I basically just use a granular synth automate everything, gross beat automating the pattern switch, high tempos and envelope sequences…
And use an element as an envelope using peak controller to control the parameters of another element.
Sometimes i use fl granular synth transient feature which automatically beat slices the sample and sometimes i just use normal mode. Sometimes ill tak on buffer override but not as much…as i used to…
Then ill beat slice or cut and paste audio clips manually in an arrangement that works.
I tried using harmor…but the resulting audio winds up sounding not ideal…
Image scrubbing in harmor can do reverse but the switching between reverse and normal playback it doesnt sound good…or at least when i use it…
I’ve always been into cooking my glitches low and slow… I’ve tried apps back in the day but they didn’t produce my desired sound which is… striving to feel authentic? for lack of a better word. A lot of those plugins, you could tell when it was used in tracks, still can do this day. I don’t wanna name drop the apps I didn’t like in case some of the creators are users here. For what it’s worth, those VSTs did and still do give me creative ideas on what to do when I “manually” chop. Quote unquote. I’m dragging a mouse around a screen lol.
That said, I did like using Dr Rex on Reason (now called Dr Octo Rex I think) to auto chop loops. But I don’t use reason a lot anymore. It’s what I started on though. If anything it’s how I originally became acquainted with the idea of choppin shit up.
Every glitch technique I’ve made since 2009ish was basically created manually with micro editing and listening to a 1 second loop over and over and over again until I’ve tweaked the automation just right, usually spread across multiple channels and tbh I might sound like a purest but I like using native apps. I have reasons for that no pun intended. I know it sounds arduous but there’s nothing a VST can do that I couldn’t do manually plus, I can expand on those app’s ideas and further them by stretching, effecting, and glitching with precision. It’s a big reason why it takes me so long to fucking finish music sometimes.
When I studied music history and learned about the guys who did Musique concrète – The Pierres: Schaeffer/Boulez/Henry, Edgard Varèse, Stockhausen… many others – and how they worked with simply tape and a literal razor… I guess it inspired me to focus in on the micro-composition of it all and not rely on a “one size fits all” method. Seriously no intention to offend anyone who likes an easy solution. Though one might read my words as preachy, I’m not trying to be, and I don’t recommend composing this way at all, because having a plugin that does a quick fix you need so you can move on to something else… that’s brilliant. I’m painfully old school when it comes to the glitching. Happy to hear how the more savvy producers handle it these days. Fuck I’m old. I should take a shot for every time I said the word “reason” in this post. Or “manually”.
I used to try and approach a lot of things this way. I’ve got hella respect for folks that put in the time to do things this way. It’s a lot of dedication, and my had goes off to @wayne and others that put in the effort here.
I think at some point i realized that I personally would get too caught up in the weeds and would never actually use those sounds in a meaningful way. I also don’t really like all of the clutter this method produces in my arrangement.
I know @Erysys has done a lot of really intense micro-editing sessions to get his glitch effects. I’ve seen those projects and watched him work through doing that several times.
These days. I tend to take the road of using a base sample or a held midi note with an arpegiattor going to a weird synth patch and modulating the fuck out of every imaginable parameter on the instrument and/or effects i throw on it and doing big long macro takes. I usually then just look for nuggets of things that i like in there and cut them out and save them as samples. I kinda like to just let things happen without putting to much thought in and see what happens. Almost like a generative / modular mind-frame.
I think the big problem with this is that i’m really at the mercy of randomness. It’s hard to get reproducible results this way sometimes. If i would take the time to be more intentional, this probably wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
This is especially true when I get lazy and instead of bouncing takes I just leave the random modulation on the original track i’m “glitching”. If i have a whole arrangement fleshed out with a track or more that use this technique, every time I bounce the whole track, it sounds different. It’s only consistent if I bounce the glitched track to audio first before I export the track, which a lot of the time I don’t do because again, i’m lazy af.
All that being said, I don’t really feel like I typically do “glitch” per-se, but i think this technique could work for that as well if you wanted it to.
Let me just drive my point in the ground on this though, the method I mentioned which I have used traditionally is in no way efficient and is pretty time consuming, in fact I’ve been attempting follow a “do less” mentality for years. The payoff is you get to listen to your macro piece of music and every couple seconds of the track features some sound or technique you put a lot of thought into instead of slapping it on automatically. If you want to make glitches faster, use a VST but tweak it to your personal likings and don’t use presets in their original form. Alter/modify, make it yours. Listeners will be none the wiser, except maaaybe me and a handful of other producers, and who gives a shit about our opinion lol.
These days making music I am trying to approach techniques more from an “automated” or preloaded standpoint anyway. Pre-loaded meaning something I did create but turned into a tool or Ableton Rack for example that I can use every time I write or perform live. It is a sort of compromise between doing everything from scratch on every project vs. being a preset whore (sorry, SO NOT P.C. OF ME). I am trying to save time and be more prolific, something that I am very much now. I would rather make music more in a more performative way than be a micro-composer, it’s just hard when you are an anal retentive asshole producer. Why is everyone looking at me? Haha. I encourage people to not spend too much time micro-editing for a lot of obvious reasons. Focus on the big picture. Get roughly the sound you want and move on, you can always spend time on it later.
Producers that use trackers (like Renoise) to make music, those are the dudes and dudettes and theydettes that spend the most time micro-editing, and the culture of those genres is centered around the minutia, and will be the first ones to call you out for “being lazy” and being a “preset plugin whore” (breakcore, etc… What wait do you mean “THOSE genres”? lol) BUT WE LOVE THEM ALL ANYWAY.
I use Jeskola Buzz for initial beat making (yep still using it). I mainly use the offset, retrigger commands and reverse commands for initial glitch elements in beats. This is actually pretty fast. I create a bunch of variations of the one beat.
I often then load the beats into reaper, record them through a range of different FX (slicers, crushers, crazy delays, pitch downs, verbs, flangers etc). I render these to different tracks. I then chop sections that I like from the different renders and arrange as I go.
I chop and rearrange the order of stuff more in reaper, e.g. create stutters across other parts as well as drums.
Also, I often lazily run hats (or hat-like sounds) into Dblue Glitch (or another instant glitch plugin) for glitchy variations with minimal effort. I always tweak and adjust Glitch’s settings though.
The basis of glitching something is pretty basic. While you can do software and find neat combos, manually edit audio with intent, or even take something that you never had the intention of glitching, sometimes taking a “final” mix and doing edits to it manually, in a single audio wav can add a horrible, or even brightening mix to your track.
I’ve come across this particular task during my YT(lost all project file/breakdown files) postings where I could interject other ideas on something previously. You definitely have to be more mindful on your drums happening but it can lead to a new version of reality for a project.
I’ve used it multiple times now and they can be and are usually subtle but neat each time. By doing manually, it wasn’t repetitive. Also, a project that you don’t think has enough legs, gets legs with some manual-editing. And as for me, something I thought I lost or was done with and still not happy with, got a bit of new life.
Sometimes you can actually do these edits to your “final” and add in simpler edits, or timings and give more flare or diversity. It doesn’t always have to be at a multiple-track level. It can also work at a single-mix level and it can add character to something you thought you were finished with or never able to finish before.
Apologies, if unhelpful. I’ll also say, experimenting with software is and can be neat. But I would use that in a live-record way unless you want to cheat it up. Things like glitching in my opinion has always been fun manually or finding intricate stuffs out of record sessions.
But again, it doesn’t have to end at “final” mix. Try some fun stuffs/effects there too. You might find a portion of drum stuttered up or edit makes your little bit have a new life or something different to the ear. It can be minor, it may even help you find ways to incorporate in later projects.
For me, it is usually slapping like a dotted delay on a quick sound, like a quick pop or some incidental sound that i notice coming out of some track in solo (ala Bjork Vespertine) like a barely heard sound, and then I pull that into it’s own track, make odd meter loops out of that single sound that dont fit into the 4/4 grid by chopping it up, then pitching. Pretty caveman style. Alot of it is purely incidental “happy accident” type of thing where the aha! moment hits you.
