erratic_VSTi_sound_d..
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1. are triggered at Thus if the vel is set to 65 and you hit the drum pad with a 100 velocity note then the repeats are triggered at 65 velocity And this is where can make some really crazy effects Remember all those vel control percentages Well if you trigger a pad at 100 with 6 layers of Samples loads the sample in slot 6 will be triggered first followed by the one in layer 4 on a repeat velocity of 65 and if you ve got other parameters toggled to be affected by velocity then they will change to this lower velocity level on repeat re trigger This is in addition to the fact that as velocity devolves then lower layers of samples will be being triggered This is the true ultimate power of erratic and monkey clown horrible karate round and yummy like cute small baby chick would beat the donkey The prob control when activated allows you to control what percentage of the time the repeat effect occurs and re triggers the drum pad Finally comes the feedback knob which much like in a delay effect determines how many times the sample is re triggered at the previously selected rate in the second repeat control Ok back to the second row of controls in this section vol env LP cutoff LP env 169 ms 16 30 J ee n anl A f i ovt vel EB 0v These controls are a bit complex and are better dealt with now that you know about the repeat effect The vol env is the volume envelope You ca2. loaded sample is This is useful for when you edit the volume envelope and lowpass filter envelope controls Beneath the sample name is a little arrow facing rightward This is the trigger for the drum strip This plays at maximum velocity so it ll play whatever Sample layer is the highest currently selected in velocity mode so if you ve got 4 selected on the layers control you re going to hear the sample loaded in layer 4 when you hit the trigger To audition the samples have loaded turn on the cyc mode temporarily to make sure I m hearing all the samples to make sure I ve got them in the right order Next on the drum pad are the last four controls Cut and by are choke groups which in sampler parlance means that if you select one drum pad to cut group a there s 4 groups possible a b c amp d which you can select by dragging up and down on the dash to the right of the cut or by label and another layer to be cut by a then every time the first drum pad plays it ll choke the second layer causing it to fall silent This is typically done to make a closed hi hat Sample choke an open hi hat sample say typically because you can use this functionality for all sorts of interesting effects especially when you ve loaded a bunch of long samples instead of short drum hits Finally on the far right of the drum pad are the s and r controls which represent solo and mute respectively The solo button makes it so that
3. ones you ve added simply hit the reload button Whether this is necessary depends on what host software you re using The all button is very important Each drum pad strip of controls has a mute and a solo button If you solo a drum pad to for instance hear it while you re editing it s controls you ll need to hit all to hear all the drum pads again If you seem to mysteriously hear only one drum layer just hit that all button To the left of those controls are these buttons more G quality a high If your PC is bogging down from too many processes running at once and having huge samples loaded try using these to tone it down erratic can load stereo wav files and plays stereo files by default If you hit the mono button which turns it blue then the files play in mono thus halving the power needed to play them The quality drop down box can also help free up computer power though I use it aesthetically the lower you set the quality the more the drums sound bitcrushed This setting does appear to get saved in a preset so you can use it as an extra special effect OK let s load some samples already Every drum pad has this strip of controls syers oad kyr gun 1 ojo The number on the left is the number of the drum pad There are 15 pads Each pad can load 6 layers We ll get to that shortly When you click on the number it allows you to edit the all those controls on the right side of the GUI for that pad Th
4. at s really important If you start twiddling the knobs on the right make sure you ve got the drum pad number selected that you intend to edit The next control is labeled midi and denotes what midi note will trigger this particular drum pad It can be dragged up and down like a slider If you don t know what midi note number is represented by a particular key just hit the key you want to assign this drum pad to and conveniently it ll show up in the lower left of the GUI now playing midi mote 46 Next comes the layer selection buttons They are labeled 1 through 6 When selected the button turns blue The appropriate layer must be selected for you to load the sample you want in that layer I ll return to that in a second But make sure to have the right layer selected when you go to load a sample Luckily the name of the sample loaded appears to the right of these controls in a blue font when you select a layer If there s no word there s no sample in that slot Underneath the layer selection buttons are three labeled vel cyc and rnd which stand for velocity cycle and random respectively When the velocity button is highlighted hitting a drum pad will play the sample loaded into the layers in order of how hard you re hitting the key or drum pad or sequencer or whatever from left to right That is 6 represents hardest hit 1 represents lowest velocity So load your samples into the layers with tha
5. d occur in even percussion instruments adding yet another naturalistic detail to your drum track When cranked up especially when using very short or very long samples it creates a wonderful FSU effect many examples of which are in my presets With sharp staccato samples and the repeat effect wild pitch variations sound great and enliven your track It does not work well with say a reverbed out snare hit With a weird non percussive sound effect it also sounds wonderful especially in conjunction with more dissimilar samples loaded into the velocity layers when the repeat and pitch effects are set to be velocity sensitive discussed the volume and filter envelopes briefly earlier but here I ll add that in addition to their traditional use in samples in attenuting long playing samples which if carefully tweaked can make cymbal sounds decay quite naturally according to how hard they re struck that these envelopes work on repeated drum hits so if you re got the repeat effect turned on and the feedback set high but with velocity sensitivity a low velocity hit will repeat less and be filtered out quickly whereas a longer feedback of repeated retriggers will play longer and be more subtly attenuated by the filter These effects can of course be used to simply trim down a long sample to just the attack portion that you like which I ve done many times on kicks in my presets I ve included an example mp3 erratic 3am fried kit sound
6. design example for download from my website that demonstrates some of the more out there conjunction of using randomization velocity modulation repeat effect pan filter and pitch control simply played each pad one ata time from my keyboard for a while at different velocities and let erratic work it s magic
7. ds with layers of somewhat Similar odd sound effects and set all sorts of parameters to random and velocity sensitive so that odd and unpredictable noises come flying out I ll get into that more later but rnd layer selection can be used for that too What requires the most forethought is probably the hit probability ability As this is a negative probability in other words it takes away notes it s not like you might expect where erratic would output random drum hits One kit made probly illusive was made with the idea that you could send it a bunch of notes and it d thin out what would otherwise be overwhelming chaos Good fora sequencer bad for playing on a keyboard This effect is best used by sending it midi rhythms from your DAW in order to add humanization and works well in conjunction with the repeat effect in combination you can make the hit probability leave space for the possibility of repeats which then combine in to an unpredictable but organic whole Because of the complexity of possible interactions amongst the effects now l II get into the velocity sensitive ones before continuing e velocity sensitive pitch e velocity sensitive volume decay envelope with adjustable contours e low pass filter with velocity sensitive cut off e velocity sensitive cut off decay envelope with adjustable contours Addressing velocity sensitive pitch is easy When used sparingly it can mimic the natural variations in pitch that woul
8. edback If it is not obvious what you can do with these powers that is what this tutorial is for To get you up and running building your own randomization enabled drum kit presets as quickly as possible This is not intended to be a user manual has not been vetted by the author of the plug in my evil ally de la Mancha and any errors are the responsibility of myself only I ll try to do away with technical jargon for this tutorial and write it down to the level of a beginner whenever possible part 1 erratic quick start guide Let s start with something simple On the upper right of the GUI graphical user interface pronounced gooey unfortunately means the image of the plug in is the gain control slider gain 100 ie This controls the overall volume output of the plug in whereas each drum pad has it s own individual volume control This way you can compensate for having loud of soft samples in the drum kit you re creating For instance when made the runa 3am fried kit the samples was using for kick drums were much softer than the other samples so just turned all the other ones down and cranked the gain control Here s a pair of very important controls that seem innocuous at first on the middle of the top of the GUI Because erratic loads your samples into your computer s RAM sometimes it needs to be flushed out to hear the samples you just loaded If you re hearing the previously loaded samples instead of the
9. ercentages to determine whether the pads are played thus making a quite natural sounding drum playing style Hard to explain in words I m sure dIM or will provide examples at some point For instance see dIM s two snares dif prob preset The idea being that you can just toss a bunch of notes at the 2 snares and a more natural and unpredictable series of snare playing comes out magically Lastly in this row of controls is the volume knob This controls the volume for the selected drum pad and all the samples in it s layers Use the gain control at the top to control the plug in s overall volume level The last row of controls are my favorite When the button next to the repeat label is toggled the samples repeat somewhat like a delay effect but actually re triggering the samples velocity pan pitch N amp 47 a onc ind GR vel i mn g vol env a cutoff LP env velfEke swing hit probability l volume repeat feedback repeat GED beats vel E Q prob p 7 ire vel GP Beneath that is another repeat label with a draggable window The possible repeat delays in beats are 1 16th 1 12th 1 8th 1 6th 1 4th 1 3rd 1 2nd 2 3rd 3 4th 1 4 3 3 2 2 3 and 4 beats love it when devs add such nice rhythm choices Next down is a vel parameter which allows you to select at what percentage of the original triggered velocity of the drum pad that the repeats
10. ereo field but changes it when a new layer is triggered if the repeat effect is active makes for some wonderfully chaotic bouncing around Far right top row a pitch so you can tune your samples Applies to all the layers in that drum pad mind you Then a vel control beneath that When toggled you can slide the percentage control up or down into negative detuning and the sample gets tuned from where you re set the big knob plus or minus whatever degree of velocity modulation you ve selected At 33 velocity selected the harder you hit the drum the more it gets detuned When you take into consideration the velocity of repeated notes more on this later this can introduce a really wicked pitch modulation effect l Il skip the filter and envelopes section for a bit then come back to them Next row down the swing control knob This controls the degree of syncopation or how randomly late a drum will be triggered when a drum pad is hit or a note plays from a DAW s piano roll or whatever as well as in the repeated re triggers of the samples To the right of that the hit probability knob When toggled this determines what percentage of the time the sample will actually play when it s midi note is triggered Why is this cool Well you can just throw any old midi loop at erratic and then allow these hit probability percentages do the dirty work of random drum playing You can make a really dense midi score and just use small p
11. erratic sound design tutorial G erratic plaea E vt Gomi ons ayers load snare dub 1 5 Gi O ms ayers oad hi hat closed 4 yr je O ms i ayers leadni hat pedal 1 dz EN Jera lra log 0 ms pH eee avers E ara ee ieee vel E mT o a Ooms MEISE F m blood bz ket cn foe IG ons Imi F m EG SIES 1 4 5 228 JD e O ms Ss ayers oad darrel x 4 a5 vel EE E i O ms et aa ayers illip 1 cath ay toss y orm O me ayers Lilac Snare ac pas Sle 1 IDI e O ms mt di JO0AEE ayers EEE lilac squish EER vel Lec Ltrd i nii a O mE ECE lemma m EEEI m a 51 eo eA D oms WAAAH layers turducken warp 54 vel Laind IL I O ms now playing midi note 46 Fl AMEE ELIE EI ELIE ELIE ELI EI EIEI amp 10 0 o o imal 100 E Imal velg vol env i cutoff LP env swing hit probability Sam o ep volume repeat feedback repeat gbeal vel Ea In the second part of this guide l Il discuss the various techniques you can use to take advantage of erratic s unique functionality Make randomization work for you erratic does not play randomized notes It doesn t even output notes unless you input some Yet even just the swing randomization is worth the price of entry Bear with me and read on To quote the manual erratic 2 has a midi out function which means it transmits all the internally processed midi signals to the output so you can use it to trigger and
12. external sampler or synth This includes the swing hit probability and hit repeat functions Please consult your host manual to set up routing the midi signals to another plugin Whichever external VST you control it needs be set to only take midi channel 1 as the input In other words even when used as a midi send erratic gives you the ability to vary the drum playing s swing on a per pad basis You can send it a beat obviously this must be set to receive midi channel 1 and the output the midi with hit probability and swing randomized to whatever channel other than 1 Then just set whatever other plug in you intend to play to receive that midi channel and you ve just introduced a powerful humanizing effect to your played rhythm The possibilities are much greater when you consider internally loaded Samples Let s look at the list of randomizable parameters e velocity layers randomized play selection e hit probability e swing e hit repeat probability with adjustable delay time repeat velocity and velocity sensitive feedback e velocity randomization e pan randomization Now utilizing the power of these effects will take some forethought This is one of the reasons always say to compose away from the box When you re Staring at the screen you get caught up in the technicalities of that moment and forget to take a step back and think through how to use your tools to best achieve the music in your imagination This is especial
13. ly true when you re creating your drum kits and selecting samples and remember you can t quickly audition Samples in erratic so it s best to make your kits not when you re actually scoring music but during some other spare time you have It s easy to imagine how swing and velocity randomization is instantly add a human feel to your drum parts Pan randomization is great for making sounds fly around but not a particularly realistic effect for use with a traditional trap kit Velocity layer randomization however can work wonders with intelligent selection of samples erratic automatically creates changes in volume appropriately according to the velocity of a struck note even when the layers are set to be played on rnd or cyc round robin fashion so using the random layer selection effect with subtly different samples of the same drum hit is another way to add humanization to drums But take this concept further using a snare as an example Since you have 6 layer slots to fill you could load one really good ringy thwack of a snare hit another that s got some struck rim a lighter hit toward the edge of the snare one with a nice little drag and a quick roll This wouldn t make much sense in cascading order when set to vel or cyc but would instantly enliven a drum part when set to rnd layer selection Of course being a great love of strange sounds I ve included presets that use this effect in a more strange way loaded pa
14. n click on the graph picture to change what shape of envelope you re using Scroll up and you ll see I ve changed the envelopes for this picture Each envelope window has two little white boxes The top on can be dragged up and down This controls the maximum value at which the envelope is triggered whether it be volume level or lowpass filter cutoff frequency The other little white box can be dragged left to right This controls how long the envelope is in milliseconds as you can see in the white text readout above the envelope image Each of these controls can be toggled on and off with the little circular selector to the upper right of the main control Both envelops also have a vel control with a little circular selector to toggle it on and off This makes it so the midi note velocity which triggers your drum pad also modulates the length of the envelope Harder hits translate to longer envelops Higher percentages mean that the velocity has more sway over the length of the envelope Remember that when repeating the change in velocity also affects these parameters The LP cutoff knob controls the lowpass filter of erratic The inner blue circle around the knob shows at what frequency in megahertz the filter cuts off and since forgot to mention this but it applies to all such displays the outer gray circle represents the actually active level of the control once the modulation random or velocity is taken into account part 2
15. only the soloed drum pad is heard muting all others The mute button conversely silences the drum pad Simple But remember the all button at the top hit it when you want to hear the entire kit again Oh yeah now we re getting to the fun stuff Every time you select a drum pad it changes the available controls on the right side of the GUI to allow you to edit the extra controls for just that pad Before you start changing all your edited controls look to the left and make sure you ve got the right drum pad selected It s the number that s lit up Plus you can see the name of the sample loaded in the selected layer so you can navigate the large amount of samples more easily velocity pan pitch I EN 0 0 47 os mind GR vel Q mm gm vol env a cutoff LP env swing hit probability l volume repeat feedback repeat GREP beats oN vel Fo prob Ep 22 vel ti o Top left velocity knob Velocity does not mean volume in the midi world but how hard the key is being struck or whatever s analogous Underneath the knob is a rnd control You can make the velocity per hit up to 100 random Next to the right pan Controls where the sound comes from in the stereo field Underneath another rnd control don t quite understand how erratic knows when a new layer is triggered but this control not only determines randomly where the sound originates in the st
16. sound design tutorial for de la mancha s erratic z e a c EE gad kic k 1 JL O ms fers BEHE snare dub 1 nii ie O ms l Bs EEC ee closed 1 i nim a O ms TE gad hi hat pedal 1 JLE O me i5 A Bme i gees Sere clave l im O ms i layers boad TETI hi hat open 1 46 TE valent _ O ms E mii E aeea avers oad blood bucket 4 ad TAKEM u e Ooms gu alelelalel ea on O rns T E r es ms po eami S foad inip 1 hrama Eo Oms ayers kwr gun 1 4o vel em EAEI 3 nii e O ms EA ene ayers Lilac Snare 50 BA oms Imi di ayers EEE EEEn SER vel nig ie O me pale ae es ayers oad lost hammer 4 SAN vel eve Wind LL 0 ms pey ene ay rs ead turduc ken warp 54 BEM Love Log ILL O ms now playing midi note 46 os o eo ind Ql ind amp D ar vol env S cutoff LP aa q EN YE pie mie mE mE mE mE mE mE mE mE mE m r swing hit probability j volume repeat feedback repeat gbeal vel Ea First things first erratic is a drum sampler instrument plug in in VST format with randomization powers Unlike the first version of erratic there is no step sequencer There are 15 drum pads each of which can load up to 6 layers of samples It has the ability to randomize velocity pan position hit probability and repeat on a per pad basis as well as velocity modulation for pitch volume envelope lowpass filter cutoff lowpass envelope swing chance of repeat and repeat fe
17. t in mind These layers will come into play once again utilizing some cool tricks with the velocity and randomization effects The cyc or cycle when selected causes the samples loaded into the active layers to play in order cycling around in a well circle This can be used for cool effects such as using non percussive sounds making sure all the sounds get played regardless of the velocity they re played at Also uneven numbers of Samples make for a nice contrary rhythmic effect You could for instance use 6 small variations on a percussion sample and play them in cyc mode and it d introduce a natural sounding variation to your player The rnd or random mode is much the same except it plays the number of selected layers at random in no particular order Also very good for natural variation or for strange chaotic effects Depends on what you ve got loaded in there To the right of the layer selection buttons is a box labeled layers with a number beneath it The number can be dragged up and down like a slider It represents the number of layers that the drum pad will play counting from the lowest e g if 3 layers are selected then the samples in layer slots 1 2 and 3 will play and the rest will remain silent If you load a bunch of samples into each layer and forget to drag the layers control number upwards the pad will just keep playing the first sample loaded only Next is the load control Click this to load the sample
18. you d like in the selected layer It opens a window that lets you navigate around in Window s browser to find the samples you want to load Very important the presets remember where you loaded the samples from so if you move the samples later or change the folder s name the plug in won t know about it Thus it s a good idea to copy whatever sample folder you re going to use into the VST folder where you ve put erratic so they ll always be where you expect them erratic does not have the ability to audition samples from this browser You ve got to listen to them some other way or do like do load some samples in select cycle mode and hit the trigger arrow to hear what you ve got Just below the load control are two buttons labeled n and r which stand for normalized and reverse The reverse button when toggled makes all the Samples play in reverse A good control to latch to a hardware midi button when playing live The normalization control normalizes all the samples in that drum pad strip Basically that means that they get turned up to their highest peak s maximum volume without clipping In velocity mode erratic applies a volume attenuation to the layers such that 1 is quietest and 6 is loudest so turning off the normalization could make them quieter still so says the user manual The rightmost controls on each drum strip are the name of the loaded Sample for the selected layer and a little readout that tells you how long the
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