Dragging Time
Every so often I find myself getting very stale with my music composition. I get into a rut and I can't seem to come up with anything creative or inspiring. When this happens I usually find myself digging into my bag of rhythm tricks. I am a big fan of using odd time signatures to create a unique groove. I have picked up one trick that I call dragging time. The basic effect is like slightly slowing down a spinning record with your finger while it it playing. It creates a kind of drunken, lazy vibe that can range from subtle to awkward depending on how much you exaggerate the effect. Because it has that drunken vibe it really works better at lower tempos. Not really sure what I mean? Well download the Project Files unzip and listen to the Peeping Tom demo track 03 03. Lesson after the jump...
Step 1: Setup
I am using Cubase SX3, but the concept is pretty much the same for most audio sequencer programs. If you are using Live you will need to turn off the audio warp feature or it will auto-correct our intentional gaps in the audio.
Go grab the Project Files and unrar them into a new folder. Here you will find all the audio files I am using, so open a new project and import them into the pool. Then Drag the "OriginalDrumloop85" to an audio track.
Step 2: Adjust the tempo
Now that you have the drum loop in an audio track you can set the tempo to match the clip. The Drum loop is 85bpm so you need to set the projects tempo to match. One way to do this is to press control+T to open the Tempo Track window.
In the box labeled tempo enter 85. Now highlight the drum loop and press P to set the loop markers to the selected drum loops length. Press play and see how it sounds.
You may have to press the Cycle button, purple button to the left of Stop, in the transport bar to turn looping on.
Step 3: Cut and strech
So the drum sample loops. Now enable snap to grid (press the last button on the right of the last screen shot) and select the scissor tool. Cut the loop into four even parts like this.
Now drag the Radio Drone loop into an empty audio track and do the same with the OhmBoyzSax loop. Now press control+T to go back to the Tempo Track window and set the tempo to 83. You will see the cut parts of the drum loop separate a bit.
That is it. This whole concept is a lot like stretching loops using rex files but we are only cutting at the end of a measure rather than at every eighth note or every drum hit.
If you really wanted to make the drums sound even more drunk you could warp the individual drum cuts. To do this just double click on a part of the drum loop to bring up the sample editor.
Now select the Warp Sample tool (arrow with clock) and just drag parts of the sample around. This will bend the time of the sample and really screw up the timing, so don't push it to far or it will not sound musical.
Have Fun!