Learning Center Tech Blog

Waveform Wednesday: Sampling in Reason - Sound Collage Contest Tips

2012-02-02T14:51:00.001-05:00

The Learning Center's Sound Collage Contest has begun! We recorded audio samples of construction sounds, and you can use them to make a piece of music and compete for nearly $3,000 worth of prizes from iZotope and I.K. Multimedia.

Before you start this tutorial, download the samples for the contest (and read the rules and regulations) at this link.

Reason is a powerful tool for sampling. In this tutorial we'll explore the NNXT Advanced, the Kong Drum Designer and the Redrum.

Sampling
A sample is an audio file. Samplers play back audio files in a variety of ways. A sample map determines which MIDI keys trigger which samples, and at what pitch.
Add an NNXT to your Reason rack. Right-click on it and initialize patch (this will dump the patch and all the samples loaded into it), and flip open the NNXT's Remote Editor.

To add samples, click the browse sample button (not the browse patch button) located at the bottom of the screenshot below.

In the SCC5_Download folder, choose an audio sample. Using the Remote Editor, you can have the sample play forward, backward, looped, change the root pitch, start time and more.

Now add a Kong Drum Designer to your rack, and again right-click on it and initialize the patch. Open the Show Drum and FX area, and add an NN Nano Sampler. As with the NNXT, click the load sample button to add an audio sample.

The Kong is great for rhythmic elements, listen through the samples and find some percussive elements to load.

Now add a Redrum device, initialize, and load samples onto the individual tracks.

Using the select buttons on the tracks, the run button, and the trigger buttons, you can create a pattern sequence.

There are Reason classes available! New to the program? Take Reason Essentials. For the topics in this blog post, take Reason Sampling, and Reason Drum Production with Kong. Click here to view our calendar of training sessions. You can also sign up for a music software tutor at this link.

Good luck on your Sound Collage!

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Chris Fitzgerald

Mac Daddy Monday: 25 OS X Tricks Every User Should Know

2012-01-30T10:50:00.000-05:00

Today's blog post is from Huffington Post. Read it here.
How many of these OS X tricks do you know? Add more in the comments below.

Fermata Friday: Finale's Set-up Wizard

2012-01-27T08:38:00.000-05:00

Finale makes it easy to start your score. With the Set Up Wizard you can specify your instrument ensemble, name your score, choose your key, meter, and tempo, and more. Access the Set Up Wizard from the Launch Window.

There are four pages to the Set Up Wizard window. In the first you can choose your ensemble from a template on the left (if you often write for the same instrumentation, save a template to this list to speed things up for next time!), and specify your document style: Engraved for more formal looking scores, Handwritten for lead sheets (this style looks like the Real Book). You can also choose your page size and layout (you can print letter, legal or tabloid in the Learning Center).

Page 2 is where you create your ensemble. Choose an instrument set at the top, and the instrument families are on the left, then add your instruments from the second column. Double-click the instrument or click Add. To save your ensemble as a template for the previous page, click Save Current Ensemble.

Next page, name your piece, add the composer name, etc.

Lastly, choose your meter, key, tempo, pick up measure (if applicable) and number of measures (this can easily be changed later if you don't know yet how many measures).

That's it, now just write the music! You can get in-depth training with Finale at the Learning Center. Sign up for one-to-one tutoring, or software training sessions.

Mac Daddy Monday: Getting to know OS X

2012-01-23T11:48:00.000-05:00

Welcome back everyone, and welcome new students! Hope your semester is starting off well. Today I thought I'd share a bunch of resources for learning the Mac operating system.

Berklee Laptop: Mac Mastery training sessions

Berklee Laptop: Peripherals training sessions (Oxygen25 & UX2)

We have a resources page on the Learning Center website dedicated to Mac OS X where you can sign up for training sessions, read these archived blog posts on OS X, and where some of the following links are. (While there, check out our other resources pages for Oxygen 25 & UX2, GarageBand, Reason and more)
http://learningcenter.berklee.edu/Resources/Mac_OSX

Check this Mac 101 tutorial on the apple.com website
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/

As a Berklee student, you have access to video tutorial training from Lynda.com (a great resource that would cost you $250 per year on your own). You'll find videos on OS X and hundreds of other topics including Logic, GarageBand and Reason.

Login at my.berklee.net, go to Technology Services, and click Access Lynda.com

Learn the icons for Mac keyboard shortcuts

Thanks and enjoy!

Waveform Wednesday: Quick Sidechain Compression in Logic

2011-11-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

If you’re looking for a nice kick sound in your song a sidechain compression might help you out! Today lets put a sidechain compression on a pad. Triggered by the Kick. Here’s what you have to do:

Write the kick on a MIDI track, like this:

Choose a kick that you like, could be electric or acoustic, in this case I’d recommend the Ultrabeat kick drum, because its nice and you can also modify it.

Once you’ve selected your plug in, send the track to a bus (Its up to you to choose the bus number!)

After that, record whatever you want to get to be compressed by the kick (e.i if it’s a House song you could try with a pad or a synth). And just to start off, its better if you record a simple extended line like shown below:

Insert a compressor to your new Pad track and on the top-right corner where it says “Sidechain” choose the bus where you sent the kick, in this case Bus No. 1.
Once you’ve done that, rise the ratio of your compressor to, lets say… 6:1 and slowly turn down the compressor’s threshold WHILE playing the lines. You will immediately start listening how the kick kind of “swallows” the pad when is played…like a whirlpool.

And there you go! You have your sidechain compression. Its up to you how “Deep” you want your compression, just play with the ratio and threshold until you’re comfortable with the sound. You can do a million things with this, just have to be creative!

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Luis de la Isla

Waveform Wednesday: Reason Rewire in Digital Performer

2011-11-09T09:00:00.001-05:00

Every DAW has its ups and downs. Have you ever hoped that someone would justcombine them into one awesome DAW? Thegood news is that you can do this (to an extent). The better news is that it is really easy todo. I’m going to show you how to do soin Digital Performer (everyone’s favorite).

Essentially what we are doing is making Reason sync toanother DAW. This offers the benefits of DP’s greatsequencing and editing capabilities, with the sounds of Reason. We all know that recording live audio inReason isn’t possible and sequencing can become quite worrisome.

The first thing we need to do is open DP. Then we open Reason. When Reason is opened after another DAW it automaticallygoes into “slave” mode. Now it’s simplya matter of “patching” the imaginary chords.

The First thing you want to do is create a few MIDI Tracksfor our instruments and one Aux track in order to bring Reason in. Name the tracks accordingly.

Once we have created the Aux track that we have named Reasonwe sets its input to Stereo: Reason: Mix L-1-Mix R-2. We set the output to whatever you are usingfor output (built-in, mbox, ux2, etc). This setup allows Reason to be an “instrument” in DP.

Now we go over to Reason. We’re going to create a Mixer 14:2 and few instruments to go along withit. NAME THE INSTRUMETNSACCORDINGLY. This step is importantotherwise it could get very confusing when we began patching reason into ourMIDI tracks in DP.

If we press TAB in reason we can see the back of therack. You may have noticed that Reasonautomatically wires itself. If this hashappened go ahead and unwire everything so we are starting from scratch.

Each of our instruments needs to be patched into the Mixer14:2. We take our left and right outsfrom the first instrument and patch them into the first input. Named accordingly. We then take the next instrument and patch thatinto the second input, and so on and so forth until it looks like this.

We are good to go in Reason. Now we go back to DP and set up our MIDI track outputs in order toreceive their respective Reason input. Because we have already done all of the groundwork (AND NAMED THE REASONINSTRUMENTS ACCORDINLY), all you need to do is select the output of our MIDItrack and set it to what you need.

Record enable and you're good to go!

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Kai Sorensen

Mac Daddy Monday: Dock Spacer using Terminal in OS X

2011-11-07T15:02:00.000-05:00

What is Terminal in Mac OS?
It is simply a text-based program that lets you send commands manually to the OS and interact with it. You can do pretty much anything, because the Terminal is basically a window into another OS.

What is the Dock Spacer?
The Dock is very convenient to organize application icons. However, if you have too much items in the Dock, it is easy to get lost visually and also waste time searching the application that you want to get access.
Using the Dock Spacer lets you organize the applications in the Dock in groups, so that you have a visual clue to get to the applications. Dock Spacer is simply a ‘blank icon’ in the Dock. You are adding an invisible space between the icons to create a border.

1. Launch Terminal. (Application/Utilities/Terminal)

2. Type the following command.
*Copy and drag the below commands is recommended. You may type in the text on your own. Make sure the command is a single line of text. Don’t worry if your Terminal browser breaks your commands into multiple lines.

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{tile-data={}; tile-type="spacer-tile";}'

3. Press Enter or Return Key.
4. Type the following command. (Case sensitive)
killall Dock
5. Your Dock will disappear and restart. On the far right side of the Dock, a invisible space will be created.
6. You can drag the invisible space as an icon, and place it where you want.
7. Type the following command in Terminal
exit

8. Quit Terminal.

If you want to remove the Dock Spacer, simply click and drag it outside of the Dock, just like other icons.
You can create as much Dock Spacer as possible.

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Jay Youn

Waveform Wednesday: Tidying Up A Logic Session (part 2)

2011-11-02T09:00:00.001-04:00

Here we have three different versions of the same tune, so we can send them off for different applications. We will be working on each chunk separately, and the extra space could be useful. We can clean up the arrange window by using the “Folders” feature.

First, we select a block of regions that is not currently being edited; go to the “region” menu at the top of the arrange window and click “Pack Folder.”

Now the unused sections are neatly tucked away. When we click on the folder, it will take us to work on the chunk in a new window, just for that chunk, as if it was it’s own project.

Then, double click anywhere in the arrange window to get back to the original view of all three takes. If we want to unpack the folder we can go back to the “region” menu and select “unpack folder (use existing tracks)”

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Lonn Hayes

Fermata Friday: Making Simple Entry Simpler and Faster For Laptop Users

2011-10-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

In Finale there are couple different ways to get the notes on the page, Simple Entry, Speedy Entry and Hyperscribe. All of which have their ups and downs relating to which setting you’re using them in. To get the most out of Speedy Entry and Hyperscribe you’re probably going to want to have a keyboard with a numeric pad and midi keyboard handy that you can plunk out the notes on. So, what do you do when you’re stuck using a laptop without all the other stuff?

The best way to optimize your speed (when using a laptop) with simple entry is to change your shortcut settings to the laptop default.

Select the simple entry tool in the Main Tool bar and then grab the Simple tab.

Once there click on “Edit Keyboard Shortcuts...” from here you can select which shortcut table you’d like to use.

Once the Laptop Shortcut table is selected you’ll notice the main difference between the default shortcuts and the laptop ones is that the number keys at the top of your keyboard now control the rhythmic value of the notes (1 being a 64th note etc etc.) being entered while typing the letter of the note name will enter the note onto the page. Other key commands remain the same like T for tie, period to add a dotted value to a note and R for turning notes into rests.

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Marcus Bagala

Waveform Wednesday: Understanding Advanced Quantize in Logic

2011-10-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

Logic has a very advanced quantize engine, but yet, there aren’t many who can really appreciate every and each function and get the most out from it. Although each term and function are quite well explained in the manual, here’s a bit more detailed explanation along with its practical usage.

Q-strength: Be aware that no musician will ever play in perfect timing or even if they do, we - as a listener - wouldn’t like it since it will only sound like a machine. Main purpose of Q-strength is to defeat this fatal flaw of quantizing. It will adjust the amount of the quantization. At the default setting of 100 percent, quantized notes are moved to exactly the correct timing, but with a 50 percent setting, for example, the recorded events will be moved just halfway to the correct position. To tighten up the timing of a performance without destroying the groove, try a Q-Strength setting of 85-90 percent.

Q-range : Logic 9 user manual defines Q-range as : “A very musical quantization strategy that requires a certain amount of technical musical prowess. Q-Range is ideal for recordings that already have the right groove but are too hurried or laid back in places.” In other word, if you very much like your groove but only want to fix a few sloppy notes that are too early or too late from the timeline), only those notes can be fixed through this engine.
Q-Range enables you to choose a boundary for the notes you wish to quantize. You do this by setting a timing threshold with the Q-Range value. Anything that falls inside (or outside) this threshold is quantized leaving the other notes untouched by the quantize engine. Setting Q-Range to a positive value will quantize anything within that range. Setting Q-range to a negative value will quantize anything outside the threshold but leaving notes that were almost in time untouched. This is great for retaining a human feel to your performances while only correcting really duff timing on certain notes. Use the lowest value you can get away with or set a slightly higher value and use Q-Strength to adjust the amount of quantization.

Q-flam :
Q-Flam is useful for separating events that fall on the same timing value. It spreads out the notes and essentially creates flams. Setting a positive Q-Flam value will offset the notes in the chord by the set value from bottom to top. Setting a negative value will offset each note by the set value from top to bottom.

Q-Velocity and Q-Length
Let’s say that you have a bass line that’s leading the rhythm section and want the other instruments to follow its groove so that the rhythm section can be locked-in nicely together. It can be done through creating a groove(quantize) template out of your bass groove then quantizing your new instrument by adopting time or velocity or the length from the original bass groove template . You can use Q-velocity and Q-length to set the amount of the groove template affecting your new quantization, using a percentage. A value set to 0% has no effect, whereas at 100% the notes adopt the exact velocity & lengths of the template region.

-by LC Tech blog contributor Jay Lee

Fermata Friday: Creating Kicks Over Time in Sibelius

2011-10-14T09:00:00.003-04:00

If you have any experience using Finale, you’re probably well aware that creating kicks over time is not exactly an intuitive process. Thankfully, Sibelius has a bit of a different approach to this ever so common notation.

To start, select layer 1 on the keypad and enter your “kicks” on the first space above the staff.

Next, switch to layer 2 on the keypad and enter four quarter notes on the middle line of the staff.

Now, select the quarter notes you just entered and hit ⌥⇧3 (option+shift+3).

Voilà! You now have slash notation under your “kicks”. The only thing you may have left to do is select any rests and nudge them up a bit.

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Michal Skrzypek

Waveform Wednesday: Tidying Up A Logic Session (part 1)

2011-10-12T13:47:00.000-04:00

Does the amount of information on your arrange window ever make you feel claustrophobic? In Logic, we can organize untidy tracks and regions in various ways. Here is one feature that sweeps tracks “under the rug,” so to speak.

In this session there are 14 tracks full of regions. When we are done editing any of the tracks, we can get them out of our hair using the ‘Hide’ feature.

Click on the “H” icon located at the top left of the arrange window. The icon will turn green and an “H” icon will appear next to the “record enable” feature of each track.

Once you decide that a track is done for the time being, click on the “H” icon for that track, then click back on the “H” icon located at the top left of the arrange window to hide the tracks the tracks that don’t need to clutter up your space.

You will notice the original green “H” icon turns orange, and your tracks are now out of the way, and can be brought back at any time, simply by clicking back on the “H.”

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Lonn Hayes

Waveform Wednesday: Pro Tools Keyboard Focus Mode

2011-10-05T11:00:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder what the “az” icon was in Pro Tools? Well, itenables “keyboard focus” mode. Keyboard Focus mode is awesome, because itdramatically improves the speed and efficiency of your Pro Tools workflow.Think of keyboard focus mode as even quicker keyboard shortcuts, which allowyou to execute commands in a single keystroke rather than having to usemultiple keys.

There are three areas inside of Pro Tools in which you canenable keyboard focus. They are: the edit window, the regions window, and thegroups window. To quickly switch between the three areas of keyboard focus,simply press Command+Option+1 to enable keyboard focus in the edit window,Command+Option+2 to enable it in the regions window, Command+Option+3 to enableit in the Groups window.

Here are some common one-key key commands available in editmode:

T – Zoom in

R – Zoom out

C – Copy

V – Paste

L – Tab left

‘ – Tab Right

P – Tab up to next track

; - Tab down to next track

In Groups mode, keyboard focus works a bit differently. Youcan assign a key to a specific group and when you have keyboard focus enabledin groups mode, you can use that key to enable or disable that group. Prettyneato.

In the Regions list, keyboard focus acts as an alphabeticalorganizer, or address book. Just start typing in the name of the region youwould like to find and there you go.

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Taylor Hatty

Mac Daddy Monday: Take a Screen Shot with the Mouse Cursor Included

2011-10-03T11:00:00.000-04:00

As we have been doing these blog posts we take a lot of screen shots. The easiest way to do this is with the keyboard shortcut SHIFT-COMMAND-3 to get the entire screen, and SHIFT-COMMAND-4 to get a crosshair cursor to select the screen shot area. This will put the new image file right on the desktop.

The problem with this method however, is that the mouse cursor is not included. In many applications the mouse cursor is contextual, and changes based on where you point it. In these blog posts we like to point that out in the screen shots, so here is what we do:

Instead of this screen shot method, use the application Grab, which is in Applications - Utilities.

Open Grab’s preferences, and you can choose which mouse cursor to use.

This however, doesn’t show the natural cursor, so in situations where the cursor changes within the application, this method won’t work. There are many 3rd party screen capture applications that will capture the actual mouse cursor.

Try Jing (free): http://www.techsmith.com/Jing/
Little Snapper (free trail download, then you must purchase): http://www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper/
Screen Flow (also not free): http://www.telestream.net/screen-flow/
or Snapz Pro (also not free): http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/
Screen Flow and Snapz Pro are more expensive, but they are full feature screen casting studio apps geared toward video bloggers and podcast makers.

Find any more? Post them up in the comments below.

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Chris Fitzgerald

Fermata Friday: Working With the Keypad in Sibelius

2011-09-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

Sibelius offers time-saving shortcuts (and many of them!) with keyboard shortcuts. Learn the keypad shortcuts, and you will work much more quickly. Be aware that the numeric keypad doesn't exist on the laptop keyboard, so if you plan to use Sibelius a lot, it is recommended that you get a USB keypad, or a full size keyboard. With an iPhone or iPod touch you can purchase an ap called NumberKey. You can also come and work in the Learning Center with our full size keyboards.

Show or hide Sibelius' keypad palette window with the icon button.

The keypad corresponds to the numeric keypad, so that Enter inputs a rest, 4 a quarter note, 9 a flat accidental and so on. Enter your rhythmic value, then use your MIDI keyboard to choose the pitch.

The strength of the keypad in Sibelius is that there are 6 different layouts that can trigger different items.

Enter in less common notes, tremolos or change beaming, common articulations, jazz articulations and less common accidentals. Use F7 - F12 to change between the layouts.

Once you become proficient with the keyboard shortcuts, you can enter most anything without using the mouse or trackpad at all.

-by LC Tech Blog contributor Chris Fitzgerald