We’ve all been there: your drum track is not quite as accurate as it could be, and it is throwing everything else out of time. So you decide to record a new take, but the problem keeps coming up over and over again.
Does that mean your drummer is just really bad? Or does it mean that your timing isn’t quite as perfect as you thought? What if objective measurement showed that it was YOU who wasn’t playing with absolute precision?
What we need to help us is a bit of quantization! We will cover some basics to help you understand what it is, and why you should use it.
What is Quantization?
Let’s say you have recorded your drum track to a grid (so that the drums are all perfectly lined up with each other). That means that if you start noticing that your drums are slightly out, you can correct it with the Quantize function in your DAW.
The actual process of quantization is simple: when you move one note or event, all other notes that are around it will be moved to match that location. It’s worth noting here (pun intended) that there are two different types of quantizing:
· Absolute: where all notes are moved to a location, and they cannot be individually edited.
· Relative: This is where only one note is moved, however, other notes around it will follow. This allows you to select individual parts for adjustment.
How do I use Quantization?
As always with any audio technique, there is little skill and practice involved in the correct use of Quantization.
Before you start mixing, make sure that everything is in time with each other. This means not only different parts within your DAW but also with external hardware instruments. It’s much easier to set up a beat when you start than to correct it after you’ve already written the song.
The hardest part about using Quantization is deciding how much to use; too little and drum parts may not sound natural (or in time), but too much can lead to robotic sounding drums.
One of the key things when using Quantization is to make sure that every single note is lined up perfectly. Even if you want to be lazy, it’s worth taking the time to line everything up so that there is no unnecessary work involved with correcting them later.
What are some common uses for Quantization?
1. Fix timing issues with recorded drums.
2. Make MIDI more “groove-like” by making it sound like a human is playing.
3. Fixing timing issues with an external sequencer (this works best when you can’t adjust the tempo of your track).
4. If you’re writing drum parts manually, use Quantization to make sure that drums are in time with all of the other instruments without making it sound too digitized and void of human feeling.
5. A lot of DAWs (and third-party plugins) have other effects that can be used in conjunction with Quantization, such as doubling up other sounds to add more weight and power to your productions, or using a bit crush effect to add some grit and dirt!
Remember that if you’re having timing issues, to begin with, rather try and do another take instead of trying to fix it with Quantization. This is because there are no real shortcuts when working with audio, and trying to “digitize” the performance of a human being will always lead to less than stellar results.
Despite popular belief, Quantization can sound very natural if used cleverly enough but remember: you always want to invest more time into your performance and practice than correcting mistakes afterward.
Why do you need quantization?
Quantization is a useful tool for musicians to use when they are sequencing music. It allows musicians to have control over the timing of their notes across different time signatures.
Quantization can be very useful in most genres of music but is frequently used in EDM, Dubstep, Trap, Hip-Hop, and Drum & Bass. Even traditional music formats like rock and pop need a little bit of quantization from time to time.
In this article, we will go over a lot of different ways you can use quantization and apply it to your songwriting process. We will also touch on the many different ways you can change up the feel of a sequence using Quantized Note Events.
What does Quantize do to a song?
Quantizing is a process that corrects errors in MIDI and audio by moving them to the nearest grid position. Quantizing can also be used as a creative tool to place your MIDI or audio on a grid or groove that you want. This means that by using simple quantizing, you can correct the timing and dynamics of MIDI.
There’s one caveat: it doesn’t work very well with audio files while they’re still in their original state. What I mean is that there are better ways to edit audio than just using quantize. You can use quantize on a copied or bounced copy of your audio file, but you will need to clean up the audio manually afterward.
What is quantization in digital electronics?
Quantization is the process of scaling between a larger number and a smaller number. Most often, the process of quantizing is used to translate input values into output values that are part of a finite set. This makes sense in musical instrument recordings such as drums or anything else that must be consistent throughout the entire song.
The process of quantization is usually done to digital audio waves. This process is very important because the data that we use is often not continuous and so it needs to be translated into a format such as a sequence of bits.
Wrapping up
We hope that this has been helpful if you are learning about the basics of quantization. This is a really important tool that all musicians should know how to use. You can also read about velocity and create MIDI effects to make it sound like you are playing live.
Quantization is the process of scaling between a larger number and a smaller number. Most often, the process of quantizing is used to convert input values into output values that are part of a finite set.
This makes sense in musical instrument recordings such as drums or anything else that must be consistent throughout the entire song. The process of quantization is usually done using digital audio waves.
This is very important because the data we use isn’t continuous so it needs to be translated into formats like sequences bit-streams for computation purposes. We hope this article has been helpful if you’re learning about how Quantization works!
