Studio One Studio One - Using the Splitter Tool to Bi-amp a Dry Guitar Signal

[PapaRaptor]

This covers the Splitter tool for a stereo split, allowing you to take a dry, mono guitar signal and split it to stereo and use a different amp on each channel. This demonstrates using Ampire, the built in amp sim in Studio One, but I suspect you could do the same thing with third party plug-ins, like Bias FX (or FX2) or Native Instruments Guitar Rig.

https://youtu.be/JMMFC8H_Q00

 

[Elwood]

Another great video Papa! Instruction and delivery - spot on!! Your demo track sounds great!

One question....is there an advantage to using this method over just duplicating tracks and leaving one dry? Like on TZ's last VJR post I used 3 channels, 2 with enhancements and one dry, all mono. Does the splitting method allow more possibilities, control, or just better result? Not trying to ague you, rather trying to understand, I know you get it.

 

[PapaRaptor]

One question....is there an advantage to using this method over just duplicating tracks and leaving one dry?

The only consistent advantage is time saved over duplicating and processing each track... even that is arguable. Using this, you're guaranteed your duplicate channel won't slip.
This is just one example of the splitter tool. Another one I think is cool is the frequency splits. If you have an acoustic guitar track where you would like to add some reverb or delay, you can frequency split and keep the bottom end of the guitar dry and only add the reverb (or delay) to the top end of the track. Keeping the low end dry and only applying effects on the high end will make the recording much clearer and let you use more reverb without the recording becoming muddy.

But, there is nothing to stop you from doing exactly the same thing by duplicating a dry track and applying separate effects and panning to each copy, with essentially the same results.

The real reason I showed it is because I've been using it a lot in the VJR and I've built a preset with the Fender/Marshall setup like I demonstrated in the video. This definitely doesn't qualify as a must know, but more of a "gee, that's kinda cool," thing.

 

[Elwood]

No, no no no. That's cool as hell! I just am trying to get my head around it, like why and when. Your acoustic example, well - just imagine a guy had one of those...that might just be some kind of hot tip there!

 

[CaptainMoto]

Stop reading the manual, I'm learning more than I can handle.

Excellent job

 

[PapaRaptor]

No, no no no. That's cool as hell! I just am trying to get my head around it, like why and when. Your acoustic example, well - just imagine a guy had one of those...that might just be some kind of hot tip there!

I think in this case the best reason is "because you can!"

 

[MikeS]

Hey Papa, I think it might be time for a Papa Does Studio One sticky with descriptions and links to all your videos!

 

[Elwood]

See if this makes sense @PapaRaptor ,
I still get better "good time feeling" if I hear my guitar coming out of my amp, even through the headphones. So, if my signal coming in to the DAW is the line out from my Fender Superchamp II. Last time I used 3 channels, two with various EQ and comp, and my dry track. I ended up using some Output Movement effect on the dry track and sliding it in the background. (I know, what one helluva mess I made for one jam track, You should have seen the one for the backing track...I think some folks work harder when they don't know what they are doing)
Without putting time in it, do you think the splitting technique would have any advantage in terms of efficiency or consistency (if you wanted to replicate your tone setup on another track) ?
I ran my mixdown back to the DAW so I could see what my amplitude looked like before posting back. The Normalize still bewilders me a bit, it seems to toggle between two states but I seem to get it sooner or later.


The frequency splitting thing sounds awesome, I'll sure try that! These posts sure make learning S! a lot more fun!!!

 

[PapaRaptor]

The only thing I think you would gain is a little wider stereo sound field on your lead. Having said that, you could get the same width by panning your #3 and #4 tracks a little further to their respective sides.
There are a lot of reasons to do exactly what you did in this track. The only time you can get it wrong is when your mix sounds like crap to your own ears. Otherwise, if you like what you're doing, both playing and mixing, it's all good. The splitter won't do anything that you can't get by other means in the DAW.

Also, after doing a little more reading and watching a few more videos, it looks like normalize always "normalizes" to 0db, regardless of where the mixer fader is set. I was fooling around with some macros in Studio One and one of them was 'Normalize -6db.' In looking at the construction of the macro, it appears to be done in two steps, with step 1 normalizing and step 2 dropping the event by 6db. I looked all over the macro tables and a bunch of other docs, including Presonus forums and it appears the target for all normalization is 0db in S1.

Honestly, I hadn't been using normalize with S1 until I saw that Griff is such an advocate of using it. I didn't even know where it was in the menu. But there is certainly no harm in using it to tame a backing track before you record a contribution to it.

 

[Elwood]

That's great Papa, you really look into this stuff when we ask - Thanks!
Now, there is a square box that is visible at the top -middle of an active event. You can drag that puppy up and down to set event gain. Problem is I can't find any fine resolution, or type in for values. My mouse has me a quivering wreck trying to set small sensitive stuff. It seems if that was usable you could ditch normalize in favor of a bit more control, maybe?

 

[PapaRaptor]

That's great Papa, you really look into this stuff when we ask - Thanks!
Now, there is a square box that is visible at the top -middle of an active event. You can drag that puppy up and down to set event gain. Problem is I can't find any fine resolution, or type in for values. My mouse has me a quivering wreck trying to set small sensitive stuff. It seems if that was usable you could ditch normalize in favor of a bit more control, maybe?

You can get better granular control using the gain box by making the event larger and then using the gain tool. You can increase the vertical size of a track by hovering on the bottom line of a track and you will see a horizontal bar with up and down arrow. Click and drag down to expand the track. Make your adjustments and then use the same process to bring it back down to size.

I was able to get as fine as .1db increments using this method.

 

[BraylonJennings]

You can get better granular control using the gain box by making the event larger and then using the gain tool. You can increase the vertical size of a track by hovering on the bottom line of a track and you will see a horizontal bar with up and down arrow. Click and drag down to expand the track. Make your adjustments and then use the same process to bring it back down to size.
View attachment 12602
I was able to get as fine as .1db increments using this method.

This works exceptionally well with automation tracks, if you like to draw them in manually.