00:00Emit is a granular sample playback device,
00:03It's capable of completely transforming
whatever sound you put into it,
00:07while also offering a uniquely visual
approach to sampling and sound design.
00:13Here I have a recording of a kalimba. Let's take a listen.
00:20I'd like to put this in the Emit device.
00:22So to do that, I'll just click and drag it and let go.
00:28Looks like Emit has analyzed the sample
and created a spectrogram.
00:32A spectrogram is a visual representation of all the different
frequencies that make up the sample over time.
00:39The X axis is the time value and the Y axis
shows the different frequencies from low to high.
00:46Frequencies that are louder are displayed as white,
whereas quieter frequencies are gray.
00:52To start playback, let's press play on Live's transport.
01:00In the center of the spectrogram is what's called an emitter.
01:03An emitter generates particles
which look like these blue dots.
01:09The particles play back whatever tiny piece of the spectrum
they're gliding over.
01:15These tiny slices of audio are called grains.
01:19Let's move the emitter around to play back
different parts of the sample.
01:30I can change the size of the emitter
by dragging on the corners.
01:37I can also change the position and size
of the emitter on the right here.
01:49Down below, I can change the angle or direction
of the emitter.
01:53So if I click and drag here, I can now create particles
that play back instead of forward.
02:02Turning up Width increases the range of
directions particles can be emitted from.
02:10Turning on Bipolar allows me to generate
particles in both directions.
02:20Let's turn the Width down and move
the Emitter to the far left.
02:25Notice that when a particle hits the edge, it bounces back.
02:29To change this behavior I can go over to Edge here
and for example, switch it to Wrap.
02:36This makes particles wrap around
to the other side of the graphic.
02:41Alternatively, I can switch this to Delete
and particles will be removed when they hit the edge.
02:48Alright, let's put Edge back to Bounce.
02:51And I'll put the Angle back to forward now.
02:56Over on the left, I can change how particles are created.
03:02So right now, a particle is created every one bar.
To change this, I can turn down the Rate.
03:08Now particles are created every quarter note.
03:13I can control how long particles
stick around for using the Lifetime parameter.
03:18So right now, particles exist
for one bar before they're removed.
03:23If I'd like to turn this down,
I can make particles be removed even earlier.
03:31Right now, only one particle can exist at a time.
03:34To change this, I'll turn up the number of grains here.
03:38Now up to five grains can exist simultaneously.
03:44Let's change the rate back to one bar.
03:49Over here I can randomize the lifetime, so if I turn this up,
03:52certain particles will stick around
for much longer than others.
03:59Additionally, I can skip the generation
of certain particles by turning up Skip.
04:05This prevents the particles from being a constant stream
and creates some variation and randomness to our sound.
04:13If I turn Skip all the way up, no particles will be generated.
04:20Burst controls how many particles are
generated and the intervals set by Rate.
04:28Currently, one particle is generated every bar.
04:34If I change Burst to 2, two particles will be generated
throughout the course of every bar.
04:41If I'd like these particles to be generated at the beginning
of the interval
04:45rather than spread throughout it,
I can turn Spread all the way down.
04:49Now both particles will be generated
at the beginning of each bar.
04:57Awesome. Now, say, I wanted to only play back
a smaller portion of the sample.
05:02To do this I'll turn down the Length.
05:09I can also adjust the starting position of the sample,
05:13so instead of playing the very beginning there,
I'll cycle through here
05:18and I can see which part of the sample
I'm currently playing over highlighted at the top.
05:27Now, I'd like the particles to travel a bit further, so I'll turn up
Force, which flings each particle harder.
05:40Friction slows down the particles as they travel.
05:48If I'd like to globally speed up or slow down
the physics simulation,
05:51I can do so over on the right where it's says Speed.
05:56Keep in mind this also affects the Rate
and Lifetime parameters.
06:05I'll turn Friction down.
06:09At the bottom I have the option
to normalize the sample again.
06:13Normalizing is basically turning up the sample
as much as possible without clipping.
06:18So far, Cursor mode has been set to Emitter,
which allows us to change and drag this Emitter around.
06:25If I switch it to Wall, I can create walls
for the particles to bounce off of.
06:30Let's do so by clicking and dragging.
06:35I can resize these walls by dragging on the corners.
06:38Or delete them by double clicking.
06:42I can create pretty much as many walls as I want.
06:48Let's delete these walls for now by double clicking
and I'll switch the Cursor Mode back to Emitter.
06:56Next, I'd like to control some parameters
that affect how audio is played back.
07:01So to do this, I'll switch over to the Grain tab.
07:05I have the option of pitching the audio up or down here.
07:10Or if I click F, I can fine-tune it.
07:18To the left of pitch I have Glide and Blur.
07:22Glide smooths out the differences
between different slices of audio.
07:26If I turn it up, this creates
an interesting time stretching effect.
07:31I'll turn down the Speed so he can hear it a bit better.
07:40Blur has a similar effect, but here we're applying
an envelope to the frequency domain.
07:48So if I turn Blur up, this creates sort of
a metallic ringing out sound.
08:03Right now, the vertical position of particles
08:05determine the center frequency
of their respective bandpass filters.
08:10Basically, particles that are playing at the top of the graphic
08:14will play back on the higher frequencies from the audio,
08:17whereas particles at the bottom of the graphic
will playback only low frequencies.
08:25I can change the range of frequencies
each particle plays by turning up Width.
08:31If I turn with up to 100%, the vertical position of each
particle ceases to matter.
08:40Q boosts the resonance of the band pass filter.
08:43This makes the sound of the filter more noticeable.
08:53Currently, Y axis is set to Filter, meaning that
the vertical position affects the filter cutoff.
09:00If I'd like, I can switch this to Panning.
09:03Now, particles at the top of the spectrogram
will be panned slightly to the right
09:07and particles at the bottom will be panned slightly to the left.
09:12Since the filter frequency is no longer affected by the Y axis,
09:17I can change it manually using the Center parameter.
09:26Over in the Pan section, I have the ability to pan
all particles left or right.
09:35Here with Width, I can set the range of panning available.
09:40So if I turn this up to 100%, the particles' vertical position
will have a huge influence over their panning.
09:47If I change Width to zero percent, particles' vertical position
will have no effect on their panning.
09:59If I switch the Y axis back to Filter mode,
10:02Width assigns a random panning position
to each new particle.
10:07If I turn this up, the range of possible panning positions
in the stereo field is increased.
10:20Over on the right, I have the Fade section.
10:23This creates a volume envelope
over each particle's lifetime.
10:28So, let's turn the Amount up.
10:30Notice that each particle starts to fade in and fade out.
10:35I can control the shape of the fade
by switching up the Center.
10:41So now particles will fade out...
10:44or I can have particles fade in gradually over time.
10:50Let's turn the Amount down to zero percent here.
10:56Now, Emitter 2 is exactly the same as Emitter 1
10:59so I'll skip it for now and move on to the Mod section.
11:03Here I can use the two built-in LFOs and two envelopes
to modulate different parameters in the device.
11:10Let's start by going over to the routing tab
and I'll use LFO 1 as my source.
11:16And I'll set the destination as the vertical position
of the first Emitter.
11:22Let's turn up the Amount here.
Now we can see the Emitter move up or down.
11:31I can change the rate of the LFO
to make it faster or slower here.
11:36I can change the shape. Let's try Sample and Hold.
11:46In addition to changing the rate as a hertz value,
I can also turn on Sync,
11:50which syncs it to the master clock.
11:56I also have the option of offsetting the phase
of each LFO here.
12:03Over on the right, I have the option to retrigger the LFO
every time a new MIDI note is detected.
12:10Keep in mind that this only works when Sync mode is off.
12:14Notice that when I now play a note,
12:17the position of the Emitter resets.
12:23Let's turn retrigger off and Sync back on
and I'll slow down the Rate here.
12:31I'd like to use one of the envelopes at the bottom.
12:33So let's start by going over to the Routing section
and I'll select Envelope 1 one as my source
12:41and I'll map it to the pitch of the first Emitter.
Let's turn up the Amount here.
12:49Keep in mind that envelopes only work when
MIDI information is received, so let's play a note.
12:55Notice that when I play a note, the pitch goes way up.
13:00If I'd like, I can turn down the Sustain all the way
13:03and increase the Decay time for a more gradual
pitch-down effect.
13:16So let's go back to the routing
and turn the envelope 1 modulation off for now.
13:23Instead of generating particles that automatically
I can also turn on MIDI mode.
13:30So now particles will be created when I play MIDI notes.
13:37By default, the pitch of my MIDI notes
affects the pitch of each particle,
13:42I can turn this off so that only the rhythm is affected.
13:48Let's turn it back on for now.
13:52And here I have a simple MIDI clip
that I'd like the device to play. So let's hear it.
14:01Let's go back to Emit.
14:04I'll turn the Sustain up to 100% for a more consistent sound.
14:12And I'll change the horizontal position of my Emitter here
14:17and make the Height and Width as small as possible so that
the particles generated are generated from the same place.
14:27I'll go to the Grain tab and turn up
the Width to make the sound a bit fuller.
14:34And I'll turn up the Gain here so that the output of this
particular Emitter is louder than the other one.
14:41Speaking of which, let's turn Emitter 2 on as well.
14:45I'll turn on MIDI here, turn the Sustain and Release up
so that it's a bit longer.
14:51And for this one, I'll go down to the Grain tab
and put the Pitch down an octave.
14:59Let's move this to the left.
15:06Sounds much fuller now.
15:12If I'm finding that my CPU is struggling bit, I can choose to
process the kalimba sample as a mono sample
15:19instead of a stereo one.
15:23And I have the Global Gain parameter here. Alright,
15:28let's hear it with my drums and bass.
