Echoes written by sublyme (mkrnic@jagor.srce.hr) __________________________________________ dear readers - i'm sorry. i just CAN'T use capital letters, as i did in my first article - i always write this way (except on english exams ;) and proper writing is something that pisses me off. so, you'll just have to live with my no-capitals-english :) echoes are a thing that can really spice up your lif^H^H^H SONG! ;) and they're the easiest way for adding a professional touch to your new musical creation. you know what a delay is - the time before a given event occurs after the original (reference) event. in terms of a song, a delay is a time before a sample is played again. we use delays for creating echoes. and you know what an echo is - when you stand in a canyon and yell something like "hardcore rulez!", after a while you'll get repetitions of your original voice, and hardcore will really rule ;) look at this: | | left side | | right side of canyon | * | of canyon |you | | | | | | | when you yell, the sound will traverse all over the place. since you're standing more to the left of the canyon, your voice will first encounter the left side of the canyon and bounce back in a somewhat lower amplitude (the rocks on the left side of the canyon will absorb a bit of the sound). then the reflected sound will proceed to the right side of the canyon and bounce from there. but, while the left reflection was traveling to the right, the reflection from the right reached you, and it too proceeds to the left side ... the whole process of sound bouncing keeps on going until all the sound is diminished. you may wonder why you aren't standing in the middle of the canyon - that's because of the spacial effect, if you stood in the middle, the reflected sounds would reach you at the same time, and there would be no stereo effect. boy, i'm so completely and utterly NOT good at explanations ... ;) in the end, you'll hear something like this: (you) | left | center | right --+--------+--------+------- 1 | | AAAA!! | 2 | aaaa! | | 3 | | | aaa! 4 | aa! | | 5 | | EEEE!! | a! 6 | a/eeee!| | 7 | | | eee! 8 | ee! | | 9 | | | e! 10| e | | this gives a "spacial" feeling to the sound and is really a cool effect which is especially great on leads, some acid sequences, sinewave hits (like in astral projection's songs), etc ... making this work in a tracker is really easy - you use one channel for the melody/sequence you want to echo, and several more for the delayed stuff. if you can afford the channels, use at least a two-three tap delay/echo with 4-6 more channels (main, left1, right1, left2, right2, left3, right3), though often two channels (left1, right1) are enough, especially if you have a lot of other things going on in your song - in that case, you won't hear the rest of the delay anyway :) here's a tracking example (the numbers by the notes are the volumes, in hexadecimal - 40h is 64, 20h is 32, etc): MAIN LEAD | LEFT1 | RIGHT1 | LEFT2 | RIGHT2 | BASSKICK --------+--------+--------+--------+--------+---------- 1 C-5 40 | ... | ... | ... | ... | C-5 2 D-5 40 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... 3 ... | C-5 28 | ... | ... | ... | C-5 4 G-5 40 | D-5 28 | ... | ... | ... | ... 5 A-5 40 | ... | C-5 20 | ... | ... | C-5 6 ... | G-5 28 | D-5 20 | ... | ... | ... 7 E-5 40 | A-5 28 | ... | C-5 18 | ... | C-5 8 F-5 40 | ... | G-5 20 | D-5 18 | ... | ... 9 ... | E-5 28 | A-5 20 | ... | C-5 10 | C-5 a ... | F-5 28 | ... | G-5 18 | D-5 10 | ... b ... | ... | E-5 20 | A-5 18 | ... | C-5 c D-5 40 | ... | F-5 20 | ... | G-5 10 | ... d ... | ... | ... | E-5 18 | A-5 10 | C-5 e B-5 40 | D-5 28 | ... | F-5 18 | ... | ... f ... | ... | ... | ... | E-5 10 | C-5 10 ... | B-5 28 | D-5 20 | ... | F-5 10 | ... ok, you might have realized that you shouldn't use this exact example because it sucks, but it should give you the general idea on how to use echoes :) for greater convenience, you should multiply the original instrument and have one for each "reflection" / channel. set the volume and panning of the instruments accordingly - this will save you a lot of hassle and will allow you to use the effect columns in the tracker for different stuff (like note portas, etc.) experiment with various delay times - in techno songs, often the best results are achieved by starting a new delay at the next basskick (usually 4/8 rows), but you can get pretty interesting stuff with 3/6/12 row delays too (phunky ones ;) ... also, try making the 2nd delay different from the 1st - e.g. if the left1 starts 8 rows later, right1 16 rows later, try making left2 start 12 or 20 rows later (right2 should then be 20 or 28 rows late). you might also try a pre-delay - where the 2nd delay starts a couple of rows before the 1st one ... also, experiment with different volumes. for example, make the left1 "reflection" have a volume of 20, right1 30, left2 10, right2 20 ... if your tracker supports filtering, you might try making each "reflection" have a more damped (cut off) sound... it's not necessary to have delays 100% identical to the original melody - add some extra notes and variations. be creative!!! a few more things i just remembered: - lead sounds should almost always have delays/echoes - don't forget to span the delay into the next pattern !!!!!!! it's amazing how many people forget that and just start the delay all over again in the next pattern ... - don't put delays on bass sounds, it will sound like crap - percussion delays can also be fun - feel free to experiment, you have nothing to lose :) ___ ___ / / / / ___ ___ _ / /_ / /__ __ _______ ______ /' __) / / )/ / / / . . ) __ ) :subliminaltransmissionflying (__ / / / ' / / / / / / / /___/ :throughwhiteholesandsubspace (___.(__.__(__(__.(__(__ .(__(__(__(______/ :causingfloatingfluffdisorder mkrnic@jagor.srce.hr (__./ [604love/ABK/MS]