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production tips #1 - all about waveshaping

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hey

everyone today I'm going to be talking

about wave shaping and how to use it in

your sound design and music

production so I'm going to be honest

here I think wave shaping is pretty

underrated in music production and I

feel like it should be used quite more

often because um I'm going to be honest

here um I haven't used wave shaping a

lot um since I have done research for

this video um up until now I've actually

realized how powerful it is and um the

different capabilities that it has um in

terms of saturation and fitting things

into a mix

so to start off I'm just going to talk

about how wave shipping actually works

and then we're going to get into some

creative

applications so I'm going to start off

with a input signal we're going to do a

sine wave in serum to start off with

that should

work I'm going to pull up M wave shaper

and M osilloscope these are two plugins

from the free bundle that uh Milda

production offers um it comes with a

bunch of different effects and plugins

and it's pretty um pretty good to have

if you didn't check it out yet

so just to make sure um on this m wave

shaper normally it's turned

onto uh 50% like this make sure it's

just turned all the way up to have the

uh full effect going

on and we can see from this m

oscilloscope that we have a sine wave

going on um clean untreated sine

wave and we could see from M wave shaper

that it's peing out

around minus 10 DB around um it's

probably on a logarith logarithmic scale

so it's probably different than that

but we'll just say it's at a certain DB

level I'm going to start with creating a

point just at that um peak

level and to start off with uh

explaining how wave shaping Works um we

basically have two different ranges here

we have the horizontal range or like the

x axis and we have the Y AIS so this

represents input to Output level so our

X is input and our Y is

output as we can see um with a linear

line like this um the sound U the input

coming in is the same as the output

coming out so all of the levels that are

being fed through the w shaper as an

input is going to be the same um in the

output let's see what happens when I

take this um Range over here and I start

to bend it up like

[Music]

so we can see that um the waveform

starts to get actually more um soft

clipped or saturated and it's starting

to resemble more and more like a square

wave now this is happening because as

you can see um basically everything that

is reaching um to -12 DB is slowly being

pushed more um loudly than it normally

would and it's kind of following the

same kind of

curve that you see in the wave

shaper it's kind of reflecting into the

uh waveform

itself and if we do this the opposite

way we curve it

down we can see that all the peak levels

that are um below around -2 DB are

starting to get pushed down

more and it's kind of having this

exponential form

so that's basically the um basics of

wave shaping and we're going to talk a

little bit more about different curve

that you can do um but for now we're

going to switch to

serum all right so we are now in serum

and I'm just going to switch this to a

sine wave real quick now I'm going to

show you um that you can actually use

the same method of wave shaping in

serum a lot of people don't know this

but in the distortion effect over here

um usually where you would choose

different types of distortions like tube

soft clip hard clip Etc there's actually

something called X shaper or um also

known as cross shaper and this

essentially allows you to create your

own um wave shaping curve

um in order to have this work um usually

you would just put the drive all the way

down and this means that uh this Curve

will basically be the same as what you

set here in the shaper a

edit and edit B would basically mean

that the drive is all the way up to 100

to have the full effect so we're going

to keep it at zero and we're going to um

mess with shaper a now there is a quick

distinction that I want to point out um

The Wave shaping output of this is not

exactly the the same as M wave shaper

and I'm going to show you guys why in a

second

so I'm going to put out um oscilloscope

here

and as you can see we have the same

clean sine wave that we had before as I

start to turn up this little curve here

to bring it

up you can see that the

output is not exactly the same as what

you would do with a M wave shaper

here you can see that the output is kind

of slanted in a way so it's kind of

being pushed towards the center um

compared to if you would do this with an

actual wave

shaper it would be equal

on uh both sides but in the serum it is

not the same

um while it may look like it's a drastic

difference um in the visual output of

the waveform um what you basically

perceive uh sonically is kind of

negligible so we're just going to

continue with um The Wave shaper uh in

serum and it's pretty much basically the

same thing so uh we can just continue on

what I want to demonstrate here is if we

reset this back to what it was

[Music]

before what you can start doing here is

creating curves that are um a bit more

complex and would be something that you

couldn't really achieve with a normal

saturation plugin and this is what I

think it's is pretty um unique about the

wave shaper Plugin or the effect of

using a wave shaper is you can pretty

pretty much dial your own type of

distortion so you can create any kind of

custom Distortion whether it would be um

symmetric or

asymmetric uh for now we're just going

to deal with symmetric Distortion

because it's easier to

[Music]

explain but we can see that we can

saturate the signal

bring it down and we can start to add

points to create something that is much

complex and what we're doing here is

we're essentially adding more harmonics

on top of our original waveform because

if you remember our original

sound is just a sine

wave and if I pull up Pro Q3 here to

show you guys the frequency spectrum

we get one single tone in our Spectrum

but with our wave shaping

enabled we have all this these different

types of harmonics which are present in

our

signal and this will change depending on

our

[Music]

curve so we can get a bunch of different

tambal possibilities here and this

allows to have a lot of different

flexibility options um when you're doing

different types of

synthesis um I'm now going to

demonstrate an application on how you

could use this for kind of a DubStep

base kind of application so I have this

serum patch um this is just a pretty

basic dubstep base and I'm going to show

you guys um what the patch is real quick

before uh we get on to the wave shaping

part of it

so this is basically the clean serum

patch um it's basically just a sine wave

with a couple extra harmonics added um

both of these are being volume automated

by the LFO with a little bit of noise

which is being highp passed um in this

effect section we're just adding a

little bit of stereo width um we're

adding a compressor after the Distortion

because as you will see in a bit um the

Distortion kind of makes it a bit

quieter so we're just bringing that up

with the compressor gain and then we're

adding a low pass filter this low pass

filter is pretty important because as

you will see um we're doing some pretty

uh pretty abrasive stuff um with this

wave shaper

so oh and by the way if you want to hear

what this sounds like with a fat rack um

this is just a fat rack that I created

let me know if you guys want something

like this um in a next video I can

probably explain it to you guys if you

want

to it's just making the sound more

Fuller

so let's turn on the Distortion which is

doing a bit of wave shaping as you can

see so it drastically changes the sound

um and basically what the principle here

is is if we just remove this peak right

here for a

second we're basically inverting our

ramp so as you remember in our usual

wave

shaper our linear ramp is going from uh

bottom to top like so but here our slope

is inverted so it's actually going from

top to to

bottom what this is doing is basically

pushing everything that's usually um the

lowest of volume all the way up and

everything that's usually at the highest

peak like Zer DB all the way down so

it's basically being inverted and this

has a huge tambal difference to our

sound it adds quite a bit of different

um flavor to

it kind of makes it sound more gualy um

and the reason why we have this EQ is if

we turn it off just for a

second you can hear that there's no

Dynamics at all everything is just being

squashed to the top so there's not much

volume automation that's going on so

it's just it just sounds like a static

Basse to so to bring more movement back

we um add this

filter and it basically sounds it makes

it sound

better so in this shape we can start

adding different

Peaks to make our Basse sound different

and more

aggressive and you can have a lot of

different possibilities with um changing

the tamber of your sound

so it's pretty um it is pretty helpful

in making like heavy bases like that

because not only can you use the U

different stock uh Distortion types that

uh serum usually gives you you can

actually create your own Distortion and

make it sound more unique uh which I

find is uh pretty awesome so next up on

our list we have um The Snare PR set

that I created I'm going to turn off the

wave shaper here just to hear uh just to

show you guys what it sounds

like so pretty standard snare um I'm

using my uh custom noise here this is

basically just white noise but stereo

because uh originally serum does not

have any stereo noise samples so I had

to make my

own anyways uh this is just being fed

through a highp high pass

filter we have some EQ going on here a

bit of compressor gain to make it louder

and a high pass filter which is just

being controlled by the same uh envelope

that is doing the

volume so I'm going to um turn on the

wave shaper and you're going to hear a

huge difference or not a huge difference

but you're going to hear a noticeable

difference

[Music]

so first of all it sounds louder um

that's CU it's you know being distorted

um it also sounds like it's being

saturated a little bit um you can hear

the kind of loud bit of the snare so uh

the transient and the body uh be a

little bit more louder more

saturated and with that um we have a

little inverse curve going on so we're

actually making the more quieter parts

of the snare so uh the part after the

body a little bit quieter but also a bit

crunchier so the thing with doing

inverse curves like this on um more

complex waveforms like a snare is that

it's going to make the waveform sound

more crunchy um I could say

so in this example here you can hear it

a little bit in the top end of the

[Music]

snare as you can here beforehand it's

more sustained and

now it's shorter it's a bit snappier and

it's a little bit more

crispy if I turn this down

more you can really hear the top end of

that scar just being crunched

down and it almost sounds like you're

running it through um ableton's Redux uh

with the uh bit depth over

here but this just really helps with

making the snare sound Tighter and it

also gives it a bit more texture so you

can use um wave Shapers kind of in a

drum context too which is pretty

interesting and what I'm going to show

you uh with this next example is that

you can actually use it on drum breakes

not to make it sound crispier like this

but to actually make it sound louder and

more full um especially with the um room

um the room mics of a drum brake sample

so now uh we're going to see how to use

wave Shapers in context of drum Loops

like drum brakes so I'm going to pull up

a drum Loop right

here this is a good um kind of breakish

type Loop um this works mostly um if you

can actually

hear the room mics and it's not um being

overly chopped um like say if you put a

gate on

it you can hear um kind of the room in

the individual um drum hits to its

fullest so we're going to pull up a m

wave shaper here as

usual make sure to put the dry we on all

the way

up so I'm going to start off with um

kind of explaining the technique of

using um hard clipping and soft clipping

so as you can see right now in this

waveform it's kind of rounded off in a

way um in this snare you can kind of see

the waveform fluctuating up and down um

and it's reaching a certain peak level

but what you can do with hard clipping

is you can actually take this part of

like the waveform the top and bottom and

bring it closer and closer to zero and

what it's going to do is it's going to

kind of chop off the tops and it's going

to make it sound a bit like crispier and

more um Rough Around the Edges but this

is usually good um if you want to do

like if you want to achieve maximum

loudness in your Masters um use Clippers

can really help with that um just taming

those Peaks down and making it sound

more uh consistent so I'm going to

demonstrate how to use this with a wave

shaper you can see that it's

fluctuating everywhere from zero DB all

the way to um

silence if I start to create a peak here

um let's let's do it around 6 DB let's

say and I bring this point all the way

down so everything from 6 DB uh

everything from 60b and above is going

to be clipped uh down to

-6b so you can't really hear a

difference it's not uh really that um

noticeable yet but if I turn up the

input

you can kind of hear the transients

being more um distorted in a way

and if I resample this real

quick you can see a difference in the

waveform so in the first waveform it's

fluctuating a lot more um but in the

second waveform you can actually see

that it's being more squarified and

that's result of um having the ends of

the waveform being clipped down to- 60b

so everything that's- 60b and above is

just being shaved right off and it's

umga 60b all the way through until it

goes back

down

so that's basically hard clipping what

you can do to make it sound less

harsh especially at like a higher value

um higher input value

actually is you can take this point

where it intersects and you can kind

of bring this

um horizontally like this to kind of

create a curve in the intersection so

basically what this is doing is it's

making the uh Clipper softer so it's

going to round off the edges instead of

just um completely clipping it off um

very sharply

so it makes it sound a little bit more

softer than uh if you would just have a

hard Edge like

that so that's one thing you can first

clip off the sound but if you want to

make the sound um especially this drum

bake sound more full what you can do is

create another Point let's say around

here and you can start bringing up this

um curve over

here and what you're going to hear is

it's kind of going to make like the room

of the drum break sound more louder and

it's going to make it Fuller

so this is kind of in the same way as um

expansion um so if you know uh how

compression Works expansion is kind of

like the inverse of that so it's

basically going to take stuff that is

quieter than the threshold and it's

going to bring it up um this is kind of

the same thing in terms of wave shaping

but of course this is not a compressor

um because it doesn't have um any attack

or release settings so that's why it

distorts

[Music]

but with a wave shaper you can kind of

replicate the same effect as if you did

expansion um by basically doing this

sort of thing so it's taking anything

that's around uh

negative 21db and lower and it's

bringing boosting it up more than it

usually

is you can kind of exaggerate this

effect if you use another Point

here but then at this point it just

starts to sound very noisy so um we're

just going to remove

that and essentially it makes your drum

break sound more full in a way and um a

bit louder without it actually um

peeking up in

decibels because if I demonstrate this

real

quick while it may sound louder

the signal is actually quieter um than

the louder signal and that is because

this is actually um more perceivably

loud than um it is uh

demonstrated our Peak values here on the

original signal are louder but here

they're being squashed down and they're

adding extra

harmonics and as we know when we add

more harmonics it makes it sound quote

unquote louder because there's more um

there's more area in the frequency

spectrum that's being um

used so basically you can use that to

make your drum brakes louder Fuller

crispier whatever you want to call it

you can also use it in parallel so for

example if I just create a um chain here

and then we can have a dry signal going

in no wave shaper applied have a another

wave

shaper let's create a little bit of a

saturation curve

[Music]

here really drive this

[Music]

thing we can do a little bit of eqing if

we want to as well just to kind of blend

it in better with the

[Music]

original now if we turn it on with the

original signal

it makes it sound a lot Fuller which is

another way you can do it you can use it

uh with parallel processing or um just

do it with a single wave shaper and both

contexts work in different ways and may

sound different or cooler depending on

what you want to do but it's two

different techniques and they're pretty

useful in my opinion

even with that you can create a another

um EQ and kind of use the side channel

of this EQ to boost the stereo image of

the um drum

break so you're not making it sound only

Fuller but you're also making it sound

wider by accentuating the stereo width

um with the wave shaper you can get

pretty abrasive results um it might it

may not be suitable for your context um

depending on what genre you're working

on but just knowing all of these

techniques can be useful for when you do

have to use um these sort of sounds and

um this kind of demonstrates that wave

shaping is a lot more powerful than you

may seem and I find that uh it could be

used a lot more in music production and

yeah I hope you found this video useful

and um I'm hopefully going to make more

production tip tutorials like this soon

so if you like this kind of content make

sure to subscribe and like this video

and as always um I will see you in

another video bye-bye

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YouTube Transcript:
production tips #1 - all about waveshaping