Emit is a granular sample playback device,
It's capable of completely transforming whatever sound you put into it,
while also offering a uniquely visual approach to sampling and sound design.
Here I have a recording of a kalimba. Let's take a listen.
I'd like to put this in the Emit device.
So to do that, I'll just click and drag it and let go.
Looks like Emit has analyzed the sample and created a spectrogram.
A spectrogram is a visual representation of all the different frequencies that make up the sample over time.
The X axis is the time value and the Y axis shows the different frequencies from low to high.
Frequencies that are louder are displayed as white, whereas quieter frequencies are gray.
To start playback, let's press play on Live's transport.
In the center of the spectrogram is what's called an emitter.
An emitter generates particles which look like these blue dots.
The particles play back whatever tiny piece of the spectrum they're gliding over.
These tiny slices of audio are called grains.
Let's move the emitter around to play back different parts of the sample.
I can change the size of the emitter by dragging on the corners.
I can also change the position and size of the emitter on the right here.
Down below, I can change the angle or direction of the emitter.
So if I click and drag here, I can now create particles that play back instead of forward.
Turning up Width increases the range of directions particles can be emitted from.
Turning on Bipolar allows me to generate particles in both directions.
Let's turn the Width down and move the Emitter to the far left.
Notice that when a particle hits the edge, it bounces back.
To change this behavior I can go over to Edge here and for example, switch it to Wrap.
This makes particles wrap around to the other side of the graphic.
Alternatively, I can switch this to Delete and particles will be removed when they hit the edge.
Alright, let's put Edge back to Bounce.
And I'll put the Angle back to forward now.
Over on the left, I can change how particles are created.
So right now, a particle is created every one bar. To change this, I can turn down the Rate.
Now particles are created every quarter note.
I can control how long particles stick around for using the Lifetime parameter.
So right now, particles exist for one bar before they're removed.
If I'd like to turn this down, I can make particles be removed even earlier.
Right now, only one particle can exist at a time.
To change this, I'll turn up the number of grains here.
Now up to five grains can exist simultaneously.
Let's change the rate back to one bar.
Over here I can randomize the lifetime, so if I turn this up,
certain particles will stick around for much longer than others.
Additionally, I can skip the generation of certain particles by turning up Skip.
This prevents the particles from being a constant stream and creates some variation and randomness to our sound.
If I turn Skip all the way up, no particles will be generated.
Burst controls how many particles are generated and the intervals set by Rate.
Currently, one particle is generated every bar.
If I change Burst to 2, two particles will be generated throughout the course of every bar.
If I'd like these particles to be generated at the beginning of the interval
rather than spread throughout it, I can turn Spread all the way down.
Now both particles will be generated at the beginning of each bar.
Awesome. Now, say, I wanted to only play back a smaller portion of the sample.
To do this I'll turn down the Length.
I can also adjust the starting position of the sample,
so instead of playing the very beginning there, I'll cycle through here
and I can see which part of the sample I'm currently playing over highlighted at the top.
Now, I'd like the particles to travel a bit further, so I'll turn up Force, which flings each particle harder.
Friction slows down the particles as they travel.
If I'd like to globally speed up or slow down the physics simulation,
I can do so over on the right where it's says Speed.
Keep in mind this also affects the Rate and Lifetime parameters.
I'll turn Friction down.
At the bottom I have the option to normalize the sample again.
Normalizing is basically turning up the sample as much as possible without clipping.
So far, Cursor mode has been set to Emitter, which allows us to change and drag this Emitter around.
If I switch it to Wall, I can create walls for the particles to bounce off of.
Let's do so by clicking and dragging.
I can resize these walls by dragging on the corners.
Or delete them by double clicking.
I can create pretty much as many walls as I want.
Let's delete these walls for now by double clicking and I'll switch the Cursor Mode back to Emitter.
Next, I'd like to control some parameters that affect how audio is played back.
So to do this, I'll switch over to the Grain tab.
I have the option of pitching the audio up or down here.
Or if I click F, I can fine-tune it.
To the left of pitch I have Glide and Blur.
Glide smooths out the differences between different slices of audio.
If I turn it up, this creates an interesting time stretching effect.
I'll turn down the Speed so he can hear it a bit better.
Blur has a similar effect, but here we're applying an envelope to the frequency domain.
So if I turn Blur up, this creates sort of a metallic ringing out sound.
Right now, the vertical position of particles
determine the center frequency of their respective bandpass filters.
Basically, particles that are playing at the top of the graphic
will play back on the higher frequencies from the audio,
whereas particles at the bottom of the graphic will playback only low frequencies.
I can change the range of frequencies each particle plays by turning up Width.
If I turn with up to 100%, the vertical position of each particle ceases to matter.
Q boosts the resonance of the band pass filter.
This makes the sound of the filter more noticeable.
Currently, Y axis is set to Filter, meaning that the vertical position affects the filter cutoff.
If I'd like, I can switch this to Panning.
Now, particles at the top of the spectrogram will be panned slightly to the right
and particles at the bottom will be panned slightly to the left.
Since the filter frequency is no longer affected by the Y axis,
I can change it manually using the Center parameter.
Over in the Pan section, I have the ability to pan all particles left or right.
Here with Width, I can set the range of panning available.
So if I turn this up to 100%, the particles' vertical position will have a huge influence over their panning.
If I change Width to zero percent, particles' vertical position will have no effect on their panning.
If I switch the Y axis back to Filter mode,
Width assigns a random panning position to each new particle.
If I turn this up, the range of possible panning positions in the stereo field is increased.
Over on the right, I have the Fade section.
This creates a volume envelope over each particle's lifetime.
So, let's turn the Amount up.
Notice that each particle starts to fade in and fade out.
I can control the shape of the fade by switching up the Center.
So now particles will fade out...
or I can have particles fade in gradually over time.
Let's turn the Amount down to zero percent here.
Now, Emitter 2 is exactly the same as Emitter 1
so I'll skip it for now and move on to the Mod section.
Here I can use the two built-in LFOs and two envelopes to modulate different parameters in the device.
Let's start by going over to the routing tab and I'll use LFO 1 as my source.
And I'll set the destination as the vertical position of the first Emitter.
Let's turn up the Amount here. Now we can see the Emitter move up or down.
I can change the rate of the LFO to make it faster or slower here.
I can change the shape. Let's try Sample and Hold.
In addition to changing the rate as a hertz value, I can also turn on Sync,
which syncs it to the master clock.
I also have the option of offsetting the phase of each LFO here.
Over on the right, I have the option to retrigger the LFO every time a new MIDI note is detected.
Keep in mind that this only works when Sync mode is off.
Notice that when I now play a note,
the position of the Emitter resets.
Let's turn retrigger off and Sync back on and I'll slow down the Rate here.
I'd like to use one of the envelopes at the bottom.
So let's start by going over to the Routing section and I'll select Envelope 1 one as my source
and I'll map it to the pitch of the first Emitter. Let's turn up the Amount here.
Keep in mind that envelopes only work when MIDI information is received, so let's play a note.
Notice that when I play a note, the pitch goes way up.
If I'd like, I can turn down the Sustain all the way
and increase the Decay time for a more gradual pitch-down effect.
Awesome.
So let's go back to the routing and turn the envelope 1 modulation off for now.
Instead of generating particles that automatically I can also turn on MIDI mode.
So now particles will be created when I play MIDI notes.
By default, the pitch of my MIDI notes affects the pitch of each particle,
I can turn this off so that only the rhythm is affected.
Let's turn it back on for now.
And here I have a simple MIDI clip that I'd like the device to play. So let's hear it.
Let's go back to Emit.
I'll turn the Sustain up to 100% for a more consistent sound.
And I'll change the horizontal position of my Emitter here
and make the Height and Width as small as possible so that the particles generated are generated from the same place.
I'll go to the Grain tab and turn up the Width to make the sound a bit fuller.
And I'll turn up the Gain here so that the output of this particular Emitter is louder than the other one.
Speaking of which, let's turn Emitter 2 on as well.
I'll turn on MIDI here, turn the Sustain and Release up so that it's a bit longer.
And for this one, I'll go down to the Grain tab and put the Pitch down an octave.
Let's move this to the left.
Nice.
Sounds much fuller now.
OK,
If I'm finding that my CPU is struggling bit, I can choose to process the kalimba sample as a mono sample
instead of a stereo one.
And I have the Global Gain parameter here. Alright,
let's hear it with my drums and bass.