Exploring the Power of Half-Time and Slow Machine Plug-Ins

Tutorial | Apr 28, 2022

In this video, I showed how powerful the plug-ins half-time and slow machine by Bleass can be. These plug-ins slow down audio by half the speed and pitch it one octave lower. I demonstrated how to use the plug-ins to create a full, lush sound by combining the original audio with the slowed-down audio. I also showed how to use the plug-ins to create interesting rhythms and melody loops as well as how to use them on drums. Finally, I showed how to use the plug-ins to add texture and grit to synthesizers.

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Questions & Answers #

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

What are the two plug-ins called Half-Time and Slow Machine by Bleass? #

The two plug-ins are called Half-Time and Slow Machine by Bleass. They are audio plugins that slow down a track or phrase of audio to half the speed of the original audio, which also lowers the pitch by one octave. They can be used to create interesting rhythms, phrases, and textures.

How can Half-Time and Slow Machine be used to manipulate audio? #

Half-Time and Slow Machine can be used to manipulate audio by slowing it down and lowering the pitch by one octave. This can be used to create unique rhythms, phrases, and textures. Additionally, they can be used to create a smooth transition from the end to the beginning of a loop, as well as to set the length of a loop.

What are some of the effects of using the Half-Time and Slow Machine Plug-ins? #

The effects of using the Half-Time and Slow Machine Plug-ins include creating unique rhythms, phrases, and textures, creating a smooth transition from the end to the beginning of a loop, and setting the length of a loop. Additionally

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 to another video. Today it's about two plug-ins called half-time
[00:08.640] and slow machine by Bleass, and these two plug-ins basically do the same thing. They slow
[00:18.080] down the incoming audio by, yeah, or slow it down to half the speed of the original speed, which
[00:26.720] also pitches all the audio down to one octave down. And when you combine this original tricycle,
[00:34.160] we can create nice little rhythms, nice little phrases, and I want to show you how powerful this
[00:41.920] is basically. So we kill these two plug-ins here and use a polymer synthesizer. And we play just
[00:50.720] some random phrase here. Something like this. Maybe use a reverb here on this.
[01:07.200] Maybe delay. So now that we have this, we use a half-time plug-in on it.
[01:24.320] And it instantly sounds much much better. Why? Because we use a tricycle and mix it up with
[01:37.280] a slower down version here. It's just half the speed, which means one octave lower and the rhythm
[01:44.400] changes. And when you combine this with the original, like no, you get this. And you can also
[01:54.240] fade in, fade out here from the end of the loop to the beginning of the loop. Because sometimes
[01:59.680] it's happened, a lot of things happen between the sampling of the start and the sampling of the end
[02:06.480] of the loop. So sometimes the reverb goes away or you have a completely different sounds. You
[02:11.760] want to have a smooth transition from the end to the beginning of the next loop. And you can also
[02:18.000] define how long this loop should be. So I want to maybe go to four bars.
[02:28.480] So 50%. So now that it sounds much better, we can even use multiple of these half-time plug-ins.
[02:37.680] And so now we have basically this octave, then we have added another octave, playing a different
[02:46.320] rhythm. And now we use another half-time plug-in, which brings in another lower octave.
[02:56.000] Let's bring in another one.
[03:08.080] Maybe modulator, some of the things in the polymer, a bit, reverb or random.
[03:23.520] Maybe go to note, alt-rate, and modulate the wave-taper position.
[03:53.520] Okay, so we have now a nice large phrase, melody loop. It sounds much more complex than just having this.
[04:24.480] And what I also sometimes do is use some nice plug-ins in front of the half-time plug-ins.
[04:32.640] Something like this.
[04:40.880] And because we have here a little bit of noise and we sample this with all these half-time plug-ins
[04:45.440] and pitch it down one octave, you have basically multiple noise textures on top,
[04:52.560] pitch down in different versions in different speed settings, and you get this real thick
[05:00.320] kind of lush sound.
[05:01.600] It's like having a tape deck or multiple tape decks running.
[05:16.400] Let's bring in some notes, but also here some probabilities.
[05:31.920] We have not always the same loop.
[05:52.480] Super easy, right? I mean, it's just the original version slowed down multiple times and you get
[05:59.600] this thick layer of sound. So, and you not only can do this on melody lines, you can also do this
[06:07.840] with drums, of course. So we use the nix-o and bring in some drums.
[06:12.160] So, I think drum, yeah, or ram-shot, maybe a clap, and some riots.
[06:26.640] I hope I like this.
[06:56.640] So, now we have here a nice rhythm.
[07:15.280] I've used a peak limiter, get the right levels, and the master, I also need a peak limiter.
[07:33.600] So now we can use the slow machine here, just to show you the other plug-in.
[07:39.680] And slow the rhythm down by half the speed, one bar assembled, maybe go for three bars.
[07:45.920] So, this is the one difference here. In half time, you get only one bar, two bars, four bars,
[07:54.160] here you have also three bars, which is for me interesting because you have an odd time
[08:00.880] signature, which brings them again a bit of groove or better groove.
[08:04.480] So, now that we have to slow it down version, we mix it of course with the original tri-signal.
[08:22.240] So now the problem is that the kick drum is slow down one octave, a lot lower than the original
[08:28.080] kick drum. Right, it's a pretty thick deep bass sound, so we can use the bandpass filter
[08:37.120] and filter everything out that's in the low end. So we only slow down basically this
[08:45.200] nail in the hi-hat. Maybe a fade-in here. Maybe bring in your room.
[09:15.920] Maybe a small delay.
[09:17.920] Maybe duplicate now the slow machine here.
[09:47.920] So you can hear it already creates also a thick drum lay-on of percussion sounds,
[10:07.680] and maybe exchange the drums a bit. Let's keep the kick drum.
[10:22.160] And let's do those. Maybe it's exchange the kick drum, and yeah, it's pretty easy to create
[10:50.400] nice little loops just with these tools with these slow down or halftime plug ends here,
[10:57.200] and I use this a lot in all kinds of places because it's so easy and it's so fun to just see what
[11:03.760] comes out of it. It's also useful on hotpress synthesizers because we have a lot of grit and you know
[11:10.400] noise sounds in there and when you slow it down it sounds much more much more lush and thick.
[11:40.400] Maybe you'll see another nail.
[12:10.560] So easy. I mean it's just pure fun to play around with this.
[12:29.440] So slowing down audio is, yeah, it's a big thing actually. It's super powerful.
[12:37.520] It always sounds nice on everything, drums, melody lines, pad sounds.
[13:38.320] So that's it for this video, thanks for watching, try it out for yourself, and see you next time.
[14:04.080] Thanks for watching, and bye.