These three audio examples accompany the text in the main SOS June 2023 Cubase Workshop article to illustrate the ideas discussed.
www.soundonsound.com/techniques/cubases-midi-plug-ins-revisited
Cubase 12 Melody Creative MIDI Plug-ins - Audio Example 01
This audio example follows a similar idea to that described in the main text. It uses a synth-based pluck type sound and a combination of the Step Designer, MIDI Modifiers and Density MIDI plug-ins. It is split into three sections as follows:
- (a) an instance of Step Designer was used, and a melodic phrase was ‘painted’ into the 16-step grid by dragging the mouse across the grid. No real attention was paid to the actual pitches of the notes at this stage, just the general arc of the notes within the phrase (and, as a result, it’s not actually very melodic!);
- b) the same Step Designer pattern is then passed through an instance of MIDI Modifiers where both note pitch and note velocity have some randomisation applied (for demonstration purposes, I’ve used somewhat more extreme settings here simply to make the effect more obvious) and all notes are pitch-corrected to fall in the C minor scale (thankfully, it’s now a bit more melodic);
- (c) the same pattern is then also passed through an instance of Density (again, to exaggerate the effect, set to 60%) so that a proportion of the notes are randomly removed from the performance, but I’ve also automated the Density bypass button every other bar so alternate bars have all notes and then fewer notes.
Cubase 12 Melody Creative MIDI Plug-ins - Audio Example 02
This audio example follows exactly the same process as Example 01 but uses a programmed bass line within a MIDI clip rather than a Step Designer pattern. The bass line simply follows the root note of an eight-bar chord sequence with the chord changing every two bars. It is split into three sections as follows:
- (a) the basic sequence is heard without any processing by MIDI plug-ins;
- (b) the same part is then passed through an instance of MIDI Modifiers where both note pitch and note velocity have some randomisation applied but, as perhaps suits a bass performance, with much more modest levels of randomisation and, again, all notes are pitch-corrected to fall in the C minor scale;
- (c) the same part is then also passed through an instance of Density (again, to exaggerate the effect, set to 60%) so that a proportion of the notes are randomly removed from the performance, but I’ve also automated the Density bypass button so the first bar of each chord has all the notes but fewer notes then play in the second bar.
Cubase 12 Melody Creative MIDI Plug-ins Audio - Example 03
This final example but both of the first two examples into a simple musical context. Drums and a pad (playing the chord sequence) have been added to the pluck melody and synth bass parts. The example is split into two sections:
- (a) the eight-bar pattern is played through once with MIDI Modifiers applying scale correction but no randomisation to the notes;
- (b) the same eight-bar pattern is played through twice and, in the first pass, the Density plugin is used in alternate bars so both the lead and bass parts switch between ‘all notes’ and ‘fewer notes’, while in the second pass, Density is engaged for all bars.
