Hey y’all,

Hope midterms went well for everyone.  Did anybody have exporting issues with their projects?  Maybe some trouble getting a sample from one program into another?  Here’s a bit of software that will make upcoming final projects a bit easier if this is the case.

The program is Audio Hijack Pro.  You can get the free demo here.  Just read a bit about it on the page, its easy to use and very helpful.  The demo only lasts for 10 mintues of audio, but it allows you to get a clean .aiff recording from any software or hardware on your computer.  This makes it easy to get a loop you want offline or a sample from an mp3 you have in iTunes.  Anything you can hear on your computer can be recorded, so use the ole noggin and put it to good use!

Now, I’d like to get back to some Dr. Rex stuff.  Last week I covered using a Matrix sequencer to run a bi-polar curve for your drum loop’s feedback (regulated by the DDL-1).  This does not affect the drum sound directly, but gives the loop varied “cuts”, as if a drummer we’re playing the same basic beat differently each time.  Here are some more extreme examples:

With the same set up as discussed in the last post:

Picture 10

here is the “Alkaholic” beat under “Abstract Hip-Hop”

now with this curve:

Picture 11

Alkaholic with new curve

Let’s try this same method with an instrument loop.  Make sure the signal on the DDL-1 is much dryer, with a balance between 0 and 10.  I have mine set to 0:

Picture 18

This time, instead of running the Curve CV of your Matrx into the DDL-1 feedback, run it into the filter 1 cutoff of the Dr. Rex:

Picture 13

Now browse through your Dr. Rex Instrument loops.  The sample I’m using is under “Telecaster Rhythm 085 bpm”.  I chose ” El Gt_Funk_E7_085″:

Sounds like this

Now lets create a new CV curve to run into the loop’s filter cutoff:

Picture 15

Sounds like this

While subtle, this is a great technique for texturing bass or guitar lines in a song, keeping the freedom to brighten specific notes in the loop.  For instance, lets say I want to hear this same loop as a rhythm layer, with extra brightness on each downbeat of 1:

Picture 16

Sounds like this
Now that you better understand the control capabilities of the Matrix sequencer, the next step would be using Recycle Software to get your own original loops into Dr. Rex.  We’ll get into some Recycle in an upcoming post.

Now get out there and make some music!

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