Re: [MoAccess] voice editor question

  • From: Omar Binno <omarbinno@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <moaccess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 13:28:54 -0400

Wow! Thanks Bryan! That still sounds like alot of work though. I'm thinking 
that if someone is more into the music production and writing end of things, it 
might be worth it just to generate sounds from other synths, rather than go 
through the toil of loading new samples and working with them in the motif.




________________________________

From: driza97@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: MoAccess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [MoAccess] voice editor question
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 11:00:57 -0500





man!! lol!! this is definitely a keeper!!

What Da Hzzy!
Driza aka Drizabizeats


----- Original Message -----

From: Bryan Smart

To: MoAccess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Sent: Monday, June 09, 2008 9:43 AM

Subject: Re: [MoAccess] voice editor question



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" 
> To: 
> 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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>
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