I have been tinkering around with dubler 2 for several hours. I will like to ask for tips/guidance from more advanced users.
My immediate goal using dubler 2 is to be able to use my voice to laid down midi melody lines in the DAW. I am fine with percussive tracks using triggers/fingers/pads/keyboard, etc.
I hope to be able to obtain a decent level of precision triggering dubler 2 with the microphone, generating an accurate enough midi track that I can clean up and massage to finish with a good midi melody track. That will save me time since now I use music notation or the piano roll and lots of adjusting after.
At the moment I m using a Shure dynamic microphone (Dubler mic arriving next week). After testing several preamps found the most accurate path was using an Apogee duet (very clean preamp). Dubler 2 as midi in to a Logic Pro 10.7.7 Midi instrument. This set up is working fairly well and reliable.
Things that I need to improve:
when use voice to trigger notes using the Synth Preset “Pure” in doubler 2 I can listen to a fairly accurate representation of the input. When I mute the Synth Preset in dubler 2 and listen to the instrument loaded in Logic I get a very inaccurate sound. I have tried many Synths sample players, all kind of patches, made my own synth patches… not good results compared to the build in synth Preset “Pure” in doubler 2. Any info on this preset? Can I reproduce this preset using any virtual instrument/synth?, Is this Preset “Pure” in doubler 2 available in any format that can bu used in the DAW?
I became familiar with mic calibration, Keys, Chords, Assign functions in doubler 2. Still need to work on Pitch bend and CC dials and of course create a voice “style” to better work with dubler.
Any tip/guidance on how to obtain the most accurate possible midi track using voice trough dubler2 will be much appreciated.
Thank you.
Update, was able to set up a patch synth that works more accurate.
Also used the Dubler Midi capture plugin, sometime it helps but I need to position the result in place. I need to keep track of where I started recording and adjust manually. Will keep refining on recording directly to a midi track in Logic, avoiding moving things around specially during long takes.
Hi Galipote, the Pure synth preset is a relatively simple patch with a sine and triangle wave however I suspect the main difference is with the attack. We’ve tried to balance the attack to fit well with most people’s singing styles and also avoid any clicks or pops when rapidly changing notes. I would suggest playing with the attack on whatever synths you’re using to try find the sweet spot for your voice. (A lot of people’s have a very short attack when starting to sing a note)
How you sing into the mic also plays a big role in Dubler response. The first thing I’d recommend is making sure you’re singing clear and distinct notes, especially when moving between two notes. So for example when singing with an ‘aaa aaa aaa’ sound, is common to glide up and down between notes. If you try a percussive sound at the beginning it can help make the note onset more obvious and separate it from previous notes, so like ‘daa daa daa.’ You can hear an example and explanation of this at this timestamp: Dubler 2: Using Pitch to MIDI - YouTube
I realise some of these points can be hard to convey over messages so if you do ever want to arrange a quick video chat you can email us at help@vochlea.co.uk and I’d be happy to spend some time to tweak inputs and settings!
Hello; Thank you so much. Yes, I spend some more time laying down some melody lines using dubler. Precisely as you mention I set up a simple clean synth patch and after finding a balance with the attack parameter everything is working much better. Also, in the very helpful videos Vochlea provides I noticed the use of the “daa daa daa” as you mention and adopted that approach, much better results. I was able to complete an entire track that required a little cleaning and adjustment but a lot faster than writing in music notation or using the piano roll. Next I am going to expend some time learning to use pitch bend. Thank you for providing such a good tool
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That’s great to hear, let us know if any other questions pop up. We do also have a live stream looking at pitch bend this Wednesday if you’re interested! It will be available on your Youtube channel after if you can’t join live
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