Tags: posts polarity-music Bitwig Tutorial VST-Plugin

Kick Ninja, Kick 3 updates, NoteGrabber, Spectrum Analyzer!

Tutorial | Oct 03, 2024

In this video, I provide updates on several plugins, including KickNinja's new features like phase locking and improved sample layering, making it one of the best kick drum VSTs available. I also discuss Node Grabber, a straightforward tool for manual audio-to-pitch conversion, although I find it overpriced. Additionally, I share my experiment with creating a spectral analyzer using AI to code web applications, which is accessible online for free.

You can watch the Video on Youtube

Summary

Maybe you don't watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

In this video, I provide an update on some exciting plugins that I've been exploring recently. First up is KickNinja, which has received a significant update that introduces several new features. Previously, I found it a bit cumbersome because when you drag a sample into it, the kick layer would be in serial, meaning the sample would play first and then fade into the oscillator. However, with the new update, you can now import a kick sample and use a feature called "perfect full." This feature lets you layer noise on top of the oscillator while canceling out the fundamental frequency of the kick drum. It essentially inverts or flips the polarity, making it easier to blend layers without unwanted low end interference, which I find to be a much-improved workflow.

Another new feature in KickNinja is the ability to lock the phase of certain parameters. This means when adjusting the pitch envelope, for example, you can ensure the phase stays consistent, which is a significant improvement for sound design. Multiple points can now be pitch-tracked, allowing for more refined control. I feel KickNinja has become superior to Kick 3 due to its straightforward interface, which allows access to features without needing to navigate through menu layers. You can automate parameters directly from the interface, enhancing creative possibilities.

The update to Kick 3 has made it more stable, as I noticed it no longer crashes when closing the window. However, I still find its interface less intuitive compared to KickNinja. Kick 3 requires navigating through multiple layers, which was easier in Kick 2, in my opinion. Adding phase locking would be a welcome enhancement for Kick 3 as well.

Additionally, I discovered a plugin called Node Grabber, which functions as a spectrogram that allows manual note painting. You can record audio and then manually select pitches, which bypasses the need for an algorithm to determine notes. While you could achieve similar results with other tools like Melodyne or Ableton Live's audio-to-MIDI features, the manual option allows for more precise control over which notes you want to include. However, I find this plugin quite expensive at $49, as it essentially lets you paint notes over a spectrogram.

Lastly, I shared a personal project where I experimented with using AI to code a web-based spectral analyzer. By using a loopback device, I'm able to record audio directly from my computer and have it analyzed for prominent frequencies. The project is still a work-in-progress, and it was largely a test to explore coding with AI. I've made the source code available on my GitHub for others interested in this kind of development.

All in all, these plugins and developments have given me a lot of new tools to explore, and I'm excited about the potential they bring to music production. If you like the video, please leave a like, subscribe, and comment if you have any questions. I'll see you in the next video!

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] Hey folks welcome back to another video I want to give you a small update on some
[00:00:05] plugins. First and foremost KickNinja has a new update with a lot of
[00:00:10] interesting features. So my problem with KickNinja was that when you drag in here
[00:00:17] let's say an example you can analyze it and then you can say attack right then
[00:00:26] you hit import and then you can see here the kick layer or the sample layer is
[00:00:30] actually in serial so the example comes first and then it fades out into the
[00:00:35] oscillator that's new face here and of course you could do this before you
[00:00:40] could just go here to the amp envelope and then bring this up you can you fade
[00:00:47] in more or less the original sample on top of the oscillator but you can see here
[00:00:53] you also bring in the low end of the kick drum sample and then you layer it on
[00:00:59] top of the oscillator curve then which is a bit annoying and now there's a new
[00:01:04] feature you just drag in here let's say a kick sample and then you can say here a
[00:01:10] perfect full everything is the same import and now the sample or the noise layer is
[00:01:18] actually on top and then you have at the bottom the oscillator so the kick or the
[00:01:25] bottom end of the sample is cancelled out
[00:01:30] so you have yeah you have then basically at the bottom the oscillator part here and on
[00:01:39] top you have only the filtered noise without the bottom end of this so it's um i don't know how
[00:01:47] it's called um let me check yeah perfect full exports the difference between original
[00:01:52] and the oscillator to a sampler so they basically kind of invert or flip the polarity and then cancel out
[00:02:00] or remove the bottom or the fundamental of the kick drum and then use that sample
[00:02:06] as the top layer
[00:02:09] this is the oscillator part this is only the top part my opinion this is much much
[00:02:16] better then they're also implemented here some kind of phase locking i think i also
[00:02:23] said this was uh or a lot of people want this for some reason um let's say you have here this
[00:02:31] actually it's the amp pitch envelope here want to change the pitch envelope here at this point you
[00:02:36] can see it changes the face or the position of these uh yeah of the oscillator so you can say i just want
[00:02:46] to say go here right click and say face lock and this is sticks in place and then you can
[00:02:56] change stuff before this point um but the face is rock solid it stays in place that's very good in my
[00:03:05] opinion um you can also right click and say pitch tracked multiple points now this is possible a lot of nice
[00:03:12] little features here for kick ninja and i think at the moment this is probably i would say it's better
[00:03:19] than kick 3 because the interface is straight ahead right there's no menus you don't have to go to a
[00:03:27] different view or tab or anything like that it's you know you can access it right away from the interface
[00:03:34] here you have for all these points all these um parameters you can draw in automation
[00:03:44] what time which is really dope also for the effects here you can get really creative with kick drums here
[00:03:52] in my opinion it's probably at the moment the best kick drum vst on the market i would say in terms of
[00:03:58] features uh maybe some of this stuff here is still a bit too small they work have to work you a bit on
[00:04:05] the scaling even though if you you know drag this make the scales a bit up here you can see most of
[00:04:12] the stuff is way too small i don't know if there's maybe maybe there's somewhere here's a scaling let me see
[00:04:20] one point three oh yeah it scales this up okay okay no no never mind it's okay so this is kick ninja
[00:04:28] this is a nice update uh three also has a new update um it doesn't crash anymore when you close down here
[00:04:37] the window at least for me um i don't know what they changed additionally if there are new features
[00:04:43] but in my opinion here this is a bit you know you have to click through all these layers um i would
[00:04:50] say it was a bit better in kick 2 in terms of interface once you have more features maybe they
[00:04:56] can um work on this a bit more in the future but still it's also a great quick kick drum synthesizer the
[00:05:04] import works really well it sounds good it does it does its job right it's um uh right up there
[00:05:14] with the kick ninja um i think face locking is missing here still maybe they can implement this
[00:05:21] so when you change here one of these points right the face doesn't change here for
[00:05:28] points later on in the line would be nice to have so this is here kick three also an update
[00:05:35] and then i discovered this one here yesterday it's called node grabber and all it does is actually
[00:05:43] showing you uh what's spectrogram yeah that's how it's called a spectrogram you can record here
[00:05:49] something from my uh generative grid patch and then what you can do with this is instead of just watching
[00:05:59] this here play you hit stop and then you can drag uh here with the mouse and can paint in kind of notes
[00:06:08] pitches here's a note there's a note it's kind of a manual um audio to pitch
[00:06:16] and i think the big benefit of this is that you don't rely on an algorithm that does it does its job
[00:06:25] kind of okayish here you can do it manually and paint in notes
[00:06:33] and decide which kind of pitches you want to have this note then you can drag it out here to an
[00:06:40] wood clip just use this here then for for synthesizer and this is a very nice and very
[00:06:53] straightforward very simple idea which works very well and it's not something new you could do this
[00:06:59] before with melodyne or with all the other uh tools or audio to midi tools i think ableton live has also
[00:07:07] something like this uh baked in but here you can decide and can just paint in manually and decide
[00:07:15] what kind of notes you want to pick instead of relying on some kind of algorithm that does it okay-ish
[00:07:22] but sometimes you are off and you have to remove certain notes and so this is pretty nice and
[00:07:28] straightforward i really like this i wish they add something like micro pitch because sometimes i use
[00:07:34] here um dual rack stuff which has frequencies in between notes right it's not really an a it's not
[00:07:43] really in a sharp and um it would be nice to have your micro pitch or mpe in there so you can drag out
[00:07:49] the midi and then you have here a note um with the micro pitch here right so it's in between something
[00:08:00] like this it's not really f it's something in between would be nice to have if they can implement this
[00:08:07] because i work a lot of non-pitched or in-between note material another downside is that in my opinion this is
[00:08:16] way too expensive um when we go here to the website it costs 49 dollars in my opinion this should be
[00:08:24] three or maybe five dollars or ten dollars or 10 bucks um because it's it's just a spectrogram
[00:08:35] and you can paint on top of the spectrum i don't know 49 bucks in my opinion it's a bit too expensive for
[00:08:43] this kind of technology but that's how it is okay i want to show you these three plugins i tried out the
[00:08:52] last three days and i really like here all these updates i also like this plug in here a lot because
[00:09:00] it's just straightforward and then i did something like this here um this is a current idea i'm using
[00:09:09] ai to code stuff to code web applications here let me just on i can select your my loopback device this is my
[00:09:20] internal audio driver so i can record everything that's on my computer so let's say here for more
[00:09:28] back to the browser you can see here then i try to code some kind of spectral analyzer in the browser
[00:09:43] there is let's go down here threshold so you can pull down the threshold and everything that's
[00:09:49] above the threshold here gets analyzed for the most prominent frequencies so here we have d sharp three
[00:09:57] you know i'm doing a lot of the in d sharp so that's no wonder um that's an average thing here
[00:10:03] you can change the color of some of the stuff if you want to um so yeah this was more or less like an
[00:10:12] experiment i try to get something going inside of the browser you can resize this and put it on a
[00:10:21] different screen you don't need an application you just open up a url it's spectrum.polarity.me
[00:10:29] and then you can use this i put the link in the description below so this was just a test just for
[00:10:35] you know for experimentation reasons and playing around and trying out coding with ai and it works
[00:10:43] fairly well also the source code of this is on my github page if you want to download this or if you want
[00:10:49] to you know dive deeper into it you can do this and yeah i think that's it for today um and
[00:10:59] leave a like if you like the video leave a subscription leave a subscription and also
[00:11:03] leave a comment if you have some questions of course and see you in the next video