"The Utility Trick" - How to Isolate sounds

Share your favorite Ableton Live tips, tricks, and techniques.
rickdorr
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Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 5:18 am

Post by rickdorr » Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:36 am

I've tried spreading the width to 200% and the track became silent, when I attached the second utility plugin and boost the gain the signal I received was distorted and barely audible. Is there a way to use the invert plugin in the same manner as the Knockout plugin demonstrated in this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4UZmlul0sQ

dkamm101
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Joined: Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:34 am

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

Post by dkamm101 » Thu Sep 01, 2011 12:47 pm

whats the purpose of having 2 utility plug-ins in Live 8? I can simply place the width at 200%, then raise the output of the final product accordingly on that same plug-in. Am I missing something? Also how do I mono the final sound? Should I mono it before I resample?

thanks

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

Post by Angstrom » Thu Sep 01, 2011 1:20 pm

Your answer is in your question

How you mono the sound is by using the second Utility. Set to 0 width.

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

Post by BassTooth » Thu Sep 01, 2011 5:11 pm

I don't know if this has been shared. Mr. Bill has a great tutorial on stereo widening using the Utility plug.

http://youtu.be/wdBO_2EHS9c

TexasDJ2012
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Joined: Fri Feb 17, 2012 1:37 am

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

Post by TexasDJ2012 » Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:43 am

Repost please, I'm insanely curious to try this out.

Hyasynth (AUS)
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Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2020 12:08 pm

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

Post by Hyasynth (AUS) » Fri Dec 04, 2020 12:13 pm

Here's a trick that will actually split the channels and isolate them so you can put effects of each, M/S, L/R, M/L/R, however you choose:

First create an M/S splitter by the following:

- Create Audio Effect Rack, with two seperate chains, name them “Mids” and “Sides”

- Place an EQ8 on each of these and switch them both to M/S mode.

- On “Mids”, switch Edit to “S”, place only 2 nodes on the EQ, 1 as a low shelf, 1 as a high shelf

– Set frequency of both nodes to the same value, say 500hz; select both and drag to the bottom

– Set Scale to 200%.

– Simply do the opposite for “Sides”

– Add your desired effects to each chain—BEFORE the EQ8, and voila! You have split out and put effects separately on mid and side channels!

– Now, if you want to split the Side signal further out into Left and Right, simply create to “Side” chains, one for Left, one for Right. In each, duplicate the EQ8, and switch it from M/S to L/R mode, and do the same thing with the equalisation.

Note: These tricks cannot be accomplished with Utility as attempt to balance, or pan, just sums the signal, rather than isolates it.

Note: For putting different effects on different frequency bands (Lows/Mids/Highs), you can do, a similar thing, but with EQ3, creating a chain for each band, and muting all but one frequency band of each chain.


And, if you find the effect isn’t quite enough because of the amount of the effect’s signal is in the mid channel, and use another utility to push the balance all the way to M/S or L/R, and you’ll get the full impact of the effect

Oh yeah, and in that case, you’ll want to put the effects AFTER the EQ8s in order to effect the full channel before panning.


* EDIT: Upon further investigation, it appears that you can actually use Utility in Mid/Side mode to Isolate Mono from Side signal. And you can then use Utility again on the L/R channels by setting Input to L or R, and Panning fully in that direction. HOWEVER, the "Width" trick from Mr. Bill isn't applicable here because it doesn't kill the mono signal. (Maybe M/S mode wasn't available on that version of Utility).

tonty
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 2:57 pm

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

Post by tonty » Wed Dec 09, 2020 1:07 pm

Looks really useful :) Could you repost a link please as the other is not working.

fabiospark
Posts: 50
Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2018 7:08 pm

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

Post by fabiospark » Sun May 02, 2021 6:54 am

Hyasynth (AUS) wrote:
Fri Dec 04, 2020 12:13 pm
Here's a trick that will actually split the channels and isolate them so you can put effects of each, M/S, L/R, M/L/R, however you choose:

First create an M/S splitter by the following:

- Create Audio Effect Rack, with two seperate chains, name them “Mids” and “Sides”

- Place an EQ8 on each of these and switch them both to M/S mode.

- On “Mids”, switch Edit to “S”, place only 2 nodes on the EQ, 1 as a low shelf, 1 as a high shelf

– Set frequency of both nodes to the same value, say 500hz; select both and drag to the bottom

– Set Scale to 200%.

– Simply do the opposite for “Sides”

– Add your desired effects to each chain—BEFORE the EQ8, and voila! You have split out and put effects separately on mid and side channels!

– Now, if you want to split the Side signal further out into Left and Right, simply create to “Side” chains, one for Left, one for Right. In each, duplicate the EQ8, and switch it from M/S to L/R mode, and do the same thing with the equalisation.

Note: These tricks cannot be accomplished with Utility as attempt to balance, or pan, just sums the signal, rather than isolates it.

Note: For putting different effects on different frequency bands (Lows/Mids/Highs), you can do, a similar thing, but with EQ3, creating a chain for each band, and muting all but one frequency band of each chain.


And, if you find the effect isn’t quite enough because of the amount of the effect’s signal is in the mid channel, and use another utility to push the balance all the way to M/S or L/R, and you’ll get the full impact of the effect

Oh yeah, and in that case, you’ll want to put the effects AFTER the EQ8s in order to effect the full channel before panning.


* EDIT: Upon further investigation, it appears that you can actually use Utility in Mid/Side mode to Isolate Mono from Side signal. And you can then use Utility again on the L/R channels by setting Input to L or R, and Panning fully in that direction. HOWEVER, the "Width" trick from Mr. Bill isn't applicable here because it doesn't kill the mono signal. (Maybe M/S mode wasn't available on that version of Utility).
I tried both way but I can't isolate just side L or side R
I setup three midi tracks and grouped them together.
I panned hard left track 1 and hard right track 3 leaving track 2 in the center.
I put a sinusoidal tone on all the tracks and loopingly play a C2 in track 1,
a C3 in track 2 and a C4 in track 3.
In the group track I setup an effect rack with an Utility with width 200%, MONO ON and fase invert on L and I can here the mid portion has disappeared (C3), in fact if I switch on/off track 2, nothing changes.
But whatever I do after this, I can't isolate C2 or C4. It seems that now they are on both the sides.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks.

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