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Focus on Filters This column aims to maim several birds with a single stone. We're going to scope out some of the ways you can use filters to spice up — or at least mess up your mixes. And that will give us an excuse to survey some hip new filter plug-ins, plus a few cool old ones. You can try all the following tricks with any Pro Tools session, or work with this PC | Mac, which includes short drum, bass, and guitar loops. I cooked it up with my friend Brain of Primus/Guns N' Roses fame. (Thanks, Brain!) Here's what the basic track sounds like: In the broadest audio sense, filters are devices that remove or reduce a particular frequency range within a sound. Basic EQ is a simple sort of filtering, and many EQ plug-ins can perform the four basic filtering options: high-pass (cuts the lows and lets the highs, uh, pass), low-pass (the opposite), band-pass (only lets a slice of sound through, cutting everything above and below, and notch (removes just a slice in the middle). The Envelope, Please Arturia's Minimoog V ($199) is a lovingly rendered replica of the Minimoog, the first affordable synthesizer. You can download a demo at www.arturia.com. (The demo limitations: no saving of presets and an intermittent white-noise burst.)
Record-enable the MIDI track. Click on the plug-in's insert slot to open the sharp-lookin' Minimoog V interface. Whack some notes on your MIDI controller. Yum. Here's an example of one filter-intensive preset that I thought sounded cool over the basic groove:
After you've checked out some sounds, try fiddling with their filter settings. Most of the filter action takes place across these six knobs: The "cutoff frequency" knob is a good tweak- of- first- resort on most synths. It determines how much of the high end is lopped off by the filter. How noticeable the effect is depends on the adjacent "filter emphasis" knob, which sets the amount of resonance/feedback at the cutoff frequency — how much "slice" the filter adds. Low-resonance settings make the cutoff knob behave like a conventional tone control. Raising the level adds a bit of edge to the filter. Cranking it invites ear-shredding squeals. Pick your poison.
These include some extras not available on the original Minimoog, such as built-in chorus and delay effects, a digital modulation routing matrix, and the ability to sync all delay, modulation, and arpeggiation effects to your session tempo. Try it out: First, tell the Pro Tools' clock to talk to the Minimoog by selecting "MIDI Beat Clock" in the pull-down "MIDI" menu. Check the Minimoog option in the dialog box that appears: Next, make sure "MIDI Sync" in enabled for Minimoog's LFO, delay, and/or arpeggiation sections. Now, when you call up an arpeggiation preset, you'll hear the effect deployed in tempo. Same with the delay and LFO effects on many other presets. Fry Your Files
Now click on the right-hand numerals to call up the factory presets. You'll hear some cool stuff, guaranteed. Next, try dragging one of the little rectangles around the black screen. This ingenious interface allows you to simultaneously set the filter frequency (via the left/right axis) and its bandwidth (via up/down). Some of the results should sound fairly natural on the guitar track, because this is really just a torqued-out version of the sound guitarists get when they plug into a wah pedal.
It gets cooler still when you automate the rectangle by clicking the "auto" button and adding "left center frequency" and "left bandwidth" to the plug-in automation list. (Because we previously clicked on the "link" option, this will apply the automation to both the left and right channels.) Change the guitar channel's "auto" setting from "read" to "touch" or "write," and then resume manipulating the rectangle while the track plays. Your tweaks will be recorded. Here's an example: Scratch Pad
Among my fave QuadFrohmage presets are the simulated vinyl-scratching sounds. In the following example I duplicated the beat track, inserted QuadFrohmage on the duplicate channel, and called up a scratch preset.
Here's an example of one of its filter-intensive synth sounds against our session groove: Cheap Chic
Furthermore, you can independently sync and subdivide the filter effects to tempo. Trasher never sounds good, but it often sounds amazing. A demo download is available at www.refx.net. Here's what our basic beat sounds like through Trasher II's "Random Trash" preset: New Godzilla on the BlockFor now, the final word in software filters probably goes to a new Antares plug-in with the understated name of Filter ($199; download the free ten-day demo at www.antarestech.com).
antaresbeat01.mp3 Last and perhaps least: In the spirit of tasteless overkill, here's our session track filtered to kingdom come. There's a watery, drone-like Antares Filter setting on the bass, an animated GRM Bandpass wah on the guitar, and a Trasher II setting that makes the drums sound like a wooly mammoth hucking up a hairball. Still here? Then let me mention that starting next month, Digidesign is reassigning me. (Okay — which one of you complained?) My new column will concern the peaceful coexistence of guitars and Pro Tools. New topic, same old sarcasm. See you then!
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