• SONAR
  • Alright - how do I isolate frequencies on a track? - (not solved - it's not going to work) (p.5)
2013/09/11 22:17:19
robert_e_bone
Yeah - I ended up using an EQ in Sonar to act as a low-pass and high-pass filter to knock stuff outside of the frequency range of the playable range of those notes in the keyboard solo.  
 
I imported the original Night Meets Light song file into Sonar, then chopped it down to where all that was left of the audio was literally about a 5-second snippet that was the very end of the keyboard solo - which contained the notes I was struggling with.
 
I had recreated that sound in a soft synth called MinimogueLUXUS-TD - which is a variant of the original MinimogueVA synth.  I had that synth loaded into the synth rack, and added an audio track so I could play and hear that preset I created to mimic the actual keyboard solo.
 
I then used the Sonar Analyst plugin to determine those note frequencies - from the low and high notes from that solo, then applied low-pass and high-pass filtering in one of the EQ's that came with X2 to knock out stuff outside those identified frequencies.  
 
Then I exported that section of the chopped down solo to a wave file.  That resulted in a file that had the original song's keyboard solo notes more pronounced than in the original mix.
 
Once it was in a wave file, I opened that in a program called The Amazing Slow Downer, and then slowed the song WAY WAY down, and THEN I was finally able to decode the notes played at the end of the keyboard solo.  In addition to being able to slow down songs without changing pitch, it also allows setting changeable loop points, so I could slowly repeat each little part of those notes until I could decipher them.
 
Once I wrote out all of the notes for each of the 2 parts (basically a third apart), the arpeggios were played over first a Cmaj7 chord and then over an Am7 chord.  I was finally able to then sequence them up in Sonar's Step Sequencer, and that was that.
 
It was REALLY a fun adventure - quite frustrating, but at the same time it was really a cool path through it all, and I learned quite a bit in the process.
 
I now feel I can apply similar techniques to figure out other nastily good solo sections in other favorite progressive songs I love, and that EXCITES me to no end.
 
Bob Bone
 
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