[video tutorials] - Sound Design with Operator now available

[stutter]

I'm giving this a go on the basis of your free videos on youtube. Operator/FM is a good subject to choose. I've got a Max patch I use with my BCR to edit Operator, so I'll upload that too in a minute

[Nick the Zombie]

I'm giving this a go on the basis of your free videos on youtube. Operator/FM is a good subject to choose. I've got a Max patch I use with my BCR to edit Operator, so I'll upload that too in a minute

Thanks for the support, and thanks for uploading the Max patch - I know lots of people rock the BCR so it should be quite useful.

- Nick

[synnack]

I'm giving this a go on the basis of your free videos on youtube. Operator/FM is a good subject to choose. I've got a Max patch I use with my BCR to edit Operator, so I'll upload that too in a minute

Actually I've been thinking of creating something to do just that. Please share!

[synnack]

LONG LIVE THE APC40 THREAD.

Thx for taking the time to Photoshop me. I love my hardcore fans.

Actually I just have a facebook app that automatically adds an APC40 and female hygiene product to any pic you post there. No time required, though I am your hardcore fan.

[synnack]

Nick, enjoying the tutorials.

One suggestion would be for you to also put up a zip of the audio only. Call it a "podcast" if you will.

There are many days like today where I can't sit in front of a computer and focus on that, but I have 3 hours of driving to do and would enjoy listening to it.

Consider it done - will get on exporting the audio right away and make it available to all who have already purchased, as well. Great idea!

- Nick

Thanks dude. Let us know when you get the links up for former customers.

As a new customer, looking forward to what you do next. (If you did this level of detail with Analog I'll be the first customer on that too).

[nebulae]

^ageed on Analog videos.

As for the APC-hygene app, that is so Web 1.5...

[stutter]

I got distracted, by Nick's videos.

Looked at the patch - it's working, but not tidy. I'll tidy it, and create a Max runtime, for those without Max, when I get a chance.
For anyone with max, here's the parts.
Sysex should be uploaded to BCR scenes - I suggest Macros, then Ch.2, then Ch.3
UserConfig needs placing in it's own folder - e.g BCRedit - you must know where by know, if not search the forum.
Max patch will need connecting to Ableton and BCR (midi-yoke or IAC will help)

the patch has 3 scenes:
- Macro's controls 8 macro knobs (top 8 Enc's), Sends A and B, tracks 1-8 (middle Encs), and Volume, tr.1-8 (bottom Encs)
- Ch.2 controls first 4 banks of Ableton effect parameters, from bottom to top of BCR. Since this uses bank switching you will occasionally notice erratic behaviour, when a control in a different bank responds (in other words, my timing/flow of information in Max is not clean/robust - should be fixable) - it's not so buggy as to be unusable at all.
- Ch.3 controls banks 5-8.

the Max patch recognises when you change scene on the BCR, and Ch.2 and Ch.3 update automatically

anyway, I came back to say, the video's I've watched have been very good. I think there's a lack of useful info on FM synthesis on the internet, so I'd happily recommend these to anyone wanting to know a bit more about it.
I'm sure I'll be back though, having watched all of them, saying it's not enough.

[Nick the Zombie]

tempus3r, check your PM. Anyone else that has purchased the series that would like MP3 versions of the movies, PM me and I'll get you a link.

Glad to know that people are wanting Analog tutorials as well, because those are on my short list for another series!

- Nick

[danzel]

these are well worth getting by the way.. Nick is spot on with answering follow up questions etc which adds to the value further.. more!!

[nebulae]

^ agreed! I only have three words for Nick:

Analog me, bitch!

[Nick the Zombie]

these are well worth getting by the way.. Nick is spot on with answering follow up questions etc which adds to the value further.. more!!

Hey thanks man, I'm glad people are getting real value out of this - lots of rewrites and scrapped ideas in this series to make it as tight as possible. I've been getting a lot of requests for a series on Analog even since I last mentioned it in this thread. That may very well be the topic of the next series, it seems! For all who are interested, keep the requests coming; that kind of feedback will ensure that I'm spending time with the most relevant aspects of Live.

- Nick

[synnack]

When you do the Analog one, what I'm interested in are answers to "why should I care about Analog?"

When you fire up Analog you see 2 osc, lfo, filters, eh.. zzzzzz

What is unique about that thing?
What makes it more than a freeware 2 osc synth?
Hidden cool gems?

One thing I would avoid is using too many effects racks with Analog to make interesting sounds. You can pretty much do that with anything and I'm more interested in what makes Analog a choice over anything else as the source.

[nebulae]

^ why Analog? Alias-free modeling of analog oscs. PWM. Saturated filters. And Live-integrated automation madness fun fun. Delicious.

[synnack]

^ why Analog? Alias-free modeling of analog oscs. PWM. Saturated filters. And Live-integrated automation madness fun fun. Delicious.

Yes, thank you for providing the outline for Nick on what to cover.

[mock]

I've watched most of the vids and they are very good.

As usual Nick speaks very clearly, at a nice pace and even people who are not too good in english should understand most of the tutorials (provided they have the vocabulary). In order to save bandwidth and disk space, only the relevant parts of the screen (ie the device parameter) are shown. I'm not sure I like that, for two reason: from times to times additional information are provided on screen in writing and it is a bit difficult to pay attention to all the info at once especially in that format, furthermore, it would have been nice to have a view of the cpu usage.

As for the content, it is as much a sound design tutorial, as it is an operator tutorial. After a short introductory video, the operator interface is covered extensively (which means that in this vid Nick sometimes gets a bit ahead of things, but I don't see how he could have done it otherwise). Then, he explains how to use operator as an additive + substractive synth (although he only speaks about substractive synthesis). Then the rest of the series is devoted to the FM capabilities of operator, and this is of course the core of the serie since, to quote Gareth Loy, "Using FM synthesis to model instrumental timbres is strictly an art". Nick demonstrates that by developping different sounds (ranging from pads to drum loops) using operator and a bunch of effect. He gives good tips to anticipate the results of the knob tweakings and encourages to work in a "modular" way. There is something in these vids for the beginners and for the more advanced users/sound designers.

Of course, nitpickers will find goofs (is there a sine wave that is not basic?). Also I would have liked to see more of spectrum, as a visual display would have helped a bit. Finally an "additional resources" page would have been nice (and in the introductory FM vid, a brief historical background would have been cool). Finally the nerdiest among us may be a bit disappointed with the lack of purely technical/theoretical info, but then again these tuts are about creating sounds in a creative way.

I think these tuts are well worth it for anybody who owns operator (especially in live 8 ).