DAW Automation used to your advantage

Tutorial | Nov 18, 2024

In this video, I share a powerful technique for adding organic feel to your tracks by using automation in your DAW while staying in the creative flow. I demonstrate how to use the automation feature for recording parameter changes in real-time, allowing for dynamic and unique sound variations. This approach focuses on creativity over precision, bringing life to electronic music by embracing imperfections and avoiding the rigidity of perfectly timed automation.

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Summary #

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

In this video, I'm presenting a tutorial that isn't specific to Bitwig Studio, although I use it often in my own workflow and also on stream or in videos. This tutorial shows a powerful technique applicable in any DAW for enhancing creativity and maintaining flow while producing music. After taking a refreshing week off, I wanted to share this approach with you, which involves using automation and modulation to bring life to your sounds.

I start by setting up a basic beat with a 170 BPM kick drum using the "Kick Ninja" plugin. Then, I introduce a bass sound using the Phase-4 synthesizer in Bitwig. I demonstrate how to lay down a simple note and begin altering various parameters to generate different sounds. The core of the tutorial lies in how automation can be used efficiently during this process. In Bitwig, there are two automation write buttons—one for the arranger and one for the clip launcher. I have shortcuts for these but you can pin them to the main menu for easy access.

I often set automation to "touch" mode, which starts recording as soon as a parameter is altered and stops when the control is released. This method allows for quick, hands-on control while recording, thus staying in the creative flow without getting bogged down in precision. I enjoy keeping a degree of randomness or "imperfection" in my music, as it adds an organic feel and vitality to the sound.

Throughout the tutorial, I show how this technique can lead to an interesting modulation of parameters such as the pitch and other settings, resulting in unique riffs. I emphasize that it's not about achieving perfect precision; in fact, too much precision often leads to a sterile sound. Instead, I like going for an organic feel by keeping the timing slightly "off," making the production process more exciting and authentic.

I further demonstrate this method by applying various effects, such as EQ and filter modulation, and iterating on these effects to add depth to the sound. I suggest making different alterations to parameters to keep the track fresh and evolving. This mirrors the experience of using hardware instruments, where you can record knob movements and form a groove live.

Towards the end, I experiment with pitch changes and additional sound processing using filters and frequency shifters. Again, it's about keeping the sound dynamic and interesting. This technique can also be applied to different synths and sound processing plugins more broadly, not just in Bitwig but in any DAW that supports automation.

In summary, this tutorial is about capturing the raw, unrefined creativity in musical production and applying it to keep your tracks alive. This way, you can quickly translate the ideas in your head into tangible audio within your DAW without hindering your creative momentum. I'm open to further exploring this idea in future videos or streams, and I encourage viewers to share their feedback or request more detailed sessions on this topic.

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] finally after one week of doing completely nothing which is sometimes really refreshing
[00:00:05] i want to bring you a new tutorial and it's not something bitwig specific you can do this in any
[00:00:11] dub probably i don't know but you can do it in bitwig and i do this sometimes also on stream or
[00:00:19] on videos and i really like this workflow but it's also very powerful if you use this to the
[00:00:26] max if you use it on everything so um what i have here is just kick ninja to plug in some kind of kick drum
[00:00:35] right 170 bpm well let's say you want to create here a bass sound to it let's go for phase four
[00:00:46] because i really like it and we can do here another clip inside of the clip launcher so this is also
[00:00:53] important for now and let's lay down here a basic note let's go down here like this
[00:01:03] we have a bass sound to it it's just a sign at the moment
[00:01:10] and here we change some settings
[00:01:18] right and we can draw in here or we can change some of the values and you get a different sound
[00:01:23] and what i have now is i have here automation right on and we have two different automation
[00:01:31] right buttons we have one for the arranger so when you want to record automation in here
[00:01:37] and we have for the clip launcher when you want to record automation in here right so i have this here
[00:01:45] pinned so you have this in the main menu you can do this if you want to and i also defined
[00:01:51] some shortcuts for this some keyboard shortcuts here so i can use just this key here on my keyboard
[00:01:58] and also shift this key and i can enable here the automation for the ranger
[00:02:04] and it's disabled so quickly right when i'm in the flow here i can just hit this and then record some stuff
[00:02:12] and it's very nice to do sometimes um also i really like to have here the automation sometimes on touch
[00:02:20] inside of the arranger so touch is very powerful it says here start writing automation when a parameter is touched
[00:02:28] and continue until the parameter is released so this means if you click on one of these buttons
[00:02:35] here right you click on it and you don't change it then you record the automation when you release the mouse button
[00:02:41] you stop recording the automation so we can do this here inside of the arranger quickly
[00:02:48] yeah quickly quickly uh and then just this button here so we can use the ranger
[00:02:56] um so what i like to do is then i enable here the automation right have this on touch and then i play around here with some of the
[00:03:08] knobs i actually i have this disabled the automation disabled play around with the knobs
[00:03:14] and then when i find some kind of cool setting i just hit quickly my shortcut and enable the recording
[00:03:33] and then i just you know use the same shortcut and disable the recording and then it switches back to
[00:03:39] playback so i have now also already recorded your automation for this knob
[00:03:44] right and when i don't like this automation i just hit record again or record or write automation again and then i overwrite basically everything okay
[00:04:00] something like this and it's really fun to do it this way because it's hands-on right you are in the flow
[00:04:09] you don't need to open up here any of these um panels and search for the right parameter draw something in
[00:04:19] you stay in the flow you hear your loop playing and then you play around with these knobs and then you just
[00:04:32] record these movements on the fly with your mouse maybe it's better to use a controller if you like to use a controller but for me it's just quick to use my
[00:04:47] uh button my mouse or my mouse or my mouse button for this or my mouse uh to change these parameters
[00:04:52] and i agree it's not always on point or in time or it's not really um
[00:05:00] height with the timing sometimes right because it's automation there's a lot of smoothing probably applied and
[00:05:08] sometimes there's some input lag from the mouse and so on but it's not about precision for me most of the times when i produce music
[00:05:17] music because the higher the precision is the more you put your thoughts into tweaking settings then
[00:05:24] um you know the flow gets out of focus or the the groove gets out of focus when you produce
[00:05:31] so for me it's all about bringing in some um some small little unnatural or
[00:05:38] uh yeah movements that bring the sound to life right some uh some quirks or i don't know how to call it some
[00:05:46] um not on point timings for me this brings in some organic feel to the sound and i really enjoy it
[00:05:54] it because you can make it precise anywhere now nowadays and it's kind of boring so if you have
[00:06:03] everything precision high precision it's boring it's dead right so i really like to do this here on my
[00:06:10] synth and use a lot of these parameters so now i have just one here right but but i can also say
[00:06:16] um i want to modulate the pitch or change the pitch
[00:06:23] and see i just quickly press uh record here and then change the parameter and then i flip back to the
[00:06:35] initial pitch
[00:06:36] you can see this here it's recorded just slightly right
[00:06:42] here we are on zero zero and then here i go slightly down and it's not always the same it's
[00:06:48] not drawn in and it's not copied and copy pasted and so on it's it's it's always a little bit different
[00:06:55] here and there and that this brings in a lot of organic feel in my opinion um to these static synth sounds
[00:07:03] so what else can we do we can um change here or we can bring in this y oscillator to itself so we have
[00:07:11] feedback here and this gives us a lot of noise
[00:07:25] okay we can also switch this here to zero voices mono monophonic because it's a bass sound right
[00:07:40] and then we can do some something else let me see
[00:07:55] okay so we have already a nice groove going without doing anything
[00:08:05] and just using these parameters and bring in some different values here uh here and there and you
[00:08:13] create kind of nice riffs this way without doing too much work
[00:08:17] and i do this sometimes over the years here and there
[00:08:21] uh but yesterday or the last two days or so i really enjoyed using this because it's like using
[00:08:30] a hardware instrument right using an a groove box or something like this you hit record and you
[00:08:35] change some knobs and then you kind of like it and then you leave it that or maybe you record
[00:08:40] then do a door and then you process it further but here you have like full control we record all these
[00:08:47] different knobs and you can still change it here if you want to and i never change it to be honest but
[00:08:54] yeah you can if you want to right you can maybe here make some tweaks if you think some of these um transients are
[00:09:03] too too too mushy or something like this you can step in and just change it with a
[00:09:07] different value there okay we can also do this of course here for
[00:09:14] some effects so i really enjoy on bass sounds here in eq5 right
[00:09:24] so i'm gonna do this like this
[00:09:38] so i'm gonna do this like this
[00:09:52] okay so here we can also bring in a filter let's say filter plus
[00:10:14] um and i really have here i really like to do here a notch because we have a lot of overtones or
[00:10:21] let's see this here on the spec i mean you can hear it
[00:10:24] we have a lot of overtones many have a lot of overtones
[00:10:31] it's really nice to go through this here with a notch filter
[00:10:55] something like this maybe maybe maybe an fx2 here split at 300 hertz and then at the top
[00:11:01] we use here a blur to have some all paths or some small delays here on the left on the right side
[00:11:09] bring in a bit of stereo feel
[00:11:14] right something like this and then we can use convolution reverb here
[00:11:18] and then we have here a lot of reverb but we don't want to use this all the time
[00:11:24] so here there is a here's a gap right from the bass so let's bring in the reverb only there
[00:11:38] right so you have already a nice little riff um and it's just one note here one note and two bass drums
[00:12:00] and the rest is just automation on a phase four and a bit of effects that's basically it so this is the
[00:12:08] this is the big idea i want to show you today um it's very simple and i really enjoy making tracks
[00:12:16] this way uh because i can stay in the flow i have this loop here uh just for for this tutorial i stop
[00:12:23] right when i talk i stop this thing here but when i'm in the flow i just leave this running all the
[00:12:29] time put effects on it play on with um play around with the effects when i like something like some
[00:12:35] kind of movement i just hit here my shortcut uh record it quickly and then let it run if i don't
[00:12:42] like it i go back and re-record over it or i delete just some audio effects again so it's very nice to
[00:12:50] iterate this way in my opinion so let's uh use here
[00:12:59] uh let's use this one why not
[00:13:03] kind of hired
[00:13:13] yeah i mean why not okay let's use here something like this
[00:13:25] is this cool is this cool
[00:13:47] maybe a small little sound here
[00:14:00] maybe a small little sound here
[00:14:13] so we can just export this um this pattern here
[00:14:17] it's very interesting very
[00:14:20] nicely done pattern
[00:14:23] so here i want to have this removed
[00:14:39] let's bring in here an auto leveler on this
[00:14:41] also here we can do the same trick with the convolution reverb maybe
[00:14:51] or maybe with the frequency shifter in here
[00:15:04] so
[00:15:04] we can do the same trick with the frequency shifter
[00:15:05] so here we can do the same trick with the frequency shifter in here
[00:15:12] right so you can quickly create some interesting things um maybe on this here you can also use a slow machine
[00:15:33] um and you can do this of course also with vsts right so vsts also support automation and like i
[00:15:42] said it's not something you can do only in bitwig it's possible in every day and so this way you don't
[00:15:50] need to use modulators all the time and um yeah like i said i don't care for the timing i really like when
[00:15:58] something that or when the timing is off i really enjoy when the timing is off most of the times
[00:16:04] because you can hear it on all these kinds of productions all the time that everything is completely on the one
[00:16:10] it's completely on the grid right and that's boring over time you want to have some inaccurate
[00:16:18] so here that could be some kind of different sound
[00:16:45] um let's do something quickly here what's that
[00:16:55] um here
[00:16:59] let's go here
[00:17:10] this sign also a bit of noise
[00:17:14] we also need to yeah mono
[00:17:19] that's a bit
[00:17:23] let me make this a bit shorter here
[00:17:34] just for the fun
[00:17:36] it's still too high
[00:17:46] let's bring in here an lfo
[00:17:54] classic lfo and here i just leave it running completely free again i showed this probably in a lot of tutorials
[00:18:04] that i don't like here the timing settings for bass sounds it's not like i don't like timing settings
[00:18:11] at all sometimes they are really helpful but um if you want to have a nice feel a nice groove you
[00:18:17] you need to set this here
[00:18:18] you need to set this here um manually in my opinion let's use this here oh that's bipolar
[00:18:23] let's use no trade trigger so we trigger here this um or re-trigger the face here when we hit the note
[00:18:35] so again we can now record this here
[00:18:38] right and we have a slight movement here on the lfo in there
[00:18:56] so this is cool i kind of like it so i just recorded and played around here with this
[00:19:12] value and when i just when i like it i don't record it anymore it's just super simple it's almost too easy
[00:19:23] let's go for an eq5 again here
[00:19:25] do the same trick again
[00:19:48] something like this you would never draw this kind of movement into the automation box never ever
[00:20:04] you only do this with this kind of movement or with this kind of recording
[00:20:13] filter on there same thing
[00:20:22] okay so this is kind of cool but you don't want to have it all the time so we clone this over here
[00:20:33] right and here all we have to do is we re-record or we override this here in this this position right so
[00:20:40] we go back in here and we hit play
[00:20:44] right we have a different sound than here
[00:20:53] right it's a completely different sound
[00:20:56] so now we have iteration
[00:21:01] slightly different setting um so you have to feel of some kind of that the track progresses in a
[00:21:11] way
[00:21:20] okay let's try out here the pitch with this
[00:21:34] this is
[00:21:41] let me see
[00:21:55] okay like this
[00:22:08] right easy peasy super fun in my opinion best thing ever brings back so much joy
[00:22:29] yeah and here same thing
[00:22:31] we don't have um let's say the tail of the reverb
[00:22:37] it's missing here and then we bring it in in here from this okay let's see this
[00:23:01] in the same thing with synth so let's use your polymer let's use here saw
[00:23:16] and yeah let's go for it for stupid
[00:23:53] let's go let's go down
[00:24:08] you can do the same thing here just record
[00:24:15] oh it's only on the first one that's okay
[00:24:24] maybe you're the tuning 16.
[00:24:46] revoke on that
[00:25:08] maybe frequency shift on that too
[00:25:21] i don't know it's it's not it's not the best but you get the idea right i do this basically on everything then um
[00:25:32] also with fx grids uh for break beats i just play around record it and then you know
[00:25:38] yeah
[00:25:40] leave it
[00:25:41] basically in completely untouched
[00:25:45] um and yeah you can then see here what you recorded inside of the modulation lanes and i never
[00:25:52] touch touch this but you can modify it if you want to
[00:25:55] in my opinion that's a very powerful technique to make beats or to actually make some
[00:26:01] bars
[00:26:03] and you keep them organic this way pretty easily and you can also get your ideas quickly out of the head
[00:26:11] because you hear the loop playing all the time
[00:26:15] and just groove with your loop and then play around with the knobs and then just record it and then you have
[00:26:21] exactly what you hear
[00:26:23] in your door
[00:26:25] so just record your ideas basically that's all i want to say okay
[00:26:29] okay that's it
[00:26:31] if you have some questions if you want to see more of this idea more fleshed out maybe with the longer session
[00:26:38] where i record stuff here and make a track with it
[00:26:41] let me know i'm open maybe i do a stream also um in the next weeks days years i don't know
[00:26:49] leave a subscription leave a like leave a comment thanks for watching see you in the next video bye