Hey, guys.
This is Eric Tarr for theproaudiofiles.com.
This is my second video of a two part series on using Kontakt one shot samples and loops.
In this video, I'll be demonstrating how you can use a sampler, like Kontakt, to create
your own virtual instruments that trigger a loop that's going to synchronize with the
tempo of your song.
Here, I'm going to be working with some drum loops from the company, “I Want That Sound.”
These guys have put together some awesome collections of drum samples and loop.
I highly recommend you check them out and stop by their website.
I'm going to be working with their organic library.
Specifically, the pre-recorded loops.
So, I can drill down to this folder here.
They've included some REX loops if you're someone that likes to work with Propellerhead's
Reason, they've got the REX loops in there.
They've also got the more general purpose audio files – the wav files here.
That's what I'm going to be working with.
So, let me demonstrate how you can create a virtual instrument that can have multiple
loops spread out across the MIDI keyboard that will synchronize with the tempo of your
song.
For instance, let's say that I want to work with these loops right here.
The linear high-hat.
I'm going to go ahead and grab this one right here, loop one, and just drag it into Kontakt
like this.
Alright, you'll see at the bottom it's spread out across the keyboard, so I can even trigger
it.
[drum loop plays]
The important thing to note, going initially is that this loop was recorded with a bpm/tempo
of 78.
So, when I play that middle C right here, it's going to play the loop at the original
tempo.
[loop plays]
But, if I play a different note, what's going to happen is it will trigger it at a different
tempo, and also at a different pitch.
[loop plays at several different speeds]
Alright, and that's pretty good.
That might be something you want to work with and get creative and try it out with different
tempos and different pitches as well.
But, if what you would like to do is keep it at the original pitch and just synchronize
it with the tempo of the song, let me show you what you need to do to set that up.
So, I'm going to click on this tool here, and it's going to open up all of these options
for me to – parameters for me to adjust and to control the loop with.
So, to begin with, one of the first things that I usually do is with a loop, look at
the release settings, because if I hold this key down...
[loop plays]
And then let it go, the actual instrument within Kontakt is going to keep the loop going.
So if I stretch this out and press the key down, when I let the key go, the loop is going
to keep going.
So usually, when it comes to a loop, what you want to do, is actually just whenever
the key is no longer pressed, you just want it to stop.
So I'll shorten the release all the way down.
[drum loop plays]
Alright, so that's working great.
Next up, you have this tracking button here.
The tracking is the thing that's controlling whether it's going to get pitched down or
up, so right now with tracking on...
[drum loop plays at different pitches and tempos]
If you turn tracking off, I can play different keys, and it's still the same pitch, and also
the same tempo.
For now, this is fine.
We'll come back to this later on.
So, next thing to go in is look at the wave editor.
This is how you can control things, for instance, chopping up your loop, and detecting the different
samples, so that they can synchronize with the tempo of your song.
So, what I'm going to do here is turn on the sample loop right here.
I'm just going to click one.
You'll see that it's going to go over the entire loop like this, and it says “this
is the end,” and “this is the start.”Now, you can adjust these things to wherever you
want in the loop.
I'm going to leave it for the full loop like this.
One thing that you'll note though, is that if I turn the loop off like this, what happens
is it plays all the way to the end, and then it just stops.
If you turn the loop on, then it'll repeat over and over.
So I'll just demonstrate this quickly.
[loop plays]
So, the loop ended.
If I turn this one on now, it'll get to the end and just repeat over.
That's because I've got it set “until end” right here.
You have a couple different options, whether you want to play it forward and backward,
and so on.
[drums play, looping after reaching the loop end]
And with a loop like this, typically when I'm working with it inside of Kontakt, what
I like to do is have the loop on so that it can repeat over and over.
I don't have to worry about triggering it every time I want it to start.
But that's just up to you to figure out how you like to work with it.
Next up, let's look at some of these other tabs.
For instance, I think it's a good idea to go in and set the beat machine, right here.
The beat machine is going to allow you to grab the different transients, and synchronize
with the tempo of the song.
You can also do this more manually, for instance, if you go on to grid, you can turn this on
and off like this.
Beat machine requires that the grid is on, so it automatically detected that the original
tempo was 78 bpm.
If you need to set this manually, you can do so, and it seemed like it did a pretty
good job of picking up where the beats are.
Now, it all depends on the drummer, and how well the drummer played to the original grid
and the click.
Now, you might have a loop where a drummer adds in his own kind of feel, or there's some
kind of swing to it where you don't want to just automatically chop it up on every single
16th note like this.
You might want to go in and switch it over to auto.
Now, what auto's going to do is it doesn't matter where the actual grid is.
What it's going to do is allow you to just find the beats like this.
You have to be careful, though.
Sometimes there might be some transients that are missing.
It didn't detect them for whatever reason.
What you can do is actually manually – like this, if I zoom in.
Here's one that didn't get picked up.
Zoom in like this, find my missing hit right here, zoom in to the one, and I can add an
extra one right here to the start.
Now I've got my manual one that's set.
You can even lock that in place.
Okay, zoom back out.
I've got my beat how I like it.
Next thing, I can go over to this “sync and slice.”
What that's going to do is make sure that my tempo now is synced to the tempo of my
song.
So right now, within Kontakt, it's 120 beats per minute.
I turn this beat machine on like this, it's going to keep those manual edits that I did
to the grid, or you can switch it back over and do the one where it just chops up every
perfect 16th note, and so on.
Whatever you like to use.
So now, if I trigger it, you'll hear that it's going to go at 120 beats per minute.
[loop plays]
The difference is, it didn't pitch shift it up.
It kept it at the same pitch.
[loop plays]
Whereas before, when I was using the tracking mode, what would happen is if I moved it up
and played a higher note, it would speed up the tempo, but it would also turn up the pitch,
and make the pitch higher.
So this allows me now to trigger the different notes across the keyboard.
If I turn tracking back on with beat machine on, now it's going to keep the tempo the same,
but allow me to pitch shift it.
[loop plays at varying pitches]
If you want, you can even see here that if I turn off the synchronization with my DAW,
that was 120 beats per minute...
[loop plays, ritard and accelerando]
The beat machine can just synchronize with Kontakt's own tempo.
Turn it back on...
So now, no matter what the tempo is inside of my DAW, I can have these loops, even if
they were recorded at different tempos, automatically synchronize.
Let's say for instance then, I want to add in another loop.
Rather than just have a single loop spread across the keyboard, let me go back here.
If you switch on the mapping editor, what it allows you to do is precisely pinpoint
what keys are going to trigger this loop, rather than spread it across the whole keyboard.
So let's go in here and zoom in a little bit so I can see.
Let's say I just want it around this octave.
Now I have a single octave.
[loop plays at varying pitches]
You can change the root key as well, if you want it to be higher.
That way you can pitch it down or up.
It's up to you to do that kind of stuff.
Let me add in a different loop, then.
Go back here to the finder.
Let's grab loop three, for instance.
Drag and drop it in.
Let me spread it across the keyboard for a full octave, too.
Alright, so I've got one loop here, and the other loop here.
I can even go in now that I've got loop three selected, and do things like make sure that
it's turned on it's looping and that it's also going to synchronize with the beat machine.
I can turn on auto if I want.
Leave it on fixed.
Let me trigger the different loops now.
Here's loop one.
[loop one plays]
And loop three.
[loop three plays]
So, those loops are pretty similar in performance.
They have slight variations between how the drums are hit and so on, but you can do this
with all kinds of different loops.
They don't have to be the same exact thing.
I could go in here, grab another loop from a different one.
How about the “Boom Clack.”
Drag this one in.
Spread it out across the keyboard.
It's recorded even at a different tempo.
It automatically just for this loop detected 72 beats per minute.
Make sure the loop is on.
[boom clack loop plays]
Trigger them side by side.
[loop one and boom clack plays]
And that's all there is to it, guys.
This is how you create a virtual instrument that can have multiple loops spread across
the MIDI keyboard that can synchronize with the tempo of your song.
If you have questions or comments about this, feel free to post them below, and I'll make
sure to get back to them.
If you want to see in a different video how you can create a virtual instrument that's
more built around triggering one shot samples of multiple velocity levels, make sure to
check out my first video in this series on how to do that.
Until next time, take care, guys.