Shuffler 101 - The Technique

See the technique in action.

This page describes the techniques used to create the shuffler 101 examples. This lesson teaches a simple methodology that will allow you to quickly discover great new variations for your existing drum and rhythm loops. This is a remixer's dream. You can take your basic beat and whip up a number of variations to spice up extended remixes. The Shuffler can do much more, but this technique is quick and easy to learn and very fruitful.

Source Note

For this technique to work, you need a groove that is somewhat symmetrical without being entirely symmetrical - a pattern where the odd-numbered beats are similar to each other without being identical and that the even-numbered beats are similar without being identical.

Apply these tips to a wide variety of grooves. You will find that some grooves lend themselves to a lot of useful variations while some grooves are either too symmetrical or too irregular to generate interesting variations with this technique. Once you have tried these techniques with a variety of material, you will develop a feel for what grooves are likely to work well with this method.

A note about the shuffler. This tip only touches the surface of what the shuffler can do. This particular lesson applies to re-groovifying rhythm loops. Future lessons will include techniques that can be used with non-rhythmic material.

THE TECHNIQUE - OVERVIEW

This trick relies on an interesting property of the Shuffler. The vertical position of the envelope steps determines which slice the step plays. The maximum and minimum envelope height both represent the loop's first slice. So, when you have the down-ramp (with the starting settings given in the exercise), you are playing the slices in reverse order! You are playing the first half of the first beat then the second half beat eight then the first half of beat eight, etc.

Step 1. Open a two-bar rhythm loop and find its tempo. (Longer loops can be used but you will have to explore larger beats per loop settings than described below.)

To find the tempo. If you are not sure what your loop's tempo is, follow these steps.Crop your sample so that it loops seamlessly. Turn on the Sample Editor grid then click and drag up/down on the tempo indicator to adjust the tempo. You will see the bar lines move as you drag. You have found the tempo when your loop's end co-incides with the end of bar 2.

Show me

Step 2. Set the parameters so that the Shuffler's Speed parameter is the loop's tempo. Set the Beats Per Loop to 16. Set the Attack to 0 and the Release to 100. Make sure the parameters are set to their values from the slider value (rather than from envelopes). The red envelope will be the only active envelope.

Step 3. Preview the Shuffler with the envelope shapes (for the red envelope) shown below and (while the loop plays) explore how the loop plays with a variety of settings of the Release Time parameter from 20 to 100. If you get clicks, you may need to set the Attack to a small value (usually between 1 and 5), but this will rarely happen. Adjust the grain volume setting so that you get plenty of volume without sending the meters into the red.

MAKE SURE! That you drag the tool all the way to the right to get the correct envelope. You will know that you have the full envelope if you click on the tool and drag right and the shape does not change. TIP! If you click on the tool then drag all the way left and then all the way right, you will be assured of getting the correct envelope.

Step 4. Set the Beats per Loop to 32 and explore each of the three basic envelope shapes shown above by setting the Release Time to various values from 20 to 100. Repeat this process with Beats Per Loop set to 64.

Step 5. Set the Speed parameter to half the loop's tempo. (Shortcut: click in the Speed field and type '/'). Repeat steps 3 & 4.

Step 6. Set the Speed parameter to twice the loop's tempo. (Shortcut: click in the Speed field and type '*' twice -- assuming that the speed is currently half the tempo). Repeat steps 3 & 4.

See the technique in action.

More Fun

With a 2 bar loop in 4/4 time, each tick mark of the vertical scale represents an eighth note (half a beat). With this knowledge you can have fun by turning the envelope grid and then clicking on individual steps to move them -- but that is for another lesson!