Microbeats?

Onid · Joined: May 08, 2005 Posts: 4 Location: arboga

Anyone know how to make those so called microbeats? Like in björks song Cocoon. How do you program all those sounds and how do you make those tiny sounds? Thanks

Kassen · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:11 pm Post subject:

Have you ever tried "sequencing" by cutting, pasting and so on in a wave editor? It´s a interesting experience and can yield results not so easy to obtain in normal sequencers.

Onid · Joined: May 08, 2005 Posts: 4 Location: arboga

seraph · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:37 pm Post subject:

Hi Onid
welcome to electro-music.com Very Happy

Are you from Sweden Question

home of the famous missile museum Question

elektro80 · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:38 pm Post subject:

The audio editor in Cubase might work OK. later on you might want to use some other editor for making an arsenal of weird sounds.

A possible method, one I actually used many years ago.. but not in order to make "microbeats/microsound" music ( whatever that is.. is to assemble tracks of werid sounds.. schreeches, machine noises.. whatever.. and then trigger these.. by gating..
I triggered these from an analog synth drum kit thingie, but you can just as well use sidechaining on a multichannel percussion synth/module. You can even experiment with existing midi files. When you find out what sounds intersting you can figure out new ways to use to go about this.
There are two issues here. One is of course the sounds themselves. The other is making these behave in the manner you want. I think there are some G1/G2 patcehs here somehwere that illustrate possible methods. A particular useful one is making pingpong ball accellerating rythmic gestures and ratcheting. There are posts here somewhere that discuss these methods. Who knows, you will possibly discover your own methods too. Very Happy

And please post some of the results here. We wanna hear this!

elektro80 · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:39 pm Post subject:

Onid? Hmm.. Odin? Very Happy

seraph · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:42 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:45 pm Post subject:

isn´t that a car? Shocked

seraph · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject:

ian-s · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:49 pm Post subject:

Fred Flintstone's pet?

seraph · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 2:54 pm Post subject: Re: Microbeats?

seraph · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 3:00 pm Post subject:

seraph · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 3:04 pm Post subject:

opg · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 3:11 pm Post subject:

If you're NOT talking about classic video game percussion sounds, then I would recommend constructing the beats in a tracker. I use ModTracker, because it's kind of glitchy when starting and ending drum samples that are playing very quickly. Maybe throw in a VST bit crusher, too.

Go to Hollow Sun and download all the oldest drum machine packs you can get. Their website was down for some of last week, though....

Wait....just listened to the song you mentioned. That would be easy to do in Fruity Loops (that's what I use- say what you will). You've got delay on different types of taps: some could be recorded sounds like very short chops of vinyl crackle, some just very simple sine pops that you could easily make in Stomper, taps on microphones, go nuts. Sounds like each sound sample is trimmed as short as it can get, with some of them being pitched-up versions of the same sample.

Kassen · Posted: Sun May 08, 2005 3:34 pm Post subject:

Onid · Joined: May 08, 2005 Posts: 4 Location: arboga

Thank you all for the tips!

Onid · Joined: May 08, 2005 Posts: 4 Location: arboga

seraph · Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 5:03 am Post subject:

Kassen · Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 5:38 am Post subject:

sloppycoder · Joined: Apr 23, 2005 Posts: 9 Location: Bath, UK

just a few other things to try...

Try creating a synth with one oscillator set to noise running through an envelope with a very very fast attack/decay stage and no sustain or "hold" whatsoever (for reference this is not like an ADSR envelope but a DADSHR type that you get in fruity) Then trigger this tiny gate very quickly to make some little glitches.

Depending on what sequencer your running try having another version of the song your working on with the tempo (yes main tempo Razz

) set to 2/4/8/16 times faster than the song itself. This can yeild some surprising results and is very cool and easy to work with if your using a step editor kinda sequencer.

In general to make your "micro" bits stand out dont use reverb or delay on them and let them have lots of headroom. If they click unacceptably just make some very slight tweaks to all the relevant attack/decay sections.

Good luck!

Slop

blue hell · Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 11:33 am Post subject:

Please forgive me, but what are micro beats ?

From this thread I get the impression that it's made up from lots of light accents, sort of musical pointilism.

Jan.

sloppycoder · Joined: Apr 23, 2005 Posts: 9 Location: Bath, UK

hmmm well i must admit i havent heard the song in question, but i assume microbeats are like IDM beats with less aggression? basically very fast retriggers and unconventional use of beat sounds.

Slop

opg · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 6:21 am Post subject:

I listened to it, and I heard sine wave taps with delay. There could have been a few other tap sounds, recorded from live sources. But I heard delay. I definitely heard delay.

Now I hear an echo.....echo......echo.......echo......

Kassen · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 7:55 am Post subject:

opg · Posted: Wed May 11, 2005 10:17 am Post subject:

I couldn't have put it better myself.

The word "Micromusic" was probably invented by the owner(s) of the www.micromusic.net website, and relates exclusively to low-bitrate music.

"Microsound" is best descibed in the above reply Smile

It's about minimalism, not lo-fi. I think I've listened to Oval, and I remember one or two artists on either Milles Plateaux and Audiobulb that focused on this.