Filtering via the clip automation controls

Mark Bliss · Post by **Mark Bliss** » Fri Jan 12, 2018 9:59 pm

With so little control I don't find this useful for mixing personally, but this may be something useful for the electronic music producers and synth guys here, especially if automated for some "movement"

In image one, I have an example of Pink Noise playing at Apx. -12 dB RMS shown in the spectrograph:

: Pink Noise -12dB RMS.png (557.18 KiB) Viewed 5060 times

Next up is an image with the same audio, filtered with the High Pass cutoff set to 30:

: Pink Noise HP 30.png (496.85 KiB) Viewed 5060 times

As you can see, the low frequency is rolled off from about 300-400 Hz. But the rate of the slope is fairly shallow.
Changing the cutoff setting moves the frequency of the roll-off higher or lower, but the slope remains the same.

Another example, Low Pass cutoff set to 70:

: Pink Noise LP 70.png (550.84 KiB) Viewed 5060 times

The rate of the slope is much steeper. Changing the cutoff setting moves the frequency higher or lower.

And finally, just for reference- the same audio with both applied:

: Pink Noise HP 30 & LP 70.png (560.82 KiB) Viewed 5060 times

Try automating them on some tracks. Experiment!

Mark Bliss · Post by **Mark Bliss** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 8:31 am

I guess I should have added an example with the resonance filters active too.

The resonance filter basically creates a "hump" raising the frequencies near the cutoff points.

Here is an example of that last filter setting, with both the HPF and LPF active and both the low pass resonance and high pass resonances set to 70.

: Pink Noise HP 30 & LP 70 with res.png (572.48 KiB) Viewed 5050 times

Adjusting the amount simply changes the level of the resonance. The frequency of the resonance is still tied to the frequency of the previously shown cut points.

banzailoco · Post by **banzailoco** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 11:05 am

I cannot see the filter effect on SPAN when using the Automation filter.
When would be a good idea to use this filter?

v

Mark Bliss · Post by **Mark Bliss** » Sat Jan 13, 2018 3:29 pm

*Edited after further evaluation-

The reason it came up was related to a previous discussion where some of us suggested a built in HP filter in the channel strip would be useful. Someone suggested using this filter.

Personally, I didn't think it really works well as a HP filter for general recording and mixing, because the slope or Q doesn't appear to provide a sharp cut for eliminating for example, any potential low end rumble or noise that might be picked up by a microphone, without potentially cutting frequencies we don't want to cut. I currently use plug ins for such purposes.
But now I am experimenting with this and am finding that perhaps it is more useful than I thought, the method just doesn't lend itself to a clear understanding- More to follow soon.

But back to my previous comment in the original post, I think that some sound designers might use it to create automated filter sweeps in electronic music for one example.

I just was experimenting and thought it might be handy to illustrate graphically what the functions do.

banzailoco · Post by **banzailoco** » Mon Jan 15, 2018 3:42 pm

Clarification for a newbie. To use the "CLIP-BASED AUTOMATION", add point(s) or moved the line on the clip.
The filter will affect all of the clips but the automation is per clip.

: mcfilter.png (51.69 KiB) Viewed 5014 times

To create and adjust clip automation points, hover the mouse cursor over the lower section of a clip. The clip’s automation line will appear, and the cursor will turn into crosshairs. Click to create new points, and drag to position them.

Keyboard Modifiers

 Add Points: Hold the CTRL key down and click to add points anywhere on the sound.

 Move Line: Hold the SHIFT key down and click down on an automation line to move the line up or down.

 Delete Points: Hold the ALT key down and click points to remove or delete them.

 Setting Exact Value

Precise values can be set by right-clicking on the point and choosing Edit Exact Value... This opens a dialog box where exact number values can be entered.

 Fades, Boosts, and Reductions

Though these sound like procedures rich ladies get done, these are actually shortcuts that add multiple envelope points at a time. Select an area of a sound and choose one of the following predefined options from the Sound menu in the Main Window:

 Sound>Envelopes>Fade Out

 Sound>Envelopes>Fade In

 Sound>Envelopes>Reduce

 Sound>Envelopes>Boost

 Clip Volume

Volume can be set to values from 0% to 200% (-Inf dB to +6 dB).

 Clip Pan

Pan is the volume balance between the left and right channel (i.e. left and right speaker). By automating pan settings, sounds can move from left to right or vice-versa. Pan can be set to values from 100% left to 100% right.

Right Click, Envelopes, Reset Envelope. Ctrl+Alt+T

Mark Bliss · Post by **Mark Bliss** » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:38 am

Well yeah, it could be something like that.
Here's another example:

: Bangin.png (125.92 KiB) Viewed 4854 times

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FA7pZ ... cBAXmbEb5A

But back to seriousness, part of the original discussion this idea came from was a comment on possibly using this function as a HP (etc.) filter for mixing.

The biggest issue with that is having no indication of the frequencies or slopes of the filter. So I did a little more investigation.

One thing I discovered is that I had previously dismissed this from results I got using two different spectral graphs on two very different scales. Oops.

My current go to for the job is capable of aggressive slopes, as in this 50 hz HPF example at 24 dB per octave:

: HP filter 2 50 Hz.png (35.19 KiB) Viewed 4854 times

I cant definitively say, but it appears the Mixcraft High Pass Cutoff filter has about a 12 Db per octave slope in my testing, which is still useful. (As previously shown, the Low Pass Cutoff filter appears to have a steeper slope.)

And it looks like the frequency of the filter isn't linear. That is to say a cut setting of 20 isn't twice the frequency of a setting of 10 and so forth.

But experimenting, I found that a setting of 12 or 13 is roughly equivalent to a 50 hz HPF at 12 dB per octave: