Hello, and welcome to another episode of Inside the recording studio. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. [BLANK_AUDIO] Because I have you on camera and I see what you did there. I am Jody Whitesides. And with me as always is Mr. Chris Hellstrom who is currently smiling. Why are you smiling? All right then. [LAUGH] How you doing Jody? [BLANK_AUDIO] I'm doing all right. I am drinking some tea.
I'm getting ready to talk about something that listeners will hopefully absorb and say, Yeah, I'm doing good. yes, this is what's been missing from my ability to mix. What about you? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And I'm ready to talk here. I'm having my coffee. It's starting to kick in. So, gonna enjoy doing a little chatting about some mixing here. So today we are talking about how to add movement to a mix. Uh huh.
- Sure. And we have talked about this off camera, you and I, but frequently when I get asked to give mixed critique to people that send me their stuff. And quite often it's people that unlike yourself that are just starting out and doing stuff, right? Well, the first thing I ask is like, What's the most common phrase that you set them up with before you do that? how honest do you want me to be, right? (laughs) But the problem that I see a lot and hear a lot Mm-hmm.
is what I like to call lazy mixing, where things get introduced into the song, into the track, and then they just stay there. There's very little going on as far as like movement. There's no life to the mix. It's just a static thing. And everything could sound pleasing, right? It's not that there's necessarily anything wrong with the instrumentation or whatever, but it's just lifeless. It's kind of like spaghetti thrown at the wall that stuck and didn't go anywhere.
Sure, yeah, that's not the analogy I would have gone with, Sure. but yeah, it brings a lifeless mix and we're hopefully gonna give some tips here, some relatively basic tips actually, but it's helpful to think about how some of these things can just really bring life into a mix and hopefully translate to a better song. Would you agree with all of that, that that happens to you as well, I'm sure?
Yeah. To an extent, yes, but generally the first thing I open up with when I get asked to do it is, do you want me to tell you the truth Yes. or tell you that you're the greatest thing No, that's true. since sliced bread? 'Cause that way I can save myself a whole lot of time. Sure. Yep. And I would say that if you're not ready to hear the truth about your mix or whatever it is, then don't ask. Yep. There's opinions as well.
Right? If you want just somebody to pump your tires, then it's like, okay, just I'll tell you that. Yeah, it's awesome. But you ultimately end up lying to yourself, right? There's taste and stuff involved, you know, but exactly that and then you have to take into account like, well, does this person more informed than others. have a point to, is there something that I should be working on here? Or is it something that I could
ignore. But anyway, let's dive right in. The first thing I kind of hinted at here, that everything is static. Level automation. Super easy to do today. It's not like we have to do the Well, but they're doing movement when they're doing that and they have all those hands moving Adam Moseley rush mix when there's 10 of them sitting by the table or sitting by the board. things and going on. So there's a whole lot of movement when it actually goes.
Exactly. Exactly. And that's my point. Today, we're sitting with a DAW. So there's no excuse to not have these, you know, movements happening in your mix. Exactly. What is something that Automation things happening, right? I'm going to preface this by saying it has a lot to do with the performance of the instrument you tend to do with first, when you think about level automation, is that something that you do on just about every track? Or how do you treat that?
Are you saying it's content dependent? or track in question when I... No, not necessarily content dependent. Sure. It's not exactly content dependent. it is more performance dependent because some performers are very good at being dynamic Gotcha. in the right place in time. Others, not so much. So when they're a good dynamic performer, you. [ Pause ]
you don't have to touch the fader nearly as much unless something gets a tad too extreme, which generally speaking doesn't happen a whole lot if they know what they're doing. But let's say they don't know what they're doing. They're either gonna keep that performance at a static level, or they might overdo it by getting too quiet in one spot and too darn loud in another. And of course, if those two things of confluence happen Yeah, I would agree with that.
in some way, shape or form, you have to start moving faders to affect that situation to either even it out or actually add the movement back in. Right. That's one aspect of it. But let's say on the flip side of that, that you have an instrument that by its very nature Did I lose a tooth in the process? is not super dynamic. Let's say that you have like a distorted guitar, right? Did I lose his tooth in the process?
not a whole lot of dynamics going on there. Then I'm talking about level automation in the sense that okay well say this wall of guitars comes in and kicks you in the face right, it downbeat a bar one right. Yes quite yes if it's heavy enough you will but then you know you might bring him down Okay. All right. Yes. even if it's just a couple of dB in the verses for example like to make that breathe a little bit and And it doesn't have to be drastic movements,
Yeah, I agree. I would do that. Yes. Mm hmm. Yeah. All right. I'm going to do a quick question. but a little bit can go a long way here. So I'm talking about those kinds of level automations as well. Yeah, you mentioned performance wise. I did say from, say probably the most dynamic instrument is the voice, right?
How people play along with that mic and if they do, and if you need to project more, if they have the technique like you're alluding to that they back off a little bit when they do that. Or if they're just screaming into the mic and then they're blowing the whole thing, right? (no audio) You might have to ride those as well. Yes, to an extent. So having the vocal sit properly, it's probably heavy use of vocal automation there before you get to any kind of processing, I would say.
He says, ( In terms of the vocal, I'm gonna slightly disagree with that. I will tend to find the loudest portion of the track and set the compression and things mostly to that. And then for the softer portions, I will ride that into the compression a little bit so that you get that slightly more even nature overload) Yeah, of the dynamic of the performance. Does that make sense?
'Cause if you set it and you're doing all that prior Yeah, no, I think I get what you're trying to say, and I agree with it. to going into everything, then you don't quite get the same dynamic out of it, I guess would be a best way of saying it in what I'm trying to cut across here. ( audio cuts out) No, no, no. I would also caution against using a compressor as a mixing tool to completely not have to do any kind of automation rights. And I know that's not what you're saying.
And that's not what I'm trying to say. No, I know. And at the same time, I actually still ride automation post compression anyway, but I Right. don't overly compress unless that's the nature of what's needed for that particular vocal Yeah, no, but I'm saying there's a lot of muddy waters here that we can kind of get part or any other instrument part for that matter. Generally you don't want to over compress that. That's my point.
into because it is very tempting if we have a dynamic vocal and you say that, well, you set it to the loudest point of compression so you can attain those peaks and even out the performance just a bit, right? If you have such dynamic performance that at some Yep. You might, yes. parts it's not even registering on the compressor. Well you might get an unexpected result, let's that way. So to start...
And if it's that particularly drastic, I'm going to actually probably chop that particular vocal track out, Now this is turning into a little bit of a vocal mixing kind of a thing here but duplicate it, put the quiet thing that's not even registering and re deal with it on its own track in that regard. Yes, but let's not go there. yeah let's say that everything is performed well anyway with the vocals No. and everything but there's still some automation perhaps going on. Maybe there No.
more instruments coming in on the chorus. So you might have to bump the vocal a couple of dB to make it have the presence that you want, as opposed to just saying, "Oh, the vocal sounds awesome by itself. It's going to stay at -18, whatever, on my fader through the whole track." But is that really doing it for the song? So that's what I'm talking about, adding a little bit movement to the mix. But the vocal might not be as obvious because you want that to be prominent
Generally speaking, yes. Uh-oh. [laughs] Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. throughout but generally speaking absolutely. Another tip that I think I actually learned from you initially and now this is a good one but it is in the transition of sections let's say that you're going from the verse to the chorus if you have like a big impact to actually do a little bit of a volume Yes. automation on the master fader going into a different section. And I'm talking just Yes.
very very little maybe like a dB or something and then having a slow come back down or even just slight volume automation through sections as it is right so the chorus could be a little Yes. bit louder. That's another kind of cool little trick that you can do to add some extra impact. Yes, I do that a lot. Do you do that with just about every mix, you think? Just about every mix, I do that. Yeah. Yeah. Each part gets a slightly different volume level, just to get that additional interest.
You bring the verse down, you bring the pre-chorus up a little bit, you bring the chorus up a little bit more. There's a little bit more to the automation than that because I'm doing another, like as you say, a bump right on the downbeat of each section to really make that section pop when it hits that part. Yeah, this is obviously dependent on the arrangement as If it needs it, some songs you don't do that, but I would say 95, 97% I'm doing that.
Yeah, I've done it in just a, well, because you probably wouldn't do that if it's just like an acoustic guitar and a vocal, right? But if you have more instrument, really, you've done that in that case too. Okay, I'd love to pay a little extra attention next time you very, very sparse mix as I do it. It's not as drastic, but I still do it. Yeah. (laughing) on me a mix for on the but then again if you've done that's right absolutely
Yeah. I mean, if I, if you're not hearing it and I'm not saying anything, then I'm doing my job right. Yeehaw. That's an unknown instrument. right other things of you know we're introducing tracks into a mix here just with a level automation let's say that you have a didgeridoo going through the whole song I just just play along all right but insert your favorite (laughs) Yes! esoteric instrument, whatever it happens to be, or whatever element in the mix, does it
really need to stay at the same level all the time? Or do you, well if it's a did you No, I'm just kidding. Uh-huh. do obviously, but no, but the idea of making those decisions where bring it down a little bit in sections, maybe take it out and it gets into a little bit of arrangement issue I'm going to add just something a little bit that you can steal away from the pop mixing here, but just using track automation for all of those things and consider it what is
going on and have life to a mix. Level automation, step one when it kind of comes to that, right? - Right. (laughs) world, especially for somebody that's in the nature of Katy Perry or a Lady Gaga or Pink. And I'm seeming to be on a female kick right here. a lot of their songs have multiple hooks going on all the time. And when you have stuff like that going on, Yeah.
Yeah. it makes it easier to add that movement because all you have to do is pick which hook do I want getting the prominence at this particular point in the song. And when you don't have constant hooks like that, you still have to think, well, what instrument should be more prominent at this point? Yeah. And you can change that out. And that's part of that whole level automation thing that goes on. It's like, do I want the piano to creep up a little bit here?
Would I rather have a guitar or the bass or even the drums or the vocal or in a background vocal or something in a particular section of the song to suddenly get a little bit more importance. And doing that adds that additional movement that you're talking about just from level automation. Does this add a lot of time to your mix? Yeah, but it's worth it in the end. Yes, it does. Yeah, well, the other thing too I mean, unless you're on a super crunched deadline, right?
We have to turn a track in, but it does add a lot to it. And it's, it's always so frustrating when you've done a mix and you listen back to it perhaps years later, even, right? And you go, Oh, I wish I would have done this or I would have done that. I should have done those. Well, do all those things while you're doing it. know. So yeah, just be aware of it, right? We all have those is you might not be thinking about it.
So you need to grab the ruler 20 years later and slap yourself on the back of the hand and be like, bad mixer, bad mixer, do it better next time. Sure. things. Nothing is ever finished. What do you say a mix is never Yep. All right. So, I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. finished, just abandoned, right? But those little things that the I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll.
I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. little extra things it's, it adds a lot, it adds a lot. Last I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. thing on the volume automation is just a mix I did just this I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll.
I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. week where a lot of times we think about the drum kit as a whole as just that's the foundation I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll. I'm going to go ahead and do a quick poll.
of the track right and it tends to stay there it goes up at a certain level and then it stays it doesn't really do anything well one thing that I did on this particular track was when there's drum fills in between sections perhaps just ride those a little bit if they need to right and it can just make that pop out a little bit more so don't be afraid of if it's just like a foundational Yep. Yep. Yeah, do it.
instrument if it's a bass line that's going on as that foundation. But when the bass player goes up in a place that lick an octave higher, right, maybe write that a little bit, make that stand out to give the bass player some props, damn it, you know. Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. And just to kind of go back to the vocal thing really quick before we boot on. As an example, a mix that I just finished late last week. - Sure. singer, quite dynamic in the song, Mm-hmm. [BLANK_AUDIO]
had a couple of spots where the verse comes down pretty far before it rides into the pre-chorus into the chorus. I had to do rather extreme volume rides. Sure. Now, if you were to listen to that vocal soloed, it would sound a little bit out of sorts. But when you put it into the track [BLANK_AUDIO] with the rest of everything else, it actually keeps the clarity of what she's singing and saying in check.
Yeah. And I did not use compression, so to speak, to try and solve that by over-compressing the normal area of the song and trying to make the very tail end of these really quiet parts fit into the compression. And that's why I said sometimes you have to take it onto another track and alternate the compression. But what I did, as I mentioned earlier, I'm riding that area into the compression with an actual volume automation on the track.
That makes a huge difference. I remember I'm reminded as you're telling your story here reading about Mot Lang when they were sitting doing a mix and I want to say it was for some Shania Twain stuff where they would sit with each member had like a 32 band EQ and they would sit there and ride in real time just in different syllables for the vocals to make them stand out so now that now that's a level of Wow. (laughs)
perfectionism that is a little bit beyond most of us. But you No, he certainly kicked it in the ass. can't argue with the sound of those records, you know. So yeah. Well, I was kind of half joking before we started And with that, we're gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. And we're back. And at this point, we're gonna talk about panning. How do you use that to make some movement happen, Chris?
( Mark laughs) Now, that's, I answered saying that I don't think that I've done that, or at least I know recording here with I thought something that you would have done like 25 years ago where you just swap the guitars left and right but no, but Yeah, no that I have not done that in at least the last decade or more. That's not to say that I may not have done it in the first few mixes that I ever tried.
Right the reality here when I'm thinking about panning is let's say you have a mix where you have Sure. two guitars you know we usually put those left and right just add a little width now that's an obvious thing we think okay but they're there but then the thing is that they don't necessarily need to stay there in their same spot they can and it can you can it depends on the part here a bit one thing that Why not? You put them right in the rut. Leave them.
Sure. can happen is that let's say that you want to add a little bit more excitement to the chorus let's say you might not have them hard left and hard right during Sure. Mm hmm.
the verses for example and then just add an extra you know just bring them out that extra 10% or whatever for the choruses and that will open up that would be one thing when we're talking about guitars other thing could be for example an underlying melodic thing that's going on during a little bit of a melody hook or whatever something I try every once in a while is to have that Thank you. slightly go from left to right not to the extremes just having it move a
little bit. It's not the lead part, but it's something underneath, but that adds a little bit of movement. Those are little things that are not super obvious at first listen. But if you're listening in a certain environment, you got your counts on whatever, you can hear that movement and it adds a little bit of interest to the mix. Same thing if you have, let's say something super generic like, Oh, you got a pick (mumbles)
slide going on, going down, right? Maybe pound something Or make it sound like it's going straight like that left to right, add some movement to it. So yeah, from one side of your head to the other. I have done that. ( those might sound like generic examples, but I'm still floored ( audio cuts out) ( audio cuts out) that a lot of times I hear people not employing any of ( audio cuts out) these. Right there, I think things can become sort of ( audio cuts out)
generic and cliche for a reason, right? It's because they ( audio cuts out) usually work, you know. Yeah, just because you can doesn't mean you should, right? ( audio cuts out) ( audio cuts out) ( audio cuts out) ( audio cuts out) ( audio cuts out) And also a little panning things and then of course when it comes to anything ( audio cuts out) ( it's easy to think, okay well we got a little bit of tinker on piano on this audio cuts out) ( audio cuts out)
song, right? I'm just gonna stick that right down the middle. Now leave that for ( audio cuts out) ( the bass and snare and kick and vocals right right up the middle pan it off a audio cuts out) ( audio cuts out) little bit to the side or do something yeah adding some movement there and even ( audio cuts out) if they're not drastic moves think about where you're placing things (
Yes, and I can think of one mixing engineer who's actually done very very well for himself who abides by a very simple rule It's either center hard left or hard right. He does nothing in between And it works for him. I think that would bore the shit out of me, but he's Yeah CLA yeah yeah well the next thing that we can do is like little splashes Definitely doing very well moving on from panning though. What's our next little thing that we want to discuss?
Hmm of effects right and I'm thinking delay throws or anything where you have a Sure. delay line coming in on the end of a vocal line for example and that could bounce all over the place if you want to just little splashes that just kind of go, "Ooh, what was that?" Yeah. There you go. Yeah. I like to use the phrase like You know, and what you just described, I just did this morning before we were recording this podcast on a mix.
Yes. "production candy" when it comes to that where it's just those little bits that can hopefully elevate your mix a little bit more than it is. Reverb. And one other ones that we have here in the notes is one that I did judiciously actually in a song called Hero Unexpected, where it comes out of the first chorus and has a giant Mm-hmm. [silence] empty drum filly section before it hits the next verse. [silence]
and you hear this, (imitates drumming) with the drums and doing on that where it hits the back on the very tail end of this fill before it kicks right back into the one, hit a nice big reverb right there. (imitates drumming) And it's like, it's not drastic, but it's enough to make that kind of stand out.
And on top of that with level automation, bringing that up since it's the only thing up in the mix at that point in time so that it holds the volumic value, Right, loudness, juiciness, sonic juiciness, sorry, butchered you were saying. so to speak. Sonic juiciness. Yes. Now we've got volumik, what was the VV? Volumik something. I just said it. I'm gonna have to go back and listen next time and remember that one. That was a good one.
What else do we have besides splashes of effects that we can automate into these things? Sure. We can EQ things slightly differently as well. But you think that's slightly overused, don't you? Again, it's a bit of a cliche now. I think it's a testament to that it works, like the phone voice, right? How you can have little phrases pop out by doing things like that. Do they work? I do. I do think that's very overused. Okay. It's overused because it worked for a long time, right? still effective.
Yeah, the idea is still interesting though, I think, (silence) - Mm-hmm. 'cause it doesn't have to be the phone voice it could be anything but just EQing things a little bit differently. Let's say I'll go back to a guitar thing, right? Let's say that there's a riff that goes in before it kicks into the chorus or (laughs) whatever. Perhaps do some like extreme EQing on that. Maybe suck out all the low end, suck out all
the high end, remove it all together. No, but adding something to that so it's like it doesn't sound Sure. normal can add just some life to this. So it's those little sparks that you can kind of do again with Well, it's a big thing in the EDM world. automation of EQ using
filters and just having those automate through so that they creep up or they come back down. That's something, you know Yeah, I was just gonna say that really make that breathe and pump and just like what the hell is going on here They do that a lot. Mm hmm. something's about to blow up, right? so way of describing that. It's about to blow up. In a world before mixes. Yes.
Yeah, exactly. So, automation, I think the over arcing thing here is just automation, make use of it. It's in your DAW, it's really simple to use these days and a little bit can go a long way here, I think. Speaking of cliches, another thing, you know, we're talking about going into different sections. What's the biggest cliche ever when you go from one section to the next? Absolutely, yeah, how many times we heard that? - First symbols, baby. I got real good with those.
I did it, I've got it in a demo of a song Yeah, shh! Right? Oh, for shame. I'm about to go in and produce in the next month or so. Oh yes, but I haven't used it in probably a year or two. There you go. So it's like, it feels new again. No, no, no, I tend to mess with a lot of things But then again, you can treat that different, it doesn't have to be just the naked symbol that's reversed. Right?
Yeah, and you know what? I shouldn't pretend to be on my high horse here because I just did the same thing to be honest. when I do that. (laughs) Yeah, it was a mix coming out and it was a section that ended with two crash hits. All right. Reverse them. And then there was a big drop and what I did as the crashes were ringing out, I reversed them as they're coming back in so I had this sort of swooping thing going back in.
Nice. So in other words, you're in a glass house and you just threw your own rock. Oh hell yeah, yeah, absolutely. I am no better than anybody else. All right then. Anything else of this that you'd like to kind of bring in? No, I think the biggest thing is going back to the beginning where you're saying Sure. lazy mixing. And I know both you and I have been guilty of it early on in the career kind of thing. Cause you're thinking, Oh man, this is sounding so cool.
'cause I'm working on this by myself. And as an example, I just gave feedback to a friend of mine. And of course I've given the standard, do you want me to tell it? I It's the greatest thing since sliced bread, or do you want me to be truthful? And what makes it hard is he wanted me to be truthful, but at the same point, he already released it. can't At that point, is it really beneficial? But I listened to it and I gave him feedback.
And several of the things that we've discussed were all things that came up. One of them was the things were static. Another thing was is that the drums, and he programmed the drums, had no life to him Yeah. Hmm. because it was like same, same all the way through. And it didn't think about in terms of the performance aspect Yeah. Hmm. and it was overly quantized. So it was like, everything's on a grid, but it didn't work for the nature of the song.
The vocal was the biggest thing that I gave him the most grief about because he put so much chorusing effect on the vocal all the way through that it was hard to hear the words. And it was one of those things where it's like, dude, back it off. Yeah. The effect is cool, but the problem is, is that it's too loud and it's all the way through. It needs to come in and out to give a splash of the effect now and then. That was my opinion. And so he took it all.
He didn't get angry about any of it, which was great. But essentially the idea here is, is that he did a lot of the things that we're now talking about in this particular episode. Unfortunately, he didn't hear it prior to this. to do these things in moderation and to not overdo it Yeah. Yeah, absolutely agree. unless the effect sells the point that you're trying to get across. And it's usually not 100% of the time is the effect ever going to sell the entire thing.
You have to use things in moderation. That is my gut feeling on that. No, that's why I mentioned if your performance is great, you don't have to do as much. Because I mean, we're talking about this and it makes it sound possibly like you have to automate everything through the whole song, right? Yeah, but it's also a little bit goes a long way, right? It could be just a matter of a couple of dB here and there, right? Just so that something is happening.
But have it work for the song to kind of get the emotion across as well, right? I know what else really drives this home. And what's that? Having something like the UF8 or the Presonus Studio 16, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. is that the thing? It's called the automated DAW boards, where you can just ride faders with your hands so that you're not trying to draw all this shit in. Yeah. Things like that, the SSL UF8 would be great,
Yeah, so that's a workflow thing. But if you have that, I think you bring up a good point. and all those things. Yeah. Well, it makes it a lot easier, that's for sure. even if it's like the fader port where you just have one fader, like the PreSonus thing, right? It's easier to do that, put the track into right mode or latch or whatever, and then ride that fader right where it is and boom, you're done, right? The benefit of, yeah, as opposed to opening it up and drawing it in.
We can still do that. >> Yep. And I still, it's obviously there's no excuse for not doing that if we don't have a controller. To round off this, I guess, It's easy to get when we're sitting >> Yep. and we're doing this by ourselves and we're not letting anybody else hear the mix before like your friend there actually released the track. Yep. Which I have to say, well, at that point, Sure. why are you asking feedback for the mix?
But we can get so in our own heads that when we're sitting and we're listening to it again and again and again, that we can lose perspective of what is actually happening. And like all of us, it can be really hard to be objective about our own mixes, right? Taking a step back or letting somebody else hear it Oh yeah. 'cause they might go like, "Hey, Chris, that guitar comes in right there, it doesn't work or it's too loud or I can't really hear it."
Perspective, perspective and add some movement to the mix with some automation, man, and bring some life back into it, yep. So let's get some different perspective on something else now called the variety finds. Well, you know me Jody, and if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you're What have you got this week, Chris? I do. probably aware I'm a huge Heaviosity fan. You don't say. Oh, I do say I love Heaviosity. I love their stuff. Ooh. And they have a new freebie.
They have a new series called Foundations. Mm-hmm. I mentioned them in the past, but we got a new sample instrument from Heaviosity. Oh boy. For a nylon guitar, you don't say. It's called nylon guitar. In true Heaviosity fashion, it is more than just a well sampled acoustic guitar. So you can use it to create pads and all this kind of stuff. There's an awesome shocking lack of distortion in it. But well, from being Heaviosity, but it is a really, really cool thing. [BLANK_AUDIO]
And even if you don't think, oh, I don't need a nylon string guitar, I'm not doing this and that, but it is so much more than that. Free is good. It's awesome to create pads and all sorts of just like rhythmic beds and things in your track. And it's free. So yeah, nylon guitar from Heavy Ostity and part of their foundation series is my Friday [BLANK_AUDIO] find. Fun. And what about you? [BLANK_AUDIO] What have you got for us? I'm going with something that I believe is called Tat Tat.
That sounds like a Star Wars character. I think that's what it's called. It's T.A.T.A.T. It does, doesn't it? It's very, very close. There you go. It's like the at things that they had, but with a T in front of it. It's it's a MIDI plug in by a company called K Devices. And the idea behind this thing is sort of like writing a script That looks like Star Wars. in logic if you have the scripture where you can randomize MIDI notes and this thing does exactly [ Pause ]
that. You can randomize a stream of MIDI to do pretty much whatever you want and the idea is that you can tweak it with settings and you can create a mood with this thing and it's got dials and sliders so that you can change up the rhythms that it's going to create with these notes that it spits out and what it does is essentially randomized [ Pause ] just notes with velocity patterns and lengths and and all that kind of thing.
So you can create some really funky, crazy, maybe somewhat atonal shit with this, but it has moments of brilliance where you can then go back and say at this point where it did this, select that, keep that and move on. And then you can also use whatever you wanna keep as something that can be a foundation for where it jumps off next. And it keeps that vibe going with that piece that you select. Sounds like that would be a really cool thing if you're doing a lot of sound design or something.
So if you're really into randomizing and doing crazy odd stuff with MIDI, tat tat or tat tat, I don't know how to pronounce it, from K Devices is your go-to. Could be. Just to come up with esoteric stuff. - Sure, but it can also do chords. Cool? So I mean, it's not like it's just straight linear lines. Nice. It can do chords as well. Yes, while we've got your attention, we ask that you go to inside the recording studio.com [ Pause ] and sign up for our mailing list.
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put it into consideration for a future episode. And with that, I'll say, see you next week. ( I'll talk to you later, Jody.