Jbox Prod. Sessions 03: Crafting unique samples with Granulator

Hey hey!

So one of my main projects I've been working on alongside preparing for my second live show, is a complete audio replacement of a scene from The Lego Movie.

Between myself and my peers George Hickman and James Reynolds, we've recorded all new dialogue, foley, FX, compositions and ambience for the popular 1-minute 30 second 'Spaceship Scene'.

We finalised the mix today after a 12 hour post-production mixing session yesterday, and can't to show you guys the final product in the next few days!

We didn't really set ourselves individual roles for this project, as we all wanted to get involved in every aspect of the production - however today I'm going to show you how I created one of the sounds I designed for the clip, which will serve as a preview for my complete wrap-up of the project on the blog next week!

Helicopter Sounds using white noise & Granulator for Live

Unfortunately not every sound could be created using Lego, especially when the film represents the Lego to be much larger and have a lot of weight to it in comparison to the size of the characters - so you'll notice we added a lot of sub-frequency content to reinforce the impacts of Lego-on-Lego action.

One of the scenes introduces several different spaceships/aerial vehicles 'The Citizens' including a helicopter. Since we were already using white noise generators and an low-pass filter sweep to create those 'whoosh' sounds as objects moved past the camera, it's quite fun and easy to re-purpose that into authentic helicopter rotor sounds.

So I started off with a regular white noise hit, you can make this with any synth that has an oscillator which allows you to choose 'Noise' as its waveform.

I chose more of a hit sample rather than flat noise since it will allow me to use the same source for multiple possible uses: more natural decay creates a better/more exciting whoosh sound when a filter is used. You could also use the clicky attack for layering of explosions, guns, lasers or any other loud impact sounds.

This was also the first time I stepped into the world of Max for Live, which is a tool that allows creators to craft their own custom plugins with more accessibility and options. I almost consider it similar to Steam's Workshop for the modding community, except for the Ableton VST community!

To turn this white noise into the rotor spinning sound, I used 'Granulator' which comes packaged as a downloadable add-on for Live 9 Suite. It's pretty much a Sampler on steroids:

I'm still trying to figure out the whole thing, but damn it sounds cool with anything you chuck into it. So I picked the section I wanted the Granulator to step-through the audio with - 'FilePos'. Then I chose how quick/how many cycles I want the granulator to scan through the audio - 'Time'. When driven in the 1000% + values, the effect is similar to the sound of a LOT of flutter echo.

So at this stage with the Granulator rapidly pushing out different cycles of the sample; the sound is just starting to resemble the 'choppiness' a helicopter rotor produces, yet it's a little too chaotic and 'wet' - there's too much other noise going on. This is where you use the 'Spike' encoder to shape the output. 'Spike' is a lot like the 'Q' option on an EQ or filter, but you can choose different types of curves which creates some pretty wild possibilities. I kept mine at standard 'Std.' and pushed the Spike up to 26. This results in the granulator having that 'choppy' sound since the curve of the spike tightens or filters the sound and allows less of that fluttery noise to pass through - kind of works like a Gate as well.

After you've got that desired sound to work with. It's a good idea to roll off some of those super high frequencies, and then beef it up with some low end boosting and saturation to give it a little bit of crunch and overall presence:

And here's what it sounds like!

I'm definitely going to keep using Granulator in more rhythmic purposes with my productions, I've found it's super effective with creating unique vocal cuts and FX build-ups - you might be able to recognise it in my next couple releases!

If you use Ableton and would like to dive into Granulator for yourself, check out this fantastic 10 minute demo and overview/tutorial of it in action:

The clip demonstrates how I would use Granulator in the future for sampling purposes in my own productions, you can turn any sample into something really cool and unique very quickly with this Max plugin - and as Ryan Origin says at the end, "Granulator rewards you for getting super nerdy with it." 😋

Actually! Here's a demo track of my own that utilises very similar techniques to the video above to achieve unique vocal sampling (sample starts at 1:07):

Our Sound Replacement project will be live over the next few days so stay tuned on my Facebook Page for the video, and a follow-up blog right here next week.

Cheers!

Lachy :)