|
|
|
|
|
Creating InstrumentsTo create an instrument in Vienna, we turn our attention to the Instrument Pool. Right-Click on Instrument Pool, and select New Instrument from the selection box, as in Figure 5.1.
You are then prompted to give your new instrument a name, as in Figure 5.2. You can leave the default name, but let's give the name some meaning, and call it Monster Saws. Click the OK button. Vienna then prompts us to choose those samples we would like to use in the instrument. Each instrument in the Instrument Pool consists of a selection of samples, called Instrument Zones. You can use one or more samples within your instrument, and this is commonly referred to as sample layering. Vienna supplies a list of all samples from the User Sample Pool, and you are required to choose those you need in your instrument. In our case we simply chose the sawtooth-A4 sample, as in Figure 5.3.
As you can see from Figure 5.4, the sawtooth-A4 sample has been inserted into the Monster Saws instrument, where it is now known as an Instrument Zone. Technically it's just a sample, but the difference here is that you can manipulate how the sample sounds, and not just its loop points. We'll get to that later.
For our purposes we need to load more than one sawtooth-A4 sample if we want to get a really phatt sound from this instrument. After all, the phattest sounds from analog equipment always came from those synths with more than one oscillator per instrument. With only one sample in ours, we only have a single oscillator. We can go through the whole process of inserting another Instrument Zone, but there is a quicker method of reinserting the same waveform. We will use a drag-and-drop copy method. Left-click on the sawtooth-A4 instrument zone, and drag it over the Monster Saws instrument. You will notice a little document icon with a plus appears once your mouse is above the Monster Saws instrument (Figure 5.5). Simply let go and a copy of what you dragged (sawtooth-A4) is dropped into Monster Saws, which now shows two copies of the sawtooth-A4 sample, as in Figure 5.6. Both of these copies are now fully and independently editable. The settings you implement for one have no connection with those in the other, so you can perform different filter settings on each, different ADSR settings ... etc. You will also notice that when you click on one of the sawtooth-A4 samples, Sections 2 - 8 (see Vienna 2.3) become unmasked. This means that editing has become available in these sections, so lets get to it and do some editing. Vienna defaults each sample into non-looping mode. i.e. The global loop you originally set in the Looping section is ignored. To bring the global loop into effect, right-click on your sawtooth-A4 samples, and select Loop... from the popup box (This can also be achieved by simply double-clicking on the sawtooth-A4 sample). You are confronted with the same looping screen from the section on Looping. Select the Enable Looping for this sample check-box, as in Figure 5.7, and click on the Close button.
Looping for this particular sample has now been enabled. Do the same for the second sample, and both samples will loop when you press down on a key. Out next must-do is to set the root key of the samples. If you remember from the section on generating samples, you will recall that we generated our waveforms at 440Hz, which is key A4 on the midi scale. Now that was a really great frequency to generate the waveforms at, because it is a fairly simple process to set our samples to a root key of A4. What do we mean by a root key? The root key tells the synth what pitch the original sample was, so that it can correctly spread the sample out across the keyboard. For instance, if you sampled a sound at A4, and the root key was set to C5, every time you press key C5 you will actually be playing back an A4 sample. I.e. Your tuning will be totally out of whack. It is imperative that you get your tuning correct from the start, and using round numbers like 440Hz make this easy. So let's get to it and set the root key. Actually, before we even set the root key, let's make sure Vienna is set to use octave keys as opposed to midi key numbers. Midi key numbers use a reference from 0 to 127 to represent keys on the keyboard, which isn't very intuitive! Octave keys, however, use a more specific reference to keys on the keyboard. E.g. C1, A4, G#3 ... etc. To set Vienna to octave keys, select Options and then Preferences... from the main dropdown menu, as shown in Figure 5.8. Make sure that Display MIDI-Key number instead of Octave-Key is unchecked under the Options tab, as in Figure 5.9 (where we have it as checked). This will ensure the use of Octave Key instead of midi key numbers. You may have to close down Vienna and start it up again to have this work correctly (make sure you save everything first!)
Next stop ... the root key. Right click on the sample you wish to set a root key for (sawtooth-A4), and select Properties... from the popup box, as in Figure 5.10. Vienna defaults the root key to C4, as shown in Figure 5.11. Change this to A4 and click OK. Do this for both samples, and we have them looping, tuned, and ready to go.
If you take a look at the Key/Velocity Range window after highlighting one of the sawtooth-A4 Instrument Zones, you will notice that one key is marked with a small, black square, and another is marked with a red arrow, as in Figure 5.12. The black square indicates note C4 (default), while the red arrow points to our root key, which we have set to note A4. These are only graphical indicators, and cannot be dragged around. However, the range lines beneath the virtual keyboard in the Key/Velocity Range window actually denote the key range of the current sample. i.e. Where it is stretched across the keyboard. Each sample always defaults to the whole keyboard, but you can change this by clicking on- and moving the markers which bound the extremes of each sample, shown as a little vertical block adjacent to the range lines in Figure 5.13. For our purposes we want the sample to stretch across the whole keyboard, so let's leave the default key range.
Imagine that we want to create a heavily-detuned sawtooth instrument with the two Instrument Zones we have under Monster Saws. It would be a very tedious task to edit each Instrument Zone individually with all the same settings, except for tuning. Thankfully Vienna has a plan for this. You can create a Global Zone which will apply settings to all Instrument Zones within that instrument. So we could create a Global Zone for Monster Saws, and the settings there would filter down to the Instrument Zones beneath it. First let's create a Global Zone for Monster Saws: Right-Click on Monster Saws, and select Global Zone from the popup box, as in Figure 5.14. This creates a Global Zone for Monster Saws, as shown in Figure 5.15. This Global Zone has all the same synth-editing features as the sawtooth-A4 Instrument Zones. Let's detune the samples: Highlight the first sawtooth-A4 Instrument Zone, and Click on the Fine Tune parameter as shown in Figure 5.16, in the Tuning Window.
This brings up a Pitch-Setting popup, where you can enter a new tuning value. All we want is a tune-setting which is different from the other sawtooth-A4 sample. Change the fine tune value to 10, as shown in Figure 5.17, and click on the Close button. We now have the first sawtooth-A4 fine-tuned to 10 cents above default, while the second sawtooth-A4 is still at fine-tune = 0. So they are detuned by 10 cents (the measurement for tuning). Play a few keys on the keyboard and you'll hear the result. It really phattens up the sound a lot. This completes our editing within each individual Instrument Zone, and we now turn our attention to the Global Zone, where we will set parameters which will affect both sawtooth-A4 Instrument Zones equally. Click on Global Zone under Monster Saws, and then click on the Chorus setting in the Effects Window, as in Figure 5.18. Change the value to 20. This will phatten the sound up even more, as it applies chorus to both samples. Play a few keys and hear the effect. The higher you set the Chorus % (maximum is 100), the more pronounced the effect.
Now we've got quite a phatt-sounding sawtooth instrument, but essentially it still sounds like an organ. We need to apply some Volume Envelope settings to it. First make sure you have highlighted the Global Zone before we continue. The Volume Envelope has 7 basic settings which we are most concerned with, the first 6 of which are ADSR envelope settings as shown in Figure 5.19. When a key is pressed, the playback volume of the sample changes over time according to these ADSR settings. Actually in the case of Vienna, these are DAHDSR settings, the meanings of which are:
Let's stick to some really simple settings to brighten up our rather bland instrument. Set up the values as indicated in Figure 5.20. They are all done by clicking the relevant setting, and changing the value in the popup box, as was done previously with Chorus and Fine Tune. We set Attack to 0.021, and Release to 2. What this means in real terms is that when we press down a key, the sound will take 0.021 seconds to fade in to maximum volume (which is almost, but not quite, undetectable), and it will take 2 seconds to fade to silence after releasing the key. While holding down a key, volume remains at the Sustain level, which is set to the maximum 100db. Play around with the keys and listen to the results - much, much better than before the settings were changed!
The settings in Figure 5.21 show another effect. This time when you hold down the key, the volume takes 2 seconds to Decay to a Sustain level of 0 (silence). If you press a key and immediately release it, the sound will take 1 second to fade to silence (Release = 1). A variation of these settings is something you would use for a Piano. The Delay setting is not something used very often (if at all) while the Hold setting is simply an extra Sustain, albeit at maximum volume level. For most purposes, the settings used above (ADSR) are pretty much everything you need to create some great analog sounds. Let's leave our Monster Saws sound as in Figure 5.21, and make a copy of it so we can edit that a little further. For the sake of a tutorial it would be good to keep a sonic trail of our progress by copying and modifying each preset as we move along. To make a copy of an instrument is fairly simple. In fact, the process is basically identical to making a copy of an existing Instrument Zone, which we saw earlier in Figure 5.5. Follow the same procedure, except this time click on the Monster Saws instrument and drag it over Instrument Pool. Drop it there, and Vienna will prompt you for a name for the new instrument. It will default to Monster Saws1, but we'll call it Monster Sweep, as in Figure 5.22. Click on the OK button and you will now have a copy of Monster Saws, called Monster Sweep.
Now let's begin creating a great analog sweep sound. Firstly, select the second sawtooth-A4 Instrument Zone from Monster Sweep and change the Course Tune (in the Tuning Window) value to -12. Course Tune actually changes the pitch of an instrument by exactly one midi key per unit. i.e. Our value of -12 drops the tuning down by 12 semitones, which is a full octave - count the B&W keys on a keyboard and you will see 12 keys per octave. Thus when you press key A4 while this Instrument Zone is selected, what you will actually hear is a sample at A3. Pretty cool. Taking a look at the Modulation Envelope Window, it is pretty much the same as the Volume Envelope Window. It has the familiar DAHDSR settings, as well as a few other settings. Now, whereas the Volume Envelope was specifically designed to affect volume over time, the Modulation Envelope can affect Pitch, or Filter-Cutoff, but not both. In our case we will be using Filter Cutoff to create a sweeping sound. So, select the Global Zone for Monster Sweep and set up the values as shown in Figure 5.23. Here's an explanation of what will happen to the sound: Firstly, the most important thing to note is the To Filter Cutoff setting of -12000 cents. Filter Cutoff always defaults to 20,000 Hz (which you can see in the Effects Window), so what the To Filter Cutoff setting implies is that, over time, you would like the Filter Cutoff to lower by 12,000 cents. Don't worry about the cents measurements - just listen to the sound and you can figure out what it's doing. The Attack of 3.5 seconds will cause the Filter Cutoff to drop by 12,000 cents over 3.5 seconds, while you hold down the key. The Release of 100 seconds simply ensures that if you let go the key, the Filter Cutoff doesn't quickly jump back up to 20,000Hz. i.e. It takes 100 seconds for the Filter Cutoff to return to the default value, and since our instrument only plays for a maximum of 2 seconds (Decay setting in the Volume Envelope), we don't reach this point. What this results in is a really cool and phatt bass sound.
How do we get that classic analog Rez sweep from this bass sound? Simple - just
change the Resonance (Filter Q) setting in the Effects Window.
Click on Filter Q in the Effects Window and change the value to 12.
Play around with the keys and take a listen to the results - it really is cool
and easy. You now have a simple rez sweep bass. You can perfect a nice rez pad
by lengthening the decays and releases, or create a fizzy acid bass by shortening the
Attack in the Modulation Envelope Window ... tons of easy ideas
for a bunch of sounds, and all from a single waveform!
|
|
_____________________________________________________ |
