Of all contributors to the 60×60 Buzz Compilation, which you should download, I am the only one not credited under a pseudonym. I am still trying to figure out the deep insight this fact reveals about either me or the Buzz community, but I’m sure it’s there.
A tune of mine appears in the 60×60 Buzz Compilation, which you should listen to anyways. 60 songs x 60 seconds = an hour of modular madness. It’s actually quite fantastic.
The collection was organized by the tireless n3wjack and is an excellent showcase for our favorite quirky music application. From now on, when someone asks me what kind of music I make, I’m just going to hand out a copy of this compilation.
My tune is the 51st minute, which, for those of you who are neither computer programmers nor soccer fans, starts at 50:00.
EDIT: Oh yeah, the bonus mix, comprising Buzzalicious tracks that didn’t make it into the main mix for one reason or another, is pretty fab in its own right. Especially if you like Hamsters.
Kibibu helpfully pointed out that Fuzzpilz Oppressor is a much easier sidechain machine than BG Sidechain Dynamics. He is right, so here’s a revised tutorial. If you still want to use BG Sidechain, that tutorial is still available.
If you don’t have Oppressor 3, you need to get it from Fuzzpilz’s site. Our scenario is the same as last time: we have a kick drum and a bass line; we want the bass line volume to duck in time with the kick drum.
There are a whole bunch of Buzz tracker machines, but Fuzzpilz UnwieldyTracker is so good I pretty much stopped using all the others. Its features are well-suited to beat slicing, among other things. Beat slicing involves chopping a drum loop into individual sounds and rearranging them to make a new beat. This tutorial will show you how.
We want to take a drum loop, fit it to our song tempo, re-arrange it to make a new beat, and apply different effects to different sounds. This example starts with a drum loop trimmed to 8 beats. If you don’t have one handy, you can use this one (right-click to save):
UnwieldyTracker may not be included with your Buzz install. If not, go to Fuzzpilz site and install it first. Then we’re ready to go.
My tutorial on sidechaining last week got quite a few hits, so I thought I would write up some more Buzz techniques.
This tutorial will teach you how to integrate an external MIDI synthesizer (or drum machine, or groovebox ..) with a Buzz song. In this scenario, I have a drum loop playing in Buzz. I want to synchronize the arpeggiator on a hardware synth– say, my beloved microKorg– to Buzz so the synth plays in time with the drum pattern. Then I want to use my favorite Buzz effects on the synth.
A tiny snippet from an experiment with running a bunch of outboard gear through Buzz. Recorded last summer, but I just recently found the recordings. I am rocking the microKorg, Aaron is rocking the Electribe, and we are both rocking the Stoli.
This tutorial will teach you how to set up sidechain compression in Buzz using the BG Sidechain Dynamics machine. It took me forever to figure out how to do this the first time, so I wrote it up to save you the time. You’re welcome.
EDIT: Kibibu tipped me that Fuzzpilz Oppressor 3 also does sidechaining, and it’s a bit easier to set up. Here’s this same tutorial using Oppressor instead of BG.
Here’s our initial setup. We have two tracks, a kick drum and a bass line. We want to duck the bass’s volume in time with the kick drum. (Click on any diagram to enlarge it.)
(12:01:15 PM) Aaron: that was all buzz?
(12:01:19 PM) Kevin: Yeah.
(12:01:34 PM) Aaron: you used a buzz sampler?
(12:01:37 PM) Kevin: Yeah.
(12:01:44 PM) Aaron: i forgot they had one