Exploring Bitwig's Sampler and Convolution Reverb with Random Noises and Melodies

Tutorial | May 16, 2023

I opened up Bitwig Studio and had no plans for what to do today. I started experimenting with the new sampler and found it was great for sampling my voice and other sounds. I also used the convolution reverb to create rhythmic noise convolutions. I explained the pitch hurts module and demonstrated how to use Poly Grid to create melodies. I added some effects and a supermassive to create an underlying drone sound. The track doesn't make sense, but it was a fun experiment.

You can watch the Video on Youtube - support me on Patreon

Questions & Answers #

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

1. What is the rolling sampler in Bitwig Studio and how can it be used? #

The rolling sampler in Bitwig Studio is a standalone sampler tool that can be dragged and dropped into the Bitwig sampler. It can be used for resampling, manipulating and creating custom audio samples. It is a handy tool for those who want to make their own unique sounds or add personal touches to their tracks. It can be used to sample anything, from voice recordings to beer bottles, and the resulting samples can be loaded into the Bitwig convolution reverb for added effect.

2. What is the purpose of the MIDI recording tool in the Bitwig Studio? #

The MIDI recording tool in Bitwig Studio is a plugin that allows users to record all their MIDI data. This tool is great for those who want to capture their musical ideas on the fly without having to stop and write them down. It is a free alternative for those who are looking for a MIDI recording solution. While still in beta, the tool is not

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] Now, let's open the door of our futures,
[00:11.540] but of course this is a wonderful look through the door of history.
[00:46.060] Hello
[01:16.060] Hey Chris, hey Daniel, good luck.
[01:36.060] How's it going guys?
[01:56.060] How's it going?
[02:01.060] Hey, thanks for the follow.
[02:08.060] Another fabulous day in the Bitwigland, yeah.
[02:13.060] Hey Bernie.
[02:16.060] Andrew, hello.
[02:19.060] Hello, it's me Rhine Meingebiet.
[02:21.060] Hey Void.
[02:38.060] Okay.
[02:45.060] So, for today I have absolutely no plans.
[02:58.060] Hey Gerro, also Rhine Mein.
[03:07.060] I've been watching people use Apple Studio recently and got to say I'm much happier with the Bitwig Studio workflow and I still yeah.
[03:20.060] I just installed, not just, I have this sampler here, a quick sampler around for some, for quite some time.
[03:29.060] But I never really used it.
[03:31.060] I see that people use that to resemble basically what they do in the door.
[03:36.060] But the reason they discovered it's actually nice for sampling your voice.
[03:44.060] So here I have it on the second audio track and I mute this audio track and I arm it.
[03:51.060] So now I have basically my microphone in here.
[03:53.060] I can see it's, I have some levels there.
[03:58.060] So I get my voice basically in here.
[04:01.060] And sometimes when I think I make a great noise or I want to do noises, I just can quickly highlight this and drag it into the sampler and then just, you know, fuck it up.
[04:15.060] Which is really nice, really nice workflow.
[04:18.060] I think a funny workflow because I like to use my voice and I like to use sounds.
[04:26.060] Hey guys.
[04:28.060] Also here I have a kind of a beer bottle.
[04:32.060] So you can sample this.
[04:35.060] Then you can just select this stuff here, drag it in and bam, you have it in the sampler.
[04:59.060] Which is really nice.
[05:02.060] So instead of using this for resampling the whole dog, I just use it for resampling my voice.
[05:13.060] Or a beer bottle.
[05:15.060] Right click, detect root key.
[05:18.060] So it's F sharp 2 minus 48 cents.
[05:23.060] Perfect.
[05:25.060] Switch this here to cycle mode which I really like.
[05:28.060] Put this in the free mode.
[05:31.060] Now it's a wave table sampler basically or wave table synth.
[05:41.060] Okay.
[05:43.060] So I need a random mode here.
[05:46.060] It's moving all the way up.
[05:48.060] Hertz.
[05:49.060] Turn this down.
[05:51.060] Bipolar, polyphonic.
[05:53.060] It's on triggering.
[05:55.060] No reach trigger.
[05:56.060] Actually no reach trigger would be nice.
[05:58.060] Not too late this here.
[06:00.060] Oh.
[06:03.060] I just need the unipolar.
[06:07.060] Yeah nice.
[06:10.060] White Billy.
[06:11.060] Hey.
[06:12.060] Thanks for following.
[06:15.060] Yeah they also made some kind of MIDI thing I think where you can just record all your
[06:21.060] MIDI data.
[06:23.060] But I haven't tried it yet.
[06:25.060] Not sure if I need that.
[06:30.060] Nice to have it.
[06:32.060] So now I put this here into voice stacking mode.
[06:35.060] Five voices.
[06:38.060] Hey fairing.
[06:40.060] Thanks for liking.
[06:41.060] I think this is on Facebook right.
[06:44.060] Voice stack.
[06:47.060] Then voice stack here.
[06:48.060] I'm using minus one to plus one.
[06:52.060] So I can map this out here in the whole panorama.
[07:02.060] Now probably there's a different voice stack here.
[07:07.060] Zero to one and use this to offset here the cycles.
[07:14.060] It's a bit to say me right.
[07:25.060] Maybe not too much here.
[07:41.060] Maybe I use also bit the format filter here.
[07:48.060] So not always the voices sound the same so they're a bit different.
[08:05.060] That's better.
[08:09.060] Okay so maybe you reverb on that.
[08:13.060] So instead of a reverb just you know using a bit with reverb or the new Xeno reverb
[08:19.060] here.
[08:20.060] I'm using probably just my voice again.
[08:41.060] Just this.
[08:43.060] Entering here.
[09:04.060] Maybe pull this down here a bit.
[09:07.060] And then because this is only a monol sample which is a bit boring.
[09:12.060] I put this here in the stereo split on the left side.
[09:16.060] Duplicate this whole thing.
[09:19.060] Whoops, into the right side.
[09:22.060] And here just record another sample.
[09:35.060] Which is a bit different.
[09:40.060] Let's see how this sounds.
[09:48.060] Too much on the right side here.
[10:12.060] Maybe increase on the left side a bit more.
[10:15.060] Just balance this a bit art.
[10:26.060] Or make the sampler VST.
[10:29.060] I think it's called birds.
[10:32.060] Birds things or something like this.
[10:36.060] Let me give you the link.
[10:39.060] Birds.
[10:45.060] Yeah it's called birds for some reason.
[10:48.060] I put the link in the description so this is the sampler here.
[10:51.060] It's called rolling sampler.
[10:56.060] Yeah, you can just drag it into the sampler here of Bitwig and you can drag it into the convolution reverb.
[11:02.060] So it's really hands on the fly which I really like.
[11:07.060] So you can just make some stupid noises.
[11:09.060] Drag this into the sampler and drag it into the convolution reverb.
[11:13.060] I also already thought about how can I include this in some kind of...
[11:20.060] Yeah, live environment or you know what I mean.
[11:27.060] So how can I use this basically live?
[11:30.060] I have actually also here I see.
[11:35.060] I need to switch this here to a different input.
[11:40.060] Hello hello.
[11:41.060] Okay, that's better.
[11:42.060] So now my microphone is not doubled.
[11:50.060] A evo procs.
[11:53.060] One-house can canaria.
[11:55.060] That's linked.
[11:56.060] That's linked, of course, very, very nice.
[12:02.060] Lots of people always ask for MIDI record.
[12:05.060] Bitwig now they have a free alternative.
[12:07.060] Is it free?
[12:08.060] Is it plugged in free?
[12:12.060] So yeah, this is the sampler.
[12:18.060] There's no link to the other tool.
[12:30.060] Oh, it's still in beta.
[12:32.060] This MIDI recording thing.
[12:44.060] It even comes in clap format nice.
[12:54.060] Ah, it's still in beta not linked from the main page.
[12:57.060] Okay, I see.
[13:07.060] So right, when I do some kind of ambient streams live on stream,
[13:12.060] I somehow have to mute my microphone there,
[13:15.060] because this is really backward to use my voice basically live
[13:22.060] when I'm sampling the stuff.
[13:25.060] So now I can detect the root key.
[13:43.060] Maybe put this here into an FX layer.
[13:48.060] There needs to be a shortcut for adding a device to a chain container.
[13:55.060] I think this would be really nice.
[13:57.060] So now we have basically when you click here on this and use control and G,
[14:01.060] you put this into an FX layer, which is nice.
[14:04.060] But sometimes I just want to have, you know, a non-layer container.
[14:10.060] Or is it called chain?
[14:13.060] This chain device, right?
[14:16.060] Because I want to use a mix knob.
[14:27.060] White Billy, hey, good morning.
[14:32.060] Yeah, actually on SuperBooth, I spoke with the developer of clap here, Alex.
[14:38.060] He mentioned that clap getting some pretty nice features in the near future.
[14:45.060] So be ready for that.
[15:08.060] And maybe I'll play you some notes for that.
[15:18.060] Just record something.
[15:23.060] Just some random stuff.
[15:38.060] So now I'm going to play you some notes for that.
[15:45.060] I'm going to play you some notes for that.
[15:50.060] I'm going to play you some notes for that.
[15:56.060] I'm going to play you some notes for that.
[16:02.060] I think it's actually great to have some tools that are not, you know, dependent on the door.
[16:16.060] So something like the rolling sample is really nice because it's standalone.
[16:22.060] In a way, I really like that.
[16:25.060] Hey, Killian.
[16:36.060] I think that's enough.
[16:42.060] This is a background, background drone.
[16:54.060] Maybe add another sample here.
[17:00.060] Maybe I should just loop this here.
[17:08.060] That's enough stuff I like this.
[17:38.060] So this is hold, this is note.
[18:08.060] Maybe I was exposed here for spacer.
[18:15.060] This is some of my presets here.
[18:19.060] Mix 100%.
[18:44.060] Okay, I'll try to trick with the convolution we've got again.
[18:52.060] Let me see.
[19:23.060] It's pretty long five seconds here.
[19:28.060] Maybe I fade this out over time.
[19:36.060] It was super booth. Super booth was pretty nice, but it was only on the Bitwig booth on Friday.
[19:45.060] And that's it basically for me at least.
[19:49.060] I haven't got time to watch everything.
[19:53.060] It's just so much.
[19:56.060] Yeah, just being on the Bitwig booth was pretty busy for me.
[20:04.060] So again, this basically this feature here makes me want to buy some kind of stereo microphones.
[20:12.060] You know, to have some microphone left and right, maybe I have to use my second microphone to actually record some kind of stereo noises.
[20:21.060] So yeah, use stereo stereo split again.
[20:26.060] Put this on the left side.
[20:30.060] But here instead of recording this again, I'm just dragging this over to the second, damn it.
[20:35.060] The second box, and here I just used the offset.
[20:40.060] Offset is a bit because it's just so random.
[20:45.060] And then use the fade on the offset.
[20:48.060] It should be okay.
[20:55.060] Maybe I tuned this down.
[21:03.060] Let's see how this sounds with some shot, shot burst.
[21:20.060] It's almost like a granular reverb, right?
[21:33.060] Let me see.
[21:42.060] Let's use this offset.
[21:50.060] Let's record another one.
[21:58.060] It's not time soon, but I don't care.
[22:05.060] Let's pitch this down now.
[22:27.060] It's too resonant at some point.
[22:57.060] I mean, it can record something here.
[23:23.060] GG-dosed.
[23:30.060] We won't believe what, that's a question.
[24:00.060] Okay, nice.
[24:21.060] Here my voice actually sounds a bit like a cello, kind of.
[24:36.060] Let's see if this matches with the piano.
[25:00.060] How to get these colors on the waveform, right click.
[25:04.060] There are some themes, rainbow theme.
[25:09.060] Rainbow.
[25:39.060] Rainbow.
[26:09.060] Rainbow.
[26:19.060] Rainbow.
[26:29.060] Hey, David, the hackmonster.
[26:49.060] Hmm.
[27:20.060] Hmm.
[27:29.060] Nice.
[27:50.060] Nice.
[28:20.060] Let's create some kind of rhythmic noise.
[28:43.060] This could be maybe interesting.
[28:50.060] It's something I do from time to time.
[28:57.060] It's just a noise sample, an AD.
[29:13.060] To be also nice, if you could do this without outputting audio.
[29:39.060] Maybe I use a chorus on that, or maybe a phaser or something like this.
[29:53.060] Value.
[29:56.060] So this is disabled, but it's in stereo mode, color, feedback.
[30:18.060] Random.
[30:30.060] So how much you like this, and also of course the value.
[30:43.060] Stereo.
[31:01.060] So I mute this here for a moment.
[31:08.060] I put a cue on that.
[31:11.060] My fancy auto leveler.
[31:18.060] Maybe I mutilate your distro, whatever you trigger.
[31:29.060] So every figure is basically a different setting for the decay and also for the attack.
[31:40.060] Maybe I mix this in here because I have a lot of frequencies there.
[31:47.060] So now I want to bounce this basically here for a bit.
[31:53.060] Maybe this is too long.
[31:57.060] So after it's stopped, which is...
[32:04.060] Or maybe I could also use the rolling sample for that.
[32:08.060] Let's see here.
[32:19.060] Let me get you some kind of rhythmic noise thing.
[32:24.060] And this one I can use in the convolution thingy.
[32:34.060] Let's see how this sounds.
[32:46.060] And it's perfect in sync because the noise is synchronized with the BPM.
[32:56.060] But it's too long, 11 seconds.
[33:14.060] Hmm, white noise is better I think.
[33:23.060] Maybe I put some effects on it.
[33:31.060] Let me see maybe the delay.
[33:42.060] Randomize it frees.
[33:52.060] Let me put this into fade mode.
[33:56.060] Not too late this year.
[34:27.060] That sounds nice.
[34:29.060] And now I can try this again.
[34:56.060] Which is down.
[35:01.060] So when I put this here, one octave lower, it's basically half speed.
[35:13.060] Let's go and say what the piano sounds come from.
[35:18.060] Stage 8.
[35:25.060] Oh, can you explain pitch hurts modules?
[35:29.060] Yeah, maybe in a moment.
[35:42.060] I really like to use these kind of effects here where you have rhythmic noise samples in the convolution reverb.
[35:52.060] Maybe I use a stereo splitter again.
[35:56.060] Left side, right side.
[35:59.060] And here I want to have a small offset.
[36:03.060] Or maybe a bigger offset.
[36:06.060] I feel like this.
[36:08.060] It's also nice to zoom in here, right?
[36:15.060] So now I have different rhythmic convolutions on the left and the right side.
[36:32.060] Oh, maybe I use a completely different sample again because I still record stuff.
[36:41.060] Maybe too long.
[36:42.060] 11 seconds and this is 8 seconds.
[36:55.060] Too long.
[37:57.060] So yeah, in the pulley grids, I mean I need to make some kind of video about this.
[38:06.060] Some point.
[38:09.060] If you have a frequency here or let's say oscillator.
[38:20.060] You can take the pitch in.
[38:28.060] So now you get basically the output here of the pitch.
[38:31.060] What you are pressing on the keyboard.
[38:34.060] You get now a hertz here.
[38:36.060] Then you can convert the spec and get the pitch information.
[38:43.060] What then in here basically you can create in the hertz domain or in a different unit.
[38:57.060] You can pitch basically in a different unit or you can't detune it.
[39:01.060] You can even use here the two numbers.
[39:10.060] At some point some people wanted to dial in hertz basically into the oscillators here.
[39:18.060] Now you can do that.
[39:32.060] Can we change here the size now?
[39:41.060] This goes only up to maybe 500 hertz.
[39:44.060] And I have exactly 500 hertz.
[39:58.060] It's basically just a conversion between pitch numbers or note numbers and frequency.
[40:13.060] Maybe we can change this here to some kind of rhythm or to some kind of percussion thing.
[40:37.060] So let's use the resonator.
[42:03.060] Let me try steps.
[42:27.060] Oh, let's try steps.
[42:57.060] Maybe a second one.
[43:25.060] Let's use the resonator.
[43:55.060] It's more right here.
[44:02.060] Okay, so here I use my scale resonator bank.
[44:30.060] So this is already dialed into D sharp minor.
[44:45.060] Or maybe we can generate some notes in here.
[44:52.060] So let's try that.
[44:59.060] Which is our root note.
[45:06.060] Then we use face.
[45:14.060] Actually we don't need to use root pad.
[45:21.060] Which is okay.
[45:25.060] Then we use the sign mod.
[45:31.060] Attinuate the signal, scale it down.
[45:38.060] Quantize with units.
[45:43.060] I don't know why the quantize now by default is in this use note input mode here.
[45:49.060] I have no idea why.
[45:52.060] Maybe it's a bug.
[46:00.060] I need transpose here.
[46:14.060] Note output.
[46:16.060] This is the pitch.
[46:19.060] Then we need this here as the gate.
[46:25.060] And maybe we modify also the velocity and maybe we do something else here.
[46:32.060] So dials.
[46:37.060] Dials and this is the velocity.
[46:39.060] Let's randomize.
[46:44.060] Maybe attenuate to scale it down.
[46:49.060] And then sample and hold to hold the pitch here while the gate is active.
[46:58.060] So now we get some notes out here of the pulley grid.
[47:02.060] And we use this here with the key tracking of the resonator bank.
[47:06.060] See how this sounds.
[47:15.060] Oh there is no.
[47:17.060] There is no note output here, right?
[47:19.060] Note out is here.
[47:21.060] We don't get notes here and have Xbox sadly.
[47:26.060] That's not a problem.
[47:39.060] So this is basically the pitch of the resonator bank.
[48:01.060] Let's try a new space here.
[48:17.060] This is also something we could modulate.
[48:21.060] I should do some kind of preset at some point here.
[48:30.060] Hold rate, use note.
[48:33.060] So we trigger this here with MIDI, right?
[48:36.060] Also we can use the trigger note or note trigger.
[49:06.060] I don't like all the sounds.
[49:25.060] Or maybe use the transient split here.
[49:36.060] Or maybe use only reverb here.
[49:58.060] Hey Dash, what happens next will shock you.
[50:01.060] Five produces secrets.
[50:04.060] Oh, link is out here, nice.
[50:13.060] Sometimes I get depressed.
[50:15.060] Oh no, no reason to get depressed.
[50:17.060] Please no.
[50:26.060] Yeah, this track makes no sense.
[50:51.060] But I just want to try it out something here.
[51:11.060] Okay, let's delete that.
[51:16.060] We probably going to use Polygrid.
[51:22.060] And let's start with this depth mode.
[51:32.060] Randomize this.
[51:36.060] I think it's my most used method of creating melodies here.
[51:42.060] It's using this depth mode because you can randomize.
[51:45.060] And then you can save it as a preset.
[51:48.060] And it's still present when you reload the preset.
[51:55.060] Not in your way to scale it.
[52:00.060] Quantizer, not sure why this is in this mode.
[52:10.060] Let's use this scroll sample and hold.
[52:31.060] So how we trick on this?
[52:35.060] Maybe with this second step, smart.
[52:40.060] And we call this gate.
[52:43.060] This is pitch.
[52:46.060] The gate is pitch.
[52:52.060] This is gate.
[52:57.060] Let's do that.
[53:04.060] So we compare this here.
[53:11.060] Pathologic unevenness here.
[53:20.060] So one millisecond should be enough, right?
[53:24.060] Is this triggering something here?
[53:27.060] So every time the gate is different than, or the value of the gate is different than one millisecond than before, then trick or something.
[53:38.060] What do we want now is AD.
[53:41.060] It's all I need.
[53:59.060] Oh, I need a sample note here, of course.
[54:08.060] It's a bit slow, huh?
[54:12.060] Why is this slow?
[54:28.060] That's so good.
[54:30.060] I'm sorry.
[54:31.060] Hey, Donnie.
[54:38.060] So here I do this kind of thing, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this.
[55:03.060] It's a filter.
[55:13.060] Second idea.
[55:35.060] Blends. I need a blend.
[55:50.060] I need a bit of diffusion, not confusion.
[56:04.060] Maybe it's too fast.
[56:25.060] Maybe the second one.
[56:40.060] Sounds like popcorn, right?
[56:42.060] Just a little bit.
[56:44.060] Random is definitely my favorite artist.
[57:00.060] So let's change the pitch here.
[57:07.060] Also, but also it's great when you make these kind of steps, sequences.
[57:12.060] That's something I learned from Stepping, which brings in a lot of movement is to use a step mode only for the octaves.
[57:21.060] So here we have basically 16 steps, and here I use whatever 12 steps.
[57:26.060] So it doesn't, you know, so you have some kind of pulley stuff, pulley written stuff, eight notes, randomize.
[57:37.060] Use octaves here, octaves, octaves.
[57:45.060] And use bipolar signal.
[57:51.060] Sounds completely different.
[58:01.060] Too many.
[58:18.060] So these are the octaves, yeah.
[58:25.060] I just named this, so I don't forget what's, what's what.
[58:30.060] You don't know what it's what, what, what the fuck.
[58:39.060] Six steps.
[58:46.060] So there's a SDK, a cam, a dot pitch.
[59:16.060] Playing a bit of citrus.
[59:26.060] Maybe use a second scroll.
[59:37.060] Blend between the two.
[59:40.060] So it dies.
[59:43.060] Let's make this random.