3 Tips and Tricks to Add Stereo to Your Music in Bitwig Studio

Tutorial | Jun 03, 2020

In this video, I shared some tricks for Bitwig Studio on how to make signals wider and add stereo information to mono signals. One trick involved using the stereo split device to split a mono signal into left and right channels and then modulating them differently for a wider stereo effect. Another trick used the FX grid to trigger effects probabilistically, fading them out with an ADSR or sidechain. Lastly, I demonstrated how to mix white noise with a mono snare sample to make it wider and more interesting using amplitude modulation or ring modulation in the FX grid.

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Questions & Answers #

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

Questions and Answers #

1. How can I make mono signals more stereo in Bitwig Studio? #

One way to make mono signals more stereo is to use the Stereo Split device in Bitwig Studio. This device splits the mono signal into two parts, left and right channels, where you can insert effects. You can then use modulation devices like LFO or Chorus to produce different information for the left and right channels, making the signal appear wider or more interesting stereo-wise. You can also use the Player device to delay one stereo channel for a stereo effect, but beware of phase issues.

2. How can I create probabilistic effects in Bitwig Studio? #

To create probabilistic effects in Bitwig Studio, you can use the FX Grid and the Probability device. By using the Probability device, you can choose the probability that a certain effect will be triggered on a particular pattern. For instance, you can use the Probability device to trigger the reverb on a snare sound sometimes, but not always. You can also use the Node Grid Out device to fade out the effect instead of cutting it out when bypassing the effect.

3. How can I mix white noise with a sample sound in Bitwig Studio? #

To mix white noise with a sample sound in Bitwig Studio, you can use the Follower device to get the amplitude envelope of the sample sound. Then, you can use a Noise Generator to produce white noise and connect it to the output with an Attenuate module. You can use the amplitude envelope of the sample sound to modulate the Attenuate module and mix the noise with the original sample sound. Alternatively, you can use an AMRM module for amplitude modulation or ring modulation to mix the two sounds.

4. How can I save money on Bitwig Studio? #

To save money on Bitwig Studio and support the content creator, you can go to their web page and use their link to the Bitwig Store along with their code. This will give you a 10% discount on the regular price.

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] So in today's video, I want to give you some small little tips and tricks for Bitwig Studio
[00:04.000] how you can make signals wider, how you can add stereo information to mono signals, so let's start.
[00:17.120] If you want to save some money on Bitwig Studio and the upgrade plans and you want to support
[00:22.400] my channel and my content, then go to my web page, use the link to the Bitwig Store,
[00:27.360] use my code and save 10% on the regular price.
[00:33.040] So for the first trick, someone asks, can you make a tutorial about the stereo split container
[00:39.760] or device? And I want to show you how you can use this device to create some interesting
[00:44.480] stereo effects or make a mono signal more wide or more interesting stereo wise. So I have
[00:51.280] here a polysens playing a simple, deep bass, some kind of resound you have in drum bass tracks,
[01:02.160] for example. And yeah, in this example, it's pretty easy to create stereo effects because we are
[01:09.040] owning basically the polysens then we can change every parameter and make it more interesting stereo
[01:15.040] wise. But for this example, I want to tell you how we can use the stereo split device here,
[01:20.160] which looks like this. And this device basically splits the mono signal into two parts, the left
[01:26.240] channel and the right channel. We have here two boxes where we can insert some effects.
[01:32.320] And for example, let's use a filter, a low pass filter here.
[01:39.120] In front of the stereo split device, we can show you what it does to the mono signal.
[01:43.120] So maybe add an LFO here and disable B polar and just modulate here the top part of the frequency
[01:54.960] spectrum. So this is how it sounds. So this signal is basically exactly like before,
[02:07.760] completely mono. But when we drag this here into the left channel, we now just modulating all
[02:14.320] need the left channel. And when we're duplicating this here to the right channel,
[02:23.040] just track it in. So we have now two filters here on the left channel and the right channel
[02:27.760] doing exactly the same modulation. It's a bit of, you know, you can hear some slightly
[02:39.280] differences between the left and the right channel, which gives us a nice stereo information.
[02:44.800] And also, because we are using only Uipula modulation here, you can see everything below this
[02:52.320] threshold here, which is 200 hertz. It's not modulated. So it's still mono-compatible, right?
[02:59.280] So all we do is basically be modulating the top part of the frequency spectrum.
[03:04.080] And you can go more drastically. You can change the modulation speed a bit.
[03:08.000] And this kind of makes the signal more wider, or it just appears to be wider,
[03:23.760] because you have different information for left and right channel. You can also use here,
[03:28.400] of course, the corus, which also makes basically the same thing here. You can basically align the
[03:37.280] left and the right channel here. And if you raise this value here, you can modulate
[03:44.080] slightly the left and the right channel differently. And if you want it still to have
[04:11.440] mono-compatibility, then, of course, you're going to use an FX2 device here,
[04:18.800] and just apply the corus on the top part of the frequency spectrum, maybe going down to 300 hertz
[04:28.560] for the split frequency. And now we have a low part, which is completely mono,
[04:38.560] and the top frequencies are just modulated by the corus device.
[04:49.120] Okay, so pretty simple stuff. The stereo split device is pretty interesting.
[04:54.000] You can also apply here maybe a time shift device, so you can delay one channel.
[04:59.920] So this is basically the signal. And if you apply here some delay to maybe 10 milliseconds to the
[05:10.960] left channel, you also get it a bit wider. But if you apply just the delay here to the left channel,
[05:26.560] then you run into phase issue, so you have to be aware of that, right? Another way to delay one
[05:34.800] or the left or the right channel is using the player device, which looks like this here,
[05:41.120] which is basically just a small All-Pass filter. And if you run this player device here in this
[05:47.040] settings, so everything for zero, so one millisecond left, and the two channels basically to one
[05:55.360] milliseconds. And you go here with the feedback to zero percent. All you do is basically you
[06:01.120] delay the left and the right channel for about one millisecond, which just happens to be the same
[06:07.760] signal as before, just one millisecond delay. So it's a mono signal. And this is my default setting
[06:14.720] for this. And all I have to do now is you're basically raise this value, which
[06:19.360] helps me to delay basically the left channel, which gives you is the same effect as before,
[06:34.880] you just delay one stereo channel and then you get a nice stereo effect. You can also use your
[06:43.040] more of these delays and maybe bring in the mix here a bit, which creates kind of more voices.
[06:53.360] And yeah, sounds more like an All-Pass device. So this is also a nice device to use to make
[07:00.720] mono signals stereo or more wider. And yeah, nice to know basically. So for the next tip,
[07:09.520] I'm going to use some kind of snare, maybe something like this.
[07:22.720] And I want to show you how you can use the FX grid to trick something at a certain
[07:32.720] probability. So for instance, we have here, or just a little FX grid for now, and using reverb.
[07:38.960] So now we have a reverb on the snare sound. Okay, but I don't want the reverb on the snare sound
[07:47.840] every time the snare hits only sometimes. So something like this.
[07:52.800] Okay, so easily I can go in here and use the automation to just bring in basically the reverb or the mix
[08:06.960] for this and just throw it in maybe. So okay, so just have to reverb sometimes. But this is a lot
[08:23.680] of work. So I don't use this most of the times. What I'm doing is I'm using a FX grid here.
[08:29.280] And I completely bypassing here. So I'm taking the input and just outputting the signal. So there's
[08:37.920] no effect for the FX grid here. But what I can do now is I can use the reverb, put it into the
[08:43.840] post FX here, go with the mix to zero and then just use a probability device here. Something like
[08:52.240] this. Okay, go with all the settings to zero and then use a modulator output here. Use this for
[09:01.040] the mix and then just fade in here at some point in this pattern to say give me a chance of maybe
[09:11.040] 20% probability to trigger this device or fade in this reverb device. So I make the flung, I have to make
[09:22.880] this longer.
[09:52.880] Okay, so you can use this basically to bring in some effects some of the times, but not always.
[10:03.520] And you can use just this probability device here or module inside the grid for that. And there's
[10:10.320] a problem with this of course you can see. Incently when you bypass here this part of the pattern,
[10:18.160] the reverb instantly goes back to zero which sounds like the reverb cuts out, but sometimes you
[10:26.320] don't want that, right? You want to have a nice fading out of the effect. So what I'm gonna do is
[10:34.400] I'm using my node grid preset here, one node out, node out grid node out device which is available
[10:46.240] for free. I already made a video about this, maybe I link it in the description, but this time
[10:51.920] we can use this modulation and instead of modulating the mix knob, we are modulating the gate knob.
[10:58.640] So every time we get a chance here of triggering something, the gate is basically active as you can
[11:05.120] see here. So now we are triggering or generating a basically a node, a node signal. And when we have a
[11:11.920] node coming out of this grid node out device here, we can use the ADSR for stuff like this or we can
[11:23.200] use a sidechain, audio sidechain or node sidechain, something like this. And then you can bring in the mix
[11:31.280] this way and have a nice slow decay with the release here.
[11:44.880] So you can trigger something probabilistic wise. And it's pretty easy to set up as you can see
[12:04.000] the grid node out is basically always in the positive xbox for me as a default setup. So I'm
[12:12.720] putting in here the grid node out in the positive x and then I go here to save as default preset.
[12:20.080] And every time I load up the fx grid, basically there's a node grid out inside here. All I have to do
[12:25.520] is drag in a reverb at a node sidechain device here and trigger the mix knob. And you can see this setup
[12:34.400] here is also pretty easy. I just added two modules for this. So it's something nice to know when you
[12:42.240] want to trigger sometimes something and you don't want to use automation and it's not so important
[12:47.600] that it's exactly at the right point in your arrangement and you want to bring in some
[12:52.080] yeah, some alterations at some point. Okay. So okay, let's explain the last trick for today.
[12:58.320] Okay, we still have here our modules which I delete now and we have still our snare sounds here.
[13:07.360] And the snare sounds are completely mono. It's a mono sample and we want to make it a bit more
[13:13.280] wider and stereo have some stereo information in there. So something you can do is just disconnect
[13:20.720] your these two parts. So we have now an input and an output for the fx grid. And we are using
[13:27.280] an follower here to get the amplitude envelope of the snares. Now you can see we have now
[13:36.480] output here, but we can see here the envelopes in the follow up display. And we're going to use a
[13:43.520] noise noise generator which outputs just noise. And we're going to use and continue right here,
[13:53.440] connect these two and then we're going to the output. And then we just using the envelopes of
[13:59.760] the snare sounds here to modulate the attenuate. And now we have basically a snare completely out of
[14:07.840] white noise. And then you can use here the mix knob to bring in the original tri mono signal.
[14:25.280] So that's an easy way to basically mix white noise with a sample sound or audio signal.
[14:32.960] And this noise is completely mono. And if you click this small button here,
[14:39.920] you have now a noise signal that is stereo. It's different for the left and the right channel.
[14:48.320] So this is stereo mono.
[14:49.760] So it gets a nice, nice stereo feel. And then you mix this with the snare sound or with the snare
[15:05.440] sample and with the noise, stereo noise on top. It gets a bit more stereo, a bit more wider and
[15:13.760] has can have a nice effect. And it's still mono compatible because the original tri signal is
[15:19.520] still mono. And yeah, that's a nice trick to yeah, mix snare sounds better, sounding better and wider
[15:29.440] in the mix. If you don't like to just blend in the white noise with the original tri signal,
[15:35.600] you can use here for instance an AMRM module, which basically is an amplitude modulation and ring
[15:43.920] modulation module. And you can hook this up here to the output. And then you can bring in the noise
[15:49.760] or maybe the bottom input jack. And then you use the original tri signal here with this input.
[15:56.400] Now you can bring up the mix up to 100%. And now you can amplitude modulate the noise signal with
[16:04.000] the sample. Or maybe switch the inputs here, try this. It should be the same effect.
[16:27.040] Not really. If you change the carrier here, actually it sounds a bit different so you can try it
[16:31.760] out but sounds better to you. So this is also something you can do. Just ring modulate or
[16:44.880] amplitude modulate or original tri signal with the noise sound or audio. So that's it for this
[16:51.840] video. Thanks for watching. If you like the video, then of course, please leave a like and if you
[16:57.040] have some questions, then please leave a comment. Subscribe to the channel to be informed about new
[17:02.080] videos. And maybe think about the subscription over on Patreon because it helps a lot. So
[17:07.760] thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.