sigh....I have always wondered why we've never had the S-curve option on clip fades and envelope automation. All the other kids have it - why can't we?

I like this tip and it will get a lot of use!  Thanks for that!
 
 
 
 

cyberzip
Thanks for great tips!
 
A question about tip 144: Instant Switch to Volume Automation:
 
Hitting the "=" key does nothing on my non-American keyboard, and I can't seem to find the bindable shortcut for switching to volume automation... :(
 
What gives, are we non-English keyboard users out of luck?

I don't have keyboards for other languages for testing, but try hitting the key to the immediate left of the Backspace key in the upper right of the main cluster of keys, and see if that works.

Very nice tip. I can't wait to try it.

Anderton
I don't have keyboards for other languages for testing, but try hitting the key to the immediate left of the Backspace key in the upper right of the main cluster of keys, and see if that works.

Hm, doesn't seem to work... :P
 
If you check Preferences / Keyboard Shortcuts, can you see if "=" is bound to some function on your system? For me it's not... and I can't seem to find any function similar to what you describe. It sounds very useful! :D

kudos

rmfegley
Whoops, sorry man! (now where's that embarrassed face emoji?). You can delete away, I'll repost in the appropriate forum.

No problem, I do try to keep this thread a little more under control because in the "first generation" of tips, people found it difficult to browse or find relevant comments if there were too many posts. It was easy to deal with posts containing additional info - I'd just go back and edit the original tip to include the comments, with attribution.
 
It's all good, I'm just giving a gentle reminder this thread has a lot in common with a database.

But I could be arguing in my spare time.  
 

Week 147: The Gourmet Flanger
 
I’m always looking for ways to get the “tape flanger” sound of "through-zero flanging" without tape. The differentiating aspect of through-zero flanging is that when the delayed and straight signals are out of phase and at the same delay time, they cancel to create a split-second of silence. Although the Sonitus Modulator offers a Tape option that approximates this sound, you don’t have control over how the Tape option works—with real flanging, tape motion was always somewhat variable; more often than not, the tape would sort of stagger around the through-zero point. So can we get an even more realistic tape flanging sound with SONAR? Of course we can!
 
The setup is a little complex, because we need to take the audio we want to flange and send it to two buses, or the same Patch Point in two Aux Tracks (as in the screen shot below). Note that with Aux Tracks, Input Echo needs to be enabled. Each Aux Track has a Sonitus Modulator effect, with one set for a constant 0.1 ms delay (labelled as the “Reference” track, which is also set out of phase), while the other “Flanger” track is set to sweep so it goes up to a lesser amount of delay than the zero-crossing point (in this case, 0.01 ms). Therefore, the signal cancels once when it sweeps up through the 0.1 ms delay point, and again when it sweeps back down through the 0.1 ms delay point. You want the interval between these two times to be fairly short; however you can lengthen this by increasing the Reference track’s delay parameter.
 

 
The Mix controls should be set to 100% delayed signal for the maximum effect. The Flanger track’s Depth control determines how low the flanger goes. 3-5 ms seems about right, but feel free to increase this for a wider-range effect that gets more into the chorus/delay range. Also, try different LFO waveforms. My favorites are the Triangle and Peak / Dip waveforms.
 
But wait…there’s more! Turning off the Phase button on the Reference track produces a different timbre that’s also useful, but the signals don’t cancel at the through-zero point, so they create a volume increase. In that case you might want to lengthen the Flanger track’s Delay parameter to avoid the through-zero point. I prefer the out-of-phase sound because it sounds more like “classic” flanging to me, but at least you have options. You can also experiment with increasing the amount of feedback; just remember to keep the levels identical.
 
And that’s it for gourmet flanging, so...bon appétit!

Anderton
I’m always looking for ways to get the “tape flanger” sound

Thanks, cant say Im a big connoisseur on flanging, but Ill give it a try, Ive used your Tape Flanger effect chain, in the "Anderton collection" it seems to work quite well also. 
 
Cheers
John
 
 

Cool, must have been an awesome experience, I guess you can answer, "Yes"  to "are you experienced" LOL, I can see why this sound would have stuck in your memory.
 
Cheers   

Week 148: How to Use the New Drum Exciter Plug-In
 
With all the hoopla about the 2017.05 release, most people have overlooked the “Drum Exciter” plug-in that was included for Professional and Platinum owners. It emphasizes transients and adds “sparkle,” making it very suitable for drums, hand percussion, and other percussive instruments.
 
Maybe one reason it’s gone unnoticed is because it’s included in the Adaptive Limiter’s MP3 Encoding Preview function. But you don’t have to take my word for it: There’s an audio example that lets you hear the Drum Exciter’s effect for yourself. So stop laughing, and keep reading... 
 
TRACK AND EXCITER SETUP
 
There are two ways to set this up. The more traditional option is to add a Send to your drum track, and insert the Adaptive Limiter in the resulting bus. I prefer to dedicate a track to the excited signal, so I  insert the Adaptive Limiter in a  drum track, assign the drum track Out to an Aux Track, record the excited sound in the Aux Track, and finally return the drum track output to the Master bus (or wherever it went previously) after the recording is complete.
 

 
In either case, set the Adaptive Limiter Threshold to 0.0 for the most natural sound (later on, you might want to experiment with limiting to make the exciter effect more drastic). Next, click on the Expert button, then click on the MP3 Encoding Preview and Artifacts buttons. Set Lookahead to minimum, and choose 320 for the Bit Rate. At this bit rate, very little data is thrown away other than high frequencies and transients—exactly what we want for an exciter.
 
One of the reasons I dedicate a track to the excited sound is so I can normalize it up, and then use the channel fader to bring it back down to something reasonable. But regardless of how you do your tracking, adjust the excited sound’s level to taste, and voilà! An excited drum track.
 
BUT WAIT—THERE’S MORE!
 
There are two fertile fields for experimentation. One is to actually do limiting with the Adaptive Limiter, however bear in mind that the artifact sound will still have a bit of that “swirly” MP3 sound so it might not be cool. Or it might…experiment!
 
The second option is what makes this really useful: Insert the PX-64 Percussion Strip in the excited audio track (or bus with the Adaptive Limiter in it). Enable the Shaper module; turn Attack all the way clockwise, and Weight and Decay fully counter-clockwise. This emphasizes the transients, while minimizing the other artifacts.
 
THE AUDIO DEMO
 
Okay, I know you don’t believe me—and I don’t blame you! So to confound the skeptics, I’ve posted an audio example at craiganderton.com in the Demos section, and you can hear the results for yourself. Note that this particular example uses the PX-64 as described above, so it’s a bit more subtle. The first two measures are the “excited” sound, the next two measures are without the exciter (it’s an “after and before” example!), while the final two measures isolate the excited sound by itself.

Whatever comes with Godaddy's "web site construction for idiots" package 

The Grim
though i would most likely use a purpose built piece of kit

Well...here's the thing. This doesn't produce a sound like an Aphex Aural Exciter, BBE Maximizer, etc. I don't use those on drums, but I would use this. The reason why is when you add in the limiting itself, that changes the character considerably. Also It's possible not just to push the transients, but give a bit of a "tail."
 
Using "out of the ordinary" processing gives a distinctive sound. It's more of the analog aesthetic, where no two "anythings" sound alike. Back in the days of big studios, there was a sense of experimentation that came from doing crazy things to see what would happen. A lot of the most iconic sounds in recording came not from anything purpose-built, but by someone saying "What if..."
 
Then again, to avoid personal embarrassment I don't write up the epic fails as a tip of the week - just the ones that actually work