Analoguesque - Soundfont Tutorial

Sound Designs

Generating Samples

Before you can create Instruments and Presets in Vienna, you first need to create some "analog" samples. If you know anything about analog synthesizers, you will understand the principles of the oscillators as being a set of infinitely looping, single-cycle waveforms, like Square, Triangle, or Sawtooth waveforms. These are the types of samples we will generate to simulate analog oscillators. The easiest way to do this is to use one of the many shareware sound editors available on the web. For our purposes we will use Cool Edit, which is an excellent and easy-to-use shareware editor from Syntrillium Software. With Cool Edit, we are able to generate many of the waveforms we require to emulate analog synthesizers.

Our first step is to start up Cool Edit. Then click FILE, NEW, and set SAMPLE RATE to 32000Hz (or whatever you prefer), CHANNELS to MONO, and RESOLUTION to 16-BIT. This sets us up with an empty 16-bit sample at 32Khz ... into which we will generate a waveform.

Next step, Click GENERATE, TONES, and set up the sound parameters as shown in Figure 1.1a and 1.1b: Set Base Frequency to 440Hz, Duration to 0.01 seconds, and waveform Flavor to Sawtooth.

Figure 1.1a

Figure 1.1b

Click OK, and the Sawtooth waveform is generated as shown in Figure 1.2. As the figure suggests, Cool Edit has generated a 0.01 second Sawtooth waveform at 440Hz, which just happens to be the pitch of key A4 on a midi keyboard. You will see later how convenient it can be when samples are generated at key A4.

Figure 1.2

Notice in Figure 1.2 how many iterations of the Sawtooth waveform there are - 4.5 cycles, or "repeating sections". We're going to loop this anyway, so what's the point of having 4.5 repeating cycles of a waveform when you really only need one to get the job done? There is no point, unless you want to waste RAM. Analog synthesis simply generates a repeating single-cycle waveform, and we can do the same with looping in Vienna. It makes sense then to get rid of the excess, and conserve RAM by removing some of the iterations of the waveform.

So, highlight the selection as shown in Figure 1.3, and press CTRL-T to trim the waveform down to the highlighted section only.

Figure 1.3

What we get in Figure 1.4 is a little more than a single-cycle waveform, which is all we need in Vienna to simulate an analog oscillator. Don't cut the waveform too close to a single-cycle, because Vienna needs a few samples on either side as a buffer. Besides, it is always good to keep a little extra available, and this can sometimes come in handy when looping a sample - You always want to keep a small buffer zone!

Figure 1.3

There you have it. The sample in Figure 1.4 is the basis on which we will build our analog synth in Vienna. Creating a single-cycle waveform is as simple as the few steps shown above, and what's more ... Cool Edit allows you to generate several different waveform shapes by changing the Flavor setting under the General tab in Figure 1.1b. You could select Sine, Square, Triangle, and a few other options as well. What use is this? It is the essence of what we need to do: Create a library of many different single-cycle waveforms, each having it's own characteristic sound. Some accentuate high frequencies, and some accentuate low frequencies, and others in between. In the end, the bigger our palette of base sounds, the better equipped we are to create Phatt textures. Bear in mind that analog synthesizers only have access to a limited set of waveforms, usually Square, Sawtooth, Pulse-Width, and Triangle, but we have the ability to create as many as we want!

Save your Sawtooth waveform as sawtooth-A4.wav.

In Cool Edit, creating a bunch of other waveforms is simple if you follow the above steps. If you have gone so far as to generate your waveform down to Figure 1.4, creating the other waveforms is a snap! Double-click within the editing window to highlight the whole waveform, and then click GENERATE, TONES, again. In this case, Cool Edit takes your duration settings from the highlighted waveform, and all we need do is select 440Hz, and a different Flavor from the General tab. Actually, your base frequency will already be set to 440Hz if you are on a par with Figure 1.4. Say we choose the Sine Flavor ...

Cool Edit generates a Sine Wave (Figure 1.5) which fits in perfectly with the previously highlighted Sawtooth waveform selection in Figure 1.4. So now we have a little more than a single-cycle Sine wave, which is exactly what we want. Save the waveform as sine-A4.wav, and go ahead and create a few other waveforms by selecting different Flavors each time from the General tab. For our purposes just create 4 waveforms: Square, Triangle, Sine, and Sawtooth. Follow the process of double-clicking to highlight, and then generating with a different Flavor, and Cool Edit will take care of the rest. You just need to save each waveform.

Figure 1.4

Give your waveforms a descriptive name, but remember that since we are generating these all at 440Hz (key A4), include A4 in your name because it comes in handy later. E.g. square-A4.wav; triangle-A4.wav; sine-A4.wav; sawtooth-A4.wav ... etc.