Description
Extracting Audio Slices from any Beat and Converting them to Midi video tutorial explains how to extract drum elements from commercial mixes and convert them into MIDI for beat construction.
As technology moves forward more and more specialised processes emerge and one such process entails taking a commercial beat and slicing/chopping it into smaller drum element segments and converting the segments/slices into midi note information and using that information to trigger new beats using your own custom drum sounds.
The beauty of this technique is that you can take any commercial beat and substitute your own drums sounds in place of the drum sounds within the beat. You can then edit the new drum beat to taste by changing note lengths, altering quantise grooves, switching the order of sounds within the beat, slow or speed up the beat and so on.
The old school technique of sampling a beat and then chopping it up into slices and using the chops/slices to create a new beat had limitations in that listeners would still recognise the original beat as the sounds used in the new beat were the same as the original. This technique negates that as any sound can now be used in place of the original sounds and even the beat can be edited to sound completely different YET maintain the timing and velocity information from the original beat.
In the Extracting Audio Slices from any Beat and Converting them to Midi video, I use a Timbaland commercial drum break and import it into Steinberg’s Cubase. I show you how to determine the key of the audio snippet by using Cubase’s Beat Calculator. I then guide you in how to use the Hitpoint Detection Tool to create slices that are synced perfectly to the BPM of the beat. I show you how to convert these audio slices into midi notes and how to position each midi note to line up perfectly with the original drum beat’s drum elements. I then show you how to use a soft-sampler, NI’s Battery in this case, and trigger new drum sounds using the ripped midi notes sequence. I finish up by showing you how to adjust the velocities of each midi note so as to make the new drum beat sound natural and not mechanical.
Plugins used in this video:
Topics covered in this video are:
- Extracting Audio Slices from a Beat
- Converting Slices to Midi Information
- Using Threshold and Sensitivity
- Understanding Transient and the Timeline
- Understanding Quantise Subdivisions
- Working with Key Editor
- Working with the Grid
- Linking/Setting Quantise Values
- Adjust Note Lengths to Quantise and Grid
- Using Soft Sampler for Importing and Managing Drum Elements
- Note Placement Practices
- Tips and Trick
If this tutorial was of help maybe these will also be of benefit:
The Art of Drum Layering (second edition)
The Art of Drum Layering – Advanced
Programming Drum Beats in Cubase
Extracting Drum Sounds from a Beat using Drumagog
Ripping and using Timing Information from a Drum Beat
Chopping/Slicing Beats Using Recycle
Using Recycle REX Files and Constructing New Beats
Combining Ripped Beats to create new Beats
Processing a Snare to fit in with a Ripped Drum Break
Topping and Tailing Ripped Beats – Truncating and Normalising
