Production Technique
Vocal manipulation
Vocal
manipulation
part 2: sampling and control
Following on from last month’s vocal transformation techniques, Liam O’Mullane takes
you through sampling the voice and MIDI control with VariAudio in Cubase.
BIOGRAPHY
■ Liam O’Mullane has
years of experience with
electronic music as a
producer and DJ. He has
also taught music
technology courses at
various educational
establishments.
44 August 2010 MusicTech magazine
C
ertain sampling techniques
were born from the need to
squeeze every last drop of
memory from your huge
metal box of sampling joy.
Like many era-based
limitations, these workarounds created what is now
considered a classic sound and in turn they can be
used in the present day to borrow from an older
musical vibe.
In modern times, though, the tools and
subsequent techniques we have at our disposal are
worlds apart and this month we will look at
embracing these two worlds of sampling. From
playing audio in its natural form to taking even the
smallest snippet of a vocal and creating drums and
instruments, we hope to encourage you to reach for
your microphone in the quest for audio exploration.
Audio examples and samples are included on the
coverdisc, so you can hear exactly what is achievable
and save you the embarrassment of making a few
silly noises if required.
Sampling naturally
Sampling the voice and keeping it in its natural state
can provide an organic sound while adding elements
of fakery and electronica. A true human voice can be
detected in a recording due to the completely un-
repeatable nature of one note and the next. A singer
can never quite perform a note to exactly the same
length, same volume and same tonal change over time.
Although a sampled voice is based on recordings of
this natural instrument, a more static and repeatable
playback is inevitable as you notice the tones remain
the same as they play. This, however, is a familiar
sound, from the early use of the Mellotron tape-based
samplers to the now pitch-perfect vocals created with
pitch correction. Vocal sampling can comprise
www.musictechmag.co.uk
 Production Technique
Vocal manipulation

anything from ooohs to arhhhs and requires

recordings of a vocalist either for every pitch you
intend to use or the use of sound manipulation to
create other notes.
Before we get to the unnatural, we’ll go through the
art of sampling multiple notes then maximising those
samples in the simplest way. It is relatively easy to
create a vocal samples instrument when using basic
words like arhh as it is based on a single word. There
are singing instruments out there that can turn note
information and user-defined words into sung melody
lines, but the level of piece-by-piece sampling that’s
involved is beyond the scope of this tutorial. If it
interests you, Vocaloid (by Yamaha) can do this for a
solo vocalist and Symphonic Choirs (by Quantum
Leap) covers various layers of singing choral parts.
To create your own arhh patch, first set up a virtual
Some samplers let you see the
instrument to create a pure saw or triangle wave; this logical playback. A DAW such as Logic or Live will give
start and end points of a loop
will create a pitch thats easy to hear while singing. you the option to drag the audio directly from the
side by side so you can easily
Then chromatically create MIDI notes from the lowest audio track to the EXS24 or Sampler respectively.
match them to avoid any clicks.
to highest pitch you can sing. The note length is Although this makes life a lot simpler, it is still worth
important too, so if the MIDI note is one bar in length, rendering each sample as a new audio file before
its best to leave a rest of one bar to allow for breathing loading it into the sampler, so the files are only as long
between takes. If you keep the MIDI parts for each note as they need to be, instead of a small portion of a
seperate (two bars at a time), you can click each one much larger file. In Logic this is called Convert to New
and select your DAW’s loop-to-part function to quickly Audio File; in Live its called Consolidate.
focus on each note as you go. Use the metronome as Example 1 on the coverdisc demonstrates a few
well to encourage clean start and end points for your notes from a multi-sample instrument with each vocal
samples, making them more uniform in duration. sample lasting one bar at 120BPM. Example 2
Before recording, select your DAWs multiple-take contains the same files, but the samples have been
mode so each take will be kept for you to later choose looped at their best looping points. This is an old
from or use as an alternate take. The more similar each technique used to create sampled instruments when
note is in its vocal tone, the more continuous they will memory was tight, and also to enable the user to play
sound when played back from a sampler, so the more each note for as long as they wanted. After the
takes you do, the better.
If you simply want an instrument that will play
samples as they are, export them from your DAW one
Sampling the voice can provide an
at a time with the MIDI note information in the title organic sound while adding
elements of fakery and electronica.
(eg ‘Male Vocal Arh C2’). Then drag them into a sampler
so that each file is assigned to relevant MIDI note for

TECHNIQUE Vocal recording

Specific techniques to use when sampling the voice
If you are aiming to record various vocal notes you will need a To encourage a consistent
good level of consistency in your recordings. Make use of the pitch after a singer’s initial
pop shield to dictate the best place for a vocalist to position attack period per note, feed their
their mouth. As well as reducing plosive sounds and creating own voice through their
more consistent levels, it also keeps a regular tonal balance by headphones alongside the
eliminating any random changes in the proximity effect instrument guide note, which
between takes. they should use as reference.
Another workaround for this is to use a throat microphone When singing with just a
as discussed last month. Although primarily designed for live metronome, instrument and their
use, giving a high output with minimal feedback, because they own voice, they can hear the
make direct contact with the throat they provide a more slight cancellation effect of their
constant level of low end. If you want to record vocal effects voice and instrument when they
for making drums or instruments this gives you more control match in pitch, helping them
over the low end and is best used alongside a condenser for concentrate on keeping that
capturing the higher-end, airborne detail of the voice. A normal cancellation for as long as
A dedicated throat microphone
dynamic microphone placed on the throat can provide similar possible. This, more constant pitch makes looping the sustain
like the Thumper is the most
results, but you run the risk of its position changing as well as section a lot easier and more natural sounding in tone. So,
movement noise in the middle of a take, resulting in an record as many takes as you feel will be necessary to ensure practical solution for capturing a
unusable recording. you have plenty of raw audio to work with. consistent low end.

www.musictechmag.co.uk MusicTech magazine August 2010 45

Production Technique
Vocal manipulation
TECHNIQUE Artificial multi-sampling
Preparing material for time preservation
Most of us, using a classic sampler, have to deal with Kontakt – called Time
vari-speed playback, meaning that lowering a sample’s pitch Machine 2 – is used
results in slower playback, while a higher pitch plays faster. to achieve a the same
The simplest way around this is to loop the sample so it lasts effect within a
as long as the user would like and this can work quite well but sampler. The fourth
gives a very different sound to the timestretch-based note on each take is
alternative. Most DAWS have a time-preserving pitch-shift the natural vocal tone
option available for audio parts, or any pitch correction or pitch and you can hear how
shift plug-in can also be used for this purpose. transformed the
To create a range of samples spanning two octaves that extreme pitch change
start and end at C, create 24 copies of the original vocal part, becomes. The
then apply pitch shift to all 24 parts while leaving the original difference between
intact. Then you can either re-render the audio parts if using a them is subjective to
real-time based transpose option, or capture the plug-in effect the source material as
by exporting each part to create new samples. well as how far you
Example 4 has various types of pitch-shift applied using push the pitch.
the same notes. The first pass uses the classic sample looping Take time to try out every pitch plug-in you have and you
treatment, then time preservation processing is applied to a will begin to work out for yourself which may be best for
straight sample via Live with Tone Warp mode enabled, then certain tasks. Also be sure to investigate some of the many
the same task is done in Auto-Tune (using only the Transpose third-party plug-ins, which might take you in a completely new
function with no pitch correction). Finally, the built-in tool for creative direction.
attack portion of the sound has passed, the sample
will loop around the sustained section of the audio –
this should ideally be as unnoticeable as possible,
which takes some trial and error to perfect for each
vocal sample.
As well as a playback start control, a sampler has
various loop options and selecting Forward-Only loop
mode will create the most natural-sounding loop as it
cycles from the loop end position back to the loop
start. The loop’s length needs to be short enough that
it doesn’t have too much tonal change within it, but
long enough that the sample doesn’t suddenly sound
synthetic in tone. This is why a stable pitch after the
attack period makes this task a lot easier to achieve. A
part with vibrato or slight pitch changes will be very
noticeable when looped. As a special effect or rhythmic
trick this is fine, but for a less aggressive loop, the
Keep your guide notes as more stable the sustain portion in pitch and tone, the
seperate MIDI parts to quickly better. Most samplers will show you the loop position
loop around them as you work.
46 August 2010 MusicTech magazine
Time Machine 2 in Kontakt offers
time preservation from within
your sampler, which saves you
having to prepare samples in a
DAW or editing package first.
on the waveform as a highlighted block. This enables
you to look for portions of the audio with similar
volume and waveform density, which will produce a
more natural-sounding loop.
It’s also important to make sure that the loop
creates a continuous waveform without any jumps in
position from the end to the beginning. If the
waveform position is even slightly out, an audible
clicking noise will be heard. It can be avoided,
however, by making very fine adjustments to the loop
start or end points until it stops, or a fade option can
cross-fade the last part of the loop over the beginning
to smooth the sound. Some samplers give you a
double view of the start and end points side by side to
make this task easier.
As in the world of synthesis, ADSR can be a very
effective sound-shaping tool and example 3
demonstrates the effective use of basic ADSR settings.
It contains a sampled vocal melody as it moves from a
tight sound with short release and low sustain to long
release and high sustain, making them overlap.
Words to rhythm
Using longer phrases of sung or spoken parts, you can
use a sampler as a form of scrubbing tool by moving
the start position within the audio file. As you pass
over certain sounds you will start to hear some
drum-like tones. Low sounds lend themselves to bass
drums and hi-hats can be found in areas of sibilence.
By fine-tuning the sample start times you can get
more or less attack as desired and then either use the
sample end control or Amp ADSR to create a deliberate
ending. After mapping different instances of the same
audio across MIDI keys you can create a variety of
short sounds which with a little further tweaking can
be very effective in a rhythm section of a track.
Example 5 is a demonstration of this process to
create a small vocal drum kit. A strong pitch envelope
www.musictechmag.co.uk
 Production Technique
Vocal manipulation

is added with zero attack, short decay and zero sustain

to give them a more drum-like transient attack. To
further tighten your drum sounds you can apply some
basic EQ principles by removing the unwanted high or
low end with a low- or high-pass filter as appropriate.
A lot of snare-type sounds can be transformed to
hi-hats if you remove all but the higher frequencies.
Another approach is to go back to source and try to
record vocal drum hits yourself. Example sounds are
provided on the DVD and comprise a range of
completely clean and unprocessed vocal hits including
kicks, snares, cymbals and miscellaneous noises. These
can work as standalone samples with a soft organic
tone or they can be used as building blocks for
layering with synthetic drum parts or instruments
When using a pitch ADSR for adding attack, increasing
the decay time can turn kick samples into toms by
Example 11 demonstrates an
slowing the pitch descent. When sampling sounds without any discernible
unconventional way to create
Applying timestretch to your samples is a very pitch, or loops that are so short they create a new
source sounds from vocals by
effective tool for drawing out the length of vocal drum perceived pitch, you need to tune the samples to a
recording the preview sounds of
hits and has a smoothing effect on tone as well. You reliable source. This can be a chromatic plug-in tuner
Melodyne when moving side to
will have to pre-process the audio inside your DAW that you would use the same way as a guitarist, or
side in Edit mode using the Pitch
first, then export the new samples to then re-import simply a guide note to match to by ear. You don’t have
and Formant tool.
into your sampler. Example 6 is a demonstration of to work to middle C, just make sure that the reference
various hits followed by a more stretched version each note you use corresponds to its mapped MIDI note.
time. You should be able to get an idea of the effects
that can be achieved by stretching out short, soft hits Pitch perfect
until they become pitched, musical tones. There are, however, some situations in which it can be
very hard to tune a sample due to pitch changes
Words to melody within it. It could be that the sample actually sweeps
The looping skills from natural sampling can now be over various notes or its harmonic content is very hard
used in the arena of audio abuse to create one to discern a pitch from. If this is the case and you have
continuous sound. If there is a constant enough audio a particularly discordant sampled sound, just try to
signal in any source of vocal recordings, you can
create wavetable-sounding effects by moving the loop
point around the audio. A more synth-like shape can When going for big pitch changes, the
then be moulded using Amp ADSR. Filter modulation
through either ADSR or an LFO can transform a harsh,
loss in quality and definition can
loop-generated tone into a rich, filter-swept synth
sound. Audio example 7 demonstrates just how unique
be a creative tool in itself.
a vocal-based instrument can sound and how pick the best tuning possible. It’s important to play
animated they become with just a little bit of pitch with fine-tuning by cents as well because this can help
and filter modulation. a sample fall in line with the clearly defined tuning of
The Vocal Bass samples folder has various semitones. Fine-tuning can also work to detune an
examples of one-note sounds. Example 8 takes one of instrument from the universal tuning of the song its
these bass samples and loops the sustain portion in a in, which creates a sense of slight discomfort and
more deliberate and rhythmic way. This mimics a reduces the sense of electronic sterility. A good
popular technique used for sampling synth samples example of this is the tuning of the bass sample in
and produces a similar, rhythmic effect to using an Cold As Ice by M.O.P. It’s so sharp that it is almost a
unsync’ed LFO to modulate a filter cut-off. It also semitone too high, which helps make the bass part
creates another current preference by having an
increase in speed as you play higher in pitch and down
as you play lower. In a rigidly quantized composition,
this single, out-of-sync timing can produce a funk
effect against a robotically timed backdrop.
An alternative approach is to implement the
time-preservation techniques discussed in the
Artificial Multi-sampling box, as with pitch changes,
the loss in quality and definition can be a creative tool
in itself. If you find this effect creates a new tone you
would like to use, you can re-sample the audio and
perhaps then use that note with classic looping, or use
it as a new source to create time-preserved copies
from to create new surrounding notes which hold the Make use of the visual waveform and loop start and end points for
new samples characteristics. natural-sounding loops, or the opposite for more agressive rhythms.

www.musictechmag.co.uk MusicTech magazine August 2010 47

Production Technique
Vocal manipulation

stand out from the track. But, in general, a strong

difference between synthetic recordings and those
including real instruments is a matter of tuning
accuracy. So slightly detuning your instruments from
each other is always useful for pronounced separation.

Synthetic and organic layers

Whether you’re wanting a richer soundscape with a
natural and organic feeling or just want to create
sounds that are hard to define, layering can be
approached in the same manner as traditional
synthesis. You can therefore add rich waveforms to
fill out the high and mid-frequencies for larger- Some samplers can integrate seamlessly into your DAW, enabling you
sounding pads and choirs or pure sine waves to create to drag and drop files between the two.
that solid, dominating low end required in most
modern production. Example 12 uses a plain square wave lead sound, first
Example 9 is played with and without a double played in solitude then with a variety of short, looped
octave sine wave sub, whereas example 10 uses the vocal sounds, each demonstrating the sheer range of
natural vocal samples used in earlier examples, tones you can achieve by using the voice as an
blended with a detuned, sawtooth-based pad effect. unlimited sample source.

Vocal approach
Next time you tire of your samples or You now have a pretty big audio-manipulation toolkit

synths, plug in and make some silly to utilise the tonal possibilities available with a
computer, microphone and your voice. Next time you

noises for your next killer tone. tire of your samples or synth collection, plug in and
make some silly noises for your next killer tone. MTM

STEP-BY-STEP Vocal MIDI control in Cubase with VariAudio

To create a reliable MIDI part your vocal line
1 needs to be as clear as possible to minimise the
amount of editing needed afterwards. Use a guide
note to make sure you are singing in tune so the computer
has a better chance of correctly guessing what you were
trying for. Then open the Sample editor, press the VariAudio
tab on the left followed by Pitch & Warp.
The VariAudio window contains the analysed
2 vocal notes, their lengths and pitch. Before doing
any pitch correction you might need to check the
note timing as VariAudio can ignore the consonant sounds
at the start of some words, which when translated to MIDI
will result in those notes being out of time. To do this open
the Segment tab just below VariAudio.
Each note is named as a segment and you can
3 drag the note position by clicking on the upper half
of the note after a grey bar has appeared. The
other option is to drag the start and end positions to make
up for sounds that VariAudio ignored. Look at the
greyed-out waveform in the background as this will help
you see where the note should have started.

VariAudio may incorrectly guess note rhythms by
4 adding too many or too little. While still in Segment
mode you can hold down the [Alt] key and click to
glue two sections together. If you move the mouse over the
lower half of a note it will show a grey bar and a scissor
tool, which allows you to split any double notes that are
showing as one. When you think the rhythm and timing is
correct you can then look at pitch.
Any manual pitch correction added before
5 splitting segments is reset, so you must be happy
with the timing and note length before this stage.
Click Pitch & Warp again, then increase Pitch Quantize and
Straighten Pitch to full. By straightening a perfect pitch you
are previewing the closest point before playing the MIDI
export. Choose Extract MIDI from the Functions menu.
There are three ways you can extract MIDI from
6 your audio. The first is for fixed semitone-based
notes, with no smaller degrees of pitch. The
second and third choice output pitch bend data. The second
has a fixed value per note and the third follows the micro
tuning pitch lines you see on each note. Now youÕ re ready
to sing drum patterns, bass lines and lead parts!

48 August 2010 MusicTech magazine www.musictechmag.co.uk