Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

SasA
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Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by SasA »

So I started dabbling with some forms of electronic music, creating unique sounds was probably my main motivation, and I have tried fl studio in past years and now my main DAW is Reaper, which I really like, but they all seem very counterintuitive, and it takes a lot of steps to even achieve very basic levels of complexity in music. This is why I want to incorporate buzz into my process so that I can create sounds and edit them in reaper,it's modular feel is very attractive!! My only problem is I have no idea how trackers work, nor can I find a decent tutorial :? although that can be solved with the help section, any suggestions on reading material or videos will be greatly appreciated.
Apart from that I have some vst synths (like serum and a few fx plug ins) which I can't seem to load in buzz, I have a 64 bit machine and I have read about Polac adapters but I don't get them how can they be used to load commercial plug ins. Thanks in advance and apologies for my lack of knowledge on anything.
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Buzztler
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by Buzztler »

Hi out there,

I'm in a little hurry and therefore just some links to help you with your questions ... Buzz looks like a tiny little proggy but it is a hell of a DAW or simply a third generation tracker ...

For Polac's Loader check: www. xlutop. com/buzz/ (without the blanks ;)), guess Master Xlutop will answer further questions also personally, his Loader is really awesome ...

For questions referring to Buzz-tracker, perhaps have a look at: http:// buzzwiki. robotplanet.dk (also without the blanks) there you'll find interesting tips by joachip and many other buzzers, more concrete questions will be answewred by professional buzzers on this forum

Others may feel free to contribute even now... hope my links help you some steps further ...
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magmavander
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by magmavander »

Hi SasA,

first of all the 64bits version of Buzz is experimental. So I think it's better to install the 32 bits version at the moment till the 64bits version is "official".

You have to install Polac VST loader before being able to use VST. Check the link Buzztler gives you to see how to download and install it.

Also there is a thread here about Polac VST Loader :
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7

And about 32/64bits VST :
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1873&hilit=Polac+VST+64+bits

installing VST and VSTi :
https://youtu.be/fE0LYS4WR0c

Buzz Basics (a bit old as there is some new functions in Buzz but it will show you how to use Buzz) :
https://youtu.be/77zg3fJyaH0

A lot of Buzz tutorial :
https://www.youtube.com/results?q=jesko ... %253D%253D

Still all buzz machines avalaible (generators and effects):
http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/

Welcome to the best music tool of all time 8-)
SasA
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by SasA »

I was not expecting such quick replies, thanks for your time.
I have somehow managed to run polac in 64 bit experimental version, so when I started buzz it started scanning vsts by itself and now some of my vsts are loading up, which should be fine for now I guess :) .

Buzztler thanks a lot for the links "http://buzzwiki.robotplanet.dk" seems particularly helpful.

magmavander thank you
https://youtu.be/77zg3fJyaH0 is very good it got me started!
Also I found out from one of your links that 32 bit version is capable (with polac loaders) to launch 64 bit plugins, I will try that once I have learnt the basics, till then I will stick with this version if its stable.
thanks I am looking forward to learning buzz !!
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by mridlen »

Be sure to check out the cool new plugins in the dev forum too. When you're new, sometimes you are less stuck in your ways, and there's some weird and cool plugins that are still being developed. Some of the best Buzz improvements have happened in the last few years, the MixIO is pretty good and some other cool plugins have surfaced recently.
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Candle
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by Candle »

Tracker's Handbook

An interesting cross-platform, non-tracker specific "How-To-Guide" that might get you started. Also has sections for intermediate & advanced Tracker users - so it might be a good resource for everyone.

See You In The Shadows…
SasA
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by SasA »

mridlen thanks mixIO is pretty neat reminds me of audiomulch, will dig into that library of plug ins. :D

Candle this seems really interesting thanks!! its very general, looks like the author is assuming no GUI whatsoever. :roll:

So I spent most of last night playing around with buzz trying to figure stuff out on my own, I have come up with a few questions :

1) Is it possible to do feedback in buzz? by that I mean sending one of the outputs of a machine to the input of that same machine after some processing, to create a feedback loop. I tried it out directly and it doesn't seem to work, any other way?

2) what machines would you recommend for pitch shifting?

3) what techniques would you recommend for playing drums? I mean should I use a drum machine or should I load up samples ?

thanks I am loving it!! Possibilities are infinite and it's pretty fast. :mrgreen:
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szaszhareen
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by szaszhareen »

SasA wrote:
1) Is it possible to do feedback in buzz? by that I mean sending one of the outputs of a machine to the input of that same machine after some processing, to create a feedback loop. I tried it out directly and it doesn't seem to work, any other way?

2) what machines would you recommend for pitch shifting?

3) what techniques would you recommend for playing drums? I mean should I use a drum machine or should I load up samples ?

thanks I am loving it!! Possibilities are infinite and it's pretty fast. :mrgreen:
1. I know i've done this before by accident, but i think very few machines support it directly. I think i made it work during some wierd routing experiment. I think most machines are made so that the signal only flows one way, but it's not impossible to do. wish i could remember how i did it, but at the time i almost deafened myself so i haven't tried since. XD

2. fsm tunaman is good, unwieldy tracker is great if you just want to stretch a sound rather than pitching it, most of the tracker machines will let you play a sample at a pitch other than it's original. it's too bad buzzmachines.com is down because there are quite a few machines that you could use to pitchshift.

3. magmavander is famous for using samplegrid, it's handy because you can use the out feature to mix and effect the individual samples. I like using fuzzpilz unwieldytracker because it also has multi out and has lots of cool effects and params. there are also drum generators like HD monster kick, sgorpi clap, sgorpi cymbal, etc. I find it easiest to use samples and unwieldy tracker or samplegrid.

:mrgreen: :geek: :mrgreen:
SasA
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by SasA »

Ah! too bad cause that feedback with some delay and low volumes sounds great on plucks :geek:
I am trying out some new pitch shifters I found on the machines link and thanks!! will try to find your recommendations too.
Yeah using drum sound generators seems kinda like limiting yourself :p SampleGrid promises interesting features I will try that.
Thanks a lot :D
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IXix
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by IXix »

You have to use auxbus to do feedback. Use LD's auxsend and auxreturn machines and be careful! :D
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magmavander
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by magmavander »

2) what machines would you recommend for pitch shifting?

PitchWizard is not bad too. Here is the description :

PitchWizard by Marc Alvarez : http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/search.php?q=pitchwizard

So what can do this machine for you? Here's a short list of what features you can manage with it:

-Many old generators couldn't manage the new pitch wheel MIDI messages. Plug in your MIDI keyboard to your computer, connect the Pitch Wizard after a generator, set up the same midi channel for both generator and Pitch Wizard, set the PW amplitude, play and enjoy!

-A) Tired of sung or speech samples that you can't transpose without getting a Mickey mouse's or Dark Vador's voice? Select the Formant process in the Pitch Wizard tracks and transpose them as you wish (don't expect more than 1 octave up and down: some things still remain utopia)

-B) Do you feel lazy and have a great CPU : make your chords dynamically by adding tracks to the Pitch Wizard and setting the relative transpositions on each track. One key pressed, a chord out of your speakers.

-C) Do you want to apply different effects to each Pitch Wizard track (delay on the higher chord partial, vibrato on the lower, etc etc): select an AuxBus channel for each track and connect the desired effects after the AuxReturn machines.

-D) Tired of recurrent pad presets : connect Pitch Wizard after a generator, set up the length of scaling slides and tweak it, you'll getting more evolutive pads with moving partials. MarcAlvarez

3) what techniques would you recommend for playing drums? I mean should I use a drum machine or should I load up samples ?

This is really a matter of taste.

I use the two techniques, depending on what sound I want to achieve. Both are good.

It's easier to tweak the sound with drum machines while with samples you have a still infinite choice of sounds (just type drum sample in google :mrgreen: )

I often use samplegrid (last version is 3) because it's very easy to use (I use only the one that let you enter volume values to trigger sample instead of the one using switches). Also SampleGrid is cool with multi out (useful to puse a different reverb on snare by example).

Hope it helps :D
SasA
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by SasA »

IXix wrote:You have to use auxbus to do feedback. Use LD's auxsend and auxreturn machines and be careful! :D
IXix hey thanks! are you talking about this Auxreturn http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/machineinfo.php?id=8015 ? :?: because Ld0d only has an auxsend or am I lost?
magmavander wrote:2) what machines would you recommend for pitch shifting?

PitchWizard is not bad too. Here is the description :

PitchWizard by Marc Alvarez : http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/search.php?q=pitchwizard

So what can do this machine for you? Here's a short list of what features you can manage with it:

-Many old generators couldn't manage the new pitch wheel MIDI messages. Plug in your MIDI keyboard to your computer, connect the Pitch Wizard after a generator, set up the same midi channel for both generator and Pitch Wizard, set the PW amplitude, play and enjoy!

-A) Tired of sung or speech samples that you can't transpose without getting a Mickey mouse's or Dark Vador's voice? Select the Formant process in the Pitch Wizard tracks and transpose them as you wish (don't expect more than 1 octave up and down: some things still remain utopia)

-B) Do you feel lazy and have a great CPU : make your chords dynamically by adding tracks to the Pitch Wizard and setting the relative transpositions on each track. One key pressed, a chord out of your speakers.

-C) Do you want to apply different effects to each Pitch Wizard track (delay on the higher chord partial, vibrato on the lower, etc etc): select an AuxBus channel for each track and connect the desired effects after the AuxReturn machines.

-D) Tired of recurrent pad presets : connect Pitch Wizard after a generator, set up the length of scaling slides and tweak it, you'll getting more evolutive pads with moving partials. MarcAlvarez

3) what techniques would you recommend for playing drums? I mean should I use a drum machine or should I load up samples ?

This is really a matter of taste.

I use the two techniques, depending on what sound I want to achieve. Both are good.

It's easier to tweak the sound with drum machines while with samples you have a still infinite choice of sounds (just type drum sample in google :mrgreen: )

I often use samplegrid (last version is 3) because it's very easy to use (I use only the one that let you enter volume values to trigger sample instead of the one using switches). Also SampleGrid is cool with multi out (useful to puse a different reverb on snare by example).

Hope it helps :D
magmavander thanks!! I wasn't aware that formant filter based shifting was possible in buzz :D
samplegrid was giving me trouble when I tried to load it up, and buzz was crashing because of it :?, it's okay tho I am making loops in reaper and then triggering them with jeskola tracker.

Another set of questions (sorry if I'm annoying :roll: i want to start making music on buzz as quickly as possible :mrgreen: )

1)How should I automate vst parameters or parameters in general. Currently, I am only aware of the auto learn feature of the Polac vst, are there any other ways?
2) I found peer LFO!! any alternatives that I should be aware of?
3) Also is there a way to sidechain in buzz? I know sidechain compression is possible, but I mean sidechain any parameter, for example is it possible to trigger cutoff of a filter as kick or some other trigger sound is played.
4) Is there a problem in jeskola tracker it seem to breakdown when 24bit files are played, any solutions?
5) http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/machineinfo.php?id=7661 seems great but buzz crashes whenever I try to open up the manage input screen :( what can be done?
Thank you all for your help. :)
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magmavander
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by magmavander »

hi,
what do you mean by automation ? Interpolation ?
By example a cutoff set to min and move slowly to max ? In this case check this :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9rop ... nN6MHBxQkE

or this :

https://youtu.be/qjYI_Grx6Z0

or use this peer machine :

http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/machineinfo.php?id=7496

Peer machines (maybe some are missing in the link) :
http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/search.php?q=peer

Aside sidechain comp there is this machine maybe :
http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/machineinfo.php?id=7871

jeskola tracker is may be a bit old now. It cant support 24 bits wav file. Use Mtrkr 3 or UnwieldyTracker :

http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/machineinfo.php?id=8176

I have attached Matilde 3 and SampleGrid 3 with this post ;)

Install SGrid3 like in the zip (SampleGrid 3 BETA 1 Core.dat in Jeskola/Buzz/Gear and other files in Jeskola/Buzz/Gear/Generators)
Dont forget that you can right-click on Matilde 3 in Machine view to se all the tracker commands.

For you last question, I dont know, never used it...

cheers!!

PS : have fun with you drum loops with thsi great tool :
http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/machineinfo.php?id=7923
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tinga
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by tinga »

SasA wrote:How should I automate vst parameters or parameters in general. Currently, I am only aware of the auto learn feature of the Polac vst, are there any other ways?
Buzz has Peer machines for automation, Peer State is great, it does a snapshot of all parameters you want, 128 presets possible, inertia. Peer control is very useful for midi control, you can draw the curves for params, Peer Trig is awesome (you can trig a filter with a kick or an audio input, all BTDSys machines or IX Split, Accumulator etc.. , have a very complete help,
http://btdsys.lazytrap.com/remository?func=select&id=8
http://btdsys.lazytrap.com/remository?f ... info&id=13
You can't miss Snowglobe Lucky Scale Walker, a fantastic sequencer, it can also control all params of all machines and also itself!!
Seriously, since 15 years I use Buzz, I never use the play button, and if I wanted to use the pattern editor, it will be probably with IX transport, so yes, automation are great in Buzz.
SasA
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by SasA »

thanks for your suggestion tinga, but coming from DAW's like FL ( those DAW's... they ruined me :roll:) I just can't seem to understand most of the terminology used in buzz machines, so I have no idea how to use Peer machines. :shock:

And magmavander for president !! :P thanks for so much help, I wasn't asking for interpolation but damn that's really cool!! I am happy with that and Polac's auto learn for automation :) I was also able to use MT side for sidechain compression.
so here is where I am stuck right now ( I know I am hopeless :? )

1) Can't get sound out of any tracker machines, I have tried UnwieldyTracker and Matilde 3. I think, I don't yet understand how to set them up. I loaded up samples in buzz's wavetable and then saw sample name on the trackers but when entered notes on pattern editor no sound came out, how are these trackers set up? In case of SampleGrid3 I can't even find the three blanks in the pattern editor in which notes are written.

2) What are peer machines what can they do and how to set them up? ( as of now I have loaded them in buzz, but I don't know how to use them )

3)What does the term inertia mean? I have seen it in a few places and have no idea, also what are subdivisions in a tracker?

4) I was able to setup patchbay, but what is it used for? only use that I can think is to use it like a mixer.

5) some machines (like Matilde 3 or UnwieldyTracker ) have that round circle on the patch cable with a number (initially 0) on them when you connect them , what does that mean?


Thanks for your help so far!! I really appreciate it :)
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IXix
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by IXix »

SasA wrote:IXix hey thanks! are you talking about this Auxreturn http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/machineinfo.php?id=8015 ? :?: because Ld0d only has an auxsend or am I lost?
No, I have both send and return but yeah, one of them is missing from the site. Not sure where I got mine from, probably from a forum post. I guess it's okay to upload it here so it's attached.

If you go hunting BTDSys machines, please download from the Sourceforge repo so you're sure to get the newest versions. BTD stopped developing ages ago but he gave me the keys to his shed. https://sourceforge.net/projects/btdsys/files/
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ld aux send and return machines
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Candle
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by Candle »

Peer Machines have the ability to control parameters of other machines. When you right click a peer machine, you then select "Assign" where you can select the machine(s) to control & the parameter(s) to control. Peer Machines are probably the most powerful tool in Buzz. They changed the way we've worked in Buzz ever since their introduction with the original Peer Control. They are awesome for Automating parameters (or even multiple paramaters).

I use PatchBay to do multiple routings for playing live. It is essentially like a hardware Patchbay system that you can configure just about any way you want. It's the cornerstone of my live Buzz setup.

The round circles with numbers on them are the input or output channel numbers for multi-I/O machines. You can right-click the circles & select which channel you want that particular signal path to use.

See You In The Shadows…
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szaszhareen
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by szaszhareen »

1)How should I automate vst parameters or parameters in general. Currently, I am only aware of the auto learn feature of the Polac vst, are there any other ways?
2) I found peer LFO!! any alternatives that I should be aware of?
3) Also is there a way to sidechain in buzz? I know sidechain compression is possible, but I mean sidechain any parameter, for example is it possible to trigger cutoff of a filter as kick or some other trigger sound is played.
4) Is there a problem in jeskola tracker it seem to breakdown when 24bit files are played, any solutions?
5) http://buzz.robotplanet.dk/machineinfo.php?id=7661 seems great but buzz crashes whenever I try to open up the manage input screen :( what can be done?
Thank you all for your help. :)
1 - i think you would get a better answer here if you describe what you're trying to do in terms of another daw, and we can tell you the analagous way to do it in buzz. there are a ton of ways to automate vst params and params in general. :) the first few results here may reveal the answer you're looking for.

2 - idk of any other native buzz lfos. :|

3 - MT sidechain is good for your normal side signal smashing, but if you want to automate params based on a trigger you probably want LNB peertrigger instead. also look around for tinga's posts and videos, he seems to find ways to automate params with triggers in every project he does. very cool stuff!

4 - a lot of the tracker machines only support 16 bit wavs, but magmavander pointed out some above that are more flexible.

5 - you can make a post about it on here, it's possible that fuzzpilz or someone will know what to do. :)

keep the questions coming. :D it's fun to talk shop. :ugeek:
SasA
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by SasA »

So yesterday I realized that most of the problems I was facing were due to 64 bit version and now I am running the x86 version which works great! :lol: I still can't figure out some machines but I guess time will teach me about those.
So I only have one question which I can't seem to find,

Is it possible to record automation for buzz machines like you do in polac vst's auto learn for vst?, so I can move sliders in real time and record just that?

Also
Thanks to everyone!! you helped me learn this alien looking software rather quickly :dance:
SasA
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Re: Switching to Buzz with zero knowledge, HELP!

Post by SasA »

Nvm turns out, I am an idiot :oops: . I was trying to automate without making a blank pattern for effect machines, just realized that automation values need a places to record.
Nonetheless thanks y'all :lol:
will post music if I managed to make something good enough . :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
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