Logic Pro X - Video Tutorial 42 - Randomizer MIDI FX Plug-in Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

you
hello this is music tech help guy
welcome to episode 42 of my Logic Pro 10
video tutorial series in this episode
we're going to be taking a look at the
randomizer plug-in which is one of the
many new MIDI effects plugins included
with logic 10 what the randomizer does
is it allows us to randomize different
types of MIDI events so this includes
things like velocity includes things
like aftertouch and polyphonic
aftertouch pitch Bend as well as our 128
different MIDI continuous controllers so
in this video I'm going to show you how
to randomize velocity with the
synthesizer as well as how to randomize
the modulation wheel so before I turn
this plug-in on it's as you can see here
it's disabled I just want to give you an
idea of what I'm working with and also
the synth that I'm using because I
realize not everyone is at the same
level as far as your synth your
abilities to you know program and
understand synthesizers so I'll play you
what I have here then I'll also explain
what synth patch I'm using for this so
this is just what this musical example
sounds like
in this synth also has a kind of like a
filter sweep effect on it that's
controlled by the modulation wheel so if
I move the modulation wheel up and down
while this is playing I'll get something
like this
so as I move the modulation wheel up I'm
getting more sort of the bright tones as
I move it down getting more of the
darker tones so just so you know I'm
using the ES 2 instrument for this I
actually just used a preset it's a
preset called hammer lead and just to
show you what I did I'll recall the
default setting here basically what I
did is I just chose the hammer lead
preset which is under synth leads and
then hammer lead and what I did was I
basically turned off all of these
modulation routers that have effects on
them and you can do that just by holding
option and clicking on the target
parameter basically turns all those off
and I wanted sort of a filter sweep sort
of effect with the with the modulation
wheel so what I did was I went to my
first router here and I changed the
target to cutoff one which is the cutoff
frequency of filter one which is right
here and then I also on the via
parameter I change that to modulation
wheel because I want the modulation
wheel to control that motion and for the
source because I want the modulation
wheel to directly control the cutoff
rather than using something like an LFO
or an envelope I changed the source to
max these this kind of orange and green
slider here controls the depth of the
modulation so I'm going to do is click
on this little 0 here to set it to the
center and then create sort of like a
bit of a range for it's basically just a
high end little range for it and then
what I'm going to do is go up to the
cutoff knob here I'm just going to pull
it up to just under half way this
particular synth patch uses not one but
both both filters there's two filters in
the es 2 the last thing I want to do for
my hammer lead preset here is I want to
make the velocity sensitivity beef all
the way up and that basically means that
volume is going to be fully controlled
by
ASSA tea since the two examples i want
to give you for this video are
randomizing modulation wheel and then
also randomizing velocity so that's how
I came about this you know came up with
this you know this particular setting so
now I press play I should be able to
move my modulation wheel up and down and
it should create that filter swept sound
that we heard before
Wow there you go okay so first let's
look at the Oh first let's turn on the
randomizer plug-in and open it up let's
take a look at and amaizing velocity
when you randomized velocity you're been
and pretty much any MIDI MIDI data byte
value you're working with a range from 0
to 127 the minimum and maximum value so
there's there's multiple sliders here
that all can kind of constrict or expand
the range of the randomization that you
have an input range to input range
sliders which basically control the
minimum and maximum value of values that
will be randomized for velocity I want
the entire 0 to 127 range to be to be
randomized I want every note to be
random - you know to be capable of being
randomized so I'm going to keep this at
0 to 127 what you can set down here is
the actual randomization range so if you
pull this all the way up it means that
the the notes that are actually going to
play can be anywhere between 0 and 127
regardless of what the original
velocities were so if I pull this down I
can narrow that range and I can say well
I want all of the notes to be you know
between about you know 40 and you know
80 and you can set that you can set that
range here the other thing you can do is
you can set the weight the weight is
basically how often are higher or lower
value is going to be triggered so if I
want to hear more higher values I can
pull this up and I thought I hear more
lower values I can pull this down for
velocity I'm going to keep that at
center and I'm also going to pull the
randomisation all the way up now the
output offset is how much how much is
added to the output value so if you
randomized you know let's say my input
velocity was 60 the randomized value was
80 you can take that randomized value of
80
you can add up to 127 to it or subtract
up to 127 to it so you can again kind of
boost the high or low range of your
randomize notes or if you just
completely pull it all the way up or all
the way down then you can just fix those
values to one to one value so just
keeping this basically on the stock
setting let's see what this sounds like
most of the velocities in my original
recording are about the same it looks
like they're they're mostly I'm going to
say probably about the the 8090 range so
let's take a listen to what these sound
like
we just pull the modulation wheel up a
bit so we get a little more open filter
in there
so you can hear that some of the notes
are very loud some are very quiet
they're kind of jumping around anywhere
between zero and one 27 if I want to
kind of constrict that range well I can
pull down the random amount like I
talked about earlier and I can get a
more constricted range you know within
55 values you know again between 0 and
127
and another thing you can do this plugin
is not really even a randomizer at all
you can kind of fix all of your
velocities to the same value so if I
just say output offset 127 it basically
means every single note is going to be
maximum velocity
so you can kind of fix all of your notes
to the same velocity with this plugin as
well so let's move on to something maybe
a little more interesting for this next
example let's choose instead of velocity
let's choose the modulation wheel the
modulation wheel as I should have said
before is controlling this sort of kind
of filter sweep effect and actually let
me turn off the randomizer because it's
already affecting it so the modulation
wheel is kind of a cool you know a kind
of cool thing here to kind of create a
little more dynamics and some tonal
changes you know in the middle of a lead
or a baseline or something like that but
what if I wanted to randomize the value
of that modulation wheel well that's
where the randomizer plug-in comes into
play so let me just go back to the the
default setting just for a moment turn
this on again I'll change this to
modulation wheel and you would think
that at this point all of the notes
would have a random modulation wheel
value between 0 and 127 let's see if
that's true it's not true and this
actually goes for for pretty much
everything other than velocity and note
number on here everything on here
there's something there's something
tricky you have to do to make this work
correctly for all of the MIDI CCS pitch
Bend tuning aftertouch and of a lot
other than velocity and as well as note
number that you have to do to kind of
make this work properly because my MIDI
region doesn't actually contain any
modulation wheel messages there's
nothing to randomize so we have to do is
either play in modulation wheel just
haphazardly and just play in some values
while this is playing or what we have to
do the second thing we can do is we need
to actually create some modulation wheel
message
is within our MIDI region so that's
actually what I'm going to do and
actually just just so you can see it the
other way if I just press play and then
just kind of haphazardly move the
modulation wheel and I'm going to move
it slowly what you'll hear is that the
the values are completely random and
just going all over the place so the
modulation will that filter sweep that's
tied to the modulation wheel is kind of
just jumping all over the place and I
was actually barely moving the
modulation when I was just barely moving
it up and down around the center
position so what we can do instead to
kind of randomize the modulation wheel
is we can add a consistent basically
modulation wheel value across this
region and I actually didn't think I'd
ever show this editor in the main series
of this tutorial series but there is a
use for it here the editor that we can
use to add just a consistent modulation
wheel value across this entire MIDI
region is the step editor now the step
editor can be found under window step
editor it used to be called the hyper
editor in Logic 9 and it's basically a
way to edit MIDI continuous controllers
and other MIDI events like pan and
volume it's kind of like the old school
way of writing MIDI automation like we
showed you in the when we talked about
the MIDI draw function in the piano roll
editor it's kind of like the old school
way of writing MIDI automation but there
is a use for it here basically what I'm
going to do is on the modulation wheel
lane here I'm going to make sure that
the grid value is set to an eighth note
I think by default it's set to a
sixteenth note the only reason I'm using
an eighth note is I want one modulation
wheel message per eighth note because in
the example the musical example it's an
eighth note pattern so I'll every note
to kind of have a different randomize
modulation wheel value so what I'm going
to do is I'm going to use the pencil
tool to kind of draw in just
you know just a straight line across the
modulation wheel laying here and I just
make sure that's completely filled in
now all the values aren't the same well
this is where the line tool comes into
play what we can do is we can use the
line tool to set all of these values to
the same value now I'm basically just
eyeing it here but they're about the
same value so when I go back out to the
arrange window here you'll see that
there's a new MIDI modulation wheel
message for every eighth note in the
region and again I didn't get it perfect
you can see there that goes up a bit but
for the most part we're about looks
about 70 you know between 0 and 127
looks like our modulation wheel is set
to about 70 so if I turn off the
randomizer and press play
it's not going to matter whether I move
my modulation wheel up or down now
because there's a written modulation
wheel message in the actual MIDI region
and so it'll always stay at that at that
position as long as the randomizer
plugin isn't on now now that we've
actually written a modulation wheel
message into the MIDI region we can turn
the randomizer on and we can choose the
modulation wheel as our event set an
input range set the randomization range
I'll just lower it a bit set the low
versus high weight I'm going to pull
this down a bit want to hear a little
bit more lows than highs and then hit
play and we'll hear that every single
notes actually going to have a random
value now
and there you go so I realize this is
just a just scratching the surface as
far as the step editor and the
randomizer is concerned but that's
basically all I could fit in one 15
minute long video so hopefully this has
been helpful for you and I hope you
enjoyed the video and again thanks for
watching