Tags: posts polarity-music Bitwig Poly-Grid Signals Tutorial Bitwig-5.1

Stereo Signals in the Grid are special

Tutorial | Nov 29, 2023

In this video, I demonstrate a specific feature of the grid where every signal inside is a stereo signal, allowing for interesting possibilities. By using the stereo split and merge modules, I show how to split a stereo signal into two mono signals, change their pitches independently, and then recombine them. This feature can be used not only for audio signals but also for pitch, gate, and phase signals, greatly expanding the creative possibilities of the patch.

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In this video, I wanted to focus on a unique feature of the grid: every signal within it is a stereo signal, offering interesting possibilities. Here are the key moments:

This video aimed to illuminate the sophisticated yet versatile features of the grid, specifically focusing on stereo signals and their creative applications in music production.

Questions & Answers

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

What is the specific feature of the grid that is being highlighted in this video?

The specific feature of the grid that is being highlighted in this video is that every signal inside of the grid is actually a stereo signal, which allows for interesting possibilities in signal manipulation and processing.

How does the stereo split and merge functionality work in the grid?

The stereo split and merge functionality in the grid allows for splitting a stereo signal into two mono signals (left and right) and treating them separately. This can be useful for applying different effects or manipulations to each channel and then recombining them back into a stereo signal.

What are some examples of how the stereo split and merge can be used in the grid?

Some examples of how the stereo split and merge can be used in the grid include splitting an oscillator's pitch signal into separate left and right channels, detuning the left and right channels differently, creating drones or chords with a mono signal and distinct sounds, and triggering multiple sounds from one oscillator using different triggers for the left and right channels.

What is the overall message or takeaway from this video?

The overall message or takeaway from this video is that the grid in Bitwig Studio offers endless possibilities for creative signal manipulation and processing. By utilizing the stereo split and merge functionality, users can explore and experiment with unique sound design techniques and create complex and dynamic patches.

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.

[00:00:00] I want to highlight in this video a specific feature of the grid and that's that every
[00:00:05] signal inside of the grid is actually a stereo signal and this gives you some interesting
[00:00:11] possibilities.
[00:00:12] So let's take a pitch module here.
[00:00:17] You can define some kind of pitch inside of the grid and let's use an oscilloscope here.
[00:00:24] Let's go in here.
[00:00:25] You can see when we change the pitch here, the signal inside of the oscilloscope changes,
[00:00:31] which makes sense.
[00:00:34] But then we got some kind of feature inside of this oscilloscope here and this is the stereo
[00:00:39] button and if you enable this, you can see the second input check is actually disabled
[00:00:45] and we get here the right channel.
[00:00:48] So now what we can do is we can actually split this signal here, which is a stereo signal
[00:00:54] and we use a stereo split, stereo merge.
[00:01:02] So we can split the stereo signal into two mono signals, left side and right side and
[00:01:08] we can use a transpose on that.
[00:01:15] So now we can change the right side to a different pitch than the left side.
[00:01:21] The left side here is orange and the right side is white.
[00:01:27] So now we only change the right side here, but we can also change the initial pitch.
[00:01:33] You can see the left side goes also up with the right side.
[00:01:37] So it's basically combined.
[00:01:40] So we only dial in here a difference to the right channel, the right pitch signal.
[00:01:46] So this is basically a specific feature of the grid because everything inside of the
[00:01:50] grid is a stereo signal and you can use a stereo split and the stereo merge to actually
[00:01:56] split them and then treat them differently.
[00:02:04] You can do a lot of things with this and this is also why it's super hard to explain or
[00:02:12] to teach the grid because it's impossible to just make a video about the stereo split
[00:02:18] and then explain it in all kind of situations because you can use it in every situation.
[00:02:24] The stereo split actually is only there for splitting audio signals, but inside of the
[00:02:30] grid you can split every signal into two separate signals and can then treat them differently
[00:02:38] and then recombine them here with the merge into one stereo signal and then use that.
[00:02:44] So because now we can change here basically the right channel differently, we can also
[00:02:50] use a transpose here on the left channel of course and can change the left side differently
[00:02:57] than the right channel.
[00:02:59] So now why should we use this?
[00:03:04] Because inside of the grid also the oscillators itself are stereo oscillators.
[00:03:11] You can see this here with the stereo detune feature right.
[00:03:15] You can detune basically the left side and the right side differently with this if you
[00:03:21] actually enable this button, which means this oscillators actually two oscillators.
[00:03:26] It's one oscillator for the left channel and one oscillator for the right channel.
[00:03:31] We can use here and amplify at the end and just go out.
[00:03:37] So we have a sound here, enable the stereo feature and we can detune the left side from
[00:03:46] the right side.
[00:03:49] We can also use this pitch signal here and go into the oscillator.
[00:04:03] If you have headphones on, you can hear that the left channel actually plays a different
[00:04:08] pitch than the right channel, which is of course a bit distracting for the listener because
[00:04:14] if you have headphones on it sounds super weird.
[00:04:18] That's why in the last video I also used here a stereo split on the audio output.
[00:04:31] So now because we have the left side completely different pitch than the right side, we want
[00:04:37] to use the mid signal actually.
[00:04:41] I don't know if this is explained here.
[00:04:45] Middle content of the stereo input.
[00:04:46] So this basically means it's the combination of the left and the right channel together
[00:04:53] or more or less what's not different than on the left and the right channels.
[00:04:59] This gives you basically a mono signal and sounds like this.
[00:05:18] So it's basically a mono signal and you don't have a different pitch on the left side and
[00:05:23] on the right side.
[00:05:25] It's more like you have two distinct sounds in a mono channel.
[00:05:31] So you can mix the left and the right channel together kind of.
[00:05:35] But I think the mid channel is actually the sound of what's not different from the left
[00:05:42] and the right channel.
[00:05:43] I'm not sure how this is made here inside of the grid, but usually the mid channel is
[00:05:48] it's not just the left and the right channel together.
[00:05:51] It's just what's not different, I think.
[00:05:54] Doesn't matter.
[00:05:56] That's how I mix basically here the left channel and the right channel together just using
[00:06:00] the mid output here to have basically a mono signal with two distinct sounds.
[00:06:08] So you can create basically a drone with this or a chord just with one oscillator.
[00:06:15] Another thing is if you actually don't want to change the left channel from the right
[00:06:21] channel separately like this here, you can also say let's delete this.
[00:06:30] Let's delete this here.
[00:06:31] And we know this is made, the split in the merge is made for audio and this is the side
[00:06:36] channel.
[00:06:37] The side channel is actually the signal that you get from audio what the difference is
[00:06:47] from the left and the right channel.
[00:06:49] So side channel is the difference between left and right channel.
[00:06:53] What's the difference?
[00:06:54] What's, you know, yeah.
[00:06:57] And because we know that's how it works, we can also say we want to put in let's say a
[00:07:03] transpose here on the side channel.
[00:07:09] And then we can transpose it the side channel.
[00:07:13] You can see we can now change the left channel and the right channel at the same time in
[00:07:18] the opposite directions because the side channel is the difference between left and right channel.
[00:07:25] So when we dial in here difference, we have a difference between the left and the right
[00:07:29] channel.
[00:07:30] Right?
[00:07:31] So we get basically the opposite pitch.
[00:07:39] So it's basically like, yeah, the tuning this year.
[00:07:42] So with this we get basically 20 Hertz positive on the one channel on the right channel, I
[00:07:49] think, and then 20 Hertz negative on the left channel.
[00:07:53] So it's basically the same thing as this year.
[00:07:56] So this is how you can do it here with a transpose and a stereo split and merge.
[00:08:06] Because of this behavior, we can also not use this only on pitch and audio.
[00:08:10] We can also use this on gates and we can use this on face signals at the same time.
[00:08:16] So let's say you have an envelope here, right?
[00:08:21] And what you usually do is you trigger it with something.
[00:08:26] Let's say we use a trigger here.
[00:08:33] And because we know this is your stereo signal, we can split this up.
[00:08:39] So we can say we want to use here a stereo merge.
[00:08:43] We go into the left channel and use a different one here, the right channel, right?
[00:08:49] And then we go into the envelope.
[00:08:53] So now we have basically two triggers at the same time.
[00:09:10] And with the transpose, we can change the pitch for the left chip for the left oscillator
[00:09:14] in the right oscillator differently.
[00:09:16] And this one triggers the left channel and this one triggers the right channel.
[00:09:20] So you can basically use one oscillator and play two sounds with two different triggers,
[00:09:27] just with one setup.
[00:09:30] Sounds a bit funny.
[00:09:44] And I think you can also use a quantizer here.
[00:09:47] And instead of using the quantizer on two channels here, you just use it on the stereo
[00:09:51] signal.
[00:09:58] You can see the left channel and the right channel is quantized.
[00:10:09] And then you can also say, we want to make a feedback.
[00:10:15] We take a long delay here to actually make a feedback possible.
[00:10:21] We go out of the oscillator and back into the oscillator here with the face.
[00:10:34] So because we have on the left channel a different pitch than on the right channel, we can say
[00:10:42] stereo split, stereo merge.
[00:10:47] But we go with the left channel and the right channel here and with the right channel and
[00:10:52] with the left channel.
[00:10:53] So we face modulate the left oscillator with the right oscillator.
[00:10:56] We have different feedback loops there.
[00:11:15] So this patch doesn't make any sense.
[00:11:17] I want to basically give you the idea how this works.
[00:11:21] So all these audio things in here, under the level category, it's not only for audio.
[00:11:32] You can also use this for pitch.
[00:11:34] So let's say you have a transpose here that changes the pitch.
[00:11:37] You don't need to use the transpose.
[00:11:38] You can also exchange this here for gain.
[00:11:42] Something like this.
[00:11:43] It's just multiplication.
[00:11:44] Or you can, let's say, bias here.
[00:11:49] That's probably better.
[00:11:50] You can use the bias.
[00:11:51] You can see it's just adding and subtracting basically from the signal.
[00:12:02] So you can use everything for everything.
[00:12:05] That's why I always say it's hard to teach the grid because you can do basically everything
[00:12:10] that you want as endless infinite possibilities of creating sounds or signal lines.
[00:12:21] So you can use everything for everything.
[00:12:23] And here I basically used an audio module or two audio modules that actually used for
[00:12:31] splitting stereo signals and merging stereo signals for pitch signals.
[00:12:37] And you can also use it here for phase signals and for gate signals or for trigger signals
[00:12:43] inside of the grid and actually make more out of your patch just by splitting up the
[00:12:48] signals and then use basically the stereo feature to create two different sounds with
[00:12:55] two different trigger behaviors.
[00:12:57] And yeah, it's possible.
[00:13:01] It's not like you can't do it.
[00:13:03] So this is something I want to highlight in this video to actually explain it to you.
[00:13:08] Maybe I do a more compact video on my Bitwig guide channel in the future.
[00:13:14] Let me know if you find this interesting or useful at all and leave a like if you liked
[00:13:19] the video.
[00:13:20] Of course, subscribe to the channel and ask some questions in the comments.
[00:13:24] I claim that's always helpful for the algorithm on YouTube.
[00:13:30] Thanks for watching and see you in the next video.
[00:13:32] Bye.
[00:13:33] [ End ]