Tips for creating a playable synth patch part 2

Last time we talked about using Keyfollow for various synthesis function, this time we will look at using Velocity.

Velocity - Volume

Try hit a tone on any physical instrument with various strength and it will make a tone no matter how soft you hit it. This is the reason why i only have Velocity control Volume to a certain degree. Typical it will control 30-60% of the Volume but never 100%.

Velocity - Filter

Imagine the tone from a piano, when played soft its a kinda round smooth sound it produce. Play it hard and more brightness is added to the sound. The tricky part is to make that transition using Velocity, add too much Velocity to the filter and it will sound like the strings are about to break, add too little and it will sound muddy. Usually i find my self using a Velocity - Filter setting of max 25%.

Velocity - VCA-Decay

Imagine you hit a piano key soft and notice how long a decay it got, then hit i hard and notice the longer sustained note. To emulate this kind of behaviour we use Velocity - VCA-Decay. The correct setting for this depends on the instrument familie, drums need only a subtle change, pianos a bit more and guitars can go from a very short muted pluck sound to a very long sustained note. Velocity - VCA-Decay is often used along with a seperate Velocity - VCF-Decay to give the same feel to the filters, meaning the filter will open up as you play harder.

Velocity - Waveform

A classic Velocity - Waveform setting is when using Velocity to control the Pulse Width on a Square waveform. When emulating a jazz guitar sound i will often use Velocity to control the Pulse Width from a 40% position to a 30% position. This gives the waveform a little life on its own when playing at various strenght. Doing the same with Sync can also add a spark of life to the tone of a sound.

If you are working with Additive or Wavetable you can have the Velocity control the waveform in a more drastic way. Imagine a wavetable of nine pipes on a organ, have Velocity control the transition between those nine pipes going from 1 pipe to two pipes to three pipes etc. This will give you a very dynamic organ patch suited for soft to hard playing style.

This was some of the most obvious uses of Velocity within a synth.

/Michael

Tips for creating a playable synth patch part 1

Whats the big difference between playing a sample and a synthesized sound ?

Its the expression of the sound.

A sample is static whereas a synththesized sound can be much more.

To help us making a playable sound we have the following:

1. Velocity (Mapped to Volume,Filter and Waveform)
2. Aftertouch (Mapped to Vibrato)
3. Modwheel (Mapped to anything interesting)
4. Keyfollow (Volume compensation, Filter balance, Modulation (LFO) and Envelope spread)
5. (LFO) Modulation of the waveform (PWM, Wavetable, FM, Additive etc..)

Keyfollow example:

Pulse Width Modulation

A PWM waveform modulated by LFO will usually sound nice at the key we used to set the speed of LFO but if we play a much higher key it wont have the same modulation effect and if we play a very low key the effect will be way to much. This is where keyfollow comes in. We have to control the amount of LFO signal sent to the waveform by using keyfollow. In this case the keyfollow must be set to a positive amount around 50%+.

This should produce an overall nice modulation to the entire keyboard range.

Volume Balance

Next thing to consider using keyfollow is for Volume. High notes will alway be percieved at a higher volume than lower notes since high pitch sound travel faster thru air than lower pitch sounds. In this cast we have to use keyfollow with a negative setting thus making the lower notes play louder than the high notes. This is done by having keyfollow control the Volume with a 50%- setting.

This should produce an overall Volume balance to the entire keyboard range.

Filter Balance

Next thing to do with Keyfollow is balance filter offset for the entire keyboard range. Do we want it to play with a more open filter when playing high notes or do we wish to have the same strength of filter apply to the entire keyboard range. Remember IF you choose to have more open filter with high notes then the percieved Volume will be higher on high notes aswell so you need to adjust the Keyfollow->Volume balance.

Waveform Balance

The finishing touch using keyfollow goes to the Pulse Width waveform offset. When playing very high notes we all have a hard time hearing if its a Saw, Square or Sine waveform we hear. This is much more obvious when we play low key notes. To compensate for this loss of definition we have to strengthen the high keys towards a more Square'ish sound. In this case we use keyfollow to alter Pulse Width a small bit making high notes play with a wider Pulse Width and low notes play with a more narrow Pulse Width. Usually you would have to make the low notes be the offset and then have keyfollow increase the width as you play higher notes.

This concludes the typical use of Keyfollow.

/Michael

XSynth Beatbox

Been awhile since my last post but i've been pretty busy. One of my lastest projects is a synthesized beatbox designed from scratch with each sound. The end result is a mix between the beatbox you would find in old organs and a TR 808, so the sound nature is more leaned towards a soft beatbox for old school synth arrangements and 80's pop arrangements.

Here is a snippet with some patterns:

http://www.xsynth.com/demos/XS_Beatbox_B.mp3

Here is an example of the beatbox used in an arrangement i made in Reason:

http://www.xsynth.com/demos/SugarPop.mp3

Besides that i'm more or less working towards creating a sampled synth setup for use with Reason.

/Michael

AFTERskool for Zebra2 VST released

Zebra AFTERskool Soundset is complete. At first this was ment to be a release with focus on drums but the workflow with tons of Zebra's used for drums is not that smart after all so drums will be released as a sampled kit later on. However the Zebra AFTERskool Soundset includes 3 drum preset, the White Kit, The Tomblas and the Native War Drums.

The Zebra AFTERskool Soundset is mixed bag of 128 Presets which is fully capable of producing music on its own.

PDF file can be found here:
http://www.zebrasynth.com/downloads/ZebraAFTERskoolSoundset.pdf

Here is the official AFTERskool demo (No External FX used):
http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_AFTERskool_DEMO.mp3

AFTERskool is available here:
http://www.zebrasynth.com/index.php?item=afterskool

/Michael

ST Chorus released

Guess no one saw this coming being me releasing a chorus but this chorus is from a SE project i stopped working on 2 years ago. The chorus was finished back then but i didn't bother to finish a gui since i only planed on using it myself. Eventually i figured someone was bound to put a chorus on the market that i liked but that did happen in this 2 year time so i decided to wrap this one up and make it available for all.

My reference for this chorus was my work with various Roland chorus over time like Re-301, Jazz Chorus Amp, Dimension D, Juno 60, Boss Pedal etc... I was raised listening to those chorus so that type of chorus is stuck in my head.

Here is a demo where i use the ST Chorus on the following instruments:

Lounge Lizzard Piano, Zebra 2 DX E Piano, ARP Omni, NI Pro 53 Brass, Zebra 2 PWM Pad, RealGuitar Steel Picked, ABL 2 Bassline and Zeta+ Trance Pattern

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/ST_Chorus_DEMO2.mp3

A limited demo is available here, give it a spin:

http://www.synthtronic.com/stchdemo.zip

You can pick it up for €19 over at

www.synthtronic.com/stchorus.html

/Michael

Zebra 2 After Skool Soundset

Here is a little update on the next soundset for Zebra 2 VST from me. First of all i changed the working title to "Zebra After Skool Soundset", this makes more sense to me since "Zebra Oldskool Soundset" was the name of the previous soundset.

Zebra 2 After Skool Soundset will be a mixed bag of 128 presets.

Here are some demos of the work so far:

(Some Ethnic + Slooow Emo Pads)
http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Soundset4_03.mp3

(Let's make some Noise, Despite what you might think, this IS Zebra.) http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Soundset4_02.mp3

(Rhythmbox + Various)
http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Soundset4_01.mp3

(Various Presets)
http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Aug08.mp3

/Michael

Zebra 2 Soundset 4 Progress

A little update on Soundset 4 progress: I've used an insane amount of time on making a rhythmbox kit to my taste. I wanted the set to sound like all coming from the same rhythmbox. Why go thru so much bother for something which is around free all over the net as samples. Well the word samples is the reason. Ever tried EQ'ing a sampled TR 808 or the likes BD just to find that the sample isnt clean. The typical situation is you put more top on a drum and then reveals some unwanted high freq noise/tones. So this in basics is the reason why i sat down and created a rhythmebox from scratch, now i'm 100 % sure no artifacts will appear no matter how hard i boost any frequency because the drum sounds are super clear and pure.

Ok besides the rhythmebox the work has been around a bleeding trumpet. This has taken forever and the outcome is more like a trombone heh heh but i'll settle for a trombone for now ;) Now when making an emulation like a trombone you cant possibly cover all aspect of the sound but what you can do is create something which is GOOD enough for most performances.

Here is a demo snippet of some new sounds, no EQ only limiter and a stereo enhancing thingy on the mix:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Soundset4_01.mp3

First of all its a journey with the rhythmbox thru various arrangements.

First we hear a nice square/piano like pad then its the phaser string, the Ride Cymbal and Thee Trombone after that a spacey dark pad with some echo key hits and last its some reggeaton with a synth preset sounding like a sample from an old Mirage Sampler with lots of grittyness and the 8 bit flavour all over it.

Ohh and dont mind my lousy Trombone solo play

I'm going to give the rhythmbox hihat a closer look later on and will create a few other sounding cymbals, ohh and a NEW clap.

Btw, now that i think of it the box sounds somewhat like the mix done for Rock Your Baby by George McCray, in my head that is. I dont dare listen that title now, what if i'm all wrong heh heh.

Thats about it

/Michael