method to create interesting sounds. Once you have multiple sounds, you can arrange them into a collage by layering them over each other. You can also use effects, envelopes, modulators, and other processing tools to make the collage more interesting. The key is to keep the collage interesting and varied by creating multiple sounds that can be arranged in different ways.

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00.000] And the last two videos, I showed you a rough overview of a Bitwig Studio, and in today's
[00:06.000] video, we actually do some music and I want to take the sound design approach where we
[00:13.000] start to designing some sounds and don't focus too much on the musical side.
[00:19.720] So let's start and open up Bitwig Studio.
[00:28.400] Use my code polarity in the shop to save 10% on the price and support my channel.
[00:34.560] So my last two videos about this topic were about all the surroundings of the arranger
[00:42.320] window inside Bitwig Studio.
[00:44.120] On the day we want to talk about the arranger itself where everything happens.
[00:48.760] The magic happens where you create your song, where you create notes, where you mangle
[00:53.120] your audio, and so on.
[00:55.600] So as you can see here, when you start up a new project or an empty project, you have
[01:01.840] by default two track types, you have the instrument track and you have an audio track.
[01:07.880] The instrument track is, as an MCAS, you can put an instrument on it and you can create
[01:14.360] clips by double clicking here on the empty space on this track.
[01:18.200] And in this clip, you can create notes and trigger with these notes the instrument.
[01:24.200] And today we want to create some instruments and we want to bounce down the created sounds
[01:31.560] and then we have some kind of multiple sounds and then we create some kind of collage
[01:37.520] of these sounds.
[01:38.920] So this is basically the sound design approach and so I called it where you don't focus
[01:44.720] too much on the notes.
[01:47.960] I mean you have to choose a note for all your tracks maybe but we don't care for harmony
[01:54.960] or chords or something like this.
[01:57.480] So at first maybe we start with something you are maybe familiar on my channel with these
[02:05.640] crit pitches I do.
[02:07.440] So maybe just load up some of my generative crit patches you can download this in my
[02:15.160] GitHub of course or under these videos you can search on my channel and you find to
[02:20.440] all of these crit patches a video and you can listen to it and maybe we go to something
[02:26.080] I made recently maybe a go for this one here load it up and this is how it looks.
[02:35.280] And as you know it when I hit play it generates a random pattern of notes it generates a
[02:43.400] random rhythm it generates random sounds that are played.
[02:48.960] And I think all these sounds are in the key of D sharp minor.
[02:55.560] So as you can see here is a pitch quantize.
[02:58.360] So I'm in a scale of course but I don't care so much I basically can transpose this around
[03:06.320] and to every key I choose in the beginning of my track.
[03:11.000] So in this case it's D sharp minor ok so I can use this selection button here or maybe
[03:19.280] create an empty clip here and I know when I hit play everything that's coming out
[03:26.200] of this device is D sharp minor ok so what I want to do is I want this as an audio file
[03:46.200] so what I do is I select the track here or go to the bottom half of the track you can
[03:51.040] see the cursor is changing here and I can select some kind of region maybe this and just
[03:58.560] go right click and hit bounce and I go for postfader and 32 bit and I deselect data.
[04:05.720] So all you have to is click postfader select 32 bit and no data and then select ok and
[04:12.440] now a bit we start to bounce out the generative patch here we just loaded up as an audio file.
[04:20.920] And now this is basically static we can use this as an audio file ok so now we have something
[04:31.680] we can start on and we know it's D sharp minor so we can maybe go here and make it a bit
[04:39.080] shorter and we also know the BPM because it didn't change the drive so we can up a
[04:46.520] bit here to maybe 120 maybe you go for loop section here so this is our starting point
[05:06.280] so maybe we add some written elements to it so something like a kick drum and we go
[05:12.120] here for an E kick of course E minus click so double click it again so we have an empty
[05:24.760] clip and in this clip we create some kick drums and changed our tuning to D sharp 0
[05:45.440] or maybe D sharp 1 maybe we go for D sharp 0 ok so maybe we add we select this here and
[06:14.400] give this a name generative example maybe we select this and hit control and G to make
[06:22.920] a group out of it call it music and on this group we create a tool device and we want
[06:32.040] of course to create an audio side chain and this audio side chain is modulating the
[06:38.320] amplitude and we're getting our signal from our kick drum and maybe change here the
[06:55.600] music ok maybe we make this bit quieter so now we have something basic running just
[07:11.200] by using a generative patch which created a note sequence for us created the sound for
[07:17.440] us and some kind of ambience so you can use generative patches as a sound source you sample
[07:28.840] for yourself right so it's not like because under some of my videos under my generative
[07:36.080] patches someone wrote why would someone use this it sounds so generic but you can use
[07:43.040] it as a sample source so you don't need to sample your favorite pop artist you can just
[07:49.600] sample yourself or create a generative patches and just sample this right so now we have
[07:57.240] something basic running maybe delete here the first two tracks because we don't need
[08:00.920] it our generative patches muted because we bounce it out to this track and we create
[08:06.080] an e-kick here with a simple pattern and we have a tool device here with an audio side
[08:13.440] chain happening every time every every time the kick hits we lower the amplitude of the
[08:21.000] music group so maybe add something like a bass right so I go for a phase 4 device and
[08:34.280] I create a clip and I know it's the sharp right so I'm going just for the sharp so it's
[08:40.760] nothing it's pretty simple all I have to do is remember I'm using the sharp as a
[08:47.440] scale so I can go straight for the sharp so maybe create a note and we now try to create
[08:54.800] some interesting patterns for the bass line so maybe make the loop section a bit shorter
[09:01.720] okay here we go one octave lower and now we start and design some kind of sound it doesn't
[09:17.320] need to be a special sound it's just for the example right if you want to dive into sound
[09:23.280] design there are a lot of videos on YouTube also on my channel about how you can design
[09:28.680] certain sounds so it's not about the sound itself it's more about the approach how you
[09:33.520] can create a track with the sound design approach so now I just tweak it until it sounds
[09:40.520] quite okay maybe add something like a modulator classic LFO
[10:10.520] okay maybe make the sound a bit more fancy so I'm using fx2 device which splits the frequency
[10:35.360] band in half so I'm going for a split frequency of 300mHz and at the top end I'm using a reverb
[11:05.360] I'm just looking for interesting accidents here maybe something like this so now we can
[11:27.920] start and bounce out some of the stuff here we create with a maybe make it a bit louder
[11:39.120] okay so maybe bounce this out we just do the same thing we done with the generative patch
[11:48.520] we just select here a bit a region and go to bounce the same settings bounce it out
[11:55.280] now we have some kind of audio and I moved this audio track here down to the music crew because
[12:02.160] we have already here an sidechain applied so I'm using the source of the bass here and we
[12:10.320] have just our audio so now we can duplicate this okay so now we create another sound
[12:32.560] here with the same from the same source from our phase 4 we just change up some of the settings
[12:41.040] something like this so bounce it out move it here to the top group and maybe do another one
[13:11.040] maybe do something like this bounce it out move it up here to the group
[13:31.920] okay so mute the source track again and now just listen to the audio stuff and now we can start
[13:46.560] and start and rearrange some of the stuff here maybe put this here and cut out something here
[14:17.360] okay so it's all about creating interesting patterns so the the ear gets always something new to
[14:24.400] listen to you can also use your the alt key and you can see the the cursor changes and you can move
[14:37.680] the waveform inside the clip around and then you can
[15:08.480] okay so this is basically the whole approach to this you create multiple sounds and then
[15:22.320] you create collages of these sounds and there's no musical stuff happening I mean there is
[15:33.920] you have to make sure that you are on the right key right but
[15:46.800] so maybe bounce this out for small alteration in our riff here maybe use it here at the end
[16:17.360] it's all about keeping it interesting as you can see you can
[16:31.200] evolve on that you can create much much more sounds to make this more interesting the more sound
[16:36.720] the more variation there is happening the more interesting the song is in the end and it's all
[16:42.720] basically just one note so there's no harmony change or something complex happening right you can
[16:51.600] make it interesting to the ear just by making the sound itself heavily modulated right that's it
[17:03.040] for this video thanks for watching if you have some questions about the video then please leave a
[17:07.520] comment below I try to answer everything also subscribe to the channel and use the small bell
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[17:28.640] it really helps it also motivates a lot to make new videos and I want to also thank all the
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[17:58.720] it for this video thanks for watching and stay healthy until next time see you and bye