echoes

2003-06-02 05:32 pm

How do I make an echo effect in my compositions?

Re: echoes

Reply #1 – 2003-06-02 05:53 pm

I'm sure that more knowledgable users will have more to say on this topic. Here's my two cents' worth:

I assume that by "echo" you mean the audio sound of being in a room or hall. (As opposed to notes that are first played by one instrument or voice, then repeated by another instrument or voice).

One way to do this is to create an audio (WAV) file from your finished composition. This procedure requires you to first export your music from NWC as a MIDI file, then record the MIDI to WAV. The recording process can be done by a variety of ways, all of which are external to the NWC program. Search this forum for suggestions from others users.

Once a WAV audio file is created, a variety of effects can be applied using the free "Audacity" software:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

You can apply echo, at varied qualities, to all or part of the music.

If you are going to make your finished music (with echo) available to others on the Internet, I suggest that you compress it to something such as Windows Media (WMA) format. The Windows Media Encoder is free from the Microsoft web site.

Since the above methods produce a finished audio product, it will sound essentially the same on everyone's computer. On the other hand, if you are willing to accept less control over the finished sound, simply export MIDI from NWC and let the user play the MIDI file. That makes use of the receiving computer's interpretation of the MIDI, so the finished result will differ from machine to machine. I believe that some sort of echo FX can be applied to MIDI, but that may require additional software to apply (am I right, or not?).

Re: echoes

Reply #2 – 2003-06-03 07:21 am

You could also simply add a MPC:reverb command to the beginning of a staff that you want to have the echo.

Then, a different kind of an echo can be achieved by creating a new staff, copying an existing staff and delaying it by adding, say, a 32 rest (the best duration depends on how deep you want the echo), and then hiding the new staff so that it won't look ugly. This works well only on faster pieces, though.