Using Atlas to Create Randomized Percussion and Musical Loops
Tutorial | Wed Aug 11 2021 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
In this video, I explored a plug-in called Atlas, which has a unique feature of randomizing samples from your hard drive into the pads of the plug-in. I demonstrated how to create percussion loops with this plug-in and how the mirror edit feature can be used to create polyrhythms. I also showed how to create musical loops with it and how to add effects to make them sound more interesting. I gave a brief overview of the interface and discussed how it could be improved. Finally, I encouraged viewers to try out the 30 day trial version to see for themselves.
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Questions & Answers #
Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:
What is the plug-in Atlas and how does it work? #
Atlas is a plug-in that provides a nice overview of your samples on your hard drive in a space view. You can drag these samples into beds and then you can play them. It also has a sequencer that helps you create some sequences out of these samples. In addition, it has features that XO does not have, such as the ability to randomize specific pads and the ability to change the loop length of each line.
What is unique about Atlas compared to other plug-ins? #
Atlas is unique in that it has the ability to classify all of your samples into different groups such as hi-hats, tambourines, claps, etc. It also has the ability to load random samples from your hard drive into VST pads, which is something that no other plug-in does. Additionally, it has a mirror edit feature that allows you to create polyrhythms by repeating what you paint in each bar.
How can Atlas be used to create loops? #
Atlas can be used to quickly create percussion loops by randomizing specific pads and using the sequencer to create patterns
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] It's me again. Welcome back to another video. And today it's about a plug-in. I recently discovered
[00:06.800] I knew it before, but I'm using XO all the time. And this one is called Atlas. This is how it looks
[00:13.520] like. And it's kind of the same feature set as XO. It gives you a nice overview of your samples
[00:19.600] on your hard drive in this kind of space view here. And you can drag these samples into these
[00:25.520] beds and then you can play these pets. You also have the sequencer here, which helps you create
[00:30.640] some sequences out of these samples. But there's some kind of neat features in this plug-in that XO
[00:38.000] doesn't have. And I wish XO had this. And I want to show you what I mean by that. And it's also
[00:45.200] a story of how developers sleep on randomization. I think it's also a big gap in the market right now
[00:57.840] where developers could utilize randomization in all kinds of places more. Because it gives you
[01:04.800] instantaneously some patterns, some things to work with and maybe an starting point, a nice
[01:15.040] inspiration out of nowhere. So I show you in a minute what I mean by that. So we have these pets
[01:23.360] here on the left side. And all these pets have kind of classification as a default setting here.
[01:32.720] You can see hi-hat open, kick, snare, clap, hi-hat closed and so on. And you can't change these.
[01:39.280] I don't know why, but it's kind of set in stone what these kind of pets are classified for.
[01:48.000] So you can change here a setup, you can go to general MIDI and then it changes basically
[01:55.920] which classification is on which pad. I guess it's mapped then to the right nodes for general MIDI.
[02:03.760] And yeah, maybe go back here to default. And as you just saw here when I had new kit,
[02:10.720] it loads random samples from your hard drive into these pets. And I think maybe I'm wrong,
[02:17.280] but this is the only plug and I found that loads up random samples files from your hard drive
[02:24.480] into your VST onto some pets or onto your keys. And I don't know why, why there is no other plug
[02:35.120] in that does exactly this. First of the classification, all your samples are classified into these
[02:41.680] groups, your hi-hats, tambourine, clap and so on. So they get a nice category tag on it.
[02:47.920] And then you have these classifications on these pets and then the plug in loads exactly
[02:53.120] tambourine sounds onto these tambourine pets here. And this is pretty handy actually.
[03:00.480] If you watched my recent streams, I'm using XO and I'm dragging in all these hi-hat sounds
[03:05.600] for myself manually from the space to the pets. And this could be automated and this gives me also
[03:11.920] a nice starting point. So I don't have to decide which sample to take, I just hit randomize and
[03:17.120] then I get random hi-hat samples in here. Which is pretty nice. And we can utilize this to create
[03:23.760] nice loops patterns you can save maybe for later. And for instance maybe delete this here.
[03:30.800] We want to create some percussion loops, right? So what we can do is now please leave me
[03:37.040] leave out here other other because these are musical samples as something that has tonality to it.
[03:43.520] So leave these out. Maybe I don't need the crash and I don't need to kick and the snare and the
[03:48.960] clap and maybe no tom. So we have your rights. I mean all right. Cobal, Bengal, Bongo, tambourine,
[03:58.320] hi-hat, open shaker, tom and yeah no tom, hi-hat's closed. Okay. So when we hit now new key,
[04:06.480] here we get only these pets filled up with new samples because these are locked and these are already
[04:11.920] empty. So we have here a nice little bunch of percussion loops. And we can also unfold
[04:25.680] here the sequencer which is nice. You can insert here some notes, random notes, right? We can hit play.
[04:32.960] And you know it's a sequencer. But what we also have here is we can use a mirror edit where it repeats
[04:44.400] basically what we paint in your every bar. As you can see when I paint a note here it just mirrors
[04:50.160] everything. You can also make the mirror a bit bigger, two bars or four bars.
[04:56.000] So you can use this to create pretty fast sequences. What's also unique is that you can change the
[05:05.440] loop length of each of these lines here which is really handy to create poly rhythms.
[05:16.480] So I really like this to use this here with percussion loops because poly rhythms are perfect,
[05:24.080] percussion loops. You can hit new sequence here from random chaos. It creates a random sequence
[05:31.840] each time you press this. But for now we can paint in here what we need and just hit play.
[05:39.760] Here's a limiter here. What you can do now is select all parts here and change the envelope
[05:57.600] of the volume envelope, the envelope curve, maybe the pitch, maybe the shuffle.
[06:11.280] And then we lock this and every time we press now a new kit, this is locked but we get new samples.
[06:23.440] You can also randomize specific pads.
[06:54.000] Okay, so now that we have this we can maybe add some effects to it.
[07:14.000] So feel like this to make it more like physical and maybe let the infiltrator here with some random
[07:31.200] filter loops. So it's all also randomized here. So let's get with this. It's a low pass filter here.
[07:38.640] You can also use this to create bass sounds here out of this. Maybe lock it to chromatic scale,
[07:48.000] go to a node here, eb, now we get the bass drum out of it.
[08:07.840] So we have this, maybe a reverb.
[08:23.600] Okay, then maybe we use it compressor, mix in the original signal,
[08:31.600] bring the sequence on, maybe another low pass here.
[09:01.600] So we get this.
[09:29.920] Maybe a mix and a try signal even more.
[09:39.360] So we have a nice little loop out of nowhere and we can use this to maybe bounce it down to audio
[09:46.800] here. So it's our first loop. I've used this to create a second loop.
[10:16.800] Yeah, maybe a reverb on a delay.
[11:16.800] So you can see you can create kind of percussion loops pretty fast with this.
[11:23.840] Maybe the percussion loops are pretty random but percussion loops they always act in the background
[11:29.840] and if you add some drums to it, then it's more interesting.
[11:48.000] So I created a bunch of percussion loops yesterday, for instance, this is one here.
[12:01.280] Oh, this one, oh, this one, oh, this one.
[12:28.720] So you can create percussion loops pretty fast and there's also the possibility to create musical loops,
[12:37.520] for instance, when we kill everything and just say we want to stay with the other pets, right?
[12:46.720] So I locked these here.
[12:48.080] So we have other here, this one, okay.
[12:57.040] So now when we hit new kids here, we get musical or tonality samples.
[13:27.040] Oh, maybe Goliath in it.
[13:58.000] yeah
[14:16.000] Best
[14:47.000] It could be a nice pattern to start the song, I don't know.
[14:59.000] Maybe save this for later.
[15:02.000] Maybe try out a different pattern here.
[15:33.000] Oh, it could be also something.
[15:43.000] They can figure out which kind of key this is later on, but I'm sure you'll find it out.
[15:50.000] Maybe I'll change the sequence.
[16:21.000] Oh, it's also something we could use probably at some point.
[16:28.000] So there we have it, three ideas to start the track.
[16:58.000] Yeah, it could be something, I don't know.
[17:29.000] It's not just a drum sample, you can create percussion loops, higher add loops, add music loops,
[17:35.000] pretty easily just with the randomization here of the kits and the sequence thing.
[17:40.000] And when you go your two maps, you can create basically your own spaces or add your own samples.
[17:47.000] You have this Atlas factory, which you can select here, or this is polarity or these are all my samples.
[17:55.000] The I have selected here to choose from.
[17:58.000] So every time I hit new kit, all my samples are used.
[18:01.000] So neat thing, try it out.
[18:04.000] There's a trial version available for 30 days.
[18:07.000] And yeah, give it a go.
[18:10.000] The only difference to it's always basically the interface.
[18:13.000] It's not so great developed.
[18:15.000] There are some quirks here and there.
[18:17.000] You have to learn how it works.
[18:19.000] Sometimes it's not pretty clear how something works.
[18:21.000] Here when you select multiple things and when you hit new kit, for instance, you also change here the settings for each of these paths.
[18:30.000] So you have to lock it at some point.
[18:35.000] Also when you hit new sequence, you need to select random chaos first because by default, I think it's set here to from browser.
[18:44.000] But for me, there wasn't any content installed here.
[18:50.000] So this means basically when you hit new sequence, it creates a select sequence, random sequence from the internal library here, but the library was empty for me when I installed the trial version.
[19:03.000] So it's a bit of a small learning curve, how everything works.
[19:12.000] Yeah, also when you select your pad or one of these lines, you get a different interface here than when you're deselected, which is also a bit strange, but you can go back on here.
[19:23.000] So it's, you know, it's kind of a developer interface.
[19:29.000] It's not made by a designer, it's kind of a developer basically created this and try to make make sense for the user.
[19:39.000] That's it for this video. Thanks for watching. Leave a thumbs up if you liked the video, subscribe to the channel to be informed when I'm back with a new video or live stream.
[19:47.000] And also maybe think about the subscription of our Patreon apps me a lot. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.