Re: [MoAccess] voice editor question
- From: "Bryan Smart" <bryansmart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <MoAccess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 10:43:24 -0400
On all Motifs, the basic sound element is a sample. This is a one-shot
recording (like a drum sound), or a single note on an instrument (like a
C played on a piano).
The Motif doesn't play samples directly. Instead, the Motif combines
individual samples into waveforms. You can have a waveform that contains
a single sample that is mapped all of the way across the keyboard (like
a drum sound that plays higher or lower as you play along the keyboard),
or a complex waveform (such as a piano that uses a different sample for
each key). The samples that are contained in a waveform, and the key
ranges that trigger that sample are described by what is called a
keybank.
So, to recap, its like this.
Waveforms contain one or more keybanks. Each keybank references a
sample, and indicates the range across the keyboard or a range of
velocities that will trigger it.
Usually, when you load a sample into the Motif, the Motif will start a
new waveform for you, will create one keybank inside that waveform, will
set the keybank to play your loaded sample, and will map that keybank so
that it is triggered by all keys and all velocity ranges.
If you want to edit waveforms, you have to use the sample mode on the
Motif.
Once you have built a waveform, you can use John's editors to create
voices from them.
To make this clearer, here is an example. Suppose we want to make our
own voice that plays a piano together with strings. We want to use the
built-in string sound, but we'd like our own piano.
For our basic piano, we aren't going to record each note. Instead, we
decide to record each C (from the bottom C to the top C). That gives us
6 Cs, I think. Then, we load these 6 recordings of C played in each
octave into the Motif. Now, we make a new waveform. We create 6
keybanks, and we map each of our 6 samples to these 6 keybanks. We set
the root note of each of the keybanks to the same note that was recorded
on the piano. Now, when we play middle C, we hear the same middle C that
we recorded on the piano. When we play the C above middle C, we hear the
appropriate recording, also. When we play the notes in-between, though,
we hear nothing. That's because we didn't record samples for every key.
To deal with that, we can set the keybank for middle C so that, instead
of being triggered only when we play middle C on the Motif, it will be
triggered by everything from the A flat below middle C up to the G above
middle C. We don't have samples for those notes, but what the Motif will
do is to pitch middle C down or up to play the appropriate pitch. We
repeat this stretching for each of the 6 keybanks. When we're finished,
we can play all across the keyboard, and the Motif will play the sample
with the nearest pitch to the note that we're playing. All of these
settings make up a waveform, and we make them all in the Sampling mode.
One odd thing though, while we'd hear the correct samples at this point,
they won't exactly play like a piano. As soon as we let go of a key, the
sound will immediately cut off with out even a brief decay. Playing hard
or sof on the keyboard will produce a louder or softer tone, but only in
terms of volume (the soft notes won't seem dulled out). This is because
all of that is handled by synthesis. In sample mode, we're just mapping
samples to keys.
Now that we have a waveform that triggers appropriate samples to play a
piano, we can make a voice out of it. Here, we can use the editor.
Basically, we start a new voice, select synthesizer element 1 (we have 8
of them), and set its waveform to the piano waveform that we just
created. When we play the keyboard, we should hear the Motif responding
just like it did when we were playing the waveform in the sampling mode.
Now, we can use the amplifier envelope generator to cause the samples to
have a slight decay when we let go of a key. We can use the filter
settings to map key velocity to filter cut off, so that playing the
keyboard softer causes the filter to be slightly closed, and therefore
dull the sound.
We can add strings to the piano by enabling synth element 2, and setting
its waveform to one of the built-in strings waveforms.
If we wanted to get fancy, we can simulate the thunk when you release a
piano key by enabling a third element, selecting the built-in piano key
release waveform, and setting that element's XA control to trigger that
element only when a key is released.
You don't need to go through all of this to make a voice, though. If
you're trying to use stabs or one-shot samples, you can make waveforms
with a single keybank (in many cases the Motif will do this for you when
you load the wav file or sample directly from the Motif). If you want to
make a voice, you don't need to sample your own instruments and build
your own waveforms, as the Motif is bursting with waveforms that are
ready to go. Unlike a lot of synths (like Rolands), the Motif waveforms
are recorded with out any effects. They're raw recordings of the
instruments, and it is up to the synthesizer settings in the voice
programming to make them sound like a particular instrument. For
example, there are only two sets of electric guitar samples in the XS,
but they are detailed sets that are made directly from the pickups of a
guitar, and include many velocity layers (dead notes, mute notes, three
levels of open strings, slap, harmonic tone, and slide). Every voice can
process those same raw samples through eqs, compressors, and amp
simulators in order to get a specific tone. Then, you still have enough
effects power left over to add some big attention grabber like delay,
chorus, flanger, etc. This is more like how a guitar sound is built in a
studio. You start with a strat (Strat waveform on the Motif), adjust the
pickup levels and tone knobs on the guitar (element EQs), plug into an
amp (Motif amp sims), add stomp boxes or out-board mix effects (Motif
insert effects), and you have a guitar voice. One reason the Motif
sounds so different than other synths when simulating real instruments
is because instead of having two dozen different guitar samples, all
fighting for memory, Yamaha gives us 2 very high quality sets of raw
samples, and then gives us the tools to build our own specific tone
through the synthesizer engine.
Bryan
________________________________
From: moaccess-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:moaccess-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Omar Binno
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 9:09 AM
To: moaccess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [MoAccess] voice editor question
Thanks. With the editors, are you able to set parameters on voices? If
so, would this include sample voices, once you've keygrouped them and
assigned them to user banks?
> From: lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: MoAccess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [MoAccess] voice editor question
> Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 07:15:17 -0500
>
> While you can't edit the wav files using the editors, you can,
however,
> assign samples to key banks, and subsequent key banks to a voice.
You'll
> have to do all your editing of the files on your pc, or in the
intagrated
> sample mode on the mo, but without the aid of the editors. Hope this
helps.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Omar Binno" <omarbinno@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <moaccess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 6:51 AM
> Subject: [MoAccess] voice editor question
>
>
>
> Hello Folks,
>
> It's been a while since I've posted on here, so been out of the loop
for a
> bit. Not sure if this has been asked recently on here, but I have a
question
> about the Motif XS Voice editors. Will they give us access to editing
wav
> samples we import into the Motif? Can we keygroup samples via the
Voice
> Editors?
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
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