Hi all,
I was watching this video and found it interesting enough to try out. I know it’s not a Cubase tutorial, but I figured the techniques in the video seem general enough that every DAW should reasonably be able to achieve the same thing. The part I got stuck at was around the 8:35 mark. He sets the LFO built into the Ableton Sampler plugin to modulate the loop start time which creates a really cool granular kinda thing. From what I can tell, the loop duration remains the same, while the loop start time is modulated and changed at 30Hz. While you can modulate the loop start time in the Sampler Track with an LFO modulator, it’s super finnicky and requires you to modulate the end time along with it. Making adjustments to the LFO parameters in conjunction with one another is cumbersome at best, and even while behaving as intended, the result is a glitchy, corrupted-sounding mess. I know that Ableton probably specifically implemented Sampler’s playback algorithms to account for use cases like this and allow for glitchless playback, but it’s kinda disappointing that the Cubase Sampler Track just doesn’t sound/behave the same.
I am wondering what I can do to achieve the same exact end result as the one shown at this part of the tutorial. In short, I would to keep a consistent “grain size” (loop length) for single grain that consists of an alternating loop while the loop start point progresses through the sample at a configurable rate. I’m assuming Padshop is the tool for the job, but even it seems to have its limitations for this particular application. For one, you I don’t think you can set a grain to loop much less alternate playback direction. I played around trying to emulate the tutorial implementation, but I just couldn’t get it to sound as bubbly and wiggly for some reason. Are there any other 3rd party sampler plugins that could achieve this or did Ableton really just strike gold with their Sampler implementation?
Apologies, I know it’s a hyper-specific, nitpicky topic, but as someone who’s newer to music production, I’m trying to figure out the possibilities/limitations of each DAW’s stock plugins. Any help and discussion is greatly appreciated!