Going Beyond Presets

Jul 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Larry the O

           
 

FIVE TOP SOUND DESIGNERS OFFER TIPS FOR GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR SYNTHS

Choosing the right curve for the part is key. “Don't get too technical,” advises Hotop. “Try playing a phrase with a couple different velocity curves, or even try recording it: Do one or two passes with two similar curves or two very extreme curves and adjust your levels accordingly. Use your ear, and ask yourself, ‘Do I need a consistent level throughout the track or do I need something with some dynamics that lets me get out of the way of a vocal or support a little stronger in a chorus?’

“Another thing I've done occasionally is vary the velocity curve according to the track or the tempo I'm playing. An alternative to controlling dynamics with a limiter or a compressor is to play the phrase I'm going to record and choose a velocity curve that gives the dynamics I want.”

But, Martin Jann notes, finding the right curve can be tricky. “[Velocity curves] are a difficult issue, and the reason is that we are trying to put many things into one, which should be separated in my view.

“If you're learning an instrument, you usually are playing the same instrument all the time,” Jann continues. “If you play violin, you may have the same violin almost all your life and you know this instrument the best. If you apply this view to our realm of using MIDI keyboards with different synthesizers and sounds, you find you can change the velocity curve on your keyboard, within your sequencer, within the sound, in fact, just about everywhere. Every keyboard's velocity response is different as well, so the same preset can sound very different when played with different keyboards or velocity curves.” The solution, says Jann, comes, as with the violin, only through intimate familiarity with your controller's response.

“But remember that when, for instance, you lower the pitch of a sample, you're slowing the attacks of the sound down. Since you have the knowledge that the attack is going to be played at a slower rate, you can move the sample start point into the waveform a little bit past that initial attack so you don't get a klunk.”