Emax II operation manual
197
Uh-oh. You’re doing a mix and you start hearing things...like clicks, and pops, and out-
of-tune parts, and even a fluffed note on the piano section in the second verse. And the
singer didn’t quite make that high D
In the pre-sampling days, these problems would have meant either redoing a track, or
getting intimately involved with a razor blade and splicing tape. But no more. Although
most people look upon samplers as sampling
keyboards
, this is only one way to look at
that these wonder boxes. In the studio, for example, you might be better off thinking of
a sampler as a bunch of little digital audio recorders, controlled by switches that—just
by coincidence—come in a piano keyboard’s configuration. With our consciousness
thus properly shifted, we’re ready to “fix it in the mix” and get into some serious cut-and-
paste work. Most of these applications involve recording a part from tape into the
sampler, manipulating it within the sampler, then recording the part back on tape in
place of the flawed original. Thanks to16-bit sampling systems, the loss in fidelity that
occurs during the transfer is minimal—and is certainly preferred to whatever glitch you
wanted to eliminate.
STOP THAT PLOSIVE!
One of the quickest ways to spoil a great vocal take is with a popped “P” or “B” sound.
Punching one word can be a Big Deal, since it’s going to be difficult for the singer to get
the same feel and match the level. Besides, what happens if sloppy engineering on the
original session let through that exploding “P” sound, yet you have to solve the problem
during the mix when the singer isn’t around to re-do the part?
Simple. Sample the offending word, complete with pop, into the sampler. Next, use the
truncation function to cut off the pop at the beginning of the sample. Well, maybe not the
entire pop; usually you want to leave in just enough to retain a bit of the P sound. When
the plosive has been properly tamed, send the truncated sample back into the recorder
and punch it in over the original word.
What? You say it’s a short word and who can do that quick a punch? Then transpose the
sample down an octave, slow the recorder down to half speed, and do the transfer. Or
if the word is embedded in the middle of a phrase, sample the entire phrase and copy it
to a second sample. Then, truncate the end of the first sample just before the pop, truncate
the beginning of the copy just after the pop, and splice the two samples back together
again and record it over the original phrase. Usually any pops are short enough that the
few milliseconds lost in the splicing process won’t significantly affect the overall timing.
THE TRANSPLANT
Thanks to the repetitive nature of most pop tunes, melody lines and parts often repeat
in more than one place. Recently, I was mixing an album project where, in the second
verse, there was an audible electrical click on one of the notes in a part. The musician who
played the part was on tour, so she wasn’t available to replay the line.
I checked back in the song and sure enough, there was an almost identical line in the first
verse. We sampled it, and recorded it over the line with the glitch. The process worked
so well it’s impossible to tell which is the “transplant” and which is the original.
Fixitinthemix
FIX IT IN THE MIX
WITH A SAMPLING KEYBOARD
by Craig Anderton
Summary of Contents for EMAX II
Page 1: ...EMAX II OPERATIONS MANUAL Copyright E mu Systems Inc ...
Page 3: ...Emax II operation manual ...
Page 11: ...Emax II operation manual ...
Page 21: ...Emax II operation manual 10 ...
Page 29: ...Emax II operation manual 18 ...
Page 31: ...Emax II operation manual 20 ...
Page 51: ...Emax II operation manual 40 ...
Page 53: ...Emax II operation manual 42 ...
Page 59: ...Emax II operation manual 48 ...
Page 63: ...Emax II operation manual 52 ...
Page 65: ...Emax II operation manual 54 ...
Page 81: ...Emax II operation manual 70 ...
Page 83: ...Emax II operation manual 72 ...
Page 89: ...Emax II operation manual 78 ...
Page 91: ...Emax II operation manual 80 ...
Page 115: ...Emax II operation manual 104 ...
Page 117: ...Emax II operation manual 106 ...
Page 125: ...Emax II operation manual 114 ...
Page 157: ...Emax II operation manual 146 ...
Page 159: ...Emax II operation manual 148 ...
Page 177: ...Emax II operation manual 166 ...
Page 191: ...Emax II operation manual 180 ...
Page 193: ...Emax II operation manual 182 ...
Page 239: ...Emax II operation manual 228 ...
Page 255: ...Emax II operation manual 244 ...