Groovejet by Spiller - Cubase 5

8/3/2019 Groovejet by Spiller - Cubase 5

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Recreating Groovejet by Spiller

1

Groovejet by Spiller

This will describe how to make up “Groovejet” by Spiller; the building blocks that you'll have are

small sampled sections taken from the original song, “Love is You”, by Carol Williams. No audio

anywhere is taken from the Spiller version. You should create a new project in Cubase, andthen create 5 new audio tracks (all of them stereo), and also create a Marker track – this makes

it much easier to navigate through the song, and is good practice generally. Go to the bar for

the beginning of each section shown in the table on page 2, and drop a marker for each one,

making navigation easier and also help keep you in sync if you miss something out. Name your

5 audio tracks – I chose “whoosh”, “Sample”, “Kick”, “Maracas”, “Timbales”, although you can

call them whatever you like.

Now import the files from their current location using Pool > Open Pool Window and

clicking Import.

The audio files provided are:

intro 2.aif stringy bit 2.aif harpy 1.aif

kick.aif timbales.aif woosh.aif

maracas.aif verse 1.aif verse 2.aif

string bit e-g.aif stringy bit 1.aif

Set the session tempo to 122.80 by de-selecting TEMPO on the transport bar, and then double-

clicking and typing the new tempo on the transport bar.

The table on the next page shows where to place the samples on the “Sample” track. This can

be done by going to the Pool (Pool > Open Pool Window or CTRL+P), and then clicking anddragging the required file from this window to the Project Window. It is good practice when

doing this kind of work to colour-code the samples as you add them – this makes spotting

different sections or samples quick and easy from almost any zoom level.

For the initial placement of most samples, the grid should be set to Bar, but for some of the

editing it will be necessary to change to ¼, 1/8 th and even 1/16th notes (the table shows when

this is the case). To start off, place the samples where there are no “comments” – these are just

straightforward repeats; once you are comfortable with doing that you can then place and edit

the samples on the following pages; it’s a good idea to leave Bar 16 until last as it is the most

complex edit in the entire piece.

The song plan given starts at bar 5 to give room to use the “woosh” sample to imitate the initial

sound on the original version; this will need fade in/outs, reverb and EQ applied to make it

sound more authentic.




2

Main Loop table

Section Bar File No Snap Comments

Intro 5 Intro 2 4 1 See page 3 for editing of bar 6

9 Verse 1 7 116 Verse 1 1 8 See page 3 for editing details

Verse 17 Verse 1 3 1

20 Verse 1 0.5 8 See page 4 for how to do this

Mix: EQ cuts out bass on 20.5 to 2120.5 String e-g 1

21 Verse 1 4 1

25 Verse 2 3 1

28 Stringy Bit 2 1 1

29 Verse 1 4 1

33 Verse2 3 1


37 Verse 1 3 1

40 String e-g 1 1

Verse 2 41 Verse 1 8 1

49 Verse 2 3 1


53 Verse 1 4 1

57 Verse 2 3 1


61 Verse 1 4 1

Bridge 65 Harpy 3 1

68 Stringy Bit 1 1 1 Trim to be six beats long

69.5 Verse 1 0.5 4 Last two beats of verse 1 to fill to next bar

70 Verse 1 2 1

72 Verse 1 0.5 16

See page 4 for how to do this72.5 String e-g 1

Verse 3 73 Verse 1 4 1

77 Verse 2 3 1

80 Verse 2 1 1 Second half of verse 2 sample repeated

81 Verse 1 2 1

Chorus 83 Stringy Bit 2 3 1

86 String e-g 1 1 Mix: EQ cuts out bass here (86.5 → 91)


91 Verse 1 4 1

Chorus 2 95 Verse 2 4 1 Mix: EQ cut on last 2 beats of 4th

time(bar 98.5)

99 Verse 1 2 1

101 Harpy 1 3 1

104 Stringy Bit 1 1 4 Trim to be six beats long105.5 Verse 1 0.5 8 Last two beats to fill to next bar, as bar 69.5

106 Verse 1 3 1

109 Verse 2 4 8 See pages 4-5

113 Intro 2 3 8 Replace 1st 8th with 1st 8th of verse 1 sample

Ending 116 Verse 1 13 8 1 ½ beats repeated – see page 5




3

Bars with editing

Bar 6

Bar 6 is mostly made up of the original sample, but beat 4 is deleted and then replaced with

two copies of the second half of beat 3 (beat 3.5 as shown in the diagram). These are thentrimmed to be only a 16

thlong to give a staccato feel.

Bar 16

Bar 16 is one of the most complex sections of the song, in terms of the editing that has been

done – some of the original is unchanged, but several parts are moved around. One way to do

this is to cut the original into 16th sections (ALT + scissors), and then to number each one in the

description part of the info line. You can then place them in their “new” locations on another

track, and finally move the new version back to the samples track.

Original 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

New 1 2 3 4 13 14 15 16 9 10 13 14 13 14 15 13

This may look confusing at first, but it can be explained thus:

Beat 1 is unchangedBeat 2 is beat 4

The first half of beat 3 is unchanged

The second half of beat 3 is the first half of beat 4

The first three quarters of beat 4 is unchanged

The last ¼ of beat 4 is the first ¼ of beat 4.

The picture below shows the finished article (with numbers for each of the original beats)




4

Bar 20 and 72

Bars 20 and 72 are made up of two samples. The first two beats are the first two beats of verse

1 and the second two are made up of a 3/16ths

long sample from the beginning of string bit e-g.This is then repeated again, and then finally once more but with it being trimmed down to only

be 2/16ths

long.

The next few bars are created by taking the original sample (verse 2), and with the grid set to

8ths, cutting it into 8 slices. Each bar is then created by repeating/moving/copying the originalpieces as shown in each table

Bar 109

Original 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

New 1 1 3 3 5 6 7 8

Bar 110

Original 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

New 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 6

This will sound better if once the slices are placed as above, to set the grid to 32nd, and then trim the last

32nd from each of the “6” slices, so there is a short silence at the end of each.




5

Bar 111 – as bar 109

Original 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

New 1 1 3 3 5 6 7 8

Bar 112

Original 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

New 1 5 1 5 1 6 7 8

Bars 113-115

These bars are made up of two samples – most of the bar is intro 2 but the first 1/8 th of the bar is

replaced using the first 1/8th of verse 1

116 to 121

This ‘odd time’ section is quite simple – it’s just 1½ beats from the verse 1 sample repeated, as seen

below.




6

Kick drum and Maracas:

These samples are longer; they need to be placed at bar 9, and then zoom into the end of each

and trim their ends to fit accurately at bar 13 (hint: use grid mode for this, and zoom setting 5).

Then they can be repeated 26 times, and trimmed to suit the end (where the repeated section

that will fade out is, at bar 116). Finally there are a few sections that need to be cut out; bars

41 to 45, 72.5 to 73 and 86.5 to 91.

Automation

There are some edits that can make the song sound more authentic; the first one is to apply

volume automation to the master output to make a smooth fade-out from bars 116-119; just

two points will take care of that (one at 0db at bar 116, one at -infinity at bar 119)

Secondly, on the original song there are a few points where EQ is

applied to cut most of the bass and midrange from the song; this is a

common technique, so to imitate it, set the EQ in the master fader

channel to cut most of the bass – turn on band 1 on the master EQ,change it to High Pass and then set it accordingly (see left)

You can use automation on the master output to turn the EQ off for most of the track, but turn

it on at the appropriate points (the EQ should be on from bars 20.5 to 21, 86.5 to 91, and then

from 98.5 to 99).

Adding overall compression on the master channel and subtle multi-band compression can

make this version sound more like the original too.

Finished article

The complete song, with bass drum, maracas, timbales and automation should look something like this

Documents

Groovejet by Spiller - Cubase 5