Wusik Sound Magazine August 2012
Editorial
Wusik Sound Magazine www.wusiksoundmagazine.com Issue August 2012. Managing Editor: MoniKe Assistant Editors: David Baer A. Arsov Production Manager: MoniKe
Staff: A. Arsov www.arsov.net Adrian Frost - aka anzoid www.anzoid.com Ben Paturzo - aka Astrin www.benpaturzo.com Danny Danzi www.dannydanzi.com David Baer - aka dmbaer David Keenum david@wusik.com Ginno 'g.no' Legaspi www.facebook.com/ginnolegaspi ginno@wusik.com Jeffrey Powell jsp_wsm@yahoo.com Rishabh Rajan www.rishabhrajan.com Rob Mitchell - aka Examigan Robert Halvarsson www.suecae.com suecae.sounds@gmail.com Tomislav Zlatić http://bedroomproducersblog.com bedroomproducers@gmail.com Warren Burt www.tropicapricorn.com WilliamK
Hello all and welcome to the August issue of Wusik Sound Magazine. This month I have the particular pleasure of welcoming back a wonderful writer who we haven't seen much of in the last several years, Warren Burt. Warren is a Yank living down under, and his credentials are extensive and impressive. He has been involved in music (acoustic and electronic) since 1968. His resume includes composition, instrument building (both physical and virtual), video artistry, sound poetry, and extensive experience in teaching music theory and technology. Plus, he's one heck of a fine writer. We're very fortunate to have him back in our WSM family. Of course, there are also all the usual suspects back offering content: gear reviews, tutorials and generally interesting commentary. Enjoy and stay cool … at least those of you not living down under. David Baer
Proof-readers for this issue: Adrian Frost David Baer Covers and Some Pictures: www.dreamstime.com EVE’s Advertising: Henry Gibson
Some of the products reviewed in Wusik Sound Magazine are copies provided free of charge for reviewing purposes.
David Baer
A. Arsov
MoniKe
Table of Contents Table of Contents
Creating Sounds: FM Synthesis Part 5 - Into the Matrix by Adrian Frost Articles: Calculated Sound Design (An Alchemy Adventure) by dmbaer GRAF-X - Newton by Ben Paturzo
DanziLand Dispatch: Compression by Danny Danzi Book Review: Body and Soul By Frank Conroy by dmbaer Series: Studio micro by Ben Paturzo
Reviews FM8 Experience - Audio Mind Project by Jeffrey Powell Modartt PIANOTEQ Rhody RS and Steel Pans by Adrian Frost Tone2 - Saurus by Adrian Frost Bestservice.de Evolution Series World Percussion Compact by A. Arsov Garritan Instant Orchestra by Adrian Frost Aiyn Zahev Soundbanks by Jeffrey Powell
In Depth Fxpansion’s DCAM: Synth Squad - Part 4 - Fusor by Adrian Frost Bestservice.de Synth-Werk by A. Arsov Riff Master Pro 4 by Jeffrey Powell GRM Tools 3.3 by Warren Burt Digital Sound Factory Ensoniq SoundFonts by Adrian Frost Orange Tree Samples Passion Flute by Jeffrey Powell
C reating Sounds FM Synthesis by Adrian Frost
Part 5 - Into the Matrix
In April's article we took a look at "complex" FM synthesis and the use of algorithms as introduced by Yamaha's DX line of synths in the 80s. Algorithms provide preset configurations of operators that give us a reasonable starting point for the creation of our sounds. This month we're going to examine a style of FM synth that really only became possible when developers started creating synths for use on general purpose computers - the matrix based FM synth. There are quite a few matrix based FM synths on the market both commercial and freeware and they all follow more or less the same design - you have a series of operators, often six, and they interact via a grid that allows you to link any operator to any other operator, or in some cases, to itself. Depending on the synth each operator may be as simple as a frequency adjustable sine wave with an ADSR envelope or as complicated as, well, something quite complicated. For example, each operator in LinPlug's "Octopus", which we'll be looking at in more detail later, is a self-contained additive oscillator that comes with a whole range of options. Once you 04
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
move away from the shared feature the matrix - everything else is up for grabs and you'll find all kinds of things on offer.
Figure 2
Figure 1
The basic principle of matrix based FM synths is fairly easy to grasp. Each operator appears on both the horizontal and vertical axis of a grid as seen in the accompanying picture Figure 1. Each square represents a potential connection (modulation amount) between two operators, or in the case of the squares with the grey circle, an operator connecting to itself which we know of as self-modulation. August 2012
Generally each square will contain a way, click and drag usually, to change the amount that one operator modulates the other. For instance, if we want Operator 1 to modulate Operator 3 we would need to select the third column of the first row and adjust the modulation amount Figure 2. How that amount is represented varies between different synths. Some use percentages, others use decimal amounts up to 1, or 10... there's probably even one out there that counts it in llamas.
FM Synthesis
Figure 3 one I've already mentioned. The freeware synth is called FEM 2 and is made by miniSoftMusik (www.minisoftmusik.de). FEM 2 is a new, up and coming, 6 operator synth with a good feature set and a very pleasant sound. miniSoftMusik - "FEM 2"
It may seem somewhat redundant to show you another graphic (Figure 3) of the matrix but it's worth pointing out that although operators 1 and 3 are both connected in these pictures something different is going on. Here Operator 3 is modulating Operator 1. Simple and obvious, maybe, but it's important to know which way your synth works. Every matrix synth that I have used so far does things this way - the operator indicated in the row modulates the one indicated in the column.
Figure 4 packs nearly everything onto one single page and is thus very easy to get around. The only thing to be aware of though is that some features are slightly hidden. Each operator has two modes - Wav and Env - which are accessible through a miniscule bistate button in the top left hand
corner of each operator's 'box'. Here you also need to know that to get any sound out of a particular operator you need to set its level whilst in 'Env' mode. This one had me baffled for a while... The fact that you can set an operator's level is actually independent of how it works within the matrix. An operator with its level set to zero can still modulate another operator but you won't hear the first operator's sound in the overall mix. This is a useful feature because it enables you to emulate the kind of stacks (see April's article) that you regularly find in algorithmic synths.
Figure 4
Once you've got a hold of the basic operating principle of matrix based synths it's time to dive in and start playing. We're going to look at two synths in this article, one freeware and the other commercial, the commercial August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
05
C reating Sounds Figure 5
Figure 7
Figure 5 show the two modes that are A quick example will show some of available in each operator. When in FEM 2 capabilities. Figure 7 shows Env mode you can change the the matrix for the sound that we're operator's frequency ratio or, by going to create. We're only using clicking the 'fix' button, set a fixed three operators and I've pretty much frequency for the operator. Fixed chosen which ones to use at random frequencies can be used to create - such is FM synthesis... Operator 2 some quite interesting effects modulates Operator 3 and Operator particularly enharmonic sounds that 6 self-modulates. Simple. can vary wildly over the length of the keyboard.
Figure 6
In FEM 2 each operator works on additive principles - Figure 6. That means that you can set the partials to create the kind of waveform that you want to use n your sound. Although there is no particular reset button you can select a different preset waveform by clicking on the waveform name to the right of the 'load' and 'save' text buttons. The two knobs that are not related to the ratio controls look after the LFO (choice of 4) and key following. 06
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
FM Synthesis
Figure 8
Figure 9
Figure 8 shows the waveform settings for operators 2 & 3. In each case we're using simple sine waves though feel free to try other waveforms too. Operator 2 has an integer ratio of 2 set whilst Operator 3 is acting to add an enharmonic element to our sound. One thing to remember when creating sounds with FM synthesis is that small tweaks can make big differences - so even though Op 3 'only' has a ratio of 1.0080 that 0.0080 makes a difference to the sound. Figure 9 is the envelope settings for the same operators. The attack times are both quite short. Operator 2's level is at zero so it's not contributing to the final mix of the sound but is still modulating Operator 3.
Figure 10
Finally, in Figure 10, we have the envelope settings for Operator 6. The waveform is a simple sine wave with a ratio of 1. The use of self-modulation with the matrix and a very short release time on the envelope gives Operator 6 a percussive edge that sits quite nicely with the slightly more drawn out sound produced by Ops 2 & 3. And there you have it. A quick, simple sound created with little fuss.
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
07
C reating Sounds Figure 11
LinPlug - "Octopus" If you've been reading WSM over the last year or so you'll know by now that I'm a big fan of LinPlug's synths. Amongst them all "Octopus" (Figure 11) has to be my favourite. I've spent hours and hours playing with this synth, creating sounds and generally just having a good time. It's a synth that inspires me. Because this article isn't supposed to be a review I'm not going to go diving into all of the features that Octopus has to offer believe me, they are many and varied.
where it is on a Mac...) directory of your plug-in folder and you're good to go.
operators that you're not currently using by clicking the name to the left of the matrix (labelled as OSC 1 to 8) Turning operators on and off is a handy way to see how your sound is developing. My goal in creating "New Thing" was to make a vaguely brass sounding lead instrument that would sound good in short bursts but would
As its name might suggest Octopus has eight operators. Each operator is of the additive type and you can set the amplitude and phase of all of the partials. As well as setting the frequency and ratio of the oscillator Figure 12 you can also set its pitch. Each op can also be free running rather than re-triggering on each key press. As well as having an operator matrix Octopus also has an envelope matrix from which you can assign up to 32 What I am going to do is show you loopable envelopes that are shared how I created one of my favourite across the 8 operators. This gives an Octopus sounds, one that I've used on impressive amount of control over a number of my own tracks. For those how your sound develops. Throw in who might be interested, 42 patches two filters, four effects and two 32 that I've created, including the one step sequencers and Octopus is quite explained here, are available for a package. download from www.anzoid.com/octopus.zip Un-zip New Thing them into the "LinPlug/OctopusData/Banks" We'll start with the matrix - Figure 12. (Windows version... goodness knows To save resources you can disable 08
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
FM Synthesis
be OK for notes that were held a bit longer. I'll leave you to judge whether I met my goal. The way I set things up Op 1 modulates Ops 2, 3 and
Figure 13
4. Op 2 modulates Ops 3 & 4 and Op 3 modulates Op 4. Ops 3 and 4 are the one that we ultimately hear in the sound as Ops 1 and 2 are set to zero in the 'Mix' column on the right. If we were to represent this setup as an algorithm it would look something like Figure 13. Try and do that on a DX7!
Figure 14
All four operators are simple sine waves in this examples; Apart from Op 1 they all have a ratio of 1 and I've not fiddled with any other settings. Op 1 has a ratio of 1.0068. Why 1.0068? Why not?
Figure 15
After setting up the operators it's time to mess around with the envelopes and this is where things get fun when using Octopus. You can go wild and keep adding envelopes or you can be a bit more restrained and just add a few. I chose to use three. Operators 3 and 4 are controlled by the first amplitude envelope and Ops 1 and 2 then each have their own envelope. The matrix itself is setup as shown in Figure 15. August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
09
C reating Sounds The three envelopes are shown in Figure 16. Because Ops 3 and 4 have an envelope attack time of zero we instantly start to hear their sound. Then over half a second Op 2 kicks in modulating Ops 3 and 4 and over a whole second Op 1 makes its presence felt. What this means is that the initially smooth sound of Ops 3 and 4 becomes brasher in the course of one second as more and more modulation, and modulation sources are introduced. The release time for all the envelopes is zero seconds so the sound cuts off immediately the key is released leaving only the reverb and delay tails if they happen to be switched on.
Figure 16
To finish The other 41 presets in the zip archive mentioned above show a whole range of different sounds that can be created with Octopus. And here I have to confess that I'm no expert, just an interested amateur who has spent a reasonable amount of time learning the basics and principles of FM synthesis. So if I can do it, so can you. The sounds that I have managed to create are all based on simple sine waves, nothing fancy, but they show the real power of FM synthesis - even in the hands of a novice. Next time we'll be looking at Rob Papen's "BLUE" and also the "ThruZero" FM capabilities of FXpansion's DCAM: Synth squad member Cypher. To wrap up the series there is also going to be an exclusive interview with Dr. John Chowning, father of FM synthesis. So, tune in next time and happy FM synthesizing.
10
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Worlds.Wusik.com
Calculated Sound Design (An Alchemy Adventure)
by dmbaer
Sound Serendipity This document's an investigation I undertook into the nature of additive sound parameters, but the investigation turned out to go a very different direction than originally envisioned. My initial curiosity related to importing graphics into a synth to be used as a serendipitous source for additive sounds. I have at least two instruments that offer this feature: Alchemy and Harmor. Harmor actually does Alchemy one better in this regard since it allows for both import and export of graphics via the clipboard. Given what I believe to be Alchemy's much larger market share, I wanted to stick with it as the basis for this piece.
12
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
But before investing too much time we should ask ourselves: what is to be gained through such a pursuit other than maybe an afternoon's amusement? There's much left unexploited when trying to use graphics as a source of sound design:
♪
♪
Foremost is the fact that there's no correlation between what makes a good sound vs. a good image. "Elvis on Black Velvet" has every chance of sounding better than a Van Gogh masterpiece. In a real-life sonically-pleasing additive sound specification, the amplitude of higher partials falls off rather dramatically, but images
August 2012
♪
typically don't mirror this tendency. An imported image controls partial amplitude with brighter image areas corresponding to higher amplitudes. So, one would need to develop skills in computer graphic painting techniques to produce something that really works as an additive specification import. Finally, at least in Alchemy, an imported image only controls partial amplitude. As we'll see, manipulating phase (or pitch, which comes down to the same thing) can be at least as interesting as manipulating amplitude.
So, I ended up concluding this kind of exploration would probably be largely a waste of time. But in the process, something else caught my eye to which I previously paid scant attention: the ability to export/import additive specifications (.aaz files in Alchemy-speak) as text files (.csz files) that can even be loaded into Excel. But here's the thing about CSZ files: they're massive, with huge numbers of data points. You wouldn't even think about doing manual tweaking. And while they can be loaded into Excel, if you tried programming meaningful Excel value manipulation, you would surely end up with a spreadsheet from hell. But, there's another possibility here and that's the direction I went ... with gratifying results at the end of the day. What about creating software that would generate Alchemy CSV files? The strategy would allow introducing randomness to achieve the desired serendipity in a controlled way that can produce usable, interesting sounds. Fortunately for me, my day job is that of a software engineer, so the programming skills required are no big deal and I had a rare opportunity to use them for something genuinely fun. Thus was born the Addulator, an Alchemy CSV file generator that I'll be making freely available to fellow Alchemists.
Adding It All Up Let's begin with some background on additive sound generation. Consider the characteristics of a standard saw wave. To create one with a frequency F from sine waves, we need a component sine wave with frequency F, a second with frequency 2*F (exactly), a third with 3*F (exactly) and so on ad infinitum. Each of the partials has a phase of zero (in other words, they all start at the beginning of the sine wave cycle). Finally, each partial has amplitude of 1/PN, where PN is the partial number, resulting in a continuous attenuation of sine wave amplitudes as the partial number increases. Now, a pure saw wave is pretty bright (you might call it "buzzy"), and when used in subtractive synthesis, it's often heavily filtered. We could go brighter still by attenuating higher partial amplitudes less, but at some point there'd be so much high frequency content that the sound would be flat-out irritating. Keep that in mind further on. Next, what happens if we start changing the amplitudes of partials? As we do so, the saw wave shape starts to distort. If we continuously change the amplitudes on the fly, we have a situation equivalent to changing the resultant base waveform as often as every cycle.
August 2012
But it gets more interesting when we change the phase of partials. Gradually changing the phase of a partial changes the pitch during the period of transition. Conversely, introducing a gradual pitch change from the initial to a different pitch and then back to the initial will result in a partial with a new phase (in relation to that of the fundamental) when the transition is complete. Throw in L/R pan position changes in the partials and we've got something akin to an Alchemy additive sound specification. Using continuously varying partial parameters, we can achieve the equivalent of having a single cycle oscillator that can change the wave form as frequently as each individual cycle while changing the stereo image at the same time. But we can't just throw random numbers into the mix and expect a musical sound. The changes can't be too jagged or extensive and rapid unless we want a really chaotic sound to begin with. Furthermore, pitch deviations too far from a multiple of the fundamental pitch will produce enharmonic results (again, not good unless that's what we're shooting for in the first place). It all boils down to this. We want serendipity, but it needs to be governed by some reasonable constraints.
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
13
Calculated
Figure 1 AAZ Data, Data and More Data Before we look at how those constraints are specified in the generator program, let's look at an example CSV file, or at least a small portion of the beginning of one. Fig. 1 shows that example. After the lead-in "AAZ" header, we have four lines of global timing information that are selfexplanatory. Next we have the "Additive" header. This is because Alchemy CSV files can be used for both additive and spectral data, so Alchemy needs to be told which kind it's getting. A CSV file can contain both types, but we're only interested in the additive option here.
AttackPeakTime 0.03918367 LoopStart 3.30550003 LoopEnd 3.46520829 Length 3.47733331 Additive PitchOffset Time 0.00587302 0.01174603 0.01761905 0.02349206 ... PitchDev 0.11701584 0.11701584 0.11701584 ... NumPartials 92 StartPhase1 0.51647091 Time1 0.01006825 0.01016825 0.01385586 ... Amp1 0.00000000 0.08153400 0.12615897 ... Pitch1 -0.30048165 -0.30048165 -0.04204188 ... Pan1 0.50000000 0.50000000 0.50000000 ... StartPhase2 0.96445829 ...
The next section, beginning with "PitchOffset", governs overall pitch. It seems to me that this information is redundant since we also provide pitch information for each partial. I suspect it may be there to facilitate reverse engineering wave files in an import operation to produce an additive mapping. In any case, there are two lines. The "Time" line provides a series of ascending times in seconds. As you can see, the intervals are pretty small ... in the neighborhood of 6 milliseconds in the data shown. The "PitchDev" line has a value, one for
14
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
many of them for each of the 610 each value in the Time line, that specifies a plus or minus deviation lines of partial data, most of which are from the fundamental pitch. These also not shown. values appear to be in semitones, so a value of -0.01 would be down one The five partial specification lines cent from the exact pitch of a note. begin with "StartPhaseN", "TimeN", "AmpN", "PitchN" and "PanN", where The "NumPartials" line should be self- "N" is the partial number. The explanatory. After this, we have five StartPhase value is a number between lines for each partial and the number zero and 1.0 corresponding to zero to of these five-line groups must be that 360 degrees. Time is just like that specified on the NumPartials line. I'm described for global PitchOffset. Note only showing the first few columns of though that each partial has an this data, but be aware there are independent time line that does not
August 2012
Sound Design
correlate with other partial time lines in any way.
boundaries as the allowed range seems reasonable.
Amp is a value between zero and 2.0. Pitch is a deviation from the pitch of the partial, i.e., a deviation from the exact multiple from the fundamental frequency. The units appear to be semitones; so once again, a value of 0.01 is one cent. There do not appear to be min/max constraints on pitch values. However one caution is in order: earlier versions of Alchemy used a different system than the one currently in place. So this information applies only to more recent versions.
Although Alchemy does not demand that each partial have the same number of time points, generating partials all with the same number of data points does no harm. Furthermore, Alchemy does not demand that loop start and loop end values match any partial's data timeline, but calculations become a bit easier when this is so.
Finally we have Pan, which ranges between zero and 1.0 with 0.5 being centered in the stereo field. Let's Roll the Dice We're ready at last to look at the program that can create the CSV additive specifications. The idea was to allow a lot of flexibility and latitude in governing the various aspects of randomness. Before getting too far into those details, let's look at some common aspects of partial amp, pitch and pan data. Amp and pan parameters have a minimum and maximum value range: 0-2.0 and 0-1.0 respectively. Pitch does not have such a range but imposing one-semitone up and down
adjustment at all, and full centering is done with the "Absolute" setting. Three intermediate values are also available. Finally, we specify the maximum drift per step with parameter Drift Step Distance. This can be between 2.5% and 40% per time step of the total range determined in what was described immediately above.
Given these parameters, we populate the data points of the partial data line by randomly moving from one value So, we need to generate data points to the next within the constraints of for amp, pitch and pan for each partial, the Drift Step Distance and the Drift one data point for each time step. Total Distance. If that sounds overly Here's how it's done in the Addulator, complicated, maybe a quick example the approach being the same for amp, will help. pitch and pan data. Assume we have Large for Drift Total We start by coming up with a Distance, meaning we can have up to randomly assigned lower and upper 100% of the range. We roll the dice limit to the data values. For amp, this for one of the partial amp lines and will be between zero and 2.0 and for come up with a range 0.1 and 1.1. pan between zero and 1.0. Addulator This means all amp values for this allows you to specify the maximum partial will be within that range. pitch range. If you choose 15 cents as Assume a Center Gravity of FreeFall, the max plus/minus limit, the so we leave it where it is. Had Center maximum range will be between -0.15 Gravity been absolute, the range and 0.15. A parameter called Total would have been adjusted to 0.5 to Drift Distance governs how extensive 1.5 (in other words, exactly centered). that random range will be: between Finally, with a Drift Step Distance of 100% and 5% of the total available. Large (40%), the largest movement Then we apply another factor to "pull" between adjacent time points allowed the random range toward the center would be 0.4 (or 40% of the distance using a parameter called Center between 0.1 and 1.1). Gravity. "Free Fall" does no
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
15
Calculated Figure 2
Now let's move on to the details of running the program. Fig. 2 shows a screen shot of the additive data generator. We can generate between 1 and 24 files at a time. The base name is the start of the CSV file name (without the .csv). Numbers are added to the file names when multiple files are requested. First, we need to specify the number of partials. Generally, more is better for sound quality and the fewer is better for performance. 60 partials seem to be a reasonable compromise. For each partial, a timeline can be generated with random times between each point. We want to be able to specify the density of times, and we do this with the Time Granularity control, which gives us a range of roughly 2 time events on average per second (Coarse) to 200 per second (Fine). The time events are randomly spaced (and
16
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Sound Design
different in each partial) but the shortest duration is never less than one-third the duration of the longest in any time line. Just try to be reasonable about the length vs. time granularity. For a long 10 second sound, don't also use fine granularity or the resultant file will be gigantic, for example. Loop End Time, if zero, means no looping. Otherwise a meaningful loop designation will be generated. If you study the generated output, you'll notice that loop parameters are included in any case, because Alchemy won't load a CSV file without those lines. Loop fading averages the last bit of the pre-loop data with that near the end of the loop. The fade percent dictates how long a region gets faded. It can be up to 50% of the loop length provided there's sufficient pre-loop data to make that happen.
in either direction from the exact multiple of the fundamental (before the fundamental's own deviation is imposed). One other detail: a center gravity of Absolute is imposed on the fundamental partial, irrespective of the Center Gravity setting for pitch. Pan data again has pretty much the same story except that the fundamental partial's Center Gravity setting is forced to Absolute.
Furthermore, don't expect fully realized presets as the output. What Addulator will give, however, are the raw materials from which to build interesting presets. These basic materials can be treated like single cycle wave forms used in VA presets, but they can be vastly more complex and interesting than single cycle wave forms, at least to my ears.
The software is not bound by any use restrictions other than if it's used in the creation of a commercial sound For The software can be downloaded here: set, you owe me a free copy. http://wusik.com/download/Addulator you died-in-the-wool geeks out there, .zip there's even the Java source code The same download should be usable included in the download. on either PC or Mac. It does require that a version of the Java run time Several final notes: make sure you (JRE) with a release of 1.5 or greater remember to enable the Alchemy be installed on your computer. Some Stereo mode in each voice; it defaults additional details are contained in the to Mono. If you specify looping, be download zip file. sure the appropriate Alchemy loop option in selected for the voice (the Don't hesitate to experiment with the default is usually what you'll want). Amplitude data begins with a Partial settings, apart from avoiding Finally, be aware that the following Attenuation factor. 1.0 gives you the egregiously large output files. It takes Alchemy controls are particularly approximate roll off of a saw wave. no time at all to generate many file suitable for further manipulating Less than 1.0 gets very bright and aggressive while values that approach variations (it'll take way more time to additive data map sounds: Position, audition them than generate them). 2.0 get more subdued. Drift Total Stretch, PVar, Pitch, Amp and Pan. I'll The most interesting results may simply you refer to the Alchemy Distance and Drift Step Distance come from using aggressive settings documentation for further information values range from Small to Large. on them. Center gravity ranges from FreeFall to where you know you'll be throwing most of the resulting files away. The Absolute. ones that make the cut may turn out Now go forth and make some golden to be real keepers. Even with Pitch data has pretty much the same sounds from Addulator's leaden conservative settings, expect to get mathematical calculations! story except that we add a maximum some files that are stinkers. cents deviation. So a value of 15 Serendipity doesn't always take you means that the pitch for all partials will never deviate more than 15 cents to a happy place. Take the Addulator For a Spin!
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
17
GRAF-X
Newton by Ben Paturzo
Figure 2 A Brand New World What we have in Figure 1 is a colored ball "thrown" into a logo ("Motion"). The logo shatters into the blocks that make up each letter, with the ball and each block responding with real world physics: gravity, collision velocity, friction, etc. This is not the product of using a high-end 3D modeling and animation package. In fact, it's not 3D at all, but 2D, but with the same physics calculations and renderings as a high-end package. Rather than using keyframes to approximate the action, Figure 1 shows real results based on mathematical
calculations. Hard body physics brought to the 2D world. Leave It To The French This proves that not all Parisians wear shirts with stripes, have white face applied, and are always trying to get out of an invisible box. No. Motion Boutique (Figure 2, 3, www.motionboutique.com/en/) is responsible for this revolutionary approach to animating 2D objects. Every layer in Adobe After Effects is treated as a real, physical object, with real-world physics you control. What's After Effects, and what are layers?
Figure 1
18
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
2D Physics O Happy Day!
Figure 3
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
19
Newton
Photoshop Figure 4 shows a composition created in Adobe Photoshop. There are four layers, each with a part of the composition. You composite these image elements by using layers. The
desert is on the first or bottom layer, then on top of that layer I added the soldier, and on top of that layer, I placed my text. Any changes I make to the text, or the soldier, or the desert image, applies only to that layer. In addition, as Figure 4 shows
(bottom right), I can change the opacity of a layer (in this case, the text layer), so that the layers underneath show through. This is only scratching the surface of the abilities of image composition using layers. Adobe started the revolution, but now every image editing program has layers.
Figure 4 After Effects Photoshop allows you to composite static images and objects using layers. After Effects (Figure 5) allows you to composite motion elements and static elements. A movie clip can have a Flying Logo "play" across it while a big "Protected by FBI" watermark stays on the lower corner throughout. And the watermark can be semitransparent, so as not to disturb the viewer. Good luck with that. Look at the closing credits of the latest special-effects blockbuster, and, where you used to see things like "Animation" or "Effects" jobs, you will now see things like "Composite" or "Texture" artist. As Hollywood discovers it takes a village of special effects guys and gals to make a movie, more individual attention is being given to these specialized jobs. You can see why After Effects is a very popular compositing program.
Figure 5
20
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Newton
Figure 6
We're not here to learn After Effects. AE may seem complex, but take it step-by-step, and you'd be surprised how quickly you to pick it up. We're here to learn a bit about Newton, an amazing new plug-in for After Effects. Figure 5 shows a sample project from the Newton library. The lower part of the screen shows how the individual objects in our scene are broken down into individual layers. There is the layer for the "glass" object, and all the little balls. Figures 6 through 10 show the rendered movie, starting with a stream of little balls flowing into the vase, the balls bouncing off each other and against the vase, with the last frame showing the stream starting again, this time with a filled vase. The rendered result shows how actual, physical objects would behave.
Figure 7
Figure 8
Figure 9
Figure 10
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
21
Newton Figure 11 Figure 11 shows the Newton screen. The glass vase is selected and assigned the "Static" type. In Figure 12, I've selected all of the individual balls and assigned them the "Dynamic" property. Notice that there are controls for Gravity magnitude and direction, controls for linear and angular velocity, controls for object properties such as "bounciness" and friction, and more. You can set up the parameters for your world, and the objects in your world will behave accordingly. Again, realworld physics applied to a 2D space. The possibilities seem endless, and the simplicity of achieving realistic results is eye-popping. If Newton were a girl, I'd be tempted to marry her. One more simple project from the Samples folder. Figures 13 through 15 show a blocky "space ship" moving across the screen, dropping diamond
Figure 13
Figure 12
Figure 14
Figure 15
22
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Figure 16
bombs. Since Motion Boutique is strictly pacifist, the bombs don't explode. Until Inspector Clouseau trips over them. Yes, another French joke. The point of this simple animation is, rather than having the artist place the ship at various places and keyframing its motion, and the same thing done for the bombs (old way), in Newton, they are all given motion (velocity and direction), the bombs have gravity, and the bombs actually bounce off the ground, as the arrow points out in Figure 15. All done with real-world physics. If Newton were a—oh, wait, I already used that line.
17 through 19. Because the first W has a shorter string than the "o" and the last W has the longest string of all, the arc of each letter's swing is different. Just like in the real world. Figure 20 shows the simplicity in setting up this dynamic scene. The anchor point is shown as a red dot; this anchor point can be moved to change how the swinging occurs. The property type "AEmatic" is applied to each letter. I could also apply different densities to each letter, that would also affect the swing. Easy. Final Thoughts
The examples shown here are basic, and are included only to show some of Newton's features. To see actual, In case you think I use only prepared commercial-grade animations, check out the website. You will be amazed projects for my reviews, take a look at what Newton can do. What Motion at Figure 16. I did this for World of Warcraft. Naw, just kidding. Imagine Boutique has accomplished here is amazing—it can't be said enough— that each letter is individually and it is a blast to use, since it is so anchored by a string to an anchor point to the left of the first "W." Now, easy to setup a scene and watch the magic. I let the letters drop, they swing Cheers! back and forth, as shown in Figures My Turn
Figure 17
Figure 20
Figure 18
Figure 19
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
23
DanziLand
by Danny Danzi
Hi Everyone!
as how the settings all work. It's mode of the scale...yet, we're still in like...if you're a guitar player, and I Dm. As promised, we’re going to tackle show you a Dm scale and I don't show compression in this article. One of the you how you would use it, you're All that stuff is the same when downfalls of writing about learning to use a compressor. It's just basically stuck with 2 options. compression is the lack of being able a "scale" until someone shows you to actually show you examples. This is 1. You play the scale verbatim and it how to really use it by example. Each definitely one of those effects that always sounds like a scale just the ratio, attack time, threshold and needs a before and after scenario with way you learned it. release time has a value that will alter either audio or video to drive the point your music in some way. When we home. But, since we don’t have that 2. You hopefully use your creativity start messing with all this stuff, it's capability right now, I’ll do the best I and attempt to expand it on your own. just like adding things to that Dm can with my explanation. So here we minor scale. We change modes, we go…some cool things about our good I think the better method of course is use tension based on note selection or friend “The Compressor”. #2, however, to really get your out of the box note selection....it's creativity flowing, it would help if I really the same principal. But the key I was on a forum where a member said "OK, here's this Dm scale we in all of it is to know what and how to had mentioned having a few problems learned. Now I'm going to fire up listen for these things. with compression. I decided to share different backing tracks and show you a little with him as far as ratio starting 5 ways you can use it." Now the black Compressors are the most "dark art" points. But before we go there, we clouds part and your juices are of all the effects in my opinion need to know how to use the flowing because you've been shown because they have so many uses, yet compressor as a good smoothing tool examples. You'll find out that though people sometimes cannot hear them. that also tightens up our audio. we may be playing in Dm at times, I That's where it gets nuts and this is may not start on the notes as I taught where the art of it comes in. When When I teach compression to my them to you. I may be playing using a compressor, it's what you students (which is one of the most something else and then incorporate don't hear sometimes that actually requested for me) I have to literally part of the scale in...I may start on makes it correct. That said, it's not a show them examples of how and why the second note of the scale the way I matter of not hearing it...it's a matter you'd use certain compressors as well taught you which would change the of not hearing the EFFECTS of it. In 24
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Dispatch most mix situations, the best compressor is the one you don’t hear because it is just keeping things consistent while remaining “the guardian angel” to your mixes. Hey, I like that! *Coined phrase © Danny Danzi 2012* LOL! Let’s check out some basic compressor controls in normal human terms so you’re not totally lost. Threshold: The threshold controls how much of the compressor you hear. This is the master control. Ratio: The ratio controls how much compression you hear when you adjust the threshold. If we have a bigger ratio, you’ll need less threshold to hear the compression effect. Smaller ratio, you’ll need more threshold to hear the effect. These terms are a potential source of confusion. When I say more threshold, I mean a lower (more negative) number. No threshold is zero dB, meaning that if you have a properly recorded track (which never exceeds zero dB), a threshold setting of zero gives you no compression at all. To increase the compression effect, we want more threshold which actually means a numerically lower number, say, -10dB. With that threshold, any part of the track where the signal exceeds that -10dB threshold will be subject to compression. Intuitively, more threshold means more compression, even though the setting is numerically lower.
Attack Time: This controls when the compressor hits. Shorter times will make the compressor clamp down harder and faster. Longer attack times will allow the compressor to breathe and not cut off your transient attack notes. For example, if a snare drum has a bit too much of a percussive crack to it, a shorter attack time will curb that percussive part of the sound so it’s not as dominant. Release time: This tells the compressor how long to hold or how short to go back to an inactive state. Shorter times make the compressor more reliable and easy to use. Longer times can make things sound weird because the input signal can’t be adjusted as fast to make the output volume more consistent. So it’s best to find a happy medium here that isn’t too long yet isn’t too short. Use your ears…you’ll be able to tell. Knee: Not all compressors have a knee feature, but for those that do, the simple explanation is soft knee allows the compressor to work more smoothly and gradually where a hard knee setting creates a sort of “border patrol” that will clamp down more aggressively and smack anything back that decides to cross the line immediately. Sometimes you need things to be taken care of using the aggressiveness of hard knee, other times soft knee and smooth is the way to go. Gain: This one is the simplest to explain. Compressed sound that comes out of a compressor will always be quieter than what goes in. Output
August 2012
gain allows you to restore the overall volume loss. Let’s look at a real example. We have a bass guitar where the player isn't very good. He uses his fingers but he's not a consistent "puller" on the strings. This is going to make what he plays sound like it's all over the place. Sometimes you'll hear his bass, other times it will fade into the abyss. Proper tone is key here as well...but let's say we've already taken care of the tone issue and we like what we hear. For a guy like this...depending on how bad he is as well as how good or bad the bass is, how well it's set up...all this will determine what we may have to do. Sounds like a lot doesn't it? And we've not even compressed him yet! I'm using this scenario because this is something just about all amateur engineers are faced with at some point in their mixing endeavors. So let's proceed onward. Ok, let's make this a non-extreme situation so I don't totally confuse you. So we have a good tone, the bass is good, but we have inconsistencies. So we run a compressor on this guy...but which do we use? Just about anything will work, right? Not always...again...it depends on what you're dealing with. But for this example, let's say a Sonitus compressor is what you are using. It’s a good “all around” compressor that works on lots of instruments. So we put it on the bass...how do we set it? What do all these things really do and how can this thing help me with my problem?
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
25
Sample picture of the Sonitus compressor only, not a real setting.
DanziLand I will get to because it is an EXCELLENT tool to use when teaching compression. 1.5:1 is a good setting for anything that needs a little extra love and care that was already processed with compression on the way in or anything in need of a slight peak control. Your threshold and knee will determine how the compressor reacts. The attack time tells it how early or late to kick in, the release tells it when to release and kick again.
The first thing I do, is tap the back of nicely on my guitars with a threshold my mind for information with ratios. of about -12, 3.5 ms attack, maybe a The way I've learned compression is 300-400 release. This is going to to always start with a ratio that best remove about -2dB of gain from my compliments that particular distorted guitars and tighten them up. instrument. Here's a little run-down Now, in this scenario, it's about what on ratio situations that have worked you will NOT hear that makes this for me for the past 30 years and then compressor setting a good one. we'll get back to our bass guitar issue. Without it, you will hear certain notes So don’t forget about this bass on my guitar slightly jump out at you example. We just need to put it on where I don't really want them to. hold for a second. Yes those are dynamics, but there are 1.5:1: This is a safe ratio that you can good dynamics and bad ones. With use if you've compressed destructively distorted guitars...especially high-gain, going to disc. I use this on my electric it's more about consistency not guitars after they've been recorded. dynamics when the guitar is cracked Why you may ask? I like the sound of wide open. So we want those lashing my hardware compressors going to notes to be tighter...when we use this disc but I don't want to abuse them compressor setting, that's what we and ruin the audio. So I set the get. So to hear this compressor hardware comps to just give me a setting....you no longer hear the notes nicely conditioned signal which lashing. The track is consistent...it will literally gives you better quality tracks not have large spikes in the wave in the long run as long as you don't form if you send it to a bus and turn abuse it. So 1:5 ratio is going to work on wave preview in your DAW....which 26
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
2:1: This is a lot like 1.5:1, (notice I didn't mention 1:1...I've never had a use for ratio's that low before) but the compressor will now get slightly more aggressive. This setting is always a good starting point for mastering for me and by luck of the draw, ends up just about always being my magic number. (Although there are times when 1.5:1 won for a mastering situation.) This setting is also great for acoustic guitars and pianos where the people playing know how to dynamically make love to the instruments. This is also a good 2-bus glue setting as well as drum bus compression to sort of glue the kit together as an entity. This makes the compressor work as glue and isn't too constrictive. 3:1 & 4:1: These are really great for electric guitars, acoustic guitars, piano, upright bass, violins, sections on a bus....it all depends who and what you're dealing with. 4:1 being the most popular because it just seems to always work with distorted guitars or high gain guitars, acoustics, vocals and lots of other things. These are really good for just about anything where you want to have the compressor controlling things a bit more. Above I mentioned to you that 1.5:1 was good for MY particular
Dispatch guitar tone. If I didn't use a hardware compressor going in and was using a plug on my guitars, 3:1 or 4:1 is where I would immediately turn. It just works well with guitars of this nature. Now mind you, due to this ratio being increased, we'll need less threshold...maybe -6 threshold to remove -2dB of gain. -2dB of gain always seems to be my magic number for heavily distorted guitars. I don't even look at the gain reduction....I just mess with the threshold until I hear what I want (or what I don't want) and I always end up somewhere around -2dB. I'm actually glad about that too because one of my favorite guitar producers (whom I know personally) Beau Hill, told me that he too always seemed to end up near or around -2dB of gain reduction in his dirty guitar tones. I have had the occasional -3dB or more on some guitars...those low 7 strings are a bear to tame...and some of the guys are tuning down to low A! 5:1 to 9:1: These ratios are going to really make the compressor work hard. They work on bass guitar, anything that's super percussive, kick and snare drum crack along with attack and release of course....and in this range is where we will end up with our bass guitar friend that is all over the place. These settings can also be used on anything where the normal settings of 1.5:1 to 4:1 fail. Meaning, if you can't seem to get something under control with those other ratios, increasing will help along with the other settings on the compressor. Anything over 9:1 to infinity is going to be used for effects purposes. Smashing room mics, certain parallel compression...trippy swelling effects
via automation...or if you just want bass is no longer disappearing from something to have 0 dynamics with no the mix nor does it have that horrible breathing room at all. transient attack that it had before the compressor. So now that you know my chart for this stuff, let's get back to our bass Now, there is only so much I can do friend. We need to fix his here. You can't use a compressor inconsistency...so do to this, we need alone on something like this. I tried to find a good compression setting for my best to control him, but now we him. So we test out a few things...and have to automate because some of we find out for this particular guy, 9:1 the notes are not quite where they seems to control him the best. should be. Sometimes you need to Because of the bass line he played, decrease the compressor and use it's one of those bass lines that needs more automation...sometimes you to be clean and doesn't need much in need more compression and *some* the way of dynamics. He's pulling so automation. But you will just about hard at times, it's just a nightmare. always have to automate on anything So we're going to have to squash him that is heavily compressed like this good. We find that we can control this guy here. with a threshold setting of about -22. Now let's look at another quick This is probably going to remove scenario. In the event this dude didn't anywhere from -12 to -18dB of gain have a nice bass....and it had bad reduction. We will also have to action, some strings high, some determine how soon the compressor strings lower and closer to the pups, hits. We don't want it to totally clamp plus his horrible execution like I down on him, but we need to control mentioned....then we have to use his execution attack. 2-5ms something different. This is where a depending on the player should work multi-band would be the better choice. pretty well here with the limiter on the Let’s talk a little about the Multi-Band Sonitus disabled because I just don't Compressor. like it. Release times should be set to taste depending on just how long or Multi-band Compressors: These how short we want this compressor to compressors work a little different stay engaged or retrigger itself. For from traditional compressors, yet still this particular guy (by the way, this is compress. The difference is that an an actual mix I'm doing while I'm MBC, as I like to call it, will compress typing this to you. LOL) 2.5 attack, specific frequency bands instead of 500 release seems to work the best. the entire sound as an entity like a regular compressor will. So it’s He's choking off a bit now so the -22 basically a compressor that is sort of setting I had on the threshold has like an eq compressor. If you have a now been decreased to -19. Perfect! good low end sound that you like that Now for this dude...to get it how I may seem to lash out at you at times, want it because of the execution being the MBC can control that so the low so bad, I'm removing about -11 dB of end frequency will not lash out as gain. It seems extreme, but it sounds much. This is great for electronic right for this particular song and the musicians that use lots of low end August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
27
DanziLand UAD MBC bass. It will stop the bass from mudding out as long as you select the right frequency to compress. For you rock guys that may use a lot of gain in your amps, you can sometimes get an artifact known as “whoomfing”. This comes from lots of gain and usually too much low end in your guitar sound. An MBC can curb that as well. I was working on a project for myself where my guitar tone sounded killer other than when I played this certain section. Each time, 120 Hz would ramp up and make a bit of that whoomfing sound I mentioned. A MBC totally fixed my issue and kept that 120 Hz in check. These are also great tools for the mastering realm. They keep all your frequencies nice and tight as long as you don’t abuse your MBC usage. There are quite a few MBC’s on the market today, but my personal preference is without a doubt, the Precision Multi Band compressor from UAD. The greatest thing about this MBC is how lush and transparent it is. Meaning, it works so well, you don’t hear it working and you’d have to really jump on it to hear compression artifacts. It’s simple to use and is better than anything I have tried to date. Waves and Cakewalk have some decent ones, but when compared to the UAD Precision, well, they don’t stack up very well at all. But, they are good MBC’s make no mistake there. Each person will have their own subjective views and of course, it all depends on the music you are working with.
28
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
Calkewalk MBC
August 2012
Dispatch Waves MBC
But in our bass part scenario, the player, the part played, the sound he multiband is going to control those has, the genre...this is why it's so notes closer to the strings that give us important to have a few compressors. more tone instead of more pull. We I prefer a DBX compressor on my can comp the frequencies that are basses because DBX knows how to lashing out at us. For example, every compress bass...period. They've been time someone hits a low B or a low A doing it for years and just have a clue on a 5 string or 6 string bass, 8 times on how to tame that maniac known as out of 10 it's going to ring out more "the bass guitar". Also, you HAVE to than the others due to where those know what to listen for as I said frequencies fall. So we look at what before. The whole thing with that frequency value is. We set the compressors and how to use them multiband to that frequency, adjust depends on what you were presented threshold, attack, release and ratio with. That dictates what your gameand bang...that frequency is now plan will be. And what's cool is, it's controlled. OR...you draw in rare you'll use an exact setting automation. I mentioned using the twice...so don't ever rely on presets multi-band in this situation, but I'd unless you use the same instruments also be using a regular compressor on and sounds. the bass to control the entire thing as an entity. Another fix for frequency control is to use automation on the problem frequency each time it hits. As you can see, you have quite a few options on how to handle this stuff now.
For example, I can get away with using the presets I have created for my bass, drums, guitars, vocals and everything else that I use in MY studio for myself. My house drum kit and my V Drums have settings that I use for certain situations. I can use these again and of course tweak them for the song. But as soon as someone else comes in with their drum kit, amps, bass, bass rig etc, all my settings are useless. New ones need to be created. The thing that makes this so hard is you're never in the same boat twice unless you're in YOUR boat. LOL! But once you know how and what to listen for...and have the sound in your head that you want to hear, the compression thing is quite easy. Compressing kicks and snares to literally make them pop is another important factor. I've basically shared good compression techniques with you here...but when we create kicks and snares with identity using compressors, that's BAD compression techniques...meaning, "badass" to where we are now using the compressor to create a specific sound as opposed to just smoothing or leveling an instrument. DBC Comp
Choosing compressors: With compression, the key is to choose the right one. For me personally, I'd not use an 1176 on a bass. For some basses, maybe...but it depends on the August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
29
DanziLand Now I know a lot of our Wusik readers are midi artists and you may be wondering how this could apply to you, am I right? No worries, we have you covered too!
guitar nice and tight to where my dynamics will still be there, yet the track will not get out of control when I play something a bit harder nor will it get too soft when I play softer.
My good friend David Baer (dmbaer who is also the assistant editor of WSM) knew ahead of time that I would be covering compression. So he asked me the following:
Now, if you are a midi composer that is using old analog synth sounds and 808 drum sounds, it depends on the situation as to whether or not you would want to compress. Compression has two purposes. For effect purpose and for tightening things up so they don’t run amuck.
“A lot of WSM readers are, I suspect, strictly MIDI musicians. Working with a DAW, it's quite possible to edit pieces so that the dynamic shaping is “Wait Danny, what do you mean exactly what's desired, either with samplers, drum machines and velocity editing or with level sound modules, what’s the envelopes. So, does this type of difference? I play my keyboard, musician even need to use sound comes out. How does this compression? Are there reasons why dictate to use or not use a compression is a valid effect even in compressor?” this context?” I knew that question would come up. I thought this was a wonderful See, I’m ready for you guys! Today’s question, so I’d like to give you the samplers are very powerful. Each answer I gave David if you happen to sample played is usually a new sound. be one of these types of musicians. With the old synths or a lot of drum machines, it’s the same sound over Though you would be absolutely and over when you play a key on your correct in your suspicion, you certainly keyboard. The note changes, you should use compression. Here’s why. have velocity control, but the sound is Though you are working with midi and the same. With a sampler, today each have control over velocity, most of the note is sampled. It’s not just the same instrumentation used that runs from sound with pitch control. So if we the midi, (meaning your sample have a drum kit going on from a modules or sound sources) are real sampler as opposed to an old drum instrument samples. For example, I machine, here are the differences. can play an acoustic guitar in real time and dynamically play the A drum machine is going to play one instrument to the best of my sound per drum each time you strike ability...and trust me, it would be well a key. Sure you can tune it and done. That doesn’t mean I don’t use manipulate it, but it’s that same compression. Real sounds will always sound. With a sampler with a real spike a bit. The more you spike sampled kit, you may have 30 something, the more other different hit possibilities for each drum. instruments become buried in the mix. Meaning, it’s more realistic and will That compressor will keep my acoustic trigger a new sound each time. The 30
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
new samplers of today draw from a sample pool based on velocities of the notes. If you play a note on your keyboard that is on a snare drum sound with a velocity of 127, you’ll have several possibilities as to what the sound will be. It could be a rim shot, a center hit, or an edge hit. In the sample pool there, you could have 30-50 possibilities per rim shot, center hit or edge hit. Right, that’s 150 different sound possibilities on the snare drum alone. This is the way it would go down if a real drummer were playing a real snare. He’s not ever going to get the same sound when he strikes the drum, understand? With drum machines or old analog type sound modules, you have that one sound without a sample pool to draw from. So this is a lot easier to handle and in some situations, it would be subjective to use a compressor at all. With a sampler with several sounds, you not only have velocity control but different sounds coming in that may need to be treated a bit more delicately. So a compressor used in THIS situation would be in your best interest. Also, and this is sort of like a short cut…with the right compression settings, you may find yourself not automating as much or messing with velocities. If you edit velocities for the sake of controlling drum volume, adding compression is going to cut that down a bit. Don’t get me wrong, velocity will always be the impact control for your midi instruments but a compressor along with your velocity decisions can make things even better, tighter, more resonant and more controlled. So now that you know what I was getting at and know the
Dispatch Sonar 4K S-type Comp
SPL Transient Designe
differences between sound modules and sample modules, let’s continue on and talk about some more compression settings for drum machine type sounds. Let’s take a look at a snare drum. Whether it be an 808 snare or a real Ludwig, a compressor can control how that snare sounds. The release time will give it more resonance, the attack time will let the compressor relax before it kicks in if you use a longer time, and make the compressor kick in instantly if you use a shorter one and control how the transient attack comes through.
If I adjust the release to a longer time, I lose the sustain in the snare which is what I wanted in this case. If I shorten the attack time, with that release setting I have, you will hear just snare strainers and no attack/crack of the snare. The attack setting would remove the “crack”. So we have a longer setting so that the crack comes through. With the threshold setting you see there, I’m removing about -9dB of gain to make this particular snare sound the way I want.
The threshold and ratio controls tell the compressor how hard to hit. The more threshold you use, the more you instruments without messing with all hear the compressor. The more ratio the compressor controls you’d have to you use, the more the threshold set if you were using a regular allows you to adjust how much compressor. My favorite is the SPL compression you hear. If we used a Transient Designer. With just two ratio of 5:1 with a threshold of -20dB, To achieve this same thing without knobs, this thing can bring a dead (this of course also depends on your using a compressor with even better snare, kick, toms or even a guitar to attack and release times) and then results, we can use what is called a life. My second choice would be the you set the ratio to 2:1, you will “Transient Designer”. These come with Stillwell Transient Monster. Cakewalk notice less compression and less many different names yet they do the has one that is also pretty cool. artifacts than you may have heard same thing. Picture them as an Here’s what they look like. when the ratio was set to 5:1. effected compressor that comes out of the box allowing you to create more You may want a longer release time to crack and sustain out of your Stillwell Transient Monster shorten the snare resonance. You may want the snare to sustain longer. If so, shorter release times allow the snare resonance to last longer along with longer attacks. So the compressor can control all this and literally tailor the sound. This is an instance of what a compressor setting would look like if we were using it to make a snare drum have more crack and sustain longer using the Sonar X1 PC 4k Stype compressor. August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
31
DanziLand You’ll notice that both of these sport attack and sustain controls. They do exactly what they say. One gives you attack/pop, the other sustain/ring. This stops me from using a compressor to get these same effects and to be honest, these tools create the pop/sustain thing way better than any compressor I’ve ever used.
volume level. This is where the compressor can keep things tight in the mix...so you’re sort of using it like a limiter, but not policing it as such the way a limiter would crack down. There are two key elements to what you usually like in a mix.
When I disable the compressor on my track, the wave form preview will reprint the wave form in real time so I can see what my track looks like without the compression. Waveform – No Compression
1. The compressor keeping things tight so nothing steps out of line Now, don’t be confused by these tools. allowing for a more pleasing listening They are NOT compressors nor should experience. they be used in place of a compressor. 2. The eq curve drawn to paint the What they do is what I was getting at picture is pleasing to your ears. with my “compression for effect” section. They control something that Nothing else really matters especially needs more crack or sustain in either adding or taking away those elements in the digital musician realm of using midi and samples...unless of course if need be. You should still use a those samples are REAL. The fake compressor along with tools such as stuff isn’t as noticeable but a these to keep the consistency of your compressor can help immensely. I instruments in check. Cakewalk TS 64 Transient Shaper
You’ll notice the Cakewalk plug has some other knobs to twist. This is just a Transient plug with more options allowing you to create different transient type effects. Now that we’ve seen some of the other options available, let’s talk about compression for dynamics and keeping our instruments in check. Sometimes we may want dynamics to be present, yet we may not want the instrument to cross into a certain 32
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
mentioned the Sonar wave form preview. This is good because it can allow you to see what may be happening to your tracks in real time. If I am working on a track, I can solo it up and then look at my master bus. On my master bus, there is a wave form preview button. What this does is, it draws a wave form into the master bus of the instrument I have soloed. So if I had a compressor on and wanted to SEE what it was doing to my track, the wave form preview in my master bus would show me that. August 2012
In this example I am looking at what my guitar track looks like with my master bus wave form preview turned on which is the blue-green wave form you see. What I was going for was to see what my sound would look like with and without compression. This picture is without compression. Let’s look at how the wave form changes when it’s compressed. In this picture you’ll notice that with compression, the wave form is a little less jagged and more consistent. Now I’m not using a lot of compression here, but just enough to smooth things out a little for me on THIS particular lead guitar tone. So with
Dispatch
wave form preview, I get a chance to look at how my compressor is effecting my track. Of course you always want to use your ears first and foremost, but it’s nice to see what is going on as well. Another thing to remember with compression used in examples like this is to always toggle it off and on. The reason is that you don’t want to raise or lower the volume. Make sure you match the level of the track with the compressor output and try not to make it louder or lower unless you find a reason to do so. Let’s look at another compression example. Have you guys heard of parallel compression? If not, I’ll give you a quick explanation. Waveform – With Compression
Let’s say we have an 808 kit set up for individual instrumentation and we like the sound we hear. You know, kick, snare, hats, crash and a few toms. We send all these instruments to an instrument bus and name it “drums”. Place the compressor of your choice in your effects bin and just set it up so that it lightly compresses the drum track as an entity. Meaning, we just want to keep the entire kit tight. Nothing too aggressive or you’ll bring in artifacts. From there, if you are using Sonar X1, you can enable the 4k channel compressor and set the threshold for something extreme like –12dB to -20dB of gain reduction. Then, mix in the mix knob and then tweak the output on the compressor. What you will hear is a slightly dirty sound mixed in with the clean drum sound. It will give the drums more life as well as more sustain, resonance and a little bit of grit. This is just a quick way to sort of get the results we’re looking for here and this is one of the cool things about Sonar X1. Because this particular 4k bus compressor has a “mix knob” it allows us to mix in the amount of squashed compression right on the bus. So, yes, you are using two compressors here. One that is subtle and tightening, the other is aggressive and squashing. You just mix in the amount of “wet” compression on the 4k bus comp and you’ll start to hear the track sustain a bit more as well as a bit of dirt if you see fit.
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
33
DanziLand Dispatch The other way (if you don’t have Sonar X1) is to do the above where you send your individual drums to an instrument bus (drum bus) and then put a compressor on that bus to keep the drums tight. Nothing extreme here, just something mild so that it keeps the drums tight as an entity like I mentioned before. From there, create another bus and insert a compressor and set it to compress insanely. Maybe -12 to -20 worth of gain reduction so it really pumps and changes the sound. Use this bus as an effects insert and create sends for each of your drum tracks. From there, on each drum track, blend in the amount of this insane compression sound that you like…and back down the send control when it starts to sound too extreme and effected. What we are trying to do here, is add a little grit and sustain to the entire drum kit as an effect. As soon as you start to hear your drums sound funny when mixing in the extreme compressor, back it down a bit. You’ll know when you have it right because you’ll hear a bit of sustain on your
drums that gives them a bigger, better sound with a bit more resonance. This is also really cool for hip-hop, rap, dance and trance because you can automate that insane compressor to be super powerful in a break down section. So try experimenting with this technique. I think you’ll be pleased with the results as well as create a few new sounds that you may not have ever heard before. Some of these tools will work better on rap, hip hop or electronic music more than they will work on actual instrument recordings. And of course, the other side of the coin is the stuff that may work well on the more electronic music will not be as effective on real recorded instruments, so experimentation is necessary.
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
That’s the one thing to remember about compression. We usually don’t want to hear a compressor unless you are going for a specific sound where the compressor becomes an effect. Until next time, thanks for reading, I hope this helps you guys and best of luck experimenting! Rock on!
At the end of the day, it’s a good rule -Danny Danzi of thumb to think of yourself as a mechanic as far as the engineer title goes. Good mechanics have loads of tools they use to get the job done and they can usually do just about anything because of the wide array of tools in their tool box. Don’t be afraid to go astray from the tools you use all
My My My My
34
the time and try something different. You may want to use one compressor on one thing, and another for something else. Not all compressors are made the same. Some will react faster than others, some will react slower than others, some act like limiters, some add some coloration to the sounds they are processing and some are so good, you can’t even tell you’re using them.
Site: http://www.dannydanzi.com Band: http://www.myspace.com/dannydanziband Audio Services: http://dannydanzi.com/aud.php Recording Lessons: http://dannydanzi.com/rec.php
August 2012
Wusi label.com
k o o B view Re
BODY AND SOUL
This is probably a first for WSM ‌ a book review. In the last issue, Ben Paturzo contributed a wonderful short piece titled "Body and Soul", and it made me recall an outstanding novel of the same name I had read years ago. So why write about a book published almost twenty years ago? Well, there are very good reasons to do so in these pages. First of all, the story is about a pianist and composer. While it's a great read for anyone who enjoys fine writing and a splendid plot, it should be especially so for musicians. The story is about an extraordinarily gifted young musician from the time of his early boyhood to perhaps his midtwenties. And while it's an engaging coming of age story, it's an even more rewarding coming of artistry story. As for the fact that it was published in 1993, maybe that's all the more reason to reintroduce it to older readers and to introduce it to a new generation of readers, most of whom will have never heard of it. The author is Frank Conroy (19382005), not to be confused with the far better-known author of bestselling
36
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
beach reads, Pat Conroy. Frank Conroy was primarily a teacher of writing whose output was rather scant. He published a critically praised memoir, Stop Time, in 1967 and only one novel. Sadly, since he's no longer with us, we have nothing more to look forward to.
himself while waiting, he sat down at a piano and started to play. A drummer wandered in and joined him and a bassist shortly thereafter. He didn't know until they stopped and introduced themselves that he was playing with Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman.
Frank Conroy was reputed to be an accomplished jazz pianist, and there's a great story about him in that regard. He was scheduled to do an interview one day (he also occasionally wrote liner notes for recordings). He showed up at the appointed meeting place and found no one there. So to amuse
But on to Body and Soul. Our protagonist is Claude Rawlings, and we first meet him as a pre-school youth living in the basement of a tenement apartment in New York sometime in the mid-40s (we get a reasonable sense of period throughout the story, but never anything concrete
August 2012
Body and Soul
by dmbaer
to establish an exact date). His single mother drives a taxi and leaves him alone to fend for himself while she's at work. The opening sentences of the novel hint at what's to come artistically.
"spoilers", although I will steer clear of letting you in on some of the revelations that come out in the last few chapters.
In the small apartment was an old miniature piano upon which Claude His first view of the outside was first began to discover his talents. In through the small, fan-shaped window being left to his own devices at a very of the basement apartment. He would young age, Claude learns enough selfclimb up on the table and spend hours sufficiency to have limited funds at his peering through the bars at the legs disposal, and with some change he and feet of people passing by on the purchases an instructional book in a sidewalk, his child's mind falling still in music store. Having thoroughly contemplation of the ever-changing mastered the content, he returns to rhythms and tempos of legs and feet the store for more and makes the first moving across his field of vision. An of several important acquaintances old woman with thin calves, a kid in who will profoundly assist him in sneakers, men in wingtips, women in developing his talents. The store high heels, the shiny brown shoes of owner, impressed at how thoroughly soldiers. If anyone paused he could Claude comprehends what was taught see detail – straps, eyelets, a worn in the book, becomes his first heel, or cracked leather with the sock champion. This is the first of several showing through – but it was the significant encounters which, in total, movement that he liked, the passing might seem to be far too much parade of color and motion. coincidence to maintain creditability. But in every case (but one) the events It's clear from almost the first pages seem to unfold naturally. It is Claude's that this story will encompass a talent that leads him into trajectory of artistic success. As such, consequential artistic relationships, it's safe for me to disclose some of the not happenstance. plot without being guilty of dropping
August 2012
Through the music store owner, Claude becomes the beneficiary of a reclusive maestro who allows him the use of his magnificent concert grand piano, even though Claude never meets the man face to face. The maestro bequeaths the piano to Claude upon his death. Later he becomes the pupil of a world renowned pianist, a highly sought after teacher (and the most expensive one in the New York area, for that matter), and Claude's talents develop at an increasing pace. The teacher, Mr. Fredericks (I don't believe we ever learn his first name), is probably the most important influence Claude will ever encounter. Later, he is engaged by a superstar violinist to accompany him on an international tour. All of this seems like it was inevitable. It never seems fictionally gratuitous because Claude works ceaselessly to develop his musicianship in addition to having abundant inherent talent. The only story element that seems contrived is a connection Claude makes at one point that leads to his becoming enrolled in an elite private school with a full scholarship due to circumstances that can only be described as exceptionally lucky.
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
37
k o o B view Re A summer music festival in Longmeadow Massachusetts (think Tanglewood) is a particularly engrossing episode. Having studied with Mr. Fredericks for some time, his teacher selects Claude to partner with him in a performance of the Mozart concerto for two pianos. Fredericks is brilliant, but somewhat personally mysterious. His constant companion is a woman writer who likes to dress in men's clothing and who smokes cigars. Fredericks may very well be gay, but such things were kept very private in the 50s and the readers are not let in on such details. At the festival, Claude is triumphant in the concerto. He also is a last minute substitute pianist in a chamber ensemble with other young musicians. And that leads Claude to the achievement of another vital milestone in every young man's life. Claude does not limit himself to "classical" music studies. On his own, he also develops skills in the jazz idioms of his time. The significance of these endeavors will, in part, contribute to his eventual studies in composition. At that time, the "in" thing was atonal composition. Academically, if you did not embrace
38
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
Frank Conroy
this 12-tone view of composition, you were regarded as hopelessly oldfashioned and not to be taken seriously. Given the number of Phillip Glass recordings sold these days versus those of Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg, we all know how that one turned out. But at that time, atonal pursuits could not be ignored. The jazz influence also was to play an important part of Claude's emergence as a composer. And in the final pages of the book, a most revealing secret about his heritage, one about which Claude will never become aware, brings this particular story line full circle.
August 2012
Frank Conroy was by no means a fan of atonal music. In the book's afterward, he describes how he wrestled with trying to understand this form of music and that led him to a comprehensive self-study of composition textbooks. He also engaged none other than Peter Serkin, the famous virtuoso pianist (son of Rudolf Serkin, also a famous concert pianist) as a mentor and consultant in the writing of this book. In addition to being a noted pianist, Peter Serkin was a champion of "modern music", the works of Schoenberg, et al, in particular. If the musical aspects of this novel seem realistic, accurate and
Body and Soul
scholarly, it's no accident. Mr. Conroy worked diligently to make them so.
Claude had been working at music all his life, driven by the need to penetrate deeper and deeper into its Of course, not all the book is mysteries and sustained by his ability concerned with music. An important to do so. His progress had been parallel story is Claude's relationship constant, reasonably steady, and with a very wealthy and powerful tangible with regard to his instrument. family, including an alluring debutant The growth of his musical imagination daughter (who, of course, looks down was simply a fact, like the growth of on Claude early on) and her equally his physical body, except that it alluring cousin. We can all see where promised to continue longer. In a this is going, but it's most satisfying certain sense he had taken all this for getting there. granted, assuming the same thing was happening to everybody who Although the "soap opera" elements of worked hard. But suppose it wasn't! the story make for great Suppose people got stuck – entertainment, I think that any developing to a certain point and then musician will be far more captivated staying there. How long might he by the musical aspects of the story. have stayed at his own personal wall By that, I don't mean the music story without Fredericks telling him how to lines themselves. I mean that we get get to the other side? How many to experience Claude's own emerging young musicians, having been told, sense of the wonders and subtleties of were able to do it? Desire for growth music that come with increasing did not ensure the fact of growth, he virtuosity and discernment. In a scene now admitted. It was more towards the end of the book, Claude complicated. There were encounters a young man, Jerry, who imponderables. So Jerry might be one had been the bassoonist in the of the unlucky ones, a good player – chamber ensemble at the probably working in an orchestra, a Longmeadow music festival: passionate lover of music, but stuck – aware of the other side, yearning for it but unable to get there. Hence his
August 2012
emotion. Claude allowed himself to see himself through Jerry's eyes, and for a moment it scared him. The story ends all too soon. It's a rare book that doesn't momentarily flag at some point and cause us to check the number of the final page to see where we are. But for me, even upon a second reading, the end of Body and Soul arrived with unnerving suddenness. In the end we find Claude about to enter yet another stage in his artistic ascendance. Only two short parenthetical bits of foreshadowing in the final chapters give us a clue as to where the story goes from there. I know it's a cliché to say this, but Body and Soul truly is a book you'll wish would go on indefinitely. Do yourselves a great favor and find a copy (used editions can be found for pennies on-line). And when you do, don't contact me to thank me … I do not wish to be spammed. Instead, pass your copy on to a friend to enjoy as well. You don't need to be a musician to thoroughly appreciate this book, but you'll have all the more reason to do so if you are.
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
39
w e i v Re FM8 Experience by Jeffrey Powell
Of all of the synthesis types out there, compatibility), then you can still it seems that none are more purchase with confidence. Another intimidating to the average synth user nice feature of the soundset is that than FM synthesis. All those operators many of the patches have comments and carriers can be difficult to figure stored with them. So, you can easily out unless you spend quite a bit of highlight the bankname in the time with them. Since FM synthesis "Browser" tab, load up a patch, and can be intimidating, most users then switch to the "Attributes" tab. depend on others to supply solid Then, you can easily go through the presets for FM8. With this in mind, we sounds in the bank by using the arrow take a look at Audio Mind Project's keys at the top of the plug-in, and at FM8 Experience bank. Audio Mind the same time, read the comments for Project is relatively new to the the patches. Most of the comments commercial preset market, and this provide suggestions for patch usage, bank tries to tackle the tough realm of performance tips, or easy FM synthesis. Is it worth checking out modifications you can make via the for fans of FM8? Let's find out! plug-in interface to modify the sound. Even without considering the sound, The Basics you can tell significant time and effort were put into preparing this bank. FM8 Experience (version 1.1) consists of 180 presets broken down into the Tell Me About the Sounds following categories: 10 Keys, 13 Organs, 43 Leads, 44 Pads, 30 Other FM8 Experience consists of a large Synths, 8 Guitars/Plucked Strings, 21 number of very diverse sounds. No Basses, 4 Percussion Sounds & Mallets, single description would suffice for the 7 Orchestral (flutes, reeds, brass, and whole set. That being said, there is bowed strings). Thankfully, every significant use of the Overdrive, preset has been meticulously Cabinet, and Tube Amp effects on a categorized to work in the FM8 preset number of patches, so those looking browser. I'm always grateful for for some aggressive bite in their preset designers who do that! patches will be pleased. In the bass category, you'll primarily find dirty, Audio Mind Project also provides FM8 electronically oriented basses with a Experience in both KSD and NFM8 couple of pretty impressive acoustic formats. So, if you haven't updated to bass emulations mixed in. The FM8 1.2 (to preserve Kore "Fretless Experience" patches sound 40
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
particularly good, and they'll rattle your desktop (even with Mopads in use!). The Leads category is quite a bit more diverse as there is pretty much an even split between aggressive, dirty lead sounds and cool, mellow leads. There are some wonderfully programmed leads with "Ocean Way" and "New Orleans Flavour" leading the way as two of my favorites. The diversity of sounds in this category shows you that you've got a programmer who really knows his way around FM synthesis! Oh, and if you think FM8 can't do vintage analog leads, try the preset "Arctic Journey" and you'll be convinced that it can. Moving on to the Synth Pads and Synth Miscellaneous categories, you once again find an impressive array of sounds. Here, though, the sounds are more laid back with that gorgeous FM clarity and sheen that you'd expect. Some of the pads are ready for your next dance track, but most could be solid, usable pads in any number of genres of music. I especially enjoyed the patch "Small Cafe 2", with its interesting (but still usable) pitch scoop at the attack phase. The evolving pads in the collection (around 15-20 of them) are standouts as well for those who love FM8 for creating soundscapes. I can't leave the Synth category without mentioning the
Classic Synth subcategory. It consists of fifteen different patches that once again show that you can get vintage analog goodness from FM synthesis. In fact, I think Audio Mind Project might be convincing me that FM8 could be one of the all-around workhorse synths of your collection. Now, let's move on to the standard non-synth instrument categories. In the Piano/Keys and Organ categories, you get a nice array of usable instruments. I'm a keyboard player so I'm always interested in good sounds to use for comping. As there are loads and loads of FM key and organ patches around, the ones here don't stand out as much. However, I'm definitely glad to have them to add to my collection. The Guitar and Plucked String categories have only a total of nine patches, but they're all quite
good. I found "Digital Era Strat" to be one of my favorites as it's an excellent Stratocaster emulation. The remaining ten or so patches fall into the realm of percussion and orchestral instruments. Almost every one of these patches is excellent. Considering the strengths of FM synthesis, it's not surprising that the mallets, flutes, and brass patches sound superb. However, my favorites of the bunch have to be "Electric Cello" (which is aptly named) and "Soprano Synth", which sounds remarkably like the Sax setting on an ARP Pro Soloist. The Verdict FM8 Experience is an incredibly diverse and well-programmed set of patches that would be useful for almost any genre. A set like this truly shows you the capabilities of FM synthesis. At a price of $27.99 for 180 August 2012
patches, FM8 Experience represents an excellent bargain that fans of FM8 should definitely consider. Preset users will enjoy this well-designed set to add to their collection, and FM synthesis gurus will enjoy having this diverse collection of patches to analyze. Be sure to head to the website below to get more information on FM8 experience. You can also listen to a helpful audio walk-through of 54 patches from the set. While you're there, you might want to check out the banks for V-Station and Synth Squad as well. Product Page: http://audiomindproject.com/vstsoundbanks/fm8-experiencesoundbank/
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
41
Update
w e i v Re
Modartt PIANOTEQ
Rhody RS and
Steel Pans In June's issue of WSM I had the privilege of reviewing Modartt's brand new version of Pianoteq. Pianoteq 4.0 features a brand new 'engine' that enables it to produce unrivalled modeled piano sounds. With a whole range of other new features version 4.0 is light-years ahead of the previous version. Since the release of version 4.0 the folks at Modartt have been beavering away on some updates - one is free for owners of the Electric Pianos add-on, the other is a whole, brand-new add-on. First up we have Rhody R2 which is the free update of Pianoteq's Rhodes emulation. Then comes Steel Pans, an add-on that models Steel Drums, Spacedrums, Hand Pans and Tank Drums. Rhody R2 Rhody R2 is, funnily enough, an emulation of the famous, or infamous, Fender Rhodes electric piano and Modartt have done a superb job of recreating this classic instrument. R1 was good; R2 is better. The sound is rich and will have you simply wanting to play and listen 42
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
by Adrian Frost
and play some more. There are 31 presets that cover a range of sound variations. Amongst them are a few "far out" presets that make heavy use of Pianoteq's built-in effects. As usual you have detailed control of every aspect of Rhody R2's sound and general configuration. There are a couple of different controls compared with the piano but nothing that's going to get you tied up in knots. You can adjust pickup symmetry and
distance and have control over tine noise - as it relates to both the hammers and the dampers. Overall it's hard not to be impressed by the quantity of available options for modifying the sound of your instrument.
actually very satisfying for just tinkering around and trying stuff out. I'm not sure where Rhody R2 could fit in the type of music (if you can call it that‌) that I tend to make but I'm definitely going to be looking for ways to use it.
I confess that I've not played with too many Rhodes emulations - either sampled or modeled - but Rhody R2 has got me hooked. There is a depth to the sound that pulls you in and is
Anyway, go get it if you already have the Electric Pianos expansion, it's free and well worth the (short) time it takes to download.
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
43
Update
w e i v Re
Modartt PIANOTEQ
Rhody RS and
Steel Pans Steel Pans The Steel Pans add-on ‌ where to begin? First, another confession. I love Steel Drums. I absolutely adore the sound and the feel and the vibe of Steel Drums. Using the various synths I have at my disposal I have tried numerous times to create a Steel Drum sound. I've had a go using FM and subtractive synths and I've never been 100% happy with the results. Maybe not surprising given the complexity of the sound that comes from the interactions between all the notes that resonate and build one upon another within the drum's pan. Second‌ yet another confession, although I would imagine that a few people will be with me on this one. I love Jean-Michel Jarre's music (even if it took me three attempts to spell his name correctly) One of my favourite tracks is Calypso from the "Waiting for Cousteau" album. I used to think that the steel drums that he uses on this track were created on one of his many synthesizers. They're not though, he got a real Steel Drum band in and recorded them playing. No wonder my own synthesized attempts failed, even JMJ needs the real thing and I'm not even half, or a tenth, or a hundredth the synth wizard that he is. Oh well. Modartt to the rescue. 44
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Steel Pans is simply great. The Steel Drums are so authentic sounding that you're going to be looking for a new MIDI controller just to handle them. Maybe someone out there is already working on such a thing, who knows. Anyway, if you've been looking for a high quality and expressive set of Steel Drums for your computer based music then look no further. But that is not all. As well as the Steel Drums you get, as previously mentioned, Spacedrums, Hand Pans and Tank Drums. These instruments are also all tuned percussion, variations on a theme if you like, but each has its own character.
resonant but has a more laid back feel. At the low end the sound is almost breathy but it's at the high end that these particular drums seem to come alive where they have a slightly brittle 'ting' that complements perfectly the lower end of the Steel Drums.
Finally we have the Tank Drums. Here Spacedrums are a more resonant the sound is somewhat hollow and, version of traditional steel drums. again, resonant. Very nice and sounds According to the presets that are great with reverb and a bit of chorus. offered they are played either by hand or with mallets. By hand gives a As per Rhody R2 you have almost slightly more mellow feel than the complete control over all aspects of percussive attack that comes with your drums although there is the using mallets. They have a different feeling that the drums don't quite fit musical range too in as much as they into the 'string' based aspects of the go over half an octave lower than the other instruments that are modelled in steel drums. Pianoteq 4.0. It's not exactly offputting though as you can make sense Hand Pans are also played by hand or of the controls and the 'string length' with mallets and have the same range control has no active slider… that as the Spacedrums. The sound is also would just be weird. August 2012
And to finish... Rhody R2 and Steel Pans are both great additions to the Pianoteq stable and well worth taking a look at if you're after either type of instrument. They are high-quality, realistic and expressive instruments that are a pleasure to both play and listen to. If you don't already have the Electric Pianos add-on which contains the new Rhody R2, it is available from the Pianoteq website at www.pianoteq.com for €49. If you already own this add-on download the update from your account - you've probably already received the e-mail anyway! Steel Pans also costs a very reasonable €49.
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
45
Studio micro by Ben Paturzo
Basic Idea This series has been on my wish list for some time. Not on a to-do list, like work, but something I've wanted to do, like learn to surf. If you are learning music, especially a newbie on a budget, and you'd like to set up a computer to help you play, compose, and edit your work—or even help with your lessons, this series is for you. If you are an accomplished musician with lots of cash to spend on computer hardware and software, then step away from the article. Nothing to see here. I will tell you how to get a basic studio set up, with the following key steps:
gave you is good only for checking your email and playing Solitaire. Not even playing World of Warcraft. Solitaire. That's why it's a hand-medown. Nobody else wants it. Since buying the computer involves a lot of decisions, I'll go through it very deliberately, explaining as much as possible. Raise your hands with any questions.
retirement to tell you: It Doesn't Matter. Cue the Angels.
Statements like (Mac) It just works, or It makes me more creative, are rubbish. Picasso didn't learn to paint using the most expensive brushes, just as some famous writers continue to write longhand, on a yellow legal pad. Buying the most expensive piano won't make your rendition of Twinkle, PC versus Mac Twinkle, Little Star any better, but it will make you poorer. Your goal is to I'm basically spending your money, so play music, then edit that music, add keep that in mind. I can't, in all good effects, and so on. Your goal is not to conscience tell you, for example, to impress your friends. Back off, man, spend $1800 for a MacBook Pro, when I'm a scientist. it's basically a $699 PC laptop, with an Apple OS versus Windows on the PC. Laptop or Desktop 1. The DAW—Digital Audio Remember, Apple fixes the price, PCs Workstation software are often heavily discounted. Your Being portable is great, but think 2. Audio Interfaces—Keyboard, Guitar, Mac friends will tell you Apple is the about it. You're not carrying your gear Microphone Interfaces one you want; your PC friends will from studio to studio, gig to gig. 3. Virtual Instruments—Emulations recommend the PC. So, to settle the You're just starting out. Even when of Musical Instruments and Effects debate: I have taught many classes, you're rich and famous, they'll have 4. Hardware—Keyboards, Guitars, Mac and PC; I have lived the computers, wherever you go. Maybe Microphones computer age from 8-bit even a Mac. If you're doing DJ gigs, 5. Monitors—Speakers to play back microprocessors like MOS get a laptop for that, then come back your work Technology's 6502 (Figure 1—all hail here. Ben's first processor) and Intel's Figure 1 Step 0 8008 to today's 64-bit, multi-core, hyper-threading superprocessors, This is actually the first step before I can tell you from experience starting on the steps above. Buying that it doesn't matter. So the computer. Keep in mind that the Methuselah has come out of hand-me-down system Cousin Ralph 46
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Figure 2
But you really want a laptop. Why is that so bad? First, screen size. Something happened to screen resolution when 15-inch laptops went from 16:9 to 16:10 aspect ratio—vertical resolution went from 900 to 768 (1440x900 to 1366x768). Who cares, your movies look better now, right? Figure 2 and 3 demonstrate what going from higher to lower resolution is like. Less screen area, less room for your software goodies. How about 17-inch screens, you say. Great idea. How about getting a back brace for carrying that around? Bottom line: Batman doesn't carry around a BatLaptop; he leaves the BatComputer back in the Batcave, where it belongs. You know better than Batman?
Figure 3
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
47
Studio
Figure 4
made my 3D rendering (Bryce) go Expandability is the other from 13 minutes to 1 minute. 13 deciding factor in laptop versus desktop. You will want the space times faster! 1300 per cent faster! AMD processors will save you money, to add in such things as audio cards (Figure 4) and hard drives but it is simply not worth it. Hard drives with less capacity (like 500 GB (Figure 5). More expandability, versus 1000 GB/1 TB) will also save more joy. You will want to keep you some money, but your friends will all your goodies in one box, mock you, saying your system is rather than having external-this "smaller." It's a guy thing. All the and external-that. You know specs about USB and eSATA and PCI about external, right? It's like slots are built into new systems when your girlfriend says she just needs more space, like with anyway, so you probably won't have to sweat the details. you in a different Zip code. Desktop Get the biggest box you can find, with room to grow inside and outside. A full-size tower is better than a middle-size tower, but the former is getting harder to find. Get a tower with room for 2 or more external 5.25-inch drives, which are things like DVD and CD players/recorders; inside, there should be room for 2 or more 3.5inch drives, such as hard drives. Again, more room, more joy. Trust me. Now, on to computer system specs:
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8
48
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
Operating System This one is almost as bad as Mac versus PC. Buying a brand new, upto-date system, and slapping in Windows XP is like buying a Ferrari and filling up with the worst gas you can find, the gas that still has bits of dinosaur bone in it. You'll take questa bella carrozza to the track, it will catch on fire, burn to the ground, and Papa Enzo will flip in his grave. Stupido! Windows XP Drivers, the pieces of software that allows these cool cards (Figure 4) to communicate with the rest of your hardware (computer, keyboards, audio interfaces, and more), come in basically two flavors: creaky and non-existent. New hardware will be Windows 7 compliant, with Windows 7 drivers. Old hardware will have old/outdated (XP) drivers, with no Windows 7 drivers available. Allow me an example:
1. Processor: Intel Core i5 or (better) Core i7 2. 8 GB RAM is fine, 16 GB is better, but not necessary 3. 2 1-Terabyte hard drives, one for your software, one for your music files 4. DVD Writer—Reads/Writes DVDs and CDs 5. Video—stick with the "built-in" I have an old WACOM graphics tablet, graphics (usually Intel) 6. Sound—see Video above. We'll be built like a battleship. Seriously, you could use this as a shield when the upgrading this with Audio zombies come bursting in. Now, Interfaces anyway. WACOM supported this for as long as 7. USB 3.0 is best, USB 2.0 is they could, which means the last okay—4+ USB 2.0 and 2+ USB drivers are Windows XP. I resisted 3.0 going to Windows 7 on one computer, 8. eSATA 3.0 is best, eSATA 2.0 is just so that I could keep that graphics okay—4+ eSATA 2.0 and 2+ tablet. And then I bought a new eSATA 3.0 9. Number of PCI expansion slots for WACOM tablet. With more sensitivity. adding cards like Figure 4—4 to 6 More features. More graphics software. And, support for OS's going beyond Windows 7. Now, this new tablet isn't These specs will take the guesswork built like a battleship, but it greatly out of buying a PC. An Intel Core i7
August 2012
micro Figure 9
Figure 10
Figure 11
will never regret getting me to make money too big a display, but you assembling systems, I will always regret found that no-name getting too small a systems were just as good as "name" systems. display. When you see a DAW on a big monitor, Why? Same hard drives, your heart will sing. same motherboards, Promise. Figure 9 shows same RAM, same power a 26-inch Viewsonic, supplies, etc. All my priced at about $200. desktops have been noFigure 10 shows a 21.5name, except one, which inch Asus, priced at about I gave to my Dad, and I Moral of the story: Get $130. Figure 11 shows a love my Dad. Even the Windows 7, 64-bit. If 27-inch Asus, priced at system I'm using right you insist on XP, find a about $250. If I'm now is not-brand-X (See self-help group. If you spending your money, my Marvel comics). This swear by Windows Me, system has water cooling advice is a 24 to 26 check yourself into an incher. for the Core i7. Water asylum, preferably Arkham Asylum (Figure cooling! I built this Final Thoughts Redux 6). So Batman can keep system from scratch, picking out the processor, an eye on you. Might be At this point, you're motherboard, RAM, etc. worth it—Harley Quinn probably thinking, What I've also expanded the (Figure 7). Daddy happened to the micro? I system, adding more like. Rowr Rowr. RAM, more hard drives, a mean, man, that is, like, my entire year's wages! Blu Ray rewriteable, etc. Brand Dude, seriously—the Way too much fun. But— entire year? You can Dell, HP, eMachines, and this is important—I probably get a Core i3 can still be lured away Brand X (as in nowith a Payday (Figure 8). system, 4 GB RAM, single name, or house 500 GB hard drive, in a brand), doesn't small case, for about matter. Best price is Final Thoughts $400. Let's do the math: the way to go. Go $200 difference, divide by What I've done here is back to the specs 12 months—just under very similar to a newbie and match them up class I used to run—when $17 per month. Over 24 with the months, it will cost you a manufacturer specs. computers cost $2500. bit over $8 per month. If this proves tricky, The class was called That is how you've got to something like "How to find an honest, Buy A Computer." Scoff if look at it. Your system knowledgeable will be good for at least a you like, but remember: salesman—this sounded year, probably up to two $2500. Today's price for funny as soon as I wrote the spec'd desktop will be years. You will be it. Or get a nerd friend around $600 for a Core i5 disappointed by getting to help you. No nerd system to about $800 for an under-powered system, friend? You can usually that you'll probably have find a bunch of nerds in a Core i7 system. Find to expand, anyway, over an electronics/computer someone who builds or the coming two years. Go store, corralled near the sells "house" brand for the spec'd system. computers for the best video card section, You will have enough price. arguing about which is power that Darth and the better, ATI or nVidia. Emperor will crave it. Yes. Wait a Minute—What Keep a Payday (Figure 8) handy, to lure a weak About the Display? Good luck! one away from the herd. Get as big a display as you can afford. Then get Back when computer systems cost enough for a slightly bigger one. You outperforms the old tablet, which was serial port versus USB for the new tablet. How much does it outperform the old tablet? Well, let's just say the old tablet is in my office slash studio, waiting for the coming zombie apocalypse.
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
49
w e i v Re
Tone2
Saurus by Adrian Frost
Having spent a few months diving into the almost unfathomable depths of FM synthesis, with a short cruise into additive synthesis courtesy of Rob Papen's Blade in June's edition, it is time this month to head back to the more comfortable and peaceful waters of subtractive synthesis.
new synth has to do something to stand out from the crowd. Some probably do this by putting on a garish interface hoping to attract your attention but actually the only thing that really counts is the sound - good looks aren't enough.
Enter Tone2's new virtual analogue Whilst the more esoteric forms of contender - Saurus. Although it looks synthesis are somewhat under-served good, and it has to be said, it looks in terms of the variety of available very good, it's not just a pretty face. soft synths the category of subtractive There's some serious music making synthesis is, shall we say, well fed. In potential hiding behind the wood fact it feels like you can barely turn panelling, shiny controls and glowing around without banging your elbows virtual LCDs. into a new subtractive synth in the last few months. Because of this a
50
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
First off let's take a quick look at Saurus' included features: You have 2 oscillators with 8 waveforms. Each oscillator has a syncable sub-oscillator. You can set the mix between the oscillators and there is also a ring modulator that can modulate Osc1 with Osc2. Moving onto the filter there are 6 filter shapes on offer: 12dB low, high and band-pass, 24dB low-pass, notch and formant. As well as ADSR envelope controls there is the option to do filter Frequency Modulation which adds to the range of sounds that you can create. There is also a Feedback control that allows you to feed some (or all) of the signal back into the filter's input.
That's pretty much it for Saurus' main signal path. Everything else is taken care of by the 15 slot Mod Matrix that allows you to route the 2 LFOs, auxiliary ADSR envelope and Arp/Gate to any one of over 60 destinations. But in terms of sources for the Mod Matrix you have more than just the controls just mentioned. There are a whole range of other sources available. A few examples include white noise, pink noise, an internal envelope called "decay" and an impulse to sharpen attack. But that is not all...
The use of modifiers and also the Or you can just play around and see ability to route matrix slots to other what happens. And this brings me to matrix slots makes the Mod Matrix what I see as Saurus' most attractive one of Saurus' stand out features feature. It invites you to dig in and try the potential for creating weird and stuff out. The interface is well laid out wonderful sounds is enormous. Throw and is very clear. Options are in the fact that the Mod Matrix can presented in a straight-forward also act upon the Arp/Gate and a manner and you can quickly get a feel whole world of possibilities opens up. for what is going on. Saurus is a very The Arp/Gate can be found in the "hands-on" kind of synth that offers same window as the Mod Matrix. It's immediate, generally usable, results also feature packed, and gives you a from your tweaking. I like it. great amount of control over each of the 16 available steps. You have the Saurus offers a number of different standard set of controls that you'd effects - Chorus, Reverb, Delay and Saurus' Mod Matrix allows you to set a expect for an Arp/Gate but, again, Drive (the latter via the filter). The number of modifiers that give you there is more. As well as setting the effects have a minimal set of controls extra control over how a source range, that is the number of octaves but are perfectly adequate and do a affects a destination. For example, covered by the Arp, you can have the nice job of beefing up Saurus' sound choose a source and set its Arp play chords and play multiple not that it needs much of that. Switch destination to "X:= Value". Then, in notes across different octaves. You off all the effects and Saurus still the next slot set the source as one of can also set the note order - a much sounds good. Sometimes when trying the "X" functions: X*X, Sqrt (X), Filter more finely grained approach than the out a synth you find that without the (X) or Limit (X) and choose the new typical up, down, down/up, up/down built-in effects the sound is thin and destination. The best thing to do here and random options found on many weedy, lacking a certain 'je ne sais is to experiment to see exactly how arps. Rather than telling you about all quoi'. Saurus isn't one of those synths. each source acts on any destination of the 22 possible options I shall Even without effects the sound is rich via the modifier but this feature gives simply point you to Saurus' manual and has depth - I think this is extra flexibility in sound creation. which ably covers the information that particularly helped by the filter which you need. is very smooth even when fully open. August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
51
w e i v Re So, about the sound... Saurus is, in my opinion, a very modern sounding VA synth yet it can pull off the classic analogue sound in a quite convincing manner. The factory sound bank does a good job of showcasing Saurus' abilities in this area. There are a number of very good recreations of classic synth sounds (check out the 303-a-likes) mixed in with more modern presets. One thing that I really love in the factory sound bank is the selection of tutorial presets that work through all of the synth's features in a logical manner - very helpful for seeing how things work and also a very effective way of introducing newcomers to the "bread 'n' butter" sounds that it can be helpful to get one's head around. The last thing to say in praise of Saurus is that it is obvious that a large amount of thought and work has gone into the smaller details. For example, click the "File" button by the preset browser and you have the option to re-initialise the whole synth or the Mod Matrix or the Arp/Gate. Oh that more synths would include something similar! A way to get back
52
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
Tone2
Saurus
to sane and sensible values after you've tweaked your way into a sonic corner. Another example - the menus. "The menus?" you say. Yes, the menus, they have dividers between groups of options. "So what?" Well, it just breaks things up a bit visually and aids in helping you find your way around. When you can choose between 60+ options it really is nice to have them grouped. It's the small details.
August 2012
But small details are nothing if the sound is weak, but no fear, Saurus sounds good. If you're looking for a competent, relatively light-weight, virtual analogue soft-synth you could do a lot worse than check out Tone2's Saurus. Is it perfect? No. Does it do everything? No. But it does what it's supposed to and does it well. Once you've tried it I think you may well find yourself reaching for your wallet and plonking down the very reasonable $119 that Tone2 are asking for this synth. You can't really go wrong.
w e i v Re
Bestservice.de
Evolution Series World Percussion Compact by A. Arsov
For home professionals only
Small is beautiful
I'm a music home professional. Not an ordinary term, but it nicely describes that limbo when you're stuck being a professional but you still can't earn enough to cover all the loans, bills and similar 21st century obligations and
200 Euros for such a library is a relatively fair price. This is especially so if we consider that it is a high profile library containing not so ordinary sound material which is aimed at musicians that make music therefore you should do various small for movies, theatres, advertising and all sorts of other commercial purposes. additional business to fill this money Thanks to its playability, it is not hard gap. The world has a bunch of famous to find a place for such rhythms in an musicians and an enormous crowd of ordinary pop production, but we'll talk us, music small fishes, who also need about that a bit later. All in all, we've to be up to date, having the best got loops, additional sounds and music tools that a poor man can buy for surviving in this competitive battle. additional MIDI files for rebuilding the enclosed loops and making further variations. Bestservice started Evolution Series World Percussion adventure with a big There is 7GB of world material, a large content library, a relatively highpriced offering enclosed disk with pre- number of MIDI files with sounds and installed material. A wet dream for all loops from all over the world: Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South the big professionals. They can use this library for many, many upcoming America. Up to three round robins and movies, concerts or big presentations, an array of velocity layers will help you to produce highly realistic drum but at the end of the day a bunch of parts that can fool anyone into famous producers and musicians is believing that a real player was used just a bunch, not an endless number, of potential buyers, so here comes an in your recordings. The first thing that you will notice is the relatively small Evolution Series World Percussion number of included instruments. It is Compact for the rest of us home simply not one of those libraries that professionals, a library that can save offer you an endless number of us enormous time when we're doing instruments, but as soon as you start music for a theatre (sorry, we have a playing with some of the included small budget) or music for new indie instruments, you will realise how movie (sorry, we have a small irrelevant is the quantity compared to budget) and not just to save us time, the playability and employability of also to put that music onto a whole the instrument. I used to have one of new level (on a small budget). those Trigger Finger drum controllers,
54
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
but was totally disappointed with the end result because somehow I couldn't get anything even nearly satisfying out of this box, no matter that I used to tap various rhythms with my fingers whenever I was bored in school. I presume that you can imagine how often that was... I loaded the African Djembe and suddenly all my school practice comes alive. The lower part of the keyboard is filled with the MIDI triggering keys while in the upper octaves we find various Djembe notes ranked over two octaves. It is not the first time that I've found percussion instruments presented in this way, but usually I also can't get realistic results out of them, same as with my Trigger Finger - but I didn't have any problems with my real drum kit nor with my electronic DD50 drum kit. One way or another, it looks like that whoever programmed this library also had a hard time during his educational time and knows a lot about finger tapping. In a minute I got very realistic results and was able to tap pretty complex rhythms. If you have a problem with this practice, you could start with some other instruments from the library that are presented only with two notes, but please don't underestimate those two notes. Plenty of layers, including round robin functionality, bring unexpected playability out of those two notes. Even with just those
two notes you could become the god of that exotic temple from the end of the world. There are also a few pitched percussive instruments which also sound very realistic and very vivid with all details of a real instrument. Layers, round robin and the quality of the recorded material with no background noise, recorded in a controlled recording space with a top instrumentalist along with good programming bring us a combination which sounds almost better than the real thing. The included percussion covers all frequency ranges, from low pitched ones up to very high bells and other similar ethno clanks. Each percussion instrument comes with a great number of loops ranked over several octaves which present you the most common use of that particular instrument. If it happens that you are some sort of a tapping idiot (no one is good at everything – even me) you can still use some of included loops and modify them to fit your needs. The MIDI files come separately and they could not be loaded through the Engine. You can however drag and drop them into the sequencer through Windows Explorer.
Engine's Quick Edit Page offers us ways to quickly add reverb, control the pan of the microphone channels, to reset the round robin and to control the overall volume. To tell you the truth, that's all you will need in the long term. Engine offers also more complex editing but I'm not sure if you will ever need it with this library. Edited or not edited, there are enough world instruments to fulfil all your ethno needs. Not every instrument that you can imagine, but with those that are included you can do everything beyond your imagination. It is like having the real instrument, which is much more than having a wide palette of sampled ones. Those of you that are working with sound libraries on a daily basis will know what I'm talking about. The only thing that you should consider is if you need those world instruments, mainly percussive or not. I don't know about you, but I put Congas, Shakers or Djembe in almost every song. A touch of live percussion which evolves during the song gives a whole new level to any genre, electro or live. Those things are unbeatable whenever you want to push the chorus to a new level or when you get to the last quarter of the song where everything should be crammed with energy. The end of the World This is a world library, so no matter why you need it, for pop, rock, cinematic or dramatic sort of music, it can find its place. The quality and playability of this library put it in range of real instruments and I presume that if you have such an instrument in your studio that you will also use it. You can cheat with MIDI files, programming or changing the files or you can cheat with your fingers tapping the patterns on the fly. One way or another, it is cheating because it is still a library after all, but who will know? August 2012
Whenever someone asks me whether this is a real instrument or a library, I look them in the eyes and tell them that it is a real instrument. If it is sounds right, than it is right. Who cares if this is a real instrument or not as long as it sounds like real instrument! Don't ask if you can't hear the difference. And if they ask you anyway, just watch their eyes and tell them: - "Ian Watson!" - "Who?" - "The fellow who also plays the instruments on the Evolution Series World Percussion library." - "Wow, how could you afford him?" - "Eh, through Anthony Ammar, the producer who is a good friend of a friend of mine, Klaus from Bestservice." So, the moral of this story is: don't ask if you can't spot the difference, and if it happens that you were bored during your school time, trust me, nobody could ever spot the difference. Evolution Series World Percussion Compact by Bestservice.de is a typical so called "Japanese product" produced in Europe. A bunch of real instruments packed in a very small box. There used to be time when only the Japanese could achieve that, but the Bestservice team strikes back and has squeezed an enormous amount of reality into one DVD. The next level is teleportation directly to our home, till then ... enjoy the Evolution Series World Percussion Compact. Available on Bestservice.de. http://www.bestservice.de/detail1.asp /best_service/evolution_series_world_ percussion_compact/en#Video+Dem os by World Arsov A. from the other side of the planet.
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
55
w e i v Re Garritan Instant Orchestra by Adrian Frost
Somebody famous, royalty perhaps, once sang "I want it all and I want it now!" That voice has not gone unheeded. Enter, stage left, Garritan Instant Orchestra - henceforth known as GIO. Garritan's latest orchestral instrument gives you everything that
56
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
you need to score some impressive sounding orchestral pieces without the hassle of having to build up your own ensembles or sections. Although GIO would seem to be aimed at, and will appeal to, those who want quick access to a full orchestral sound -
August 2012
strings, brass, wind, choir and percussion - all of the component parts are available to those who want more control. There are ready prepared Ensembles, sub-divided into Moods and then Combos and FX, but you can also load individual sections into any of the Aria Player's 16 'slots'. We'll look at all these sections a little later, but first a word about Garritan's Aria Player.
The player's player
16 channel mixer underneath with each channel having Mute/Solo buttons, a pan control, an effects send and a volume slider.
The Aria Player uses a personalised keycard system where your info and authorisation are marked on a PNG keycard file. The system is brain dead Each slot allows you to set the tuning, simple to use. Create an account and define the pitch-bend range, select register GIO at Garritan's site, the output channel - if you're using download an image of your the 32 (16 stereo pairs) version of the registration keycard, drag and drop plug-in and choose the MIDI channel the image onto the standalone version that the slot responds to. Aria is a of the player and you're ready to go. streaming player so you don't have to You can then use the keycard to worry too much about loading register your library for any future everything into memory. It performed installations. In other words, the very well on my fairly modest Core 2 keycard won't expire. This makes it a Duo with 4GB of RAM - no stuttering much better system than simple or the like when playing big chords Challeng/Response where you would with all, or nearly all, slots loaded. need to re-authorise on each installation. You can keep the card to To the right you have access to three re-authorise the player on the same other pages which will, in turn, occupy computer at a later date if necessary. the space taken by the mixer. This You can also install GIO on up to 4 means you can always see what computers - although you can only instruments you have loaded. At the use one instance at a time. bottom of the screen you have a modwheel, pedals and a space left for keyWhen you load up the player for the switches. To keep things simple and first time you are presented with fast GIO doesn't use key-switching so something of a blank canvas. There this particular area is blank. Other are 16 'slots' for loading sounds with a Garritan products such as GPO, JABB, August 2012
COMB, WORLD do use key-switching, so if you add those libraries the appropriate controls will appear. The other useful feature here is the keyboard graphic. Not only does it show which notes you are playing from your MIDI controller it shows the range of the currently selected instrument. This is great for orchestral newbies like me who don't always know the correct ranges of particular instruments. If you want to know where something 'fits', load it up and take a glance at the keyboard. Easy. Flicking over to the Controls tab reveals a series of knobs for an Equalizer, Expression, Stereo Stage and Instrument Controls. They're all fairly self-explanatory. The nice thing here is that, apart from the equalizer, all of the controls have pre-assigned MIDI controllers. Makes life a little simpler. It's worth pointing out that the Controls and Effects tabs both act on the currently selected instrument slot. That is, each slot has its own complement of controls and effects. So you could independently, for example, widen the stereo stage of www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
57
w e i v Re
your strings, throw some reverb on your brass and low-pass your choir. Whatever takes your fancy. Which leads us to the Effects tab. On first glance it's a little disappointing 8 knobs, a drop down menu, a power button and the word "Ambience" swimming in a sea of pleasantly rendered chocolate brown. No chorus, no phaser, no compressor, no tubedrive, no bit-crusher, no wah-wah … OK, now I'm being silly. When you stop and think about it though, Ambiance is pretty much all you need if you're trying to recreate an orchestra. Yes, you could maybe, perhaps make use of a bit-crusher and a wah-wah … but then again. Ambiance has 12 presets though one does wonder how you'd fit a whole orchestra into a parlor. The effect is good and gives you a reasonable amount of control over things like predelay, decay, diffusion and size. It also, I think, fits well with, and does justice to, the GIO samples.
Instant Orchestra
Ambience. I've not had time to test it but it looks to be a great addition.
Allocation but chances are you'll never actually need to. Maybe I'm just not an advanced enough user but I left The final tab gives access to the everything "as-is"… or should that be Settings page. Although there is quite "as-was"? Anyway, if nothing else you a lot here most of it is informational can see some interesting facts and rather than interactive. You can adjust figures as you play. things like Disk Caching and RAM
A late entry to this review: GIO users can now login to their account and download the latest version of the ARIA Player 1.5 which includes a new Convolution Reverb as well as 58
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
different sections into the Aria Player's 16 slots. There is fun to be had!
the grand piano which for me was strangely lacking in playability and feel. It somehow didn't quite fit. But that's one, solitary, instrument amongst all that are available.
The sections are divided into 11 categories - Blending Textures, Brass In the mood Patches, Choir Patches, Effects Patches, Harps and FX, Keyboards, For someone looking for an easy to Well, that's been a lot of talk about Mixtures, Percussion Patches, Pitched use, flexible, high quality orchestra the Aria Player and what it can do. Percussion Patches, String Patches GIO is an absolute no-brainer. It How about the sounds? Where to start and Wind Patches. Each category covers all the orchestral bases with a ‌ there is so much here. As contains numerous variations from decent range of nice sounding previously mentioned there are a gentle to aggressive playing styles instruments that sit well together whole series of Ensembles divided into along with effects, chords and other across the whole array of styles and Moods and then Combos and FX. incidental sounds that you may want. articulations. You definitely feel as Ensembles feature groups of sections Amongst the sections the highlights though you are commanding a and make good use of the whole are Mixtures which feature the whole complete and coherent orchestra. If range of GIO's instruments. orchestra performing hits, playing you want more control, down to the slowly, playing sustains and tremolos, individual instruments, then you may It's difficult to sum up what is on offer amongst others. Then we have GIO want to take a look at Garritan's here as there is simply so much. percussion sections, and they really Personal Orchestra 4, but for the There is a complete range of presets are superb. My absolute favourites are broader sweep and for mapping out that give you different styles of the Earth Drums. They are huge, and laying down your orchestral orchestra from the bombastic to the cavernous sounding drums that will sound GIO is perfect. more genteel. In addition to the more have you reaching for your volume traditional styles that you would control they are that powerful - use Although there is no demo of GIO expect there are presets that can be carefully, and often‌ there are plenty of videos that give a used to create a whole variety of good feel for GIO's capabilities. There atmospheres - spooky, romantic, Majestically Epic is also a complete interactive series tense, epic, majestic. There are even by Rimsky Korsakov called Principles presets for chaotic orchestral noise How do you sum up a review of a of Orchestration that you can read on along with an orchestra's worth of whole orchestra? GIO biggest strength the site at http://www.garritan.com musicians warming up or playing as is the speed with which you have though drunk - that would take a lot Garritan Instant Orchestra costs access to a full and impressive of beer. $149.95 as a download or $169.95 on sounding orchestra. There is DVD. You can order direct from everything here that you need to The Ensembles give a very good feel Garritan's website. create good, rich sounding for what is possible with GIO but the arrangements. The only weak real power lies in being able to load instrument amongst a stellar cast is August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
59
w e i v Re
Aiyn Zahev Soundbanks by Jeffrey Powell
In February 2012, Aiyn Zahev released his first commercial sound bank. Since that time, he has released quite a few patch libraries for synths such as Synapse Audio's Dune, LennarDigital's Sylenth1, DiscoDSP's Corona, and u-he's Diva. He's also made a splash over at KVR Audio with his impressive demo tracks utilizing his patches. So, with all this in mind, I thought we'd introduce his products to our readers by taking a look at three of his sound banks. Serenity for AAS Ultra Analog VA-1 Serenity was Aiyn Zahev's first commercial release, and it consists of
60
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
180 “uplifting trance” presets. In these presets, you'll find 44 arps, 22 atmospheres, 24 basses, 22 leads, 38 pads, 14 drums, and 16 plucks. Fortunately, they are all arranged neatly into folders to assist your browsing. Don't let the “uplifting trance” description fool you. This is a very diverse and versatile set of sounds for Ultra Analog. For instance, you'll find a harsh bass (suitable for dark or intense music) and then one click later, you'll find yourself with a smooth, mellow analog lead sound (suitable for downtempo or even prog rock). While many of the presets have the strong high frequency content often used in dance genres, these patches could definitely find uses in all kinds of music.
which are further enhanced by the velocity controlled filter cutoff frequency. The Bass category is quite versatile as there is a great mix of sustained and plucky basses. The Leads category is highlighted by some great vintage-style analog leads, with “Beautiful Winter I” being my favorite. It's an extraordinarily expressive saw wave patch that's a joy to play.
The Pads category is similarly very impressive. About half of the pads are evolving pads (like “Distant Light House”) while the other half are quick, responsive pads (like “Jump in II”) which are ready to drop into uptempo tracks. As a word of warning, be sure to watch your CPU with the pads as it can definitely overload if you're not careful. I suggest lowering the voices With such an array of to a manageable number to ensure sonic goodness, it's you can enjoy them to their fullest difficult to pick a favorite potential. The Drum category has category. The best some excellent kicks, hats, and surprise of the set for me shakers while the Plucks category is is the Arps category. far more versatile than it sounds. The arps, in particular, You'll find in there some useful keys sound fantastic and presets (like “E-Piano I” and “E-piano usable, which is a pretty II”), and many of these patches could rare quality in most of be used as leads or arp patches. the arp presets that I have from other preset The only disappointment for me in the designers. The presets set is the Atmosphere category. It "Modern Sequence I" and consists of various sound effects, odd "Modern Sequence II" are percussion sounds, and strange noises. two of my favorites. They show the versatility of Ultra With these, you can Analog, but they didn't impress me as easily get lost in the much as the other presets. swirling array of notes
August 2012
Among these, you'll find programmed punchy basses, FM 24 arps, 5 textures, 22 styled basses, vintage-type synth basses, 24 leads, 20 basses, and dancefloor-ready pads, 7 drums, and 18 sustained basses in this category. In plucks. The presets are other words, there are good basses grouped by category so there for pretty much everyone. The they are easy to locate. Chord, Drum, FX, and Keys categories I especially like that are small, but each patch in them is each preset comes with definitely useable. “Glaciers” (in the specific comments that Keys category) is one of my favorites. mention ways to use It’s an electronic piano sound with a the current patch or to sweeping pad that gradually enters modify it to get into the picture. The LFOs in the mod different sounds. I matrix are well-used in “Glaciers”. always appreciate those extra touches by sound The last four categories are Leads, designers. With Dune, Pads, Plucks, and Textures. The leads modulation is the key are quite varied with most being and each of the presets ready for an upbeat dance track. here explores the However, you’ll also find a few vintage modulation possibilities. sounding leads as well, with As you would expect, “Econosphere” being my favorite. velocity control is Once again, there are lots of useful Additionally, I would've liked to have widely used, and the mod wheel is patches here. Now, when I think of seen some Midi Links included with mapped on every preset. However, it Dune, I think of lush pads... as it the pack, but due to Ultra Analog's isn't simply mapped to the cutoff gives users the ability to modulate very odd way of setting up external frequency on every preset. For many and fine tune the (up to) eight controls, most preset packs don't of the patches, the mod wheel gives different voices of the unison engine. include them. At any rate, these are you extra control over such So, in other words, my hopes were pretty minor complaints. parameters as the FM amount, the high heading into that category. FAT control, properties of the Fortunately, I was not disappointed as My recommendation: Serenity is an envelope, oscillator balance, and LFO Tundra is full of lush, evolving, and outstanding pack that every Ultra properties. There is incredible beautiful pads. The mod matrix is Analog owner should check out. In attention to detail in the mod matrices definitely used to best effect in these fact, I'd put it on the list of “must own” of these patches which make the pad patches. The bank finishes with a packs for Ultra Analog. The range of patches feel fresh and alive. nice collection of plucks and a few the presets is huge, and I feel evolving atmosphere patches in the confident that almost anyone could The Arp category is quite varied, and Textures section. find a number of useful patches in this you’ll find use of the arpeggiator not set. As the price is only $20, Serenity only for notes, but also for chords and My recommendation: Tundra (Vol.1) is an excellent bargain worthy of your for modulation. There’s a nice focus is another excellent bank from Aiyn consideration. Zahev. There is a great attention to on rhythm in these patches, and my favorite ones of the group were “Train detail evident in these patches, and Tundra (Vol. 1) for Synapse Audio of Thought” and “Tunnels” which had the presets are top-notch. At its $20 Dune driving rhythms that really brought to price tag, it’s a bargain and a mustbuy for Dune owners. mind the motion of a train. The Bass This release was his first bank for category is one of the most varied of Dune, and it consists of 128 presets. the whole set. You’ll find wellAugust 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
61
w e i v Re
Aiyn Zahev Soundbanks
Tundra (Vol 2) for Synapse Audio Dune
patches in particular have a versatile sound that I see as really quite usable. This second release for Dune consists As a workhorse set of pads, of 105 presets, and it’s one of his these patches I think newest releases. Among these exceed the ones patches, you’ll find: 25 basses, 4 programmed for the first sub-basses, 4 soft leads, 6 hard leads, volume. I had to mention 4 trance leads, 11 plucks, 17 pads, 6 the sequences here as well, gated pads, 4 strings, 10 sequences, as “Sequence 5” is now 5 synths, 1 keyboard, 5 textures, and one of my favorite patches 3 FX. Whew! How’s that for variety?! for Dune. Its hypnotic The quality here is very similar to the duophonic arp sequence is quality found in the first volume, so mesmerizing. I’m not sure I’ll spend my remaining words it’ll make it into any of my discussing the differences between the tracks, but I could two volumes. probably listen to it for hours. The Rough Leads First of all, many of these patches category is also worth (especially the basses and leads) are mentioning as the five more geared toward dance and trance patches there will likely than the first one. So, if you’re not satisfy those looking for into those styles, you might not find Dune’s rougher edge. Of course, this this bank as useful although the pads satisfaction will only be temporary as and strings included could be used in they’ll be hungry for more of these almost any genre. Secondly, you’ll types patches from Aiyn Zahev in the notice that there are several new future. The remaining categories categories with the Strings and have the variety, imagination, and Sequences categories being of special great quality found in Tundra (Vol. 1). note. Thirdly, there is one negative difference: these patches have only My recommendation: Tundra (Vol. 2), like its predecessor, is top-shelf patch generic names and no patch-specific bank for Dune. If you’re into dance comments. As mentioned above, I and trance music, then it’s definitely really enjoy and use the comments one to buy. If you’re into other when working with the patches, so I genres, I think you’ll find the was a little disappointed. usefulness of the pads and strings alone to be enough justify the cost, That being said, the quality of the which is once again a mere $20. patches is as good as or even better than the patches found in the first For Further Information volume. The programming here is a bit more refined as the mod matrix is used to even better effect for many of Aiyn Zahev is definitely a fantastic the patches. While all categories were preset designer worth keeping an eye on in the future. Each of the three quite good, my favorites were the banks above is well-designed, Pads, Sequences, and Strings meticulously programmed, and categories. The pads and strings 62
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
reasonably priced. The good news is that you don’t have to take my word for it. You can find excellent demo tracks and downloadable presets for each of the three banks above. I love it when sound designers allow you to have a bit of a taste of the patches before you buy. So, be sure to head over to the website below to check out those goodies, as well as the other banks for sale. While you’re there, you’ll probably want to bookmark the page as well to keep up to date on the work of this up-and-coming preset designer!
Company Website: www.aiynzahev-sounds.com
Get Your Wusik Membership Today and Download This Magazine in High-Quality PDF Format plus, a Full Copy of Wusik Station and Tons of Sounds
Visit: www.subscribe.wusik.com
w e i v Re
In Depth Fxpansion’s D Part 4 - Fusor
accompanying image. I'd already loaded a preset when I took the screen-shot so we can see a bit more of what is happening. One thing to confess here is that although I've
Over the last three issues of WSM I've been looking at Strobe, Amber and Cypher the three members of FXpansion's DCAM: Synth Squad. So why a Part 4? Well, there is a fourth member of the team to consider. It's the unsung hero, the unifier - Fusor. Take all three Synth Squad synths, join them at the hip and throw in some LFOs, high tech sequencers and a bunch of effects and you have some idea of Fusor. Everything each member of the squad can do on its own can be done in Fusor, plus a whole lot more. So, everything I've already said about each individual synth applies to Fusor. However, the question is where to start this review of Fusor and how to fit all the available goodness into one article.
64
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
Start at the very beginning When you fire up Fusor for the first time you'll be faced with a screen similar to the one in the August 2012
been using Fusor for a few months now I don't have anywhere near everything mastered yet. This instrument is deep and even with the excellent manual in hand it takes
DCAM: Synth Squad by Adrian Frost
some time to get your head around all that is on offer here. One could conceivably delete every other synth from one's computer and just work with DCAM Synth Squad, through Fusor, and still not discover all of the possibilities in one lifetime. Is that hyperbole? Maybe a little, and the same might be said of other mega-synths out there, but Fusor really is a world of its own, a place to get lost in and discover new things. Considering how complex Fusor can be the interface that FXpansion have designed is a credit to their engineers' ability to focus in on what is important and present information in a concise and accessible way. Fusor's front page is set out in a clear and logical manner. You have your three synth slots that give you access to any combination of Strobe, Amber and Cypher. In each slot you also have three spaces for insert effects, more of which later. You then have Aux FX and Master Insert FX section which frame a three channel mixer. Over to the left you have the means of routing different MIDI channels to various parts of the instrument. When you load up a synth or effect you have instant access to all of its presets. In theory you could stay on this page and get a lot done without ever having to dig deeper into Fusor's interface. But where's the fun in that? A Device or two Once you've digested the contents of the "Global" page it's time to move on to other stuff. First up are the "Key Map" and "MonoMod" pages. Fusor's Key Map allows you to decide and set how each synth responds to notes from your keyboard controller. You can use it to set zones that are assigned to synths or to Fusor's four Animators. In practice this means that, amongst other things, you can layer synths or have one synth assigned to the top end of the keyboard whilst another is assigned to the bottom end. August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
65
w e i v Re
In Depth Fxpansion’s DCAM:
One thing that is really worth saying beginning. So they're both predictable effects. Each synth has a dedicated at this point is that one of the best and unpredictable - nice. three slot effects rack and you also things you can do is load up different have Aux and Master effects at your Fusor presets and see how the sound Key Map and MonoMod are what are disposal. What to say about the designers have used the available known as Input Devices in squad effects? They're good, clean, usable features. The section on Fusor in the parlance. There is a third Input Device and are "first class citizens" in the manual is, as usual for an FXpansion that we'll look at a little later called world of FuseMod. In effect, ahem, manual, absolutely superb and a the Animator. The Animator is the everything you can do to synth "must read" if you want to get the best heart, life and soul of the party in parameters in FuseMod you can do to from this instrument but nothing quite Fusor's world. Get to grips with the effects parameters. beats hands-on poking around and I Animator and ... well, it'll keep you think you'll probably have some real busy, to say the least. FXpansion have licensed four Breverb "Oh, cool" moments if you do so. algorithms from Overloud Feel the effect Technologies - Hall, Room, Plate and On the Key Map as well as being able Inverse - so you have immediate to tweak the knobs of the various As you can see from the picture, Fusor access to some of the best reverbs parameters you also have a great comes with a healthy range of built-in available. This is something of a coup "Click & Drag" space below each keyboard graphic that allows you to move break-points and ranges around with ease. The key ranges are defined by the Key High and Key Low knobs but you can also set break-points (Break High and Break Low) that define where you move between ranges. The beauty of being able to set breakpoints is that you can create cross-fades between different synths. The MonoMod page gives you access to four LFOs and Envelope Followers that are hard wired to the synth outputs and the main output. The LFOs can be used with Fusor's own version of TransMod called FuseMod. The LFOs are free running but will always give the same output when you run your song from the
66
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Synth Squad -
for FXpansion because it gives Fusor an instant head start when it comes to the built-in effects. Oh yes, and if that wasn't enough you have 27 other high quality effects sitting there waiting for your attention. As many of us know, and have experienced, built-in effects can be an instrument's weak point. One sometimes gets the feeling that the dev put so much effort into the synth that the effects were something of an after-thought. Not so in Fusor's case.
Part 4 - Fusor
Incidentally, for those who like external effects, FXpansion have very recently released a set of effects plugins based on their DCAM technology. There is a free compressor (you'll need an FXpansion account - more info here: www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page= 185) and a bundle that includes a bus compressor, a channel compressor, a transient shaper and a frequencyselective compressor.
The Animator As mentioned a moment ago the Animator is where things happen in Fusor's world. It's probably the most complicated part of Fusor's interface but that doesn't mean that it is confusing. A bit of patience and experimentation are useful here but the results can be mesmerising. For your money you don't get just one Animator but four which can be routed independently. FuseMod also has access to the Animator which means that you can not only use it for notes but for controlling LFOs, filters, effects... almost anything! The screen-shot shows the Animator in "Advanced" mode which reveals a whole pile of extra features compared with the other three modes. "Arpeggiator" is, as the name would suggest, an arpeggiator (you're wondering where WSM finds such topnotch reviewers aren't you?) You get all the usual controls along with the ability for your arp to use the Animator sequencer. "Note Sequencer" and "Mod Sequencer" also do what their names suggest. To see the Note Sequencer in action load up the "AN Axel F Split" preset and hit "Play" on your host. You'll be greeted by a familiar sequence that includes the lead and the bass. Sweet. You may think I'm being lazy but really the best thing that you can do to get to grips with the Animator is spend time reading the manual and playing around. It would be pointless
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
67
w e i v Re
In Depth Fxpansion’s DCAM:
Synth Squad Part 4 - Fusor
for me to simply regurgitate what is in the squad has been a pleasure. More with a look at, amongst other things, the manual and I can only hint at and more when I'm working on a analogue FM. Until then, have fun with what you'll find out for yourself by track I'll go first to either Strobe or the squad! actually playing with the Animator's Cypher for leads and basses and to controls. Again the word "deep" Amber for strings and pads. I've found FXpansion offer a demo of DCAM: springs to mind. Each of Animator's that their sounds play well together Synth Squad from their site at: four sequencers can contain up to 128 (as you'd expect) and sit well in my www.fxpansion.com steps and you have control over each mixes when I use other instruments. DCAM: Synth Squad is available from one of them for pitch, velocity, In the end, what's not to love? all good music retailers as well as duration, repeat and more. In from the FXpansion Online Shop for Advanced mode you also have access I'm not quite finished with Synth USD $249, EUR €189, GBP £165 inc to four FuseMod slots that can be Squad. In our next issue Cypher will VAT where applicable. routed to eight of the Animator's be in the spot-light once again as I controls so you can use, for example, finish up the series on FM Synthesis an LFO to modulate note velocity via one of Fusor's two performance controls. Things can get pretty wild. And finish at the end Fusor is a useful and interesting addition to the line-up of Strobe, Amber and Cypher. To get the best from it you'll need a reasonably powerful computer, but that shouldn't stop those with lesser machines from having a go. If nothing else Fusor serves as a great way to expand the functionality of any one of the squad members. The range of effects, and in particular the Breverb reverbs, means that you'll never be lacking for ways to augment and beef up your sound. So, overall, a huge thumbs up to Fusor. It takes what are already three very good synths, throws them together and opens up your horizons in new ways. I started this series of reviews of FXpansion's DCAM Synth Squad back in our February 2012 issue. The six months that I've spent with 68
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Looks like Site?
Shhh… Only you know that it’s a Blog! Site-Blog: Looks of Site, soul of Blog. www.katcinco.com
w e i v Re
Bestservice.de
Synth-Werk by A. Arsov
Let's make it clear. I have never been a fan of Kraftwerk. No, I wasn't "rock" back then. I was electro even before electro came out. I listened to Can far before Kraftwerk popped out, same goes for Tangerine Dream, I adored DAF but was never so keen on… Kraftwerk. Model is an uber great song, but Autobahn and Man Machine were a bit boring for me. Nothing personal - it is just a matter of taste they were a great band, but not my cup of coffee.
types of library. So, when you order such a library, you know exactly what you will get, and when you finally get it, you realize that it is even better than you expected. As soon as I started to play with the presets I knew it would be one of my future weapons of choice. The reason is fairly simple – Music is an emotion. Any emotion. Rational
So, what do we get for our money? And if we talk about money, price of And now I'm a bit in doubt, having Synth-Werk was recently reduced to one more problem because I don't 149 Euros. A more than fair price for know how I should start writing about such a buffed sound library. 1300 this product, because as you maybe electronic sounds or presets which will already noticed, I always praise the eat 8GB of your valuable disk space products I write about. The reason is and thanks to Engine 2 – the software simple, I never get anything for that runs the library – you can even review that I haven't asked for in the edit all those sounds beyond the usual first place. I'm a bit lazy and therefore sampler tweaking ability, but it would I ask only for things that I really like. be fair to say that that is slowly If I praise this product too much my becoming the standard nowadays. You credibility will be on pretty thin ice. can't survive in this competitive Usually it is not a problem. I'm mister market if you don't offer something Complain-man. The super hero that more. kills friends and enemies with the power of his complaints. That's me. We always start our sound "survey" The main problem with this damn with basses. This collection contains a Synth-Werk product is that there isn't large number of great, memorable much to complain about. It is a non-standard basses. You will not find specific, high profile library with genre, any jazz bass, Precision Fender sort of or maybe we should say, sound real basses, neither will you find the predefined content, definitely not one classic collection of synth basses that of those "everything for everyone" you get along with many libraries or Irrational
70
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
synths. The "Blip", "Plink" and "Boom Chack" are the name of the game, but this is such a good collection of Blips, Plinks and Boom Chacks that is really hard to beat . Even more, included are also some of the best arpeggio basses that I've heard up until now. To be honest, before I tried SynthWerk, I thought that arpeggio basses were mostly useless, but I found these to be really appealing and unbeatable for building a memorable down-tempo atmosphere. Chords are also a category that I couldn't imagine that I would ever use, but they are so floaty and pneumatic (Musician) that it would be a real sin not to use them. Computer Sounds are those that can make you feel like a robot. Useful for spicing up almost anything. The Synthesizer Sounds directory brings us all sorts of unusual synth leads that you can't find in any other library nor in any virtual synth. They are simply Synth-Werk synthesizer sounds, the closest description would be "Analog on LSD" The next sound category is Voices Choirs Vocoders. If it had happened that they sampled the creature from the Alien quadrilogy, then this name is suitable, otherwise I can't find the real connection between human voices and the end result. Anyway, no matter the name of the category, as we also get Stacked Sounds, Melody Sounds, Pad Sounds, Organik (yes, sure...) Effect
Sounds, Originals (the whole Funny parts collection could share that name) and Drums and Rhythms. All sounds have But that's nothing compared to the that Kraftwerk sound (maybe they joy that you can have spelling your didn't impress me with their songs, name through the TI Language but they always had the "sound") and Translator which can be found in the whole collection is one of the most "Originals" section. Words, numbers enjoyable, original additions to my and the alphabet in robotic English, library collection. German, French and Spanish. If you intend to change your musical Final parts direction toward more original and unexplored sounds of the future, than Voices and drum hits and beats could Synth-Werk and Galaxy X are the only be abused as retro reminders pointed sound libraries that will definitely back in time (that's good) while all bring you there. Together they are other "retro" sounds can add a touch absolutely unbeatable pair. of the future to all your present songs (even better). If that doesn't sound Forgotten parts reasonable to you, then download the Synth-Werk demo and make your own In the name of my credibility I should mind up. Definitively unique. put in at least one complaint. I still haven't decided if it is bad or good Sincerely yours, robot A-r-s-o-v that all of the instruments in their different directories share the same http://www.bestservice.de/found.asp/ name differing only in their synthwerk/synth-werk/en consecutive number: Synthesizer 001 8GB of pure electronic pleasure for to Synthesizer 277, Chord Sound 001 149 Euros. Enjoy. to Chord Sound 195 and so on.
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
71
w e i v Re
Riff Master
If you play an instrument, then you’ve probably been there. You want to play the awesome solo that you heard on a recent track, but you can’t quite figure out all the notes or you can’t seem to get the timing correct. What can you do? Well, you can try the new Riff Master Pro 4.0, which claims you can “slow down music and learn your favourites easily!” In this review, we’ll be taking a look at Riff Master Pro to see if it can really deliver on those claims. Basic Overview The concept and work flow of Riff Master Pro are very straightforward. Using the “plus sign” on the interface (see the included screen shot), select a song from your hard drive or from a CD in your disc drive. Note that Riff Master Pro allows you to import the following file types: WAV, AIFF, MP3, MP4, OGG, FLAC, M4A, CDA, and WMA. In other words, you can import most of the common music file types. For certain types of files which might cause trouble, there is information on their website to help you be able to play them.
72
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Pro 4.0
by Jeffrey Powell
Once you select your song, it pitch by two semitones, and reduce appears in the play list in the lower the vocals on the same track. left corner of the interface. Click on the song in the list, and after a brief To aid you in working with the audio processing time, the song will be files, Riff Master Pro has a few other loaded into the waveform display. features. In the waveform view, you Now you’re ready to manipulate the can zoom in certain sections of audio playback of the song. Riff Master Pro and then set it up to loop that can do three different basic segment of audio. This is very useful manipulations to the song. First, and to focus in on a certain passage or most important, of all, you can solo that you want to work on. You change the playback speed of the can also place text notes on the song without changing the pitch. As waveform view to mark significant noted on the website, you can slow portions of the song. You’ll also find down the audio from 99% to 25% of a built in 10-band EQ (with preset the original speed of the song. While loading and saving capability) to help it’s not necessarily clear why it would better hear the frequencies you need be helpful, you can also speed up the to hear. audio from what appears to be 101% to 175% of the original speed. Of course, once you’ve got all these Secondly, you can change the pitch settings just like you want them, it of the song without changing the would be nice to be able to make a playback speed. With the interface, copy of it to listen to while you’re you can shift the pitch up to two away from the computer. octaves higher or lower. You can Fortunately, you can export the change the pitch by semitones or by modified version of the full song or of cents (if you wish to make small a selected audio loop in MP3 (128 or adjustments). Lastly, you can use 320 kbps) or WAV format (44KHz, the “Super Vocal Reducer”, which 128 bit). This is definitely a handy does basically what it says even feature! though it behaves somewhat mysteriously. Of course, you’re My Initial Thoughts allowed to mix and match these effects so, for instance, you can So, now that you have some idea of lower the speed by 25%, raise the the features, here’s my take on whether or not these features have August 2012
been successfully implemented. First, let me mention the interface. I love it. The color scheme is great, and the controls are responsive and easy to understand. Additionally, the interface has some ability to be resized, and this is helpful when screen real estate is in short supply. Installation was quick and painless, and I had no trouble running the program. It’s worth pointing out here that Riff Master Pro is only a standalone program. I didn’t find this a hindrance, but it might be useful to have a plugin version of it in the future. How well do the “big three” manipulations listed earlier work? Let’s take them one at a time. I found the speed changes in the program to be quite good, and honestly, I had fun trying to push them to their limits. You haven’t really lived until you’ve listened to James Taylor’s version of “How Sweet It Is To Be Loved by You” 50% faster than its original speed. It’s almost a dance song. Overall, I found the quality of the speed changes to be quite good. Of course, at really slow speeds, snares and high hats begin to sound quite a bit different, but as promised, the speed-changed audio files maintained their pitch. What I find www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
73
w e i v Re
Riff Master Pro 4.0
impressive about Riff Master Pro is that, while the file is playing back, you can move the speed slider wherever you want and the speed changes without any hiccups, glitches, or any artifacts at all. Well done!
in most instances, you can find a it to learn a solo. Now, I’m not much setting that actually works pretty well. of a guitarist, but I am a reasonably It’s not going to completely eliminate talented keyboardist. So, I decided to the vocal in general, but it works try out the main Tony Banks solo in surprisingly well at helping you better Genesis’ “Fading Lights” (found at hear the audio behind the vocals. On about the four minute mark in the live one of my trial runs with it, I found version on the CD the way we walk— I found the pitch shifting capabilities that the guitar work behind the main Vol. 2: the longs). I picked that one to be good, and on par with other vocal of “Happy With What You Have for several reasons: (1) I’ve never programs which do a similar type of to be Happy With” by King Crimson tried to play it before, (2) I like the tempo-preserving pitch-shifting. If had even more variety than I had song, (3) I have no sheet music for you shift up or down five or six expected. the solo, and (4) I didn’t want semitones (or less), then it does a anything too complicated as I mainly great job. Beyond that, the results Overall, this vocal reducer is a useful wanted to test the work flow and can vary. I found the pitch shifting to feature which can really help you usefulness of Riff Master Pro. be a nice inclusion, but not overly figure out a guitar part that is wellnecessary. I imagine most would placed behind a vocal. I do have one So, I loaded the song and went to likely use it to shift just a few suggestion: be very cautious as you work. My first step was to set up semitones up or down, and for that move the slider for the vocal reducer. appropriate loop points so I could purpose, it works well. As before, you You’ll find that the volume can hear some of the same segments over can shift the pitch while the file is increase greatly, so there’s potential and over. I slowed playback by quite playing back without any interruption to cause some unintended harm if a bit, and I was able to hear the or artifacts at all. you’re not careful. I’d like to see pitches one by one. I went segment some sort of built in limiter to ensure by segment, learning each new The Super Vocal Reducer is the one that the levels remain tame. As for segment and then playing the solo sound manipulation device that is a the other peripheral features (looping, from the start. I played the solo bit of a mystery to me. I understand loading, notes, exporting files, etc.), slowly until I was sure of the pitches, what it wants to accomplish, but I they worked exactly as you would and then I worked on moving back have no idea what the value on the expect. I had no trouble with them. toward full speed. Before too long, I slider (which ranges from 0 to 100) had it! I had the pitches for the notes means in terms of the sound. It The Real Test figured out, but that’s not all. The seems to be some sort of specialized looping and gradual increasing of EQ sweep. Unfortunately, the manual Realistically, to see if Riff Master Pro speed meant that I had the right and video tutorials are mum on what could really deliver, I had to put it to rhythm, correct tempo, and (most this is actually doing. That being said, the ultimate test. I had to try to use importantly) the muscle memory to 74
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
play it pretty much anywhere at any time. It's hard to argue with results, so I have to declare Riff Master Pro a success! It’s advertised as a tool to help you learn solos, and that’s exactly what it did for me. I think it’ll be time soon to finally get my timing right on that “Firth of Fifth” solo. One thing to note is that Riff Master Pro only helps you hear the song better through slowing it down and allowing you to modify the sound using the EQ. It still requires you to have a good ear to be able to pick out the various pitches, so make sure that the solos that you wish to tackle are appropriate for your ear training level. If you’re not great at hearing pitches, then you’ll probably want to work your way up from some basic solos to
more complex ones. I think that by doing that, you’ll find that Riff Master Pro can actually help you hear pitches better as well. Recommendation & Specs Overall, Riff Master Pro is a great product, and at a price of $49, it’s a great value. Tempo shifting is the heart of the program, and it really delivers. Unlike your average synth or sample library, this is a purchase that can actually help you become a better musician. With that in mind, I recommend checking out Riff Master Pro if you’re an instrumentalist of any type (e.g. guitarist, pianist, saxophonist, etc). It’s a bargain at this price.
August 2012
Riff Master Pro is available for Windows, MAC, and (for a reduced price) even iPad/iPhone. There’s a free 10-day trial available as well. Additionally, there is a bonus pack you can get with your $49 purchase (with a number of guitar resources), and you have a 60-day money back guarantee. What are you waiting for? Head to the web page below and start learning some solos! Product Page: http://riffmasterpro.com/
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
75
w e i v Re
GRM Tools 3.3
GRM Tools 3.3
The GRM (Groupe de Recherche Musicales) is one of the oldest, if not THE oldest, continuously running electronic music studios in the world. Although formally founded in 1958, that founding was a reorganization of a studio that was already there since 1948, founded by the French radio engineer, composer and philosopher Pierre Schaeffer. GRM Tools 3.3 is the latest manifestation from this studio. It’s a series of either stand-alone or plug-in sound modifiers which feature unique ways of modifying sound and total control over all aspects of the sound modification. With a background encompassing almost the entire history of electronic music, these tools come with a big pedigree. As we’ll see, they more than live up to this heritage, and extend it in some quite remarkable ways. In 1948, Pierre Schaeffer began his first experiments which led to the founding of musique concrete -a form of music making consisting of mixing and modifying sounds from the real world. One of the first innovations was the sillon ferme, or closed groove phonograph record. This enabled loops to be recorded, speed changed and the like. This meant Schaeffer could listen to a very short sound again and again. For him, it was as if time had stopped, and he could listen minutely to the structure of sound in a way that he hadn’t been able to before. (This is the beginning of loop music!) Schaeffer and his assistant, Pierre Henry, methodically explored what kinds of sound modifications
76
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
were possible in their primitive studio, down into individual notes, and the and made some pioneering order of those notes changed around. compositions with them, as well as For example, if you have the notes C working with engineer Jacques Poullin E G and A, you can combine them in to develop devices that used tape just about any order, and although loops for playing back sounds at many they might sound a bit different, the speeds (the ancestor of the sampler!). basic quality of “minor 7th chord” or More important for the future “Major 6th chord” will remain. If, on development of technological music, the other hand, you divide the though, was Schaeffer’s philosophy of garbage can complex into different sound research, sound classification, frequency bands, say, with a tight and recognition of the physical nature filter and play with the order of the of the sounding object. Sound bands, you will certainly get a new research was how we learned how sound, but the quality of sound worked, how we actually heard “recognisability” of the sound will be sound and how it affected us. Sound lost. classification was how we learned to compare sounds, learning to hear how Over the years, the GRM developed, the various qualities of sounds related or acquired, a lot of new equipment – to each other, and how we could indeed it was, and remains one of the combine sounds on the basis of those leading studios for sound research in comparisons. In fact, one of the world – and with each new Schaeffer’s major works is the book acquisition, ideas that existed about Solfege de l’Objet Sonore, which composing were challenged on the translates into English as Ear Training basis of the new possibilities. Still, for Sonic Objects. the basic principles set out by Schaeffer and his colleagues in the Perhaps Schaeffer’s biggest insight early days continued to inform was his recognition of the basic nature developments. In the late 1970s, of the complex sound object. For when the GRM got a large (for the example the nature of, say, the sound time) computer, its composers almost of a garbage can falling down a flight universally rejected the use of of stairs as opposed to a single pluck composing programs, such as Music V of a guitar string. For Schaeffer, it (the ancestor of today’s CSound), was not possible to divide a sounding which required one to be both a object into its component parts and computer programmer and a play around with their order without composer. Instead, they insisted that the basic nature of the sound object the programmers develop easy to use being changed to the point of tools for the composer – single unrecognizability. This was as functions that were easy to use and opposed to a melody, or a chord, learn, and which allowed manipulation which could quite easily be broken of sound in one way or another. (This August 2012
by Warren Burt
is one of the birthplaces of the idea of the plug-in.) Later, in the 1980s, while composers and technicians at another Paris studio, IRCAM, developed the programming language which became Max/MSP, the GRM pursued their own idea of a set of flexible tools which would offer immediate power and flexibility to the composer. These were the first generation of GRM Tools. At first running only on a dedicated computer, later ported to personal computers, they embodied a number of principles which have been central to the thinking of the GRM: 1) 2)
3)
4)
5)
The first set of GRM Tools was released in the late 1990s for both Macintosh and PC computers. This consisted of 8 filters, granulators, sound panners, and delays. Each tool had unique capabilities. For example the “Delays” tool allowed you to have up to 128 delays spread over a 5.7 second time range, with the distribution of the delays and “envelope” of the delays all controlled in real time, or MIDI-controllable. This was more control, and a more “compositional’ approach to the use of delays, than just about any other delay unit at the time. The initial release of the first 8 plugins sold The interface has to be rather well, and quickly became VISUAL, and real-time. classics, and mainstay tools in many a If numbers are used, they are composers’ studio, including my own. accessed from a front panel, and not in lines of code. The first 8 Tools all use traditional Transitions between different methods of working on the whole of a states of the tool must be sounds’ waveform, but starting in the easily available. early 2000s, when Fast Fourier One should be able to Transform modification of sound construct a “scale of became possible on personal transitions” between different computers, new tools were added to settings of the tool and should the set. The “ST” set of four plugins be able to play with that scale using the FFT method of sound in real time. Morphing, analysis and resynthesis analysed continuous transitions are each moment of a sound into its essential. component frequencies. This allowed The design should allow one, one to work with parts of a sound in a as much as possible, to play way that wasn’t possible before. intuitively with the Schaeffer’s insistence on the integrity transformations, in order to of the sound object was finally broken really HEAR the kinds of sound here, but his insight that if one objects that could be changed the order of a sound’s produced. components, the sound’s identity would disappear remained as true as ever. The only thing was that some of
August 2012
these deconstructions and reconstructions of sound produced results that were thrilling. Also, the precision of the FFT method allowed more traditional functions, such as equalization, to be done more easily and accurately than in the past. The ST series consisted of three tools which could produce extreme (or subtle) rearrangement of the parts of a sound, and an equalizer that is still without peer for its sophisticated morphing possibilities – this was the equalizer as a super controllable filter. Finally, up to the present, and now a new re-designed interface is available for all the Tools, and 3 more plugins have been added, Evolution, Fusion and Grinder, each of which makes further clever play with the partials of a sound possible. Again, all these functions are available in real time, although some of the more extreme uses of Evolution and Grinder require quite a hefty dose of CPU power. At lower settings, however, I’ve even been able to run them on my ASUS Netbook with no problems. The plugins come in RTAS, VST, AU and Stand-Alone formats. In the Stand-Alone format there is a provision for playing a sound file through the Tool, and recording the output. One of the initial ideas behind GRM Tools was that of making tools for composers so they wouldn’t have to learn programming languages. With the introduction of the VST and AU formats, however, one can now use the Tools within such
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
77
w e i v Re
GRM Tools 3.3 Figure 1
programming environments as Plogue Bidule, AudioMulch, and Max/MSP. So if one is programming-inclined, one can have the best of both worlds. One can still, of course, use the Tools as plug-ins in programs such as ProTools, Cakewalk Sonar, Reaper, etc. but in my own composing I’ve found them to be incredibly useful in AudioMulch and Plogue Bidule, providing lots of complex real-time Figure possibilities for sound performance in addition to the more traditional use of them as sound modifiers within a sequencing or soundediting context. Figure 1 shows three of the GRM Tools being used in AudioMulch. Figure 2 shows Shift used in Reaper with automation curves for both Pitch Scale and Pitch Shift.
2
It should be mentioned at this point that if your idea of “electronic music” (or electroacoustic music, to use its current mainstream name) is playing on a MIDI keyboard in order to make note-oriented music that sounds like music you already know, then GRM Tools is probably not for you. These are Tools for those who want to explore sound: explore the nature of sound, and experiment with the many kinds of 78
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
modifications and combinations of sound that are possible. They are superb tools for creating what was called, back in the 20th century, “the all-sound music of the future,” but they could only be used as an adjunct August 2012
(a very interesting one, to be sure) in the primary creation of beats and choruses. But if sound experimentation holds any interest to you, they you’re going to love these Tools.
Figure 3
GENERAL CONTROLS Let's look at the general controls that each GRM Tool offers before we proceed to the capabilities of each individual module. Keeping in mind Schaeffer's idea of wanting a scale of transformations for any sound process, we find a number of controls that enable us to do that. We’ll look at the “CombFilter” plug-in, but these controls are found on all the Tools, in both stand-alone and plug-in formats. First, at the far right of the module, in all be controlled with external MIDI the middle, is a series of 16 numbered signals as well. buttons. Control-Click (or CommandClick for Mac) on any of these to store Below the preset buttons at the right of the module is a new feature, the current settings. When you've agitation. This allows random control stored two or more, clicking on the ones you've saved will produce a to selected parameters in the module. smooth transition from one setting to The left knob selects the maximum another. The transition time between percentage of random change that will settings is determined by the slider to occur in the selected parameters, the right knob sets the maximum rate of the right of the buttons. If you click on the “M”button beneath the slider, change between the parameters. you can save a transition rate with Below them is an on/off button which each preset. That is, each setting can turns the agitation on or off. Which parameters are controlled by the also have its own rate of changing agitation is selected by the little pink from one setting to another. boxes next to every numerical parameter on the module itself. A At the bottom of the screen is what is bright pink box means a module is called the “super slider.” This allows very precise control of transitions controlled by agitation, a dark pink between 8 presets. The buttons along box means the module control is turned off. If several modules which the super slider can have any of the 16 presets assigned to them, or no control the same parameters are selected (such as the frequency preset at all. Pulling this slider will controls in the Comb Filter), they will make a transition from one preset state to another. The super slider, all change differently – go to different values - when the agitation is turned and the set of 16 preset buttons, can August 2012
on – only their maximum change and rate of change will be the same. If you want all the parameters to change at different rates, then external MIDI control of each parameter is also available. All these controls mean that there are many different ways, each intuitively settable, which will allow you to make transitions between your choices of the various settings of each Tool. Schaeffer's dream of a scale of transitions is well realised here. In the stand-alone versions, above each module, is a window in which a sound file can be loaded to be played through the module. External Input can also be used, and is selected here. In the Stand-Alone versions, the sound file is mixed to mono. In the Plug-in versions, stereo sound files can be used. Some of the Tools also have multichannel (up to 8 channels) output. The Files menu also allows external audio to be sent through the module as well. Audio and MIDI www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
79
w e i v Re
GRM Tools 3.3
settings can be changed in the Options menu, and the Files menu also allows you to record the real-time sound output of the Tool you're working with. Options also allow you to save a set of presets for use at any future time, or load a previously saved set of presets.
we see here two black windows with the GRM “ball” in the middle – a 2D controller which controls the most salient controls of a particular Tool. Here, the 2D ball controls the centre frequency and bandwidth of its filter. BandPass is a very simple filter, but
The Tool window itself is resizable – this can be quite useful for those modules in which a detailed graph is drawn for sound transformations. This is done with the lower right corner of the pink GRM logo, by pulling at the bottom right of that square. Next to that are controls for saving and loading preset settings, and also for setting MIDI controllers for the parameters of the stand-alone versions. (In a hosted setting, controls for the parameters are set up within the host application.
Figure 4
THE CLASSIC SERIES Each module has different capabilities. Exploring their potentialities will occupy many a happy hour, although the basic operation of each module is grasped pretty quickly. Much thought has gone into designing the capabilities of each Tool. First up is one of the oldest Tools, BandPass. This is a filter – or rather two sets of two filters, one high-pass and one low-pass to make a band pass filter – or a band-reject filter if the “pass” button is clicked to change it to “reject.” The filters for each channel can operate independently, or they can be linked in various ways, set at the right-hand side of the module. The filters themselves are fairly sharp with a pronounced resonance so that the action of the filter is accentuated, but without a very strong whistling sound at the cut off frequencies. Also, 80
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
the sound is clean and elegant, and it's very easy to use. The Comb Filter is another of the Filter modules. This consists of a bank of 5 comb filters with frequency, and resonance controls for each band, with an additional low-pass filter for
Figure 5
each band at the end of the chain. There is also an overall scaling control for each of frequency, resonance and low-pass filter controls. Additionally, any of these controls can be either MIDI controlled or controlled by the internal “Agitation� settings. The sound of the filters is very clean, and they ring nicely at the higher resonance settings, although there is always a bit of the original sound that comes through the combs. Where this module excels is in adding coloration to a sound, usually subtly, but at higher settings quite radically.
original sound is almost totally replaced by the ringing of the filters. In fact, one can produce successions of resonances (chords) in which only the timbre and balance of the sound is affected by the original sound. In terms of overall sound, the filter can vary between only lightly colouring the original sound to metallic sewer-pipe like ringing to the aforementioned hanging chords with
The last of the filters in the Classic series is Reson, which takes a unique approach to Figure controlling a bank of filters with a minimum of controls. The Tool can have between 2 and 64 filters, which are spread over a range set by the low and high controls, which are controlled by the ball. The filters can be evenly spread over the whole range, or they can be clustered at either end of the range, controlled by the distribution curve control. The Random Factor control can then further transpose the filters by a certain amount, and the S&H rate sets how fast the filters change their Random Factor frequency. The S&H rate can be set from very slow (about 1 change a minute) to well into the sub-audio range (about 4-5 changes per second). The Resonance control can be set from 0, which is no resonance, to 1.0 which is all resonance, and the
no hint of the original. Again, everything can be MIDI controlled or affected by the new Agitation feature, making this an incredibly powerful resource for sound shaping. Reson was one of the most powerful modules in the original GRM Tools. Now, it’s even better.
6
August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
81
w e i v Re
GRM Tools 3.3
Figure 7
In the original Classic collection, there were four plug-ins that used delay, or cutting up bits of the waveform in different ways. In keeping with their philosophy of keeping the functions of Tools separate, they all do different things, even if “under the hood,” the principles of their functioning are all similar. These four plugins are Delays, Freeze, Pitch Accum, and Shuffling. Let’s look at the first, Delays. Like Reson, Delays allows you to have a LOT of delays within a short time period, and the overall dynamic shape of those delays can be controlled in a lot of ways as well. The Nr of Delays control allows you to have between 2 and 128 delays. These can be spread over a range from 0 ms to 5944 ms, and the placement of this range is controlled by the 2D Ball controller. There are two “shaping” controls, Amp Distrib and Del Distrib. Amplitudes of the collection of delays can be continuously changed from the loudest first and fading out, to the loudest last, and the rest fading in, with a setting where all the delays have the same amplitude in the middle. The delays themselves can be continuously changed from having most of them near the start of the collection, to having most near the end of the collection, via having the delays evenly distributed over the whole length of the delay time selected with the 2D Ball controller. Just like in Reson, there is a Random distribution control, which allows the time-position of each delay to be changed by up to a second, and a Var Rate control which changes the Random distributions at rates from 1 change per second up to 1000 changes per second. Finally, there’s a Feedback control and a Mono/Stereo 82
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
control. Needless to say, with all delay what Reson does for the filter – these controls (all MIDI controllable or extends it well beyond its original controlled from the Agitation control) purpose into a sophisticated shapethere is quite a lot of scope for not able sound modifier and controller. only having amazing patterns of delay, but also shaping those patterns in real Freeze is another plug-in which uses delays in an unorthodox manner. A time as well. This goes beyond the simple use of delay into using the sound is played into the module. A window of up to 12 seconds is used to plug-in as a profound sound-shaping sample the incoming audio. The start tool. For example, if a solo voice singing a fragment of a melody was and end points of this window can be played into the plug-in, and the pluganywhere within the 12 second in had just two delays with extremely timeframe, and the size and position of the window can change in real time. rapid modulations, it will produce a surging crowd sound which bears very If the “Freeze” control is off, then just little resemblance to the input voice. the original sound is heard. But if “Freeze” is clicked on, then whatever One the other hand, increasing the part of the sound is within the window number of delays to 128 produces a glowing cloud of resonances of the is used for any number of variations. original voice – all the aspects of the There can be from 2 to 128 loops. The loops can all be the same length, simple melodic phrase are now reassembled into a reverberant cloud – or a random duration, from .1 to 400 ms can be added to each loop. This but it doesn’t sound like reverb, it sounds like a kind of very constrained can create quite rich “Steve Reich”granular texture very closely related like looping and phasing textures. to the original sound. Delays does for August 2012
Figure 8
Additionally two more toggle switch controls allow all the copies of the loop to begin together, or to have random phases in relation to each other. There is a pitch control, which allows you to change all loops from -48 to +24 semitones, a “pitch offset” which allows you to slightly adjust the pitch of each loop, which can produce, for example, phasing sounds, and a random pitch control, which will repitch each loop randomly within the limits you set. Combine all these, as well as the usual gain and mix controls, and you’ll see that you have a very powerful module, one that once again enables you to create a number of unique textures AND seamlessly morph between them. delays/transpositions), Feedback and Mono/Stereo output as well. There Pitch Accum is a transposition and are many creative uses of this plug-in. delay unit which uses a granular For example, if the transposition on algorithm. The incoming sound is cut both units were set to 0, with one into small segments, and those with no delay, and the other delayed segments are transposed, delayed, by, say, around a second, with the modulated, etc. Because of the algorithm used (chopping sound into Figure 9 tiny grains, transposing them, and reassembling) a considerable amount of work with the Window control (at the bottom of the middle pane) is necessary to get a smooth and accurate transposition of the original. Today, FFT based transposition can do clean accurate transpositions very easily, so perhaps it’s best to think of the Pitch Accum as a very elegant transformation unit. That said, with the use of the “Pitch Detect” button in conjunction with the Window control and the Crossfade control (which controls the transition between grains), pretty accurate pitch shifting can be done. When this is combined with the Delay control on the two parallel transposition/delay units, and the periodic (sine wave controlling the frequency) and random modulation possibilities, the true possibilities of this Tool become apparent. There are controls for the volume of all 3 outputs (original and two August 2012
Frequency of the Random Modulation set to around 7 hz, the Amplitude set to around 50%, and the Smooth and Direct controls set to 0, one could get some very nice random pitch melodies applied to the input sound.
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
83
w e i v Re Shuffling is the last of the granular/delay based Tools. It’s a classic implementation of the granular splicing algorithm developed by manic tape splicing at the GRM in the late 50s/early 60s by Iannis Xenakis. Later, in the 70s, Curtis Roads and Barry Truax would develop granular algorithms on the computer, but in the beginning, if one wanted to get sounds cut-up and reassembled, the razor blade was your tool of first (and last) resort. Shuffling has controls for length of Fragment, Delay (which means how long is the source from which your fragments are drawn), and Envelope (attack and decay of the fragment, shown very nicely in the graphic display up top. There are also controls for Density (how many fragments will appear), Feedback, and several kinds of Pitch Variations that can be applied to each grain. There is also a Shuffle Active/Paused control which can “freeze” the parameters in their tracks, allowing one kind of processing to occur uninterrupted, or for an alteration between two different kinds of shuffling. Like all granulators, it takes a bit of experimentation to get a feel for the kinds of modifications it can do, but the time taken exploring this is well spent. And yes, all controls are MIDI controllable, enabling you to sculpt interesting transitions between different kinds of granulating.
Figure 10
Figure 11
The final Classic Tool is Doppler. This is a Panning module which moves the input signal(s) into two different circular paths around the signal centre. The Amplitude variation of the circle (what is the volume difference from the closest 84
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
GRM Tools 3.3
Figure 12
approach of the sound to the centre, as opposed to the sound at its farthest point?), and the Pitch variation (the Doppler pitch shifting) are controlled by sliders which are themselves MIDI controllable. These controls feature a very wide range of control. To get a sound that, for example, describes lazy loops between the channels, you may find yourself working at the lower end of these controls. The 2D ball control can move the “imaginary centre” of the panning area, and the other controls control the size of the circles, their speed of movement, and their relation to each other (channel separation and phase). Again, there are lots of panners out there, but very few which have the wide range of control or the possibilities for a large variety of sound mangling possibilities as this Tool has. THE ST SERIES The Fast Fourier Transform is a computer technique where sounds are analysed down into their basic components (harmonic or nonharmonic partials), and then this analysis is then used to make modifications to the sound which have a precision other forms of sound changing don’t have. At first just the province of large computers, as computers have become more powerful it has now become ubiquitous and it offers possibilities that are not available any other way. The ST series (introduced in the early 2000s) uses the analysis/resynthesis technique known as the Phase Vocoder to implement 4 very specific tools. Three of these allow very
unusual and powerful manipulations of the frequency range to only in the lower part of the spectrum, the the sound spectrum, and a fourth is amplitude band divisions both fairly used to make a very elegant and highly controllable equalizer. low, and the amplitude of the weak bands very high, while the amplitude Contrast allows you to select any of medium and strong bands would be set almost to 0, with the smoothing band of frequencies in a spectrum, and divides them into partials of weak, control (“sm”) set around 35, will medium and strong amplitude. You result in a very lively burbling sound can set the strength of the three which has the rhythms and contours bands, and also determine where the of the original speech, but not much of its sense. On the other hand, divisions between weak, medium and strong partials will be. You can listen when handled with great subtlety, it to any of the three bands alone or in can be used to restore old analogue tape recordings to their original sheen, any balance. You can also set how many “frequency bands” the incoming and as a mastering plugin, it can add signal will be divided into, and vibrancy, liveliness, depth to the determine how fast any changes you original sound. It’s a fairly tricky make will take place. Effects with the plugin to master (at least I found it Tool can vary from very slight and so) but once learned, it’s got a wide variety of possibilities. And, of course, subtle compression effects to like all the plugins, it can be controlled complete deconstruction and reconstruction of a sound. For by either MIDI or its own internal “agitation” control. example, setting the bands to 1024, August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
85
w e i v Re The Shift Tool does just what it says – it shifts the frequency and spectrum of a sound up or down. However, it does it in two ways – it can shift the pitch of a sound, (multiplying each frequency of the sound by a common amount) preserving the harmonic relationships, and thus the sense of timbre of the original sound; or it can shift the spectrum of a sound (adding a constant frequency to partial), thus stretching the spectrum, and producing ringmodulation or frequency-shifter type sounds. In the middle of the control window is a red L-shaped tool. This shifts pitch with vertical motion, and stretches the spectrum in the horizontal direction. Pitch shift is between -12 and +12 semitones, and spectrum shifting is between -4000 and +4000 hz. You can select how many bands your sound is divided into, from 128 to 4096, for further subtlety, and motion in either direction can be locked in place with an “L”-“U” (lock-unlock) control. The sound of the pitch-shift, with frequency stretch locked at 0, is excellent – I could not detect any artefacts until about 7 semitones plus or minus, and the transitions of the sound with changing settings in both directions are very smooth. The stretched spectrum sounds are, again, very clean and the transition from normal to highly stretched are very smooth and clean. On its own, this is a very nice module – when combined with external MIDI control, it could provide some wonderful transformations.
Figure 13
Figure 14
Even more extreme pitch/spectral sound modification is offered by Warp, the third of the ST series. In this Tool, the control window has a scale on the bottom and one on the left side. The bottom scale represents incoming frequencies (which can be measured 3 different ways), and the left side scale represents outgoing frequencies. On the window, you draw a graph for the transformation of incoming to outgoing frequencies. You can draw any kind of 86
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
GRM Tools 3.3
Figure 15
curve you desire, remapping any input frequencies to any output frequencies. There are a number of powerful ways of controlling this “transfer line,” such as selecting a family of points and moving them together, along with instant reset, and a few other features. Additionally, the “smooth” slider controls how fast frequencies change into each other; a (sometimes not so) subtle timbre control can be obtained by changing the number of frequency bands from 128 to 4096 (in powers of 2, of course), and the kind of curve can have either straight line segments or describe a curve, with the “interpolation” control. Agitation can also control the points of the curve (which is a very efficient and powerful way to get dynamically changing sounds), as well as gain, mix and smooth controls, and as usual, MIDI can control anything you see on the faceplate. What is especially delightful about this Tool is the feature that allows changing sound modifying curves to change smoothly in real-time. This means that the transforming sound can itself transform, making dynamic sound transforms that have the potential to be always in transition. Wild, unpredictable results can be obtained with this, but with a little work, and a bit of understanding of the frequencies your sound contains, quite striking and effective transformations can be achieved. The final plugin in the ST series is Equalize, which is a 31 band 1/3 octave equalizer. This is the equalizer as a performance instrument, or the equalizer as an infinitely malleable filter. Like Bandpass, there are two channels, and these can be operated
separately or together. In addition, there are a number of ways to set up equalization curves. Points can be grouped and moved together. The whole curve can be slid left or right, in effect transposing the equalization curve up and down in frequency. The entire curve can be smoothed using the “elastic string” control. Either Agitation, Preset selection or MIDI can be used to change the setting of any band. As a quick demonstration of Equalize’s unorthodox approach to equalization control, click the pink Agitation on controls on the gain and level controls of both channels. Set Agitation amount control to 100% and Agitation speed to about .20. Turn Agitation on. You’ll see 60 sliders moving up and down rapidly, seemingly at random. Play a sound through this – I suggest a speaking voice to most easily hear the effects. You’ll hear a wonderful shredding of the voice, changing rapidly (about 5 times a second), creating a continually mutating sound. Or for another August 2012
experiment, set all the band controls to 0. This is easily done by sliding your mouse along the bottom of all the controls. Set only one band in each channel to about +8. Save this as a preset. (ctrl + click on a Preset number). Move your two selected bands to 0, and move two other bands up to about 8. Save this as a Preset as well. Now, adjust the speed of preset morphing to about 10 seconds (with the slider to the right of the preset selection buttons.) Start a sound playing (looping) and jump back and forth between the presets, hearing how the sound changes. These two examples are very extreme. But Equalize is just as capable of doing professional mastering level equalization, making subtle changes that can be controlled in real time. This module is an example of how the GRM design crew have taken even the most bread-and-butter of sound processing functions, like an equalizer, and made a powerful soundtransformation tool out of it. www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
87
w e i v Re
GRM Tools 3.3 Figure 16
THE EVOLUTION SERIES The most recent addition to the GRM Tools family is Evolution, a set of 3 amazing plugins which take the Phase Vocoder based transformations of the ST series to an even more fantastic level of creativity and control. There are 3 of these: Evolution, Grinder and Fusion. Each one does a different function, and they’re all fairly exotic, but extremely useful and the sounds they make are beautiful. EVOLUTION is the flagship of the series. It’s an example of how the GRM Tools series takes a function which has been implemented by other people and extends the creative possibilities of it immensely. Evolution grabs a “snapshot” of a spectrum, freezing it into a continuous sound. This function is random perturbations to the morphing available in a number of other partials – this is most effective with a products. But then, after a time (settable by the user) it grabs another low number of bands. But wait, there’s more – as the late night TV snapshot and morphs between the salesman says. The Scale and Shift two of them. It can continually do this, and the rate of morphing and the controls familiar from the Shift rate of sampling (taking snapshots) module are here as well, so pitch can also be varied. The sampling can transposition and spectrum stretching are available here as well. These – be either manual, under control of a scale and shift – are also controllable timer, or whenever the input sound from a MIDI keyboard using MIDI crosses a threshold. The number of pitch numbers to control transposition. sampling bands can be varied, from And of course, all of these controls are 128 to 65536, producing very different sounding results. (The higher able to be controlled by Agitation or MIDI, and the usual Preset controls settings require a lot of CPU power, however.) Two additional controls can and Superslider are here as well. This all adds up to a very powerful tool. In shape the output – Purity and Grain. the few months I’ve been working Purity gradually removes weaker with it, Evolution has rapidly become partials, thinning out the spectrum to one of my favourite sound just a few sine waves. Grain can add 88
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
modification resources – I’ve already used it in several pieces (http://www.warrenburt.com/journal/ 2012/4/20/100xjohn-16-the-viewfrom-wombat-hill-a-new-piece-atemf.html) and I’ve barely scratched the surface with it. The GRINDER takes advantage of the fact that Fourier analysis breaks up sound components into two categories – frequencies and amplitudes. It allows you to freeze, or slow up the rate of change of either or both frequencies and amplitudes. Again, the number of bands the sound is divided into will make an enormous difference to the kind of sound you get. You can divide the sound up into from 2 up to 4096 bands, in powers of
Figure 17
2. Two bands produces seriously degraded sounds, 4096 produces sounds that have a lot of detail and fidelity. Divisions of around 512 bands seem to produce sounds with a lot of discrete pitches in them – it can almost be likened to a vocoder. Both frequency and amplitudes are set in a performancewindow with an x-y controller. At settings of 1 for both parameters, things are completely frozen. Clicking on the “sample” button produces a FUSION, the last of the plugins in the effect. At 100% depth with balance new frozen spectrum. This is like set to 0 (frequency being modulated), collection, may at first glance seem to Evolution, but without the morphing frequency of the original sound set to be just a collection of 8 delays, but it from one frozen moment to another. Setting frequency to 1 and amplitude .8 and amplitude set to .5, one can get quickly reveals itself as something much more complex. Sound is a quite elegant version of vocoding. to 0 allows the amplitude changes to displayed as a scrolling sonogram, Moving the x-y controller around happen normally, but pitch to be which shows a 10 second window on produces a wide variety of frozen. This allows pitches in the the sound. By clicking “reset” all the sound to be frozen – this is very like a vocoding/modulating sounds. The original and the modulating sound can contents of the window will disappear classic vocoder effect. Setting the amplitude to 1 and the frequency to 0 both be looped, and the start and end and only a single 3 segment line will be left. This is delay 1. It can be freezes amplitude changes and allows points can be set manually, or positioned anywhere within the 10 frequencies to happen normally. This controlled by MIDI. The modulating second window. It can also be resized sound can modulate the sound produces sounds with no dynamic – only frequencies covered by it will be change but lots of frequency variation directly, or via a side-chain input, if passed – so as well as a delay, it’s within them. There is also a facility to your host supports that. When all also a band pass filter, the slope of these possibilities are then combined have an auxiliary sound modulate with the Agitate control, or external which can be controlled by the either frequency or amplitude. A “smoothness” control. Finally - and slider selects which (or both) and how MIDI control, you can see that there here’s the really interesting part – the much of each parameter is modulated will be a lot more variation possible with this module than with almost any slope of the line can be changed, by the sound, while another slider producing glissandi of the selected comparable plugin. controls the depth of the modulation August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
89
w e i v Re
GRM Tools 3.3
Figure 18
partials of the sound. The slope can be at any angle, so ascending or descending glissandi of any duration are available. The delay also has feedback, amplitude, stereo width, and panning controls. These can be controlled with the graphic line in the sonogram window, or with numerical controls at the bottom of the window. All these controls are also able to be controlled by either the Agitation or by MIDI, and of course there are all the morphing possibilities of Preset change as well. And there are 8 of 90
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
these delay units available. Mute controls allow any of them to be switched on or off at will, either by hand or by MIDI. Emulations of very old tape delay techniques are easily done. For example, have only 1 delay, with length 100%, frequency 5000, and angle 0d; a delay of 7.00 seconds and feedback of 33 %. Set mix to 50% and voila, the classic 2-tape deck 7 second delay beloved of 70s minimalists such as Pauline Oliveros or Terry Riley. On the other hand, select 5 delays, and in all of them set August 2012
the pink Agitation buttons to on for all 8 delay parameters. Set the Agitation range to 100% and the rate to about .5 seconds. Turn on Agitate and watch the show of delay line-controls flying about the window. Play a sound through that. Any sound. Sit back and enjoy the sound of instant constantly varying sound shredding. Once again, the crew at GRM, led by designer Emmanuel Favreau, have taken two common techniques, delay and FFT analysis, and cleverly combined them into a Tool full of
compositional potential and yet another means to treat old sounds and to find new and interesting ones. In the brief time I’ve had the program, I’ve worked quite a bit with this, and I can see many circumstances where I’ll be eager to use it.
along on what was supposed to be a 2 minute task.
If you’re curious about these plugins, you can download demo versions and the user manuals, in either English or French, from http://www.inagrm.com/grm-toolsTHE PRACTICALITIES download. The demo versions don’t accept external MIDI control, the For copy protection, the program uses Agitation feature is disabled, and they an iLok, which means that you’ll have periodically insert a short silence into to shell out another $30-50 dollars for the output. However, they work well that, in addition to the program, in enough that you can see the essential order to use it. For those of you who features of each Tool, and to see if are users of ProTools or similar highthis kind of working suits your end software this won’t be a problem – compositional style. just add your GRM Tools license to the ones already on the iLok. For the rest The plugins are available in Stand of us, you’ll have to get an iLok. Alone, RTAS, Audio Units and VST Being copy-protection allergic formats for both Mac and PC. As a (although understanding the reasons package, the GRM Tools ARE for having it), I found getting the iLok, expensive – there’s no getting around authorizing the software, and that. On Don’t Crack, the current downloading the license to it prices are: surprisingly easy. I’ve now installed GRM TOOLS COMPLETE COLLECTION GRM Tools on my main laptop at $689 home, my travelling netbook and even GRM TOOLS EVOLUTION $389 on my computer at work, to see if GRM TOOLS CLASSIC $289 there would be any problems. So far, GRM TOOLS ST $289 there have been none. Operation has been smooth and painless. The iLok They are available on-line from two becomes just another USB stick in my sites: http://store.inagrm.com/and bag of USB sticks that is a permanent http://store.dontcrack.com/index.php ?manufacturers_id=70. On the part of my netbook case. I have inagrm site, they also offer student noticed one wrinkle, though. If I’m and teacher discounts – 50% for starting a program which scans VST plugins during startup, and the iLok is registered students (just send a scan of an id card), and 40% for teachers. not plugged in, the program will ask you to either plug in the iLok or disable the GRM Tools plugins. This is Pricey? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely. If you want high quality tools with a bit of an inconvenience if all you beautiful audio quality, tools which wanted, for example, was to chop a will offer both traditional abilities and couple of notes off the end of an which will also stretch your creativity externally generated MIDI file in Reaper. I then find myself hunting for into many new and exciting directions, the iLok, putting it in, then continuing GRM Tools are for you.
August 2012
Recently, to one of my computer music classes, I brought in a reel of analogue tape. I wanted them to see what sound storage used to be like – and also, since we had just been talking about Pierre Schaeffer, what had so excited him, and so many others, in the late 40s and early 50s. The idea that sound could now be stored as a physical object – but one that was much more flexible than phonograph records, blew away many people, and they spent years responding to this new ability in many ways. The insights that Schaeffer had back then led to a line of thinking and sound tool development that is unbroken to the present day. And even though Schaeffer’s primary criticism of the computer back in 1970 – that it dematerializes the sound object – is still true, at least with the interface design of the GRM Tools, we can hold on to that idea of sound as a material object, and by performing with the various interaction windows and the Superslider, even regain a sense of physical gesture in the modification of sound. For those of you who want to have a set of tools that have a long history of thought and development behind them, but which are cutting edge in what they allow you to do, you won’t be disappointed with GRM Tools.
(Thanks to Emmanuel Favreau for providing a NFR version of GRM Tools for review, and also for sending me several academic papers which outlined the development of the software over the past decades.)
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
91
w e i v Re
Digital S
Enso
In June's issue of WSM I had the privilege of reviewing Digital Sound Factory's "SoundFont Orchestral Collection" - a stunning set of sounds covering pretty much everything you'll need to be creating quality orchestral arrangements. This month we're going digital with DSF's Ensoniq SoundFonts - the CDR Bundle and the MR-76 and ZR-76 sound banks. As mentioned last time, although SoundFonts are a relatively old technology - first introduced by EMU in the early 1990s, the dark ages of computer music - they still have their place in our modern world of multi-gigabyte sample libraries. Their generally compact size means you can pack a lot of sounds into a small space - no hard-drive, or memory, worries. Then the availability of a whole range of different players, from very basic through to full-on multi-timbral, means you'll be able to play SoundFonts on even the most lowly of computers. Many synths allow you to load SoundFonts as oscillators, but to get the best from them you'll need a 92
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Sound Factory
oniq SoundFonts proper SoundFont player. DSF offer a list of such players on their website : http://www.digitalsoundfactory.com/s upport/soundfont. This is pretty much the definitive source! The only one I'd add to the list is Prodyon's "Phenome" player which is available from www.prodyon-virtualgear.com/crbst_12.html. Having used Phenome since writing June's review I'm becoming more and more impressed by what this freeware player can do. It's eight channel multi-timbral, has built-in effects, envelopes and filters and is incredibly light on system resources - a must have SoundFont player. Ensoniq
by Adrian Frost
great reputation for producing decent instruments for professionals, and the rest of us. Their first ever instrument was a sampler called "Mirage". It cost way less than the then currently popular, and expensive, samplers from Fairlight, and E-MU so found a ready and waiting market. From there Ensoniq moved on to the creation of Workstations - each of their subsequent keyboards incorporated its own sequencer and sometimes even effects. They continued producing well regarded samplers - the EPS series, the VFX, the ASR series and quite a few others. Sadly the end came for Ensoniq shortly after they merged with E-MU.
The MR-76 and ZR-76 workstation synths date from 1996 and 1998 respectively. The MR-76 had a smaller brother called the MR-61 that had a 61 key synth action keyboard compared to the MR-76's weighted keyboard which had, surprise, surprise, 76 keys. The ZR was only ever available with a similar weighted keyboard.
As a slight aside, fans of freeware VST synths are probably familiar with Siegfried Kullmann's SQ8L - a virtual recreation of Ensoniq's famous SQ-80 digital wavetable synth. It's available from www.buchty.net/ensoniq and is well worth a look. End of aside‌
The MR-76 SoundFont actually comes as four SoundFont files that each contain 128 sounds. Combined size of the files is 57 MB - yup, that's MB and not GB. Amongst the sounds are the Urban Dance and Real World sound sets that were available as add-ons to the original. The range of sounds on offer is enormous - keys, pianos, basses, pads, bells, drums, synths, wind, brass, strings, noises, ethnic stuff - you name it and it's probably in there somewhere.
There is plenty of info available online about the synths that The SoundFonts Ensoniq produced over the years, MR-76 and ZR-76 so I'll not say too much about We'll start with the MR-76 and ZR-76 them here. If you would like to SoundFonts before taking a look at know more you'll find lots of details over at the Vintage Synth the CDR Bundle. Explorer website (www.vintagesynth.com), though be warned, if you go there you'll not notice the hours pass.
Short of wading through long lists of technical specs - I'm lazy - it would seem that the ZR is a refinement of the MR series. Certainly though both synths came with a large selection of sounds and that is what we are interested in.
A superb source for info on the MR-76 and ZR-76 is John Bair's website at www.fumph.com. He has a well-stocked archive containing a few images, manuals and links to downloadable patches and software. Ensoniq, before being acquired by E-MU in January 1998, had a August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
93
w e i v Re One of the things I noticed when working through all the sounds in these SoundFonts is that there are some that are very, very familiar. Now, my musical tastes were firmly in place by the end of the 90s when these instruments hit the market long live the 80s, ahem - but there is a lot here that I'm sure I've heard on some track or other over the years. Regarding the ZR SoundFont the DSF site says that "Ensoniq sound designers used the content that had been collected for the samplers." I suppose this means that some of the content used in the MR and ZR workstations had been around for a while and had been used in other contexts - which makes sense when you think about it, you don't just throw away all that hard won sampled material. So that could be where the sense of familiarity comes from. The sounds themselves are uniformly excellent - one would expect no less from DSF. They're clear, vibrant and punchy. When we turn to the ZR-76 SoundFont we find more of the same high quality stuff. Again we have four SoundFont files containing 128 sounds each, the
94
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
Digital Sound Factory
Ensoniq Sound
Amongst the sounds of the ZR-76 you'll find some rockin', if slightly cheesy, guitars that are great fun to play with, particularly if you've got a mod wheel to hand. There are also some very nice choirs and orchestral sounds available. In the fourth bank whole lot weighing in at a still very there is a great selection of drums at modest 91 MB. The second SoundFont your disposition. They might not have file is notable for being a complete millions of velocity layers but they bank of GM (General MIDI… but you actually do a very good job and sound knew that…) sounds that are very chunky and full. There are also a useful for sketching out a complete number of very usable electronic kits arrangement. In many cases you'd that have, in my opinion, been very actually, probably be quite happy to well sampled. As well as full kits there render them into your finished are presets that have a whole variety production. of one type of drum - one per key gives you a whole pile of basses, toms, For those who may have, at some snares, crashes, hats and percussion. point, used a real live ZR- 76 the only slight disappointment might be that The MR-76 and ZR-76 SoundFonts the "Perfect Piano" is missing. It has retail at $39.95 each which is an been replaced by samples of a Kawai absolute steal for the amount, and 9' Grand because of licensing issues. quality, of sounds on offer. Run, don't Perfect Piano was originally an add-on walk… for the MR series and, at the time, was considered to be one of the better The CDR Bundle sampled pianos available. However, the replacement Kawai Grand is not to The CDR Bundle gathers together be sneezed at as it is a very pleasant, sounds from Ensoniq's EPS, TS-10 and full sounding piano that will fit well in ASR-10 samplers. DSF have a mix. undertaken the huge task of re-
August 2012
dFonts
mastering the original sounds to product is simply excellent. What create this collection and at $99.95 more to say? for over 1100 sounds you'd be nuts to miss out. The bundle comes as four Wrappin' it up SoundFont files and all but one of the files has multiple banks. Overall the CDR Bundle, MR-76 and ZR-76 contain some exceptional As well as an impressive range of content and will enable you to relive individual instruments that cover most the 80s, and some of the 90s, with genres the bundle comes with a useful the authentic sounds of the era. I can number of drum loops. Each set of recommend these collections without loops has its BPM indicated in its any hesitation. They're easy to use name and within each set the once you've got hold of a decent variations are mapped across the SoundFont player and the range and keyboard. They're great and so easy variety of content is inspiring. to use in a track.
Visit the Digital Sound Factory website at www.digitalsoundfactory.com for more information and to see the whole range of what else is on offer. The CDR Bundle costs $99.95. MR-76 and ZR-76 are $39.95 each.
As well as all of your regular sounds there are also a few animal sound samples in the collection and one in particular, 'Dog' from CDR-1 : Bank 3, seemed very familiar. I'm totally unable to confirm it but it seems to me that the Pet Shop Boys' mid-80s hit "Suburbia" used this sample. Anyone who can help out? Neil? Chris? Yeah, dreaming‌ It's very hard when you're reviewing such a huge collection to do justice to what is available. Short of giving you a list of every sound, which you can get from DSF's website anyway, it's almost impossible to point out any one sound as defining the whole. I have some favourites - sounds that I've earmarked for future use - but everything is good, there's nothing here that you'd want to chuck away as "subpar". As mentioned previously the quality of this August 2012
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
95
w e i v Re Orange Tree Samples
Passion Flute by Jeffrey Powell
There are quite a few orchestral flute sample sets out there these days. Lots and lots of them in fact. I probably have three or four deeply sampled ones on my various hard drives. However, if you've been interested in a flute library for playing rock (in the vein of Jethro Tull or Genesis) or jazz (like Herbie Mann or Hubert Laws), then, in recent years, you've had few or no choices available to you in the sample world. Well, fortunately for you, that situation has changed this year with the release of Orange Tree Samples' Passion Flute. With this release, Orange Tree Samples has attempted to put together a deeplysampled, but also highly-playable flute perfect for rock and jazz. In this 96
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
recorded using five different microphones, which you can mix and match using the Kontakt interface. As you would hope (and expect), the sample library is compatible with wind and breath controllers, and it also includes a variety of additional flute phrases and effects that you can use to spice up your tracks. review, we'll take a closer look at Passion Flute to see if the company has succeeded. Basic Overview The Passion Flute library weighs in at 1.15 GB and consists of 4,600 24-bit samples. Due to the extensive scripting Passion Flute is designed to be used in the full-version of Kontakt 4 or 5. The library itself comes in the form of a single NKI file with a multitab interface, which we'll investigate below. Additionally, the flute was August 2012
For the sampling sessions, the flute was played by flutist Mattan Klein (who has some lively flute-centric jazz music at his site www.mattanklein.com), and the engineering and production work was performed by Mac Ritchey, who has received a Grammy nomination for a flute-based album. In other words, Orange Tree Samples didn't just get a couple of random guys to blow on and record some flute noises. There is some great talent behind the playing and recording of these samples!
The Kontakt Interface The Passion Flute interface consists of three different tabs: Perform, Mix, and Settings. We'll take a look at each, starting with the Perform tab, which is shown in the accompanying picture. On this tab, you find what first appears to be two very odd looking symbols. Upon further investigation, you'll find that these odd symbols are actually pretty significant. The first cluster of symbols is a diagram of the fingerings for a flute. As you play the notes, this gives you the notation for the fingerings to play those notes. This can be quite useful if you (as a non-flute player) are trying to compose a part and you want to see how difficult it would be for a flutist to play it. This fingering diagram also gives a little insight into the intricacy of the scripting used to make the library sound realistic. I'll comment on that some more later in the review. Behind the fingering diagram, there's a strange reddish swoop. This swoop actually illustrates how much breath the flute player has at that point. So, if you play a melodic line without releasing a key, the breath indicator decreases and your player's stored oxygen gets depleted. In reality, it
doesn't affect the playing of the library (even if your player completely runs out of oxygen), but again, it is a useful cue to understand if the flute lines that you're playing and composing could actually be performed in reality. So, the Perform tab is a bit unusual, but it's quite useful in many contexts. The Mixing tab contains the primary controls that affect the overall sound of the instrument. On this tab, you'll find a mixer for each of the different microphones used in the recording of the samples. Incidentally, the microphones used are two close mics (a modern condenser and a vintage ribbon), one mid mic (a transparent omnidirectional), and a pair of room mics (a stereo condenser pair). In
August 2012
order to load the samples for a particular microphone, you click on the mic picture on the mixer. Note that only the active mic samples are loaded into memory, so you can be assured that you're not wasting any RAM on unneeded samples. The sliders on this tab allow you to adjust the levels and the panning of the various mic perspectives on the flute. On the right side of this tab, you'll find a variety of insert and send effects that you can use. The insert effects (EQ, compression, saturation, distortion) can be applied independently on each of the active mic samples, and for the global effects (delay, reverb, flanger), you can set the send levels independently for each active mic channel.
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
97
w e i v Re Considering the different mic channels and the effects, you can achieve quite a variety of flute sounds from Passion Flute. Fortunately, you'll also find a way to load and save presets on the interface, so you can preserve your perfect flute sound! If you're not sure where to start, several presets to show you the potential of Passion Flute are included.
Orange Tree Samples
Passion Flute
science to get a solid, realistic performance out of them. All you have to do is load up the instrument and start playing. It really is that simple! However, if you want to dig deeper, then you have the ability to do that as well. As a side note, please be aware that I only played Passion Flute using my MIDI keyboard, so I cannot comment on its responsiveness to wind controllers.
Secondly, I found it difficult to quickly determine which mic perspectives were active. The only difference is that the active perspectives have a subtle purple light behind them and the non-active ones have just a gray background. While it is aesthetically pleasing to do it this way, I don't think it's the best way to do it for practical use when you'd like to find out the information with a quick look. Of course, these a pretty small complaints, so don't get sidetracked by them. Passion Flute sounds and plays so well that you probably won't notice anything else.
The Settings tab consists of sliders to control various levels dealing with As with other Orange Tree Samples expression, dynamics, harmonics, and instruments, the scripting here is vibrato (including vibrato speed, again the real star. With the main depth, and delay). These are the type settings on “Auto,” the scripting of parameters, which if you know interprets the qualities of your playing what you are doing, can really bring (e.g. velocity, legato, etc.) and Follow Your Passion out incredible realism in a outputs the right amount of performance. You can automate expression along with well-placed If you have any interest whatsoever in these parameters and really tweak breath and finger click noises. The a flute sample library for rock or jazz, your performance. However, like performance you get is really then Passion Flute is a must buy. Hey, most of you, I don't understand the convincing, and I found it a true joy to if you just enjoy the sound of the flute subtleties of flute playing enough to play. Mixing the different mic in general, Passion Flute is so good know how best to adjust these. perspectives allows you to really craft that it's worth your time to check it Thankfully, for people like me, most of the exact flute sound that you want out as well. I've found that it is really these parameters have an “Auto” and that is geared toward its context useful instrument for solos and button that you can select which will in the track. You might want a raw, melodic lines in genres outside of rock control these parameters intelligently “in your face” sound or a smooth, and jazz, so chances are that you'll based on your playing. That's a cool roomy sound like you might hear find a number of great uses for it as feature. among other instruments in a club. well. You can get those sounds and pretty My Take On It much anything in between using the As stated earlier, Passion Flute is for different mic perspectives. the full version of Kontakt 4 or 5, and Passion Flute is another winner for it retails for $129. You can purchase Orange Tree Samples. It has pretty Considering all of the features of it at the Orange Tree Samples website much everything a rock and jazz flute Passion Flute, I found RAM usage to (see below). While you're there, enthusiast could want: great sound, be quite reasonable. The custom check out the demo tracks, the incredible playability, realistic Kontakt interface is gorgeous (kudos manual, and the other great sample scripting, and lots of options for to the designer!). That being said, I libraries for sale at the site. tweaking. What I especially love have two basic complaints regarding about the Orange Tree Sample the Mixing tab. First of all, I found Product Page: libraries that I've reviewed thus far is the effects section a bit counterwww.orangetreesamples.com/passion that you don't need expertise on the intuitive to navigate. As an example, -flute Company page: actual instrument, tons of keyswitches instead of turning “on” an effect, you www.orangetreesamples.com and midi edits, or a degree in rocket actually turn “off” its bypass button.
98
www.WusikSoundMagazine.com
August 2012
Wusik Station Improving by the minute. www.wusik.com