Tech Talk - How to remove attack from a sound?

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How to remove attack from a sound?

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Printed Date: November 23 2024 at 11:47
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Topic: How to remove attack from a sound?

Posted By: DDPascalDD
Subject: How to remove attack from a sound?
Date Posted: August 13 2016 at 13:09

Something I just thought I wanted to try but don't know how to achieve. I want to record piano (or maybe other instruments) but without the attack, so that you hear very smooth tones which are harder to define (to define what sound it exactly is and in what rythm it's exactly played). Like you fade in a sound quickly after you hit the key.
Of course you can do that manually for the first tone, but is there a way to do it for a whole segment of recorded material? I'm defenitely not good in editing and such things but really want to learn more about it.
Oh yeah FYI: I have a simple DAW called Mixcraft 6 which I use to process recordings.

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Replies:

Posted By: Polymorphia
Date Posted: August 13 2016 at 13:46

DDPascalDD wrote:

Something I just thought I wanted to try but don't know how to achieve. I want to record piano (or maybe other instruments) but without the attack, so that you hear very smooth tones which are harder to define (to define what sound it exactly is and in what rythm it's exactly played). Like you fade in a sound quickly after you hit the key.
Of course you can do that manually for the first tone, but is there a way to do it for a whole segment of recorded material? I'm defenitely not good in editing and such things but really want to learn more about it.
Oh yeah FYI: I have a simple DAW called Mixcraft 6 which I use to process recordings.

You can do a few things. The easiest would be to put a reverb on it and only use the wet signal, and edit the decay (how long the reverb sounds) and pre-delay (how long it takes for the reverb to sound) as needed. If you have a sampler or sampler plug-in (GarageBand comes with one), you could sample the piano, and take off the attack and program the part instead.

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https://dreamwindow.bandcamp.com/releases" rel="nofollow - My Music

Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: August 13 2016 at 13:57

If you can record in MIDI, it would probably be easiest to do that and find a soundfont that has the fade in you want.

For non-MIDI instruments and if you want to keep the sounds separate, the only way I can think of would be to record every note or chord separately, add the fade in to each manually and arrange and mix them in the DAW. Probably too much work to worth it.

Or maybe you could try playing the piece backwards, let everything fade out and reverse the track.

If you don't mind the sounds blending together, you could just add a lot of reverb, echo, delay etc. and then compress until the volume is even throughout the track.

Posted By: DDPascalDD
Date Posted: August 13 2016 at 14:00

Thanks for the fast reply! The first looks like a good option.
Is that sampler (plug-in) something which converts the sound to a sort of midi then?

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https://pascalvandendool.bandcamp.com/album/a-moment-of-thought" rel="nofollow - New album! "A Moment of Thought"

Posted By: DDPascalDD
Date Posted: August 13 2016 at 14:06

Vompatti wrote:

Or maybe you could try playing the piece backwards, let everything fade out and reverse the track.

If you don't mind the sounds blending together, you could just add a lot of
reverb, echo, delay etc. and then compress until the volume is even
throughout the track.

I want to give these a try, albeit for the sense of experimenting and the curiosity of the outcome.

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https://pascalvandendool.bandcamp.com/album/a-moment-of-thought" rel="nofollow - New album! "A Moment of Thought"

Posted By: HackettFan
Date Posted: August 13 2016 at 14:10

The Boss Slow Gear effect pedal or some of the other knock-offs (Behringer has one, Mooer has one...) not only swell the volume, but filter the attack. Then do also as Vompatti says with a compressor. The suggestion of using a reverb pedal with only the wet signal (make sure the reverb uses a blend knob) is one of my favorite things to do, but know that it will give a different sound.

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A curse upon the heads of those who seek their fortunes in a lie. The truth is always waiting when there's nothing left to try. - Colin Henson, Jade Warrior (Now)

Posted By: Sagichim
Date Posted: August 15 2016 at 07:40

It has been a few years since I've touched the audio sound field but I remember I used to decay the attack of instruments by using a compressor. If you know how to play with it than I'm pretty sure you'll be able to do what your trying to.

Posted By: HackettFan
Date Posted: August 15 2016 at 21:47

HackettFan wrote:

The Boss Slow Gear effect pedal or some of the other knock-offs (Behringer has one, Mooer has one...) not only swell the volume, but filter the attack. Then do also as Vompatti says with a compressor. The suggestion of using a reverb pedal with only the wet signal (make sure the reverb uses a blend knob) is one of my favorite things to do, but know that it will give a different sound.

it might help to play legato too.

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A curse upon the heads of those who seek their fortunes in a lie. The truth is always waiting when there's nothing left to try. - Colin Henson, Jade Warrior (Now)

Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: August 16 2016 at 01:15

Just use automation feature of the DAW to edit the soundtrack:

In the above image the "Volume" automation is used to adjust the volume of the "Accordion" track, all you need to do is draw an automation line that fades in each note played.

(see here: http://storify.com/susigiaroli/automation-in-mixcraft" rel="nofollow - storify.com/susigiaroli/automation-in-mixcraft )

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