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Sweeeeeeden


Start by making a melody line. For a 1 channel echo you probably want a fast decay, like 1 or 2, or the notes will sound as they are cut off in the end.


Clone the instrument and decrease the volume, and maybe increase the decay time a little. (Experiment a lot) I know I forgot to do this in these pictures, but rename the instruments to something like LEAD and LEADE (E for echo)

In newer versions you can clone the instruments by pressing sel+B,A. But for older versions, you can use this combination:
Place a the source instrument on an empty step. Then:
sel+right (Go to instrument screen)
sel+B (Copy current instrument)
sel+left (Go back to phrase screen)
A,A (Create new instrument)
sel+right (Go to instrument screen again)
sel+A (Paste from clipboard)
It's not much harder than Mortal Kombat.

Then place echo notes at a constant interval after the original melody. In this case it makes sense to place them 3 steps after the original, but other intervals will work too, depending on how the melody looks.

The first echo note (step 1) gets the value from step E. Of course, if the previous phrase is different, pick the note form there. (And make sure to create (clone) new phrases when needed)


Bonus: Here's something I do sometimes to give my echos more space. On the echo instrument  I sometimes add a table in AUTOMATE set to ON, abd then pan the instrument left and right, either every step, or every second step. (Like OL- -00 O-R -00) Other effects are possible too of course.

Good luck and experiment a lot.

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Melbourne, Australia

Thankyou for this smile

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INDONESIA

thank you for teaching smile

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astral cat

nice little tut for beginners smile

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Los Angeles, CA

Damn for some reason, I'd never thought of that panning trick...probably because I end up using a table for waveforms or something and don't want to mess it up by using automation, but I'll have to try that...

One thing I like to do is have the echo volume be *8 (usually 68 since my leads are usually F4 or F5). It kind of makes the main note and the echo blend together more, I think, which I tend to prefer. Experimentation is key.

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Camden, London

panning is good for releases and stuff but it totally gets lost in a gig situation. am i right? or am i an idiot!

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Brooklyn, NY

Another trick I use for echo is to build a table that looks something like this.

You usually need to bury it in the action from other channels (doesn't sound as well on it's own as the trick above). You can shift around the distance between panning and also the start point of the panning as needed.

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Hillsboro, OR

This is pretty awesome, thank ya.

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Port Huron, MI

This is great! thanks

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France

I use this in my latest LSDJ song. It's great, thanks!

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London, UK

Considering using that melody in something, infectious big_smile

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New York City

The melody portrayed is very lineal (note, empty, note, empty etc), what if it isn't? What if the third step lands on another note?  (trying to squeeze the most out of this tutorial for tha people smile)

Last edited by akira^8GB (Jan 8, 2010 2:36 pm)

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Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA

I will post 2 other ways i make echo/delay's on lsdj here.. hope the prove to be useful.
just gotta go to work first wink

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Brisbane, Australia, Earth

i gotta try this out!

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London, UK
akira^8GB wrote:

The melody portrayed is very lineal (note, empty, note, empty etc), what if it isn't? What if the third step lands on another note?  (trying to squeeze the most out of this tutorial for tha people smile)

not sure if i'm following you correctly, could you post an example?

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Brazil

I think i got what akira said. If you use note-pause-note-pause, the automation goes well. But if you don't use that kind of patter it may gets a messy sound, I think.

Maybe setting the groove of the table to the groove you use in the song? I think it might at least keep the echo in time.