"The Utility Trick" - How to Isolate sounds

Share your favorite Ableton Live tips, tricks, and techniques.
AdamJay
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"The Utility Trick" - How to Isolate sounds

Post by AdamJay » Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:58 am

here it is, first mentioned at the Indianapolis Ableton Live User Group meeting on April 5th, 2005 as the "Tip of the Month".

http://66.221.205.118/azurerecords/file ... yTrick.zip (1.9MB)
in this .zip you will find UtilityRemix.als and the UtilityRemix Sounds folder.

This .als demonstrates how you can use the Width knob of 1 Utility Plugin to remove any material that was not originally panned in your source material. By turning the Width knob all the way to 200%, Mono material (material that does not sit more on the right side or the left side, but exactly evenly down the middle) is removed from the mix.

This is great for remixing vinyl based dance music as generally everything under 500hz is mono in this music. Because if you pan these Bass sounds, the needle will skip off the record. Thus, this trick is great for removing Bass from a track without using an EQ that would remove frequencies from other sounds as well. You can really isolate sounds from other sounds. Its all about CONTROL.
The simplicity of this makes it easy to do in the studio, or on stage for Live remixing.

So, turn the Width all the way up on the 1st Utility Plugin, and then engage the 2nd Utility Plugin to boost the output, and make the result mono so its not crazily spread out in the stereo field.

enjoy!!!
Last edited by AdamJay on Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

scot7y1
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Post by scot7y1 » Wed Apr 13, 2005 8:36 am

Thats amazing, all i can say really!

Thanx :D

bod
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Post by bod » Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:32 am

cool, cheers adam!

defunkt
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Post by defunkt » Wed Apr 13, 2005 1:49 pm

thanks .

mettkea
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Post by mettkea » Wed Apr 13, 2005 2:15 pm

Wow, thanks for the huge tip!!!

forge
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Post by forge » Wed Apr 13, 2005 3:06 pm

fuck man. You've just saved me alot a fucking around time. Wicked.

chunk
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Post by chunk » Wed Apr 13, 2005 3:14 pm

tested. amazing good. tnx a lot for sharing it.


cheerz

chunk

hambone1
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Post by hambone1 » Wed Apr 13, 2005 3:50 pm

Have you tried this technique to do the opposite.. to isolate anything panned to the middle? Would be a good way to get some quasi-acapella, as most vocals are panned to the middle. The utility does a good job of removing the panned-center stuff, but is there a way to take the resulting file with panned center material removed, compare it to the original, and end up with the difference? In other words, can the utility be used to grab anything panned center?

I'll try it this weekend...

kabuki
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Post by kabuki » Wed Apr 13, 2005 5:31 pm

Master Jay,

Thou art a true ninja. Master of techniques both light and dark. All known and unknown. Infinitely small and unending.

-----------


Seriously, this is tweaking my dome. I don't understand HOW this works.

//must RTFM to figure this out/// 8O
15" PB 2.5 Ghz, 4 Gig RAM, 750 GB HD, Live 9 still no cue points or program change messages?!?. Doesn't do shit.

AdamJay
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Location: Indianapolis, USA

Post by AdamJay » Wed Apr 13, 2005 6:13 pm

hambone, it can also be used to isolate sounds only in the middle, but the effect is not as drastic, since panned sounds do cross the mono plane. It is indeed good for removing stereo reverb from a track by turning the width down and closer to 0%


Kabuki...
don't think you're going to find this in the fucking manual.

i'll try to explain this the best i can...

you can do 2 things with the width knob.
1) make things less stereo spread
2) make things more stereo spread

we'll focus on 2) making things more stereo.
Width, when turned up, pushes sounds that are spread unevenly across the stereo field (that means not evenly on the left and right, as those would be mono summed sounds... like kick drums, basslines, etc.)... it pushes them out farther and farther into the stereo field.

Think of the stereo field as a bassball diamond.
Any sounds that go directly down the line from home plate to the center of the center fields wall are the mono sounds. Sounds that fade a little to right field, or left field are the stereo sounds. Its those left and right field sounds that are getting pushed FARTHER into left and right field... they are getting pushed all the way to the foul lines.

Now, thats the easy part.

But you are wondering, "how does it mute mono sounds?"
Well, Width ONLY pushes the stereo sounds out. It finds the sounds that are more left than right or vice versa.
The Mono sounds are exactly down the middle, So Width has nothing in the stereo field to grab and make "more stereo". Since the sounds aren't stereo to begin with , how can you make them "more stereo"? You can't!
So, the mono sounds get left behind.

in the width knob
0% = turns everything into mono
100% = regular stereo signal
200% = only stereo sounds are played back

so think of it as 0% to 200% is going from not stereo at all - to ENTIRELY stereo. Mono sounds get left out because they aren't stereo.

kabuki
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Post by kabuki » Wed Apr 13, 2005 8:21 pm

NINJA!
15" PB 2.5 Ghz, 4 Gig RAM, 750 GB HD, Live 9 still no cue points or program change messages?!?. Doesn't do shit.

djadonis206
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Post by djadonis206 » Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:59 pm

Nice - !
Ableton | Elektron

Music

djadonis206
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Re: "The Utility Trick" - How to Isolate sounds

Post by djadonis206 » Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:43 am

AdamJay wrote:here it is, first mentioned at the Indianapolis Ableton Live User Group meeting on April 5th, 2005 as the "Tip of the Month".

...So, turn the Width all the way up on the 1st Utility Plugin, and then engage the 2nd Utility Plugin to boost the output, and make the result mono so its not crazily spread out in the stereo field.

enjoy!!!
Question, you say make the result mono. When I either bounce down to mono or turn the 2nd utility to zero I get the bass part back - what do you mean make the result mono?

Pretty cool trick though
Ableton | Elektron

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MrYellow
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Post by MrYellow » Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:57 am

I haven't played with it much.....

But I believe there is a way to use the utility to get the isolate/extract the
mono stuff (rather than muting the mono), by using putting 2 signals out
of phase and getting the result.... Not my area, maybe someone else
knows what I mean.

-Ben

AdamJay
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Re: "The Utility Trick" - How to Isolate sounds

Post by AdamJay » Thu Apr 14, 2005 5:25 am

djadonis206 wrote:what do you mean make the result mono?
you will notice the "L" in the 2nd Utility plugin is highlighted.
this is taking just the LEFT of the signal and summing it mono.
so i've really already made the result mono in the 2nd Utility plug by default.

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