Tags: posts polarity-music Bitwig Preset Replace VST Sampling Tutorial VST-Plugin

SnapBack by CableGuys and Drum Layering in Bitwig

Tutorial | Oct 27, 2024

In this video, I discuss the Snapback plugin by Cableguys, which detects drum triggers to layer samples on top or in front of drum sounds, and compare it to a Bitwig Studio native solution. I demonstrate how to use the Bitwig Replacer device to achieve similar results, offering a free preset for viewers to experiment with. Ultimately, I highlight the Snapback plugin's intuitive interface and quality sample selection as key value points.

You can watch the Video on Youtube

Summary

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

In today's video, I wanted to delve into the Snapback plugin by Cableguys, which has been making rounds on music production channels on YouTube. This plugin is designed to detect drum triggers and use them to trigger samples either on top of or before the sounds you're playing. I demonstrated how it works by using it on a snare channel, showing how it can detect the snare drum and how you can adjust settings in the trigger panel, like threshold, input filters, and the detection algorithm.

Once the drum triggers are detected, you can use the transient panel to layer samples on top. For instance, I added a vinyl sizzle sample to play alongside the snare drum, adjusting the decay, pitch, and attack to fit the sound I wanted. A significant feature of this plugin is the Snapback area, which allows you to trigger samples before the actual drum sound plays, leading to some creative possibilities. I highlighted how turning on this feature affects latency, increasing it from 27 milliseconds to 152 milliseconds when triggering samples in front of the drum sound. This delay helps process the sound accurately and allows room for adjusting the attack times, pitch, and decay.

I also spoke about the crucial role of selecting the right samples to layer with your drum sounds, as the plugin excels when the samples are well-chosen and enhance the drum’s frequencies and flavor.

Then I addressed a request on how to replicate this functionality in Bitwig Studio. Yes, it is possible using Bitwig's native device called Replacer. The Replacer can similarly detect drum triggers with adjustable filters and settings for sending MIDI notes, including pitch, velocity, and duration. It's quite precise and layers sounds with no delay, making it a suitable alternative.

I shared a preset I created in Bitwig, which includes a Replacer to trigger sounds and a sampler for layering samples both on top of the sound and as a snapback layer with reversed samples. I demonstrated how you can adjust the parameters like decay and high-pass filter to sculpt your sound.

For the snapback layer, I mentioned the importance of sample length and introduced a time shift of 142 milliseconds to achieve the desired offset. While creating your own samples for this preset, maintaining consistency in sample length and adjusting the offset accordingly is crucial.

For those unable to use the Snapback plugin due to operating system constraints or budget, my preset offers a free alternative within Bitwig Studio. I suggested that users could also export samples from Snapback and use them in my preset for a similar experience. The value of Snapback lies in its user-friendly interface and quality sample selection, but my solution provides a cost-effective and flexible alternative for Bitwig users.

I concluded the video by inviting viewers to download the preset from the description, experiment with it, and share feedback. I appreciated the viewer’s suggestion, which led to the creation of this preset, and invited subscriptions and likes before signing off.

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] so in today's video i want to talk about snapback and you probably already saw a lot of videos about
[00:00:06] this plugin it was all over you know music production youtube and it's by cable guys
[00:00:14] and this thing just detects drum triggers and then try us to use these drum triggers to
[00:00:20] trigger some samples either in front or on top of the sound you are playing so here i have it on
[00:00:29] the snare channel right and it detects here the snare drum and we can also open up here the trigger
[00:00:37] panel to change the threshold and so on also change your input filters and the algorithm to
[00:00:43] detect these drum triggers um and when we detect this we can then use the transient
[00:00:52] panel to layer some samples on top so here i just use the vinyl thing
[00:00:58] you can hear every time the snare drum plays we layer on top this kind of snare sizzle
[00:01:07] sample you can also change the decay the pitch attack and so on
[00:01:11] okay so this is the one feature of this plugin but we also have here the snapback area
[00:01:24] so we can layer some samples in front of the trigger that's kind of important
[00:01:30] um so let's use your symbol right and this one is triggered before the snare drum even plays
[00:01:39] okay um and you can see when you have this here on the channel on the left side when snapback is
[00:01:47] disabled we have here a latency of 27 milliseconds and when we use here some kind of sample
[00:01:56] in front of the uh drum sound you can see we have a latency of 152 milliseconds so what this does it
[00:02:04] uses the trigger and then moves or delays everything um by 150 or 40 milliseconds also
[00:02:13] to actually process the sound you can also change it at tech times
[00:02:20] and pitch and decay and so on and i think this is this plugin is you know not very complicated and i
[00:02:31] think the the real value lies actually in these samples here because you have to find and select
[00:02:38] the right samples to layer actually with your drum sounds and in my opinion here these samples are
[00:02:44] pretty dope they work in most cases and they give sometimes the right frequencies or the right flavor
[00:02:53] to your drum sounds on top right um i love here this too tight thing for instance without this i don't
[00:03:01] need to snap back that much for drum bass most of the times i think it's more like for dubstep and so on
[00:03:06] so yeah so you can lay out something on top of drum sounds easy peasy right so now someone asked me
[00:03:27] how can we do this in bitwig studio right is this possible and yes it's possible and you can replace
[00:03:35] this this kind of plug in with the bitwig native device called replacer okay um the replacer looks
[00:03:42] like this in yeah with the init preset here without the time shift actually looks like this we can detect
[00:03:50] here some drum triggers um with filters so we can just use here no filter or bypass the filter then a
[00:03:58] bend pass and then a very steep bend pass and we can change them here when a trigger is detected what we
[00:04:05] do with it we hold here the midi note or we send out midi notes we can send out here a note on a
[00:04:10] on a different pitch the velocity and how long you want to hold this note and so on so you can change
[00:04:16] everything and the replacer is pretty tight in my opinion it layers exactly on top of the drum trigger so
[00:04:25] there's no delay or anything you need to worry about right and i created here this kind of preset so we
[00:04:34] have this uh replacer here to detect the triggers and then in there i have here a sampler for the snaps
[00:04:41] to lay out something on on the top of the sound and the spec layer here which is um samples that are reversed i've
[00:04:50] reversed here manually but you can uh probably also use here the reverse feature of the sampler if you want to
[00:04:59] but here i just you know did it on the samples itself so yeah so i want to show you how this sounds here
[00:05:06] um so let me dial down here the snap and the back volume so i call the snaps um the thing you lay on top and the back is the
[00:05:16] pre-sample more or less so now we have something on top of the snare right
[00:05:35] so there's the snare without anything
[00:05:37] and you can select a different sample here with this knob
[00:05:44] you can change the decay
[00:05:52] or use a high pass here to actually remove some low end from the sample
[00:06:02] okay and then i use here um this pre-sample or fade in sample i don't know how we want to call it or snapback
[00:06:14] okay and it does the same thing as the plug-in version i selected here i created some samples for it
[00:06:30] um there's a time shift here in the end it's um removing 142 milliseconds so basically delaying
[00:06:39] every other track in the project by 142 milliseconds to actually use the trigger and then put some
[00:06:47] something in front of it and i choose to use here 142 because all my samples here are exactly
[00:06:53] 142 milliseconds long so this is my offset i need to use to actually put this in front of the sample
[00:07:00] so when you want to create additional samples here for this kind of preset then you have to use
[00:07:06] 142 milliseconds or choose a different length and then um you know change here the offset by this amount
[00:07:15] that's important to know and i think um i also introduced here 142 milliseconds so if you don't
[00:07:24] need to snap back i think you can disable this by right click here and then you go down to 0.5 milliseconds
[00:07:32] of delay so if you don't need this snapback pre-sample then you can just disable it right and
[00:07:40] um yeah go down with the latency but here it's a very simple preset actually there's nothing much to it's
[00:07:48] justice replacer and some samplers in here i created some samples for it and it's completely free you can
[00:07:55] download it in the description down below and um yeah experiment with it play with it around but in my
[00:08:02] in my opinion for this snapback um
[00:08:05] dst here it's all about the interface like always right you have this nice interface you can
[00:08:13] see here all the triggers where they're happening to you can dial in all the offsets you can change the
[00:08:20] volume and filter it so the interface is really nice and also the selection here of the samples you have
[00:08:27] some really nice samples in here already in place so this is where the value is of this plugin in my
[00:08:33] opinion okay but if you don't if you can't use this because you are under linux or you just need some
[00:08:40] kind of cheap solution for this problem then you can take my preset here it's completely free and use it in
[00:08:47] bitx studio maybe i add some more samples to it um but if you own snapback you maybe can export these samples
[00:08:56] here from this plugin and then put it into my preset here and then you have more or less the same thing
[00:09:04] just as a native bitwig solution okay so that's that someone asked me this on my last video i wanted to
[00:09:11] create this preset here for you and i hope you can use it i hope you find it useful thanks for watching
[00:09:18] leave a subscription leave a like see you in the next video bye
[00:09:22] Thank you.