BT And The Stutter Edit
US-based electronic artist Brian Transeau, or BT, is a pioneer of elaborate audio editing. His technique, the ‘stutter edit’, involves fast rhythmic audio repetitions that range from machine gun 32nd- and 64th-note rolls up to buzzing 128th-note streams and beyond. Transeau set up his Sonik Architects software brand to develop his own personal range of futuristic, glitch-inducing tools, designed to execute his micro-editing tasks in real time.
After his company was acquired by iZotope, two of BT’s plug-in concepts have been released commercially. Stutter Edit is a “live remixing” multi-effect that enables the user to fire off a multitude of tempo-synced effects such as repeating, filters, delays and distortion, consolidating many complex processes into simple Gestures that are triggered by MIDI key presses. BreakTweaker is a drum sequencer that allows you to “manipulate audio at a molecular level”, employing Transeau’s micro-editing techniques on a per-step basis to generate blistering tonal repetitions and glitched-out percussion sequences.
While these plug-ins make micro-editing seem easy, you can revert back to the old-school method and explore the manual micro-editing of audio files. Slice out a tiny chunk of a drum hit, delete the rest, turn off your host’s quantise and duplicate the segment many times. Increasing or decreasing the spaces in between each event over time will give a familiar ‘winding up/down’ effect comparable to a spluttering CD drive. Once above a certain speed, repetitions will generate a musical tone – a rudimentary form of granular synthesis.
Listen to BT’s signature stutter on Simply Being Loved Manual ‘Micro-Editing’ Glitch programming is more arduous without dedicated glitch tools. But, you have complete control over your stutters, and you can call upon choice third-party effects within your host. ( Somnambulist) (http://bit.ly/ BTVocalFM), which holds the Guinness World Record for the most vocal edits in one song.
BreakTweaker A drum sequencer for beat layering, programming and composition. Each sequencer step can be divided up into tiny fragments, facilitating speedy beat repeats and buzzing glitch effects.