Twelve Under a Hundred

Mar 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Len Sasso

           

Nusofting

Modelonia ($79, Win, VSTi)
Modelonia starts with mathematical models of sound generation in acoustic instruments. The models involve a vibrating resonator to produce the sound and some form of stimulus to start the resonator vibrating. For resonators, Modelonia gives you string and horn models. For stimulators, you get a pick (applied to the string), vibrating lips (applied to the horn's mouthpiece), and noise, which you can apply to either resonator. The string and horn models differ in that the horn resonator is fed back to its stimulator to produce sustained sounds, whereas once plucked, the string resonator dies out over time.

FIG. 7: Modelonia combines plucked-string and blown-horn physical models to create intriguing hybrid instruments.

The essential part of programming Modelonia is setting the characteristics of the stimulators and resonators (see Fig. 7). For example, you can control the shape and amount of the pick's effect on the string; the rate and amplitude of the lip vibration; the brightness and pitch of the horn resonator; and the stiffness, pitch, and EQ of the string resonator. In an unnatural touch, you can also feed the output of either resonator as a stimulus to the other, and simultaneously doing both produces many interesting cross-feedback effects. You can also adjust the mix of the string and horn resonators to model hybrid instruments not found in nature.

Although effects and modulation are not the name of the game, Modelonia does have two LFOs and an ADSR envelope generator, each of which can be routed to various sound-generating parameters. The output stage contains an EQ designed to simulate resonating bodies and a basic reverb geared toward emulating small rooms. Finally, there are individual tuning adjustments for each note between A3 and G#6 for each resonator. Those are sometimes needed to compensate when the resonator's characteristics force it slightly out of tune for specific notes.

Modelonia ships with a bank of 128 factory presets along with 10 Sound wizards, which serve as good starting points for creating your own sounds. But tweaking the factory presets is probably the best way to get up and running on this synth. The best thing about physical modeling is that the sound is almost always organic, even if not precisely like an acoustic instrument (see Web Clip 7).

Progress Audio

Soup ($85, Win, VSTi)
Soup is an additive synth with an unusual approach that takes much of the tedium out of creating additive waveforms. It also implements robust, vectored sound morphing. You amass presets around the perimeter of Soup's Morph Bowl, then use the mouse, built-in automation, or MIDI to morph among the sounds (see Fig. 8 and Web Clip 8).

FIG. 8: Soup morphs among any number of presets placed around the Morph Bowl in the center.

Soup gives you three ways to create additive waveforms. With the standard method, common to most additive synths, you use a bar graph to set the level, tuning, and pan position of each of the up to 64 partials. You then use breakpoint envelopes to change those parameters over time. The second option is to resynthesize an additive waveform, including its evolution over time, from any WAV file at your disposal. The third option, unique to Soup, is called the Elements Editor. It incorporates five Bowls to shape characteristics of the sound: Tone, Tone Shift, Pan, Tuning, and Volume Envelope. As with the Morph Bowl, you add preset waveforms around the perimeter of each bowl, then position a central cursor to define the mix of those waveforms. This provides a very fast way to get complex, evolving waveforms.

Soup has six basic effects: reverb, feedback delay, distortion, chorus, multimode filter, and formant filter. Modulators include two LFOs and a breakpoint envelope generator. Those, along with various MIDI controllers, are routed to parameters using an 8-row modulation matrix. Soup is a very capable additive synth, but it's the patch morphing that makes it stand out from the crowd.

ReFX

Vanguard ($89.99, Mac/Win, VSTi/AU)
With Vanguard, it's back to familiar territory — a 3-oscillator subtractive synth with two ADSR envelope generators, three LFOs, arpeggiation, gating, delay, and reverb (see Fig. 9). What distinguishes Vanguard is excellent sound quality, ease of use, and what it does with its basic assets. Three banks of 128 presets show that Vanguard covers the bases for classic analog sounds.

FIG. 9: Combining Vanguard’s Trancegate, arpeggiator, and delay line produces lots of rhythmic variety.

The oscillators have 31 waveforms, including 6 random forms ranging from the sample-and-hold-like R2D2 to white noise. Two of the waveforms, Sine AM and Sine FM, provide basic modulation timbres. Each oscillator has a dedicated triangle-wave LFO that you can route to tuning, pulse-width, and filter cutoff. Using more than one of the LFOs to modulate filter cutoff produces complex filter patterns.

Vanguard's multimode filter has resonant lowpass, highpass, and bandpass modes with 6, 12, and 24 dB per octave slopes along with several multiband configurations. The filter is followed by delay and reverb effects and an output section with overdrive distortion. You can route each of the two ADSR envelope generators to volume, filter cutoff, pulse width, and oscillator tuning.

The Trancegate and arpeggiator provide flexible, tempo-based modulation. The gate has 16 steps, variable attack and decay, separate stereo channels, and an amount control that balances between the gated and ungated signal. The arpeggiator has five modes — up, down, alternating, random, and play-order — and the rate and duration are set separately. You can generate a lot of action using the Trancegate, arpeggiator, and delay together (see Web Clip 9).

Rick Jelliffe

Neumixturtrautonium ($29.95, Win, VSTi)
Neumixturtrautonium is a variation of a variation of an early (possibly the first) electronic musical instrument, the Trautonium, invented by Freidrich Trautwein in the 1930s. German physicist and Trautonium virtuoso Oskar Sala made significant modifications, most notably the introduction of subharmonic synthesis, in the Mixtur-Trautonium. Neumixturtrautonium is a noble attempt to realize the Mixtur-Trautonium as a VSTi plug-in.

FIG. 10: Neumixturtrautonium has four subharmonic oscillators and uses the MIDI Mod Wheel to select one of three subharmonic configurations.

Subharmonic synthesis uses frequency dividers to create new waves whose frequencies are whole-number divisors of the source wave. The subharmonics have the same waveform as the original, typically a sawtooth. A combination of four subharmonics is called a mixture or bank, and in Neumixturtrautonium you select between three banks with the Mod Wheel. In each mixture, each subharmonic has its own filter, and you can switch the filters between formant and resonant lowpass modes (see Fig. 10).

Depending on the subharmonic levels and frequencies, a note played on Neumixturtrautonium might sound like a single note or a chord. Furthermore, just as with higher harmonics, some of the subharmonics may not be in the equal-tempered scale. Because subharmonics are harmonically complex (not sine waves) and lower in pitch, they dominate. In short, Neumixturtrautonium does not always play nicely with others, but you can, with some effort, retune the subharmonics. A basic reverb and pitch-shifter round out the signal path.

Neumixturtrautonium comes with no manual and only 16 presets, but the presets show that this instrument has an unusual sound palette. Variations range from ethereal string and choral sounds to mechanical-industrial effects (see Web Clip 10). It's worth your time to try it out, and the shareware fee is quite reasonable. You'd be hard-pressed to re-create its sound on another synth.