pitch shifter on kick

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bannerj
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pitch shifter on kick

Post by bannerj » Thu Sep 23, 2010 11:34 am

Its been too long. I miss the TOMB. I hope everyone is well.

I'm still plugging away on a record that has been 4+ years in the making. It is somewhat experimental at least in the sense that I'm not worried about translating realistic sounds. Most of the sounds have been filtered or mangled in some way.

With that in mind, I've been messing with pitch shifter on kick drums. I've been copying the track, carving out a bunch of the top end and then dialing the pitch down to get closer to some sub bass frequencies. So far that seems like anything lower than 50hz? Does that seem right?

Then I blend the two kick tracks together.

I'm sure this is being done already. Anyone? Is there anything that you have learned about this process? Anything i should keep in mind?

I ask especially because low frequencies seem like vodoo to me. Our mix room is sonically more stable than ever. I trust it more than ever.

Just wondering what any of you would contribute.

Also, I'm mixing in DP and just use the apple pitch shifter. Is there a better one that I should try?

Burnt Ernie
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Post by Burnt Ernie » Thu Sep 23, 2010 12:42 pm

Yeah! Nice to hear someone else does this,too. Off the top of my head-I believe the technique (along with occasional ring modulation)was used quite a bit on the Berlin-era Bowie stuff,as well as some of the weirder Roxy Music stuff. I'm sure I'm omitting lots of others,tho. The filtering highs helps,I also had better luck using frequency-dependent gating on the sends (kick,snare,toms,room) to the pitch shifter,although I always used a hardware unit. Spx 90 (with heavy eq'ing),spx900(ditto,but has an internal noise gate),Lexicon lxp-5,tc elec m-1,eventide h3000,949,ad infinitum. I think I liked the lexicon lxp-5 (with mrc) the best,since it had a "multi fx" program (echo vox-#9 maybe?) with predelay,pre and post eq,pitch change,gate and reverb. You could really control the shape,depth,and size well. You could also set up completely insane arpeggios,as well as fry subwoofers in seconds,if you wanted. Fun!.
I've tried it in the box,but never got exactly what I wanted. I've also always used the DBX subharmonic synth on whatever isn't going through the pitch shifters. I found it far more useful on Bass guitar and synths,since it seems more hi fi,whereas the old harmonizers (especially the old ones) had a
grainy glitchiness that ROKKED on drums. Have Fun!
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The Scum
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Post by The Scum » Thu Sep 23, 2010 1:21 pm

I've also seen it done using frequency shifting - single sideband modulation, a cousin of ring modulation, like the Bode frequency shifter. The frequency relationships are preserved, but the harmonic relationships are not.

The Kurzweil FX boxes (KSP8 and Mangler) had presets for exactly this, called "drum loosener" and "drum tightener." The loosener on toms is really cool.

It's best used subtly, a tiny bit of shift, with wet/dry somewhere in the middle.

It also brings to mind all of the sample-based tunes that would run a drum loop an octave low for a half-time breakdown. Done right, it makes the snare sound like a bucket full of gravel. White Town, anyone?

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bannerj
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Post by bannerj » Thu Sep 23, 2010 4:19 pm

Nice. Now that I think of it, I was turned on to the idea by the Future Music video interview of Kieran Hebden (Fourtet). I'm sure tons of those kinds of remixers do this stuff.

I'm just prone to take a new idea and overuse it without thinking about the possible consequences.

So yeah, the apple shifter has a blend/saturation fader that allows you to keep it light.

I've heard about using the ring modulation but have never had success.

Sound Toys has a few plugs with presets for just this thing...but again...not working to my taste.

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thunderboy
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Post by thunderboy » Sat Sep 25, 2010 7:48 pm

Sometimes I'll have the kick drum key a gated sine wave at 34-40Hz to add some 808 balls. Similar effect I think, and pretty easy to do.

jt
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MisterMark
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Post by MisterMark » Thu Oct 28, 2010 4:37 pm

There is a great freeware VST plugin for this kind of thing called sub synth. You can select a variety of harmonic wave forms (sine, distort, divide, etc), as well as the frequency, threshold, decay and mix.

Of course it sounds great on kick drums but it can sound really cool dialed in underneath a snare drum too. Just set it to sine wave and select a frequency somewhere between 100 and 200 and mix it in to taste.

Mark
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IanWalker
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Post by IanWalker » Thu Oct 28, 2010 5:29 pm

thunderboy wrote:Sometimes I'll have the kick drum key a gated sine wave at 34-40Hz to add some 808 balls. Similar effect I think, and pretty easy to do.

jt
+1

Play with how your gate opens and closes, and it can sound anywhere from "surprisingly natural" to "808 strapped to your crotch".
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