Syncing a Drum Loop Using Note Grid and Quantizer Functions
Tutorial | Mar 18, 2022
In this video, I showed a trick for synchronizing a drum loop and using it as a groove source for drum tracks. I demonstrated how to use the Note Grid, Clock Quantizer, Sidechain, Envelope Follower, Amplifier, and Gate Length to extract the groove from a drum loop and use it to control a drum sampler. This can be a helpful trick when you want to convert drum loops to other drum loops or use a different drum loop as a guide for your groove.
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Questions & Answers #
Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:
How can I synchronize a drum loop to use as a groove source? #
You can synchronize a drum loop to use as a groove source by using a Note Grid, quantizer functions, and a drum sampler. First, insert the drum loop into the Note Grid, and then transform the groove. Then, connect the sidechain input of the drum sampler to the output of the Note Grid, and use an oscilloscope and an envelope follower to adjust the signal. After that, use a clock quantizer to delay the signal until something happens on the second input bus. Finally, adjust the gate knob to get all the triggers right.
What is the purpose of using a gate knob? #
The gate knob is used to control what kind of triggers get activated. When it is turned up, anything above 0.5 will be triggered, and when it is turned down, nothing will be triggered. Additionally, the gate knob can be used to make the triggers as short as possible.
How can I use a drum loop as a guide for my groove? #
To use a drum loop as a guide for your groove, connect the sidechain input of the drum sampler to the
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] Hey folks, welcome back. I want to show you a small trick how you can synchronize a drum loop, which is this one here
[00:12.320] And kind of use it as a
[00:14.560] Yeah, a groove source for some odd tracks and I know a lot of people actually want to some kind of proof
[00:21.240] pool
[00:22.240] public studio
[00:23.320] What I want to show you how you can utilize now the Note Grid and
[00:27.480] And some of the quantizer functions to extract some grooves
[00:32.880] So we have this groove here and we obviously want to create some kind of
[00:39.400] Drum beat here maybe with a drum sampler I take XO here
[00:44.600] for instance
[00:48.840] Let's take a
[00:53.120] Basic groove
[00:55.120] Something like this and we paint in here some
[01:03.400] Basic groups to see one
[01:12.760] About the snare drum
[01:14.760] That's something like this
[01:22.960] So this groove is really straight so we need to apply the groove from that from the drum loop here above
[01:44.560] Maybe use a pig limiter first
[01:55.760] So we do this by using a Note Grid on
[02:01.360] The XO
[02:03.360] Drums before and so so the nodes basically from the
[02:06.440] Clip here go into the Note Grid and here we transform the groove and then we pass it to XO
[02:14.280] So in here
[02:16.480] We need to change the triggers. So we need of course a clock quantizer
[02:23.040] Go in go out and this one here takes a signal and this signal is
[02:29.920] basically our drum loop and
[02:32.720] And everything that goes to the top jack will be synchronized to the bottom input
[02:40.520] So we use the sidechain input here audio sidechain we take the classic boom back beat here into that
[02:47.280] We use an oscilloscope here just to analyze this
[02:52.440] And we take a envelope follower here, so we can smooth out a bit of the signal
[03:08.600] And everything that's above
[03:11.680] 0.5 is a trigger
[03:14.000] Okay, so we can change what what kind of get triggered by using
[03:18.440] Just a basic volume knob here. So now everything is below 0.5. So nothing gets triggered
[03:28.160] Some of the signal is now above 0.5. So it's kind of a sidechain of threshold
[03:41.440] So maybe we can also use here
[03:45.280] Gate length
[03:47.280] thing
[03:51.360] You can see every every time here something passes over 0.5 gets a yellow trigger
[04:09.600] So now we get your nice signal we can use this as an input for our clock quantizer
[04:14.200] And now everything gets delayed every gate gets gets delayed until something happens on the second input bus here and
[04:22.680] The sounds like this now
[04:24.680] Okay, without the note grid
[04:40.680] You have to play around a bit here with the game knob to get all the triggers right and also sometimes when you have a lot of high heads in here and down no
[05:00.120] High heads in here
[05:02.120] You don't get that many triggers, right? So it's kind of what you get the groove. So with the note grid
[05:32.120] In some occasions when you have for instance here the snare snare too early and
[05:44.240] The trigger of this snare here it's
[05:47.800] Even earlier then this one doesn't get triggered. So
[05:50.880] Sometimes you have to delay the boom bad PR that classic drum loop by adjust the tat so you can do this here by just using a delay in here
[06:02.400] Don't need to delay it that much
[06:04.400] So super simple use all the notes that you use to trigger your drum machine and
[06:24.840] And modify here the gate signal and quantize these gate signals to your drum loop by using out your sidechain from a different track
[06:34.840] Delay it a bit use the envelope follower here use the amplifier to kind of implement the basic threshold control
[06:43.840] Use the gate length here to make the triggers as short as possible and then trigger here this
[06:50.080] Clock quantizer or use it as a clock signal basically. So easy peasy. I think it's a nice trick sometimes when you want to convert
[07:03.080] Drum loops to other drum loops or maybe you want to
[07:06.560] Yeah, just use a different drum loop as a guide for your groove. So this can be a nice trick