How-To: NIN Piano in Rapture

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is somewhat known for that glitchy, pitch-bent piano sound on many cuts. There's lots of ways to do it; I'd suspect that the original process might include a pitch correction device, heavy editing, or similar. I wanted to do this in solely within Rapture, and I thought I'd take you along for the ride. To start, I "stole" a Multisample from Dimension Pro (the grand piano 3v m3rd.sfz from 01 - Grand Pianos). Now, you can't just load Elements between DP & RP, and the same goes for Copying/Pasting Envelopes and such between the two applications. So we'll have to do a little reconstructive surgery to get that. The first half of this tutorial covers the basics, and the second half gets into the pitch glitching.

Open up Dimension Pro with the Grand Piano 3v m3.prog, alongside Rapture. Both have the same Multisamples loaded, and that resides in memory only once, so we've got to check out where the differences may lie. The significant ones are in the Amp envelope, and a low-shelf EQ to tweak the sound. I'll leave the equalization for you to reproduce, and we'll concentrate on the Amp EG. Just two extra nodes beyond the default starting #0 node to concern yourself with here. Bring that default one to a level of 1.000. Turn the EG Status=On, the Depth to 100.0, and the VelTrack gets bumped to 100.0 as well.

Node #1 is 47.6 ms. out, at a full level of 1.000. Just right-click in the general vicinity, and get it close. See that orange vertical line in Dimension's Amp EG? That marks the sustain point, and the start of the release phase when you lift your fingers off the keyboard. Click in the Modulator area somewhere to make sure it has your attention, and assure that this Node is highlighted. Press the "S" key on your Qwerty, and the orange line/sustain point is placed. This is a toggle switch, just in case you change your mind later on.

Node #2 is is the final release point. It's out 210.0 ms., but now the level is at 0.000. Makes sense: that's where your note fades out. In Rapture, right-click again in the general area, and left-click/drag that second node to the right spot. OK, how do we get that curve to turn blue? It's at a variable power default to save you some resources, but you want a more "natural" release using an exponential curve. Hover over that final node, and press the "N" toggle on the Qwerty. But something's screwy: it doesn't look as "curved" as the one in Dimension.

Use your mouse scroll wheel in Rapture's Amp EG to match up the zoom levels as close as you can between the two synthesizers. That'll also help to match up the exact numbers. Then, left-click on the curve itself, and eye up the two curves while adjusting for a close match. Alright, so what's that "blue box" all about? That's a cool one: it's a time adjustment for just a single segment of an envelope. Either one of the nodes can be highlighted here, and you press "K" on your Qwerty. Adjust that box down with a mouse-click from the center line; down around one reference line under vertical midpoint.

This is going to shorten the release times on your patch as your travel higher on the keyboard. Just like an analog piano response would be. While we're here, look at the Keytrack window next to it. The one in Dimension has the slightest of upward slants, and both nodes there are adjusted upward a touch (in different amounts) towards the top. See if you can't tweak Rapture's Keytrack to match.


OK, the piano's in, and it sounds very good. Looks the same, too, as compared to Dimension. Now you can get rid of your "model", and we move on to the signature pitch glitches. There are a lot of ways to pull this off, but a quick listen reveals that there's no real regularity in the original sound. You can do this with a pitch wheel manually, a step generator, and even using a low-frequency oscillator. The first method takes some concentration, and the others have a unnatural regularity to it (without some added tricks). Let's use a unique feature in Rapture: load up your own user-defined LFO.

You'll need an outside audio editor to create one. Audacity is free. Ideally, you would want to draw or use a waveform with a small file size for short loading times. I use a template of 4096 samples, but anything you use over that number will be interpolated back down by Rapture. You need to name the LFO in the following manner, and in order: LfoWaveformXXX.wav. XXX would be the next number in the sequence of the files under Rapture's LFO Waveform subfolder. There's a few in there already, so if this is your first time through, call it LfoWaveform027.wav, and place it in that LFO Waveform subfolder before launching Rapture.

OK, so now what? Anything you want. I happened to use a drum loop for the glitching LFO, and resampled it down to size. The point is to create an irregular waveform by any means; even just drawing one in with a Pen Tool. Mix it up quite a bit, like a child scribbling on a coloring book. It really doesn't matter what it comes out like, as long as it's not too neat. The parameter adjustments will all be made in the LFO GUI itself later on, and you're adapting an audio .wav for use as a control source.

So, put your new LFO in place, and fire up Rapture. Click or scroll through to the 27th waveform on Pitch LFO, and turn it On. You can also use the Shot mode, and it'll only play through once. It's a piano sample, so a little Depth goes a long way here. 100 cents is a lot, but don't let me stop you from getting crazier than that. The more complex and irregular of a drawn waveform that you have, the slower that you probably need to set the speed. Adjust your Sync or Freq settings accordingly.

It's an intense effect, so you might choose to bring it in selectively with the MIDI Matrix. Open it up, choose a Source (like a Mod Wheel), and point the Destination to Pitch LFO Depth 1. Bring up the MIDI Matrix Depth parameter to what you currently have set in the LFO GUI, and double-click on that same LFO parameter in Rapture to reset it to zero. Remember, in this case, those two settings will add together, so you might want to select one or the other.

You could've just chosen one of the regular LFO waveforms, the Random generators, or go after the pitch glitching in some other way. (I found those to be too tidy.) But then you'd be ignoring one very valuable asset in customizing your own unique sound. I believe I can see the future ...