Tags: posts polarity-music Bitwig Bitwig-5.2b10 Sound-Design Tutorial Sampling

Create Sounds from Noise

Tutorial | Jul 08, 2024

In this video, I demonstrate how to generate tonal sounds from random noise using the Cycles mode in my sampler. By manipulating the grain size and key tracking, I can create different pitches and waveforms. This technique allows for easy and flexible sound design, making it perfect for creating ambient pads and other tonal sounds.

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In this video, I demonstrated how to create tonal sounds from random noise samples using the sampler in Bitwig. I explained two methods: using a bandpass filter and using the Cycles mode in the sampler. The Cycles mode is particularly effective for generating consistent, tonal sounds from atonal sources like noise.

Key Points:

This technique simplifies the process of creating tonal sounds from non-tonal sources, making it a valuable tool for sound design in music production.

Questions & Answers

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

What is the main focus of the video?

The main focus of the video is to demonstrate how to use the Cycles mode in a wave table sampler to generate tonal sounds from random noise samples. The video shows different techniques and settings to achieve this, including using the bandpass filter and adjusting grain size.

What is the advantage of using the Cycles mode?

The advantage of using the Cycles mode is that it allows for the generation of tonal sounds from non-tonal samples, such as random noise. By looping small grains of the sample and adjusting the playback frequency with different keys on the keyboard, the Cycles mode can create a wide range of pitches and waveforms.

How can the Cycles mode be used to create different sounds?

The Cycles mode can be used to create different sounds by adjusting the grain size and key tracking. Changing the grain size with each different key on the keyboard allows for different pitches, while adjusting key tracking can stretch or scale the pitch grid, resulting in different portions inside of one cycle and changing the waveform. This flexibility allows for the creation of a variety of sounds.

What other features and effects are mentioned in the video?

In addition to the Cycles mode, the video mentions using a bandpass filter, a limiter, key tracking, modulation with a random modulator, low pass filter, convolution, delay, reverb, chorus, and audio effects such as notch and wobble. These features and effects are used to enhance and shape the generated tonal sounds.

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] Yo, it's been a week since my last video, so I thought maybe I should do another one.
[00:00:06] And I just recorded here this noise sample.
[00:00:09] There's no tonal stuff in there.
[00:00:10] It's completely random noise.
[00:00:12] Sounds like this.
[00:00:18] And of course we can put this into the sampler here.
[00:00:22] And usually when you try to get something tonal out of this, you probably want to use
[00:00:27] here the bandpass filter, so maybe here the steep one.
[00:00:31] Put this on C3.
[00:00:33] Use resonance, key tracking here 100%.
[00:00:37] And then we can, let me see, there's a big limiter.
[00:00:40] Yeah, nice.
[00:00:42] We could just crank up here the resonance and then play this.
[00:00:51] And then we can generate the fundamental frequency or fundamental sine partial at this frequency
[00:00:57] here.
[00:01:00] That's one way, but there's also another way.
[00:01:02] So last week I tried to make some pad sounds and I was using the textures mode.
[00:01:08] When you put this here on 0%, right, and then you hit play or hit the key on the keyboard,
[00:01:16] you basically loop one grain over and over endlessly.
[00:01:22] Maybe you can hear it.
[00:01:26] When you change grain size here, you get the pitch.
[00:01:39] So the thing with this is that you actually make the grain size so small that it becomes
[00:01:45] a pitch.
[00:01:46] So you generally generate wave form by just looping a small portion.
[00:01:55] And we can kind of calculate the grain size here for pitch.
[00:02:01] You can just use here maybe a note grid, a note to a millisecond converter.
[00:02:08] So we have your C3 and then we have 262 hertz and this equals to 3.822 milliseconds in the
[00:02:19] size of one cycle.
[00:02:21] So the length of one cycle for C3 is exactly 3.822 milliseconds.
[00:02:27] So you can type this in here, 8 milliseconds, and then when you hit the key on the keyboard,
[00:02:35] you got exactly the pitch of C3, right?
[00:02:38] And then you want to change the pitch, of course, with a different key on the keyboard.
[00:02:42] So you probably want to use your key tracking and then change the grain size here.
[00:02:48] I think you have to use around 32 here.
[00:02:59] So we change the grain size with each different key on the keyboard to get a different pitch.
[00:03:05] But that's very, you know, convoluted and complex.
[00:03:09] So we have instead of the texture mode, we can just use the cycles mode, which does exactly
[00:03:16] the same thing.
[00:03:18] But here, when you zoom in, you can see we have a small little grid here, overlaid, over
[00:03:25] the sample.
[00:03:27] And then when you hit play or key on the keyboard, you basically loop here one small bit, right?
[00:03:34] And when you change the key, you change the playback frequency.
[00:03:39] So that's the same thing basically, just better and faster.
[00:03:44] And with this, you get tonal stuff out of a tonal sounds like this noise sample here,
[00:03:50] right?
[00:03:51] So you can hear a tone.
[00:03:55] You can change the formant.
[00:04:02] And also even better sometimes, when you have the key tracking on here and you zoom in,
[00:04:08] you can see here the pitch grid down there.
[00:04:11] And when you change the root note here, you can see it stretches or scales basically this
[00:04:17] grid or yeah, it sizes the grid differently.
[00:04:21] So then with this, you get different portions inside of one cycle.
[00:04:26] So you change the waveform basically with this.
[00:04:34] Maybe get here no filter.
[00:04:36] Yeah, that's better.
[00:04:39] So out of this noise, we get now the sound, right?
[00:04:51] So that's very important because we can generate now any sound with this actually because this
[00:04:55] is a wave table sampler.
[00:04:58] But the wave table is not limited to just 256 tables.
[00:05:04] You can use any length.
[00:05:06] You can use any sample, any sound.
[00:05:09] It doesn't matter which pitch or is there any pitch at all in this sample.
[00:05:13] You can use it inside of the sample with the cycles mode and get something tonal out of
[00:05:18] it.
[00:05:19] That's completely inside or yeah, in a scale.
[00:05:23] So maybe turn this down here.
[00:05:27] Let's use this and use a random modulator here.
[00:05:30] Put this into freeze mode, smoothing and then modulate your cycles.
[00:05:36] Just a tad.
[00:05:48] And then a low pass.
[00:05:59] And then we use your convolution.
[00:06:03] Use a delay plus.
[00:06:08] Let's use my preset here, the ambient reverb and then maybe a reverb at the end.
[00:06:15] Maybe let's put the chorus in between, chorus plus, very slow eight voices.
[00:06:25] Maybe also here a low cut.
[00:06:43] So I think this is a very neat trick to generate sounds with this, with the cycles mode.
[00:07:04] And I use it all the time because currently I'm trying to make some ambient samples I
[00:07:10] can use in my Digitakt 2 or inside of a sampler without creating pads from the ground up every
[00:07:18] time I try to make a new song.
[00:07:21] So I come up with some nice samples for pad sounds and I discovered here the cycles mode
[00:07:26] again and it's a very great way of creating sounds with it.
[00:07:32] On top of that I want to record here something maybe from my microphone.
[00:07:40] So what I can do here is just hit record and maybe talk into my microphone and record something
[00:07:50] random.
[00:07:53] So with this here we can maybe let me see, maybe put this into an instrument layer here
[00:08:05] and just duplicate this.
[00:08:06] And here we use a different sample, we can rename this vocals and put this in here and
[00:08:16] more or less do the same trick here.
[00:08:35] This may be a bit too loud.
[00:08:52] So here I can use maybe one octave higher, the format.
[00:09:04] You can also use all the audio effects here, select them all and put them here into the
[00:09:14] FX box of the layer.
[00:09:17] So we can also get rid of here all the audio effects.
[00:09:25] So we have it combined here in the FX box on all of these layers and then we can use
[00:09:31] the polymer below that and use your song, unison, that kind of the same envelope here.
[00:09:50] We can also go into the vocals here and say instead of using your low pass we use a notch,
[00:09:57] go back to the center frequency and more or less kill the fundamental or the root of this
[00:10:06] frequency here.
[00:10:07] So we have room then for fill it in here with the polymer, right?
[00:10:11] So also here notch, center frequency.
[00:10:24] A bit of a plus, we can get rid of some overtones.
[00:10:47] A bit of wobble here, pitch wobble.
[00:11:17] This is the manual.
[00:11:24] The manual is available in the description.
[00:11:29] Something like this is very great for pad sounds in my opinion.
[00:11:58] The Cycles mode is a wave table synthesizer.
[00:12:08] You don't need to create wave table sounds.
[00:12:13] You can just drag in some random samples and make everything sound tonal or fit into your scale.
[00:12:20] It's a very easy way of creating tonal sounds.
[00:12:23] Remember Cycles mode is very useful.
[00:12:27] Thanks for watching.
[00:12:28] Leave a like if you like the video.
[00:12:30] Subscribe to the channel and I'll see you in the next video.
[00:12:32] Bye.