Speaker A
This is one of those things that changed how I think about music production. Like, take this sound.
Learn why perfectly repeated sounds feel fake and how to add natural micro variations to your music production.
Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.
Generated from the transcript and can be wrong — check the timestamp.
Key Takeaways
- Perfectly repeated sounds lack natural variation and feel fake.
- Micro variations in velocity and pitch make music sound more human.
- Subtle modulation and vintage-style effects add life to digital sounds.
- Manual adjustments and effects can simulate natural imperfections.
- Applying these techniques improves the emotional connection to music.
What the video covers
- Perfectly repeated sounds feel unnatural because they lack micro variations found in real instruments.
- Humans connect emotionally to tiny differences in sound, which add realism.
- Adjusting velocity on each note can introduce natural variation, especially in hi-hat loops.
- Pitch modulation over time adds subtle variation and life to sounds.
- Manual fine-tuning of notes can create pitch differences.
- Slow modulation of filters or effects adds imperceptible but felt movement.
- Using effects that simulate aging or imperfection (flutter, wow, loss) adds authenticity.
- Synth effects like drift or diverge help mimic natural sound imperfections.
- Incorporating these techniques makes digital music feel more organic and engaging.
- The video encourages saving and following for practical music production tips.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to unnatural sounds
- 00:05Why perfect repetition feels fake
- 00:10Micro variations in natural instruments
- 00:18Adding velocity variation
- 00:27Using pitch modulation
- 00:35Manual fine-tuning and modulation effects
- 00:45Slow modulation and filter movement
- 00:58Vintage effects for natural imperfection
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Our brain immediately clocks that this is not natural because nothing in the natural world would ever be that exact.
Speaker A
[music] Even if you sit down at a piano and play the same note over and over again, each note is going to have tiny micro variations that make it different than the last. And I think, as humans, we
Speaker A
connect to these micro variations. So, here are a few ways to add them into your music. [music] My favorite is you can adjust the velocity to be different on each note. If I'm manually building a hi-hat loop, the very [music] first
Speaker A
thing I'm doing is changing the velocity of them. Another way is to add modulation to add pitch variation over time.
Speaker A
If you want, you can do this manually by changing the fine-tune of each note. Or you can add modulation that slowly changes the filter movement or some other effect.
Speaker A
The slower the rate is, the harder it is to hear, but you can still feel it. Or you can use any effect that's meant to make something feel old because they have imperfectness built right in. On a synth, drift or diverge,
Speaker A
or effects like flutter, wow, and loss can bring some life to it. Save this video and follow if you'll use any of this.
Topics:music productionsound designmicro variationsvelocity modulationpitch modulationsynth effectsmusic realismaudio imperfectionshi-hat loopmusic tips
