Virtual Instruments V01#03 Dec-Jan 2006

8/12/2019 Virtual Instruments V01#03 Dec-Jan 2006

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OUTSTANDING

PRODUCTS REVIEWED:

EAST WEST QUANTUM LEAP

SYMPHONIC CHOIRS PROMINY

LPC ELECTRIC DISTORTION AND

CLEAN GUITARS LIBRARY NOTRE

DAME DE BUDAPEST PIPE ORGAN

LIBRARY QUANTUM LEAP

PERCUSSIVE ADVENTURES 2

DECEMBER/JANUARY 2005/6 - VOL. 1 NO. 3

www.VirtualInstrumentsMag.com

USA $4.95

CANADA $6.50

THE WORLD OF SOFTSYNTHS AND SAMPLERSTHE WORLD OF SOFTSYNTHS AND SAMPLERS

Cakewalks Project5 all-in-one workstationA Very Deep Clinic

The Making of

GigaStudio:behind therevolution

Exclusive, free algorithmic songwriting software download from www.VirtualInstrumentsMag.com.

WIN a DrumCore plus 3 DrummerPacks in our latest MUNGO GIVEAWAY!WIN a DrumCore plus 3 DrummerPacks in our latest MUNGO GIVEAWAY!

Native InstrumentsKontakt 2 sampler

a Very Deep Clinic and a review

The NewSampling


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2 V I R T U A L I N S TR U M E N TS

From the

Virtual Instruments is published bi-monthlyfor $12.95/year, $20/two years (with occa-sional add-on one-year promotions for anadditional $9.95) by Virtual Instruments, Inc.,3849 Ventura Canyon, Sherman Oaks, CA91423-4710. 818/905-5434, 1-800/[email protected]. Applicationto Mail at Periodicals Postage Rates isPending at Van Nuys, CA, and at additionalmailing offices. POSTMASTER: please sendaddress changes to VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS,3849 VENTURA CANYON, SHERMAN OAKS,CA 91423-4710.Distributor: Rider Circulation Services, 3700Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90065.

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Editor

Editor/publisher: Nick Batzdorf

Art director: Lachlan Westfall/Quiet Earth Design

Ad/marketing manager: Carl Marinoff

Web designer: Denise Young/DMY Studios

Contributors: Jim Aikin, Peter Buick, David Das, Doyle Donehoo,

David Govett, Chris Meyer, Ashif King Idiot Hakik, Dave Moulton,

Frederick Russ, Bruce Richardson, Craig Sharmat, Lee Sherman.

Publishing consultant: Ross Garnick

Advertising contact: Carl Marinoff 818/590-0018.

[email protected]

Subscriptions/Address changes: 818/905-5434, 1-800/ViMagzn,

[email protected]. The best method is to subscribe via

our website: www.VirtualInstrumentsMag.com.

Letters to the editor: [email protected]

Writing for Virtual Instruments Magazine: query

[email protected] or call 818/905-5434

There are two phenomena that led to the virtualinstruments revolution that caused you to be readingthis magazine. One, of course, is that personal com-

puters have enough power to run V.I.s.The other is The New Samplinglarge, disk-streaming

sample libraries, or modern sample libraries as we refer tothem. That revolution started after Nemesis GigaSampler(now TASCAM GigaStudio) came along a few years ago, andwere happy to be able to present an interview with the peo-ple who invented Giga: Jim Van Buskirk and Joe Bibbo.

Today, modern sample libraries either come in their ownV.I. players or theyre programmed for specific samplerplatformsas you can see from the reviews in these pages.(Some people differentiate between the two by calling theplayer versions V.I.s, but around here we dont bother.)

Either way, its fair to say that as wonderful as samplingtechnology is, many of the more advanced libraries havebeen ahead of their performance interfaces for some time.Modern sample libraries usually have lots of articulations tochoose from, and the available means for choosing theright ones in real time have been limited; making samplelibraries sing is usually as much a matter of programmingas it is playing.

Thats about to change. Among other tricks you canread about in this months Trends column (page 64),Vienna Symphonic Librarys new Vienna Instruments player

loads as many articulations as you need for an instrumentin one instance of the plug-in. It puts everything on onesequencer track and one MIDI channel; that lets you selectarticulations on the fly.

But the really interesting trick is that it automaticallyswitches to the right articulations a lot of the time. It doesthat by sensing whether youre playing legato, repeatingnotes, playing a pattern or trill, orand this is the cleveroneit knows how fast youre playing, and from that itknows whether to play a shorter or longer articulation.

Now, that doesnt mean the whole problem is solved.Youll still have to do some programming, if for no otherreason than that it may take more than ten fingers (andone brain) to deal with all the switching you need to do inspite of VSLs performance detection. But this is a prettyexciting step in the right direction.

And the best part is that its already possible to incorpo-rate some of these ideas using existing tools such as Gigaand Native Instruments Kontakt 2. If history is an indica-tion, we can also expect to see leapfrogging advances inother sample players. East West has already announcedthat their upcoming player will include speed-sensing andother innovations, for example.

2006 looks like a very exciting year for our industry. Allof us at Virtual Instruments wish you a happy, healthy, andprosperous one. VI

Standard disclaimer: Virtual Instruments Magazineand its staff cant be held legally responsible forthe magazines contents or guarantee the returnof articles and graphics submitted. Reasonablecare is taken to ensure accuracy. All trademarksbelong to their owners. Everything in here is sub-ject to international copyright protection, andyou may not copy or imitate anything withoutpermission.

2005 Virtual Instruments, Inc.


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First DAW

by Nick Batzdorf

A beginners guide to putting together a DAW (digital audioworkstation) for softsynths and samplers. Part 2: audio andMIDI hardware


Letters

Launch

Introductions, updates, news

6

12

10

40

December/January 2005/06

V1.N3

Buick Sessions:Sound design in musicproduction

by Peter Buick

Download a free algorithmic lyric and music program fromwww.VirtualInstrumentsMag.com

34

Very Deep Clinic:Power in Project5

by Jim Aikin

Discover some less-obvious features of Cakewalks all-in-onevirtual workstation

16

Thinking About Reverb

by Dave Moulton

An audio gurus gurus reflection on reflection

Moderately DeepClinic:Disk-streaming

Settings in NativeInstrumentsKontaktseriesSamplers and Players

by David Das

Adjusting those mysterious advanced DFD settings to getthe best performance out of your machines

24


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V I R T U A L I N S T R U M E N T S 5

VI

VI

contents

reviews

51, 56

Notre Dame de

Budapest Pipe

Organ

by Bruce Richardson

One of the worlds most deva-statingly impressive sample libraries

East West

Quantum Leap

SymphonicChoirs

by Nick Batzdorf

Great singers, great engineer, threeseparate mic positions in a great hall,and a utility program for making itsing the words you want.

Native

Instruments

Kontakt 2

by Doyle Donehoo

A major revision of this popularsampler adds convolution reverb,support for 64 MIDI channels, a newinterface, and a whole laundry list ofnew features.

PercussiveAdventures 2

by Chris Meyer

The second volume of the popularoriginal loop and hit library is eclec-tic and fresh.

Prominy Les Paul

Custom Electric

Distortion and

Clean Guitar

library

by Craig Sharmat

The worlds largest single-instrumentsample library isnt all about size.

December/january 2005/06

V1.N3

Interview:GigaInventors Jim VanBuskirk and Joe BibboThe men responsible for GigaStudio and the new samplingrevolution take a look backward, forward, and straight ahead

44

Random Tips:Groove quantizing music that isnt a groove;Memory access in Mac G5s

Trends: VSLs ViennaInstruments PlayerVSLs new player brings their huge sample library underreal-time controlon one sequencer track and MIDI channel

64

20

28

48

50

52

random

tip


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Gig Firewire 800 7200 RPM Raid Drive. Id loveto learn what the settings in Native InstrumentsKontact, Kompact, etc. do as it relates to Direct

From Disk. I frequently get pops and clicks whenloading and playing back samples. I use LogicPro 7.1 as a host. It performs better as a standalone instrument than as a plug-in. But there isno documentation on optimizing those settings.I realize that a G5 with more RAM will help butuntil Apple makes a more powerful laptop this isthe best you can get. A article addressing laptopoptimization would be great.

2. While I use East West Quantum LeapSymphony Orchestra Gold and soon Pro XP, anarticle teaching how to effectively work with anorchestral library and the many articulationswould be real helpful. Im sure that much of itwould apply to any Orchestral library. I also

expect that anyone spending the money on alibrary like that is probably using (or will springfor) Kontact 2 rather than using the suppliedKompakt interface.

Anyway, keep up the good work.

Michael D. LaPoffFort Wayne, IN

Thanks Michael. Were first covering thesecond topic, working with orchestrallibraries, in depthnext issue. That skillis an important partof this new musicalmedium, and youre

right that we needmore of it.

Hopefully youllfind the clinic inthese pages aboutoptimizing Kontakt-family DFD settingshelpful with the firstproblem. You mayneed larger buffersto give the systemmore breathingroom.

Another thoughtis that you might try

using 7200 RPMFireWire drivesrather than eitherthe 5400 RPM onesor the RAID set-up. It might seem counterin-tuitive, but RAID isnt always better on Macsfor streamingalthough that is supposed tochange with some newer software.

Also, do you have a FireWire interface inthe same bus as your hard drives? You mighttry picking up an inexpensive PC slot FireWirecard so you can separate the drives and inter-face on different busses. Your PowerBook

should have enough processing power to runthose libraries without clicks and pops, andyou should be able to load three instances of

the EWQLSC Gold player in 1.5GB of RAMpretty comfortably.

Im not sure its true that every EWQLSOuser just runs out and buys Kontakt 2. Theplayer works very well.

More what we want

A great magazine. How bout a per maga-zine focus section for we laptop users who arerelatively new to pro audioin particular Id liketo see a survey of audio interfaces that connectto my mac. Right now Im just taking the audiooutput of my PowerBook straight to my volume

pedal then to my amp. Sounds pretty good,though Im sure there must be a better way.DonSomewhere where theres emailThe First DAW article on hardware in this

issue should be a good starting point, but wedidnt mention that a lot of audio interfacesare designed with guitarists in mind. Line6 isthe most obvious example (see picture oftheir TonePort UX1) but other companieshave them too.NB VI

VIl e t t e r s

computers. So were about to experimentwith a donationware open-source programcalled Synergy(http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/index.html),which sends just the keyboard and mouseover ethernet to (in our case) the Windowsmachines.

The keyboard and mouse require far lessbandwidth than video, and weve seenSynergy working really well; you just movethe mouse cursor past a prescribed edge ofone of the monitors, and the cursor appearson the next computers monitor. Whatremains to be seen is how reliable a solution

this is over time.

What we want

I love the magazine. Here are a couple ofsubjects Id like to learn more about.

1. Optimization of a laptop based VI system.Specifically my problem involves using East Westlibraries (Colossus, RA, EWQLSO, SymphonicChoirs). Im using a PowerBook G4 1.67 with1.5 gig RAM and 2 external 2-1/2 inch Firewire400, 5400 RPM drives. Also have a G-RAID 500

A blatant example of a guitar-oriented audio inter-

face: the Line6 TonePort UX1.


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1 0 V I R T U A L I N S T R U M EN T S

LaunchIntroductions, updates, news

VIl a u n c h

Garritan PersonalOrchestra SibeliusEdition

This newest version of GPO integratesseamlessly with the Sibelius notationprogram, automatically reading andinterpreting performance indications

from the score (articulations, playingtechniques, slurs, dynamics). Thelibrary comes with a dedicated, 32-partmultitimbral Native Instruments Kontaktsample player, with reverb and severalparameters to adjust. Export your musicto an audio file or convert it to an MP3.$219.

http://www.sibelius.com/products/gpo_sibelius/ 888-4-SIBELIUS orwww.Garritan.com 360/376-5766

The FireWire version of MOTUs 828mkII ($795) is still very much around, but now theyvereleased an otherwise identical USB 2.0 version. Features include a total of 20 inputs and 22outputs, including eight 24-bit 96kHz analog I/Os, 8 x 8 ADAT optical and S/PDIF digital I/O,

CueMix DSP near-zero latency monitoring, stand-alone operation, a MIDI I/O, all the standardMac and Windows drivers, and MOTUs AudioDesk Mac audio software.www.MOTU.com 617/576-2760

BIAS Peak Pro 5 and Pro XT 5The latest versions of BIAS 2-track editor features VST and AU Instrument support, new pitch

shifting algorithms, 100% Redbook Replication-ready CD burning, a new playlist design, auto-matic plug-in latency compensationand about an 8-inch list of additional new features. PeakPro 5 lists for $599, and Pro XT 5 (which includes the Master Perfection Suite of six new plug-ins) is $1199.

MOTU 828mkII High-Speed USB 2.0 Audio Interface

E-MU Modern Symphonic OrchestraThis new 10GB orchestral library has been programmed for E-MUs Emulator X and Proteus

X Desktop Instruments. It cycles through multiple samples with real-time control over bowingtechniques and articulations. $329.99

www.emu.com 888/372-1372

Vienna Symphonic Library Symphonic CubeVSL has expanded their orchestral library into a 550GB 24-bit/44.1kHz collection.

The new version is now sold in ten instruments: Solo Strings, Chamber Strings,Orchestral Strings I and II, Harps, Woodwinds I and II, Brass I and II, and Percussion.

Each of the ten instruments comes with its own Vienna InstrumentVST/AU/stand-alone player, featuring Performance Detection that interprets inter-vals, repeated notes, patterns, and speed to switch to the right articulation auto-

matically. Please see Trends, p. 66 for a more in-depth look at the ViennaInstrument.www.VSL.co.at or www.Ilio.com 800/747-4546


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VIf e a t u r e


by Nick Batzdorf

One exception: the latest trend is for nota-tion software such as Notion, GeniesoftOverture 4, Sibelius, and Make Musics Finale

to interface directly with orchestral samplelibraries. Notion has its own library, Geniesoftworks or is en route to working with severalorchestral libraries, and the other two evenhave integrated versions of Garritan PersonalOrchestra.

These notation programs dont evenrequire a MIDI keyboard for inputyou canmouse in the notes, and theyll trigger thesamples with the expression you enterbuttheyre all capable of recording MIDI in realtime or accepting note entry from a MIDIkeyboard. Most people will want to use aMIDI keyboard.

Now, sometimes two or all three of theabove-mentioned functionsaudio, MIDI,

keyboardare combined in one piece ofequipment. A good example is the AlesisPhoton X-25 controller on the cover of ourlast issue, which is a small keyboard with inte-grated audio and MIDI interfaces (or theother way around, depending on your per-spective). M-Audio and Edirol/Roland offerproducts in the same category. Likewise, a lotof the audio interfaces being sold todayinclude a MIDI I/O or two. (I/O = input/out-put.)

MIDI controller keyboards deserve theirown article and well leave them for a coupleof issues down the line. Also, no hardwarediscussion would be complete if we didnt

mention that unless youre content listeningto computer speakers, youll eventually wantsome studio monitors (and an external ampor integrated amps to power them) that aredesigned for our kinds of activities.

Note that studio monitor isnt a very spe-cific term. Some home stereo speakers arealso sold as studio monitors, while othersarent really built to withstand the abuse thatsynthesizers and samplers can dish out. Themain difference for serious music productionis that studio monitors areor should bedesigned to reveal whats going on, warts andall, while some home stereo speakers may

part 2: audio andMIDI hardware

A beginners guide to putting together

a DAW (digital audio workstation) forsoftsynths and samplers

First DAW

This month were going to discuss the hard-

ware necessary to turn the computers welooked at in Part 1 into V.I. Machines.

That radical transformation sounds pretty

major, but as well explain, it basically means

getting MIDI in and audio out.

Those functions require up to three pieces of

equipment: an audio interface, which is highly

recommended for high quality monitoring but

not 100% mandatory; a MIDI interface if your

controller keyboard doesnt plug directly into

the computers USB port; and a keyboard (or

other instrument controller, such as a wind or

guitar controller) to trigger the virtual instru-

ments running on the computer.


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V I R T U A L I N S T R U M E N T S 1 3

intentionally enhance whats there by impos-ing a pleasant-sounding bass and trebleboost.

Built-in soundThe first option is not to add any audio hard-

ware and just use your computers built-inaudio. While even the most inexpensive audiointerfaces will sound considerably better, youmight be able to get started without one.

Some Windows software such asCakewalks Sonar Home Studio and theNative Instruments synths/samplers will workwith the Windows DirectSound drivers, which

in turn work with most motherboards aroundtoday. Virtually all Mac software uses the OSX CoreAudio driver, which can access thebuilt-in audio hardware, so any Mac capableof running OS X can work stand-alone.

But again, built-in audio is not really anideal solution. The exception is that Mac G5shave S/PDIF format digital outputs that passthe audio over optical cable to another devicewith a digital-to-analog converter, bypassingthe computers built-in audio. That device ismost likely to be a consumer stereo receiverthat accepts optical S/PDIF.

Otherwise the G5 optical digital output isactually a higher-end solution than many

sound cards, since you need some kind ofdigital-to-analog converter to hear the sound.D/A converters with optical S/PDIF inputs arebuilt into some digital mixers, and also intodevices like the Presonus Central Stationmonitor controller, which includes a lotof other useful functions. But onedigresses; lets talk about MIDI.

MIDIFor the uninitiated, MIDI (Multiple

Instrument Digital Interface) is the universalcontrol language for electronic instrumentsthats been the standard for the past 22 years.

Unless youre using the direct notation soft-ware-to-sampler method described earlier toinput music, youll need a controller keyboardor other instrument that sends MIDI. Thatinstrument might be a synthesizer with aMIDI output, or it could be a keyboard thatmakes no sound on its own but sends MIDIto trigger your V.I.s

If your controller has a USB connection to

plug straight into a computer, that means ithas a built-in MIDI interface; the label doesntsay MIDI, but thats whats going down theUSB cable. Most instruments have MIDI out-puts, though, in which case youll either needa stand-alone MIDI interface or one built intoyour audio interface.

Chances aregood that ifyoure using a lotof hardwareinstruments, youalready have aMIDI interfacewith several ins

and outs. But forV.I.s you probablyonly need a verysimple model,possibly one withjust a single inand out. MIDIinterfaces start atabout $40 and goup to $ severalhundred for an 8x 8 model withsync features forworking with tapemachines andstand-alone

recorders.

MOTU, Edirol, M-Audio, EgoSys, andYamaha make most of the stand-alone MIDIinterfaces available today.

Driving the hardwareBefore deciding on the audio interface fea-

tures you need, its necessary to figure outhow the unit will connect to your computerand whether it has software drivers for the

programs youre going to use. With one seri-ously notable exceptionMacintosh comput-ers and their PCI card slots (oi veh!)thatsnot complicated.

First the software. Under Mac OS X, everyMac-compatible audio interface works withthe OS integrated CoreAudio drivers. End of

The RME HDSP9652 PCI card includes three 8-

channel ADAT optical digital I/Os and two MIDI

I/Os, onboard digital mixing, and more. The expan-

sion board adds two more ADAT optical I/Os.

The M-Audio Project Mix and TASCAM FW1884 combine 18-input FireWire interfaces with motorized control

surfaces that work with most if not all DAW software. The faders can also be assigned to control soft synth

and sampler parameters.

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slot connector, a.k.a. the PCMCIA slot, whichis similar internally to PCI.

Historically, internal computer slots havechanged every few years, forcing anotherround of obsolescence. Thats certainly not arecommendation to avoid PCI audio inter-faces, just a way of bringing up that there arenow 66mHz PCI slots; 33mHz slots; 3.3-voltand 5-volt slots; 4x and 8x PCI slots used by

graphics cards, called AGP slots; PCI-e slots;and now faster PCI-Express slots.Most motherboards on Windows machines

have standard PCI slots that work with prettymuch any PCI card. Its important to checkbefore you purchase anything, but compati-bility isnt a huge issue for Windowsmachines.

Macs are another story. First, no PCI cardswork in the latest generation of dual-coreG5s; as of this writing, you mustuse an exter-nal FireWire or USB interface with thesemachines. PCI-Express is a nice format, but itsnot backwards-compatible with PCI.

It gets murkier. Some PCI cards thatworked in Mac G4s dont work in G5s, which

have both regular PCI slots and PCI-e slots.Would you move over, please? Id like to

hide under the bed with you and those pooraudio hardware developers who have to keepup with these changes.

But seriously. Lots of musicians all over theworld work on Macs with PCI audio interfacesevery day; you just have to make sure thatwhat youre using is compatible with your

Mac. And once again, Windows users dontreally have to be as concerned.

FireWire and USBAll FireWire and USB devices in the known

universe are external, meaning that they liveoutside the computers case.

FireWire comes in two varieties: the morecommon FireWire 400, the original protocol;and FireWire 800, which has twice the band-width. Weve all been conditioned to thinkhigher numbers are better, but in reality theextra bandwidth doesnt make an audio inter-face twice as fast. However, it could meanyou can hook up two of the same interfaces

(for more I/O channels) without clogging thebus, or maybe you could hook up a harddrive to the same bus without bogging itdown.

So given a choice between a FireWire 800and 400 model, sure youd take the 800. But400 is absolutely fine; the only FireWire 800interface on the market were aware of is theRME Fireface 800, and it reportedly works finein either a FireWire 400 or 800 port. Also notethat Macs have one FireWire bus thats sharedby the 800 and 400 ports, so using a 400device in any port makes everyone run at 400speed.

USB 1.0 is a much slower protocol thanFireWire, but its fine for a couple of ins and

outswhich may be all you need if yourejust monitoring V.I.sor occasionally, such asin the Digidesign MBox 2, four I/Os. Onething to be aware of is the differencebetween actual discrete channels into thecomputer and inputs into some form of mixeron the audio interface. If you were to see aUSB 1.0 interface with 16 inputsand wedont know of onethats what would begoing on.

As an aside, you can find mixers withFireWire connections into the computeronboard. Mackies Onyx series and AlesisMultimix series are in this category, and theywould be a good solution if you have a lot of

hardware instruments or record live in addi-tion to using V.I.s. Mackies digital mixers, aswell as TASCAMs and Yamahas, can also con-nect directly by FireWire.

USB 2.0 is roughly the same speed asFireWire 400. There are only a few USB 2.0interfaces on the market. Edirol has one, andMOTU has a USB 2.0 version of their 828mkIIinterface, and the USB 2.0 Traveler was justannounced as we went to press. On paper,MOTUs interfaces appear to be comparable

story; any audio interface that works on Macwill work out of the box.

On Windows, virtually all software supportsASIO drivers (ASIO is a format developed bySteinberg that became a standard). Almost allinterfaces support ASIO, so there isnt toomuch to worry about.

The exception is TASCAMs GigaStudiosampler, which bypasses Windows and there-

fore uses its own GSIF format drivers. Youllneed a GSIF-compatible sound card to useGigaStudio stand-alone, i.e. if youre dedicat-ing a computer to running GigaStudio on itsown, with your DAW on another machine.

If youre streaming Giga into a DAW run-ning on the same computers onscreen mixerusing the ReWire protocol, however, then thehost DAWs ASIO drivers take over and youdont need a GSIF-compatible sound card.

PCI cardsAll audio interfaces connect to the comput-

er by a PCI card, or by a FireWire (400 or800) or USB (1 or 2) cable. There are also afew interfaces that connect to the laptop PC

VIf e a t u r e


(CONTINUED ON PAGE 58)

MOTUs 828mkII is now available in two versions: FireWire and USB 2.0. These boxes feature

onboard mixing and a wealth of I/O.

Metric Halos Mobile I/O FireWire interfaces and MOTUs FireWire or USB 2.0 Traveler can be powered by the

bus on a laptop computerno AC is required on location.


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VIm o d e r a t e l y d e e p c l i n i c

However, RAM-based sampling limits you tothe amount of memory your computer canaccess, and modern sample libraries are muchtoo large and complicated to fit in such a smallspace. So Kontakt also has a disk-streamingmode called DFD (Direct From Disk). WhenDFD is active, only the first portion (the attack)of each sample is loaded into RAM.

In this way a large instrument that takes up1GB on disk might only take up 100MB ofRAM. Load times are much faster, since the

computer is only loading a small portion ofthe full sample set into RAM. The biggestbenefit, though, is that the computer hasmore RAM available and can therefore loadmany more instruments simultaneously.

On that subject, the best thing you can doif youre running any samplerfrom RAM orstreaming from diskis add as much RAM toyour computers as possible, up to the limit ofwhat theyre capable of accessing. Undermost circumstances, Windows XP machinescan use up to 2GB. Mac G4s can hold 1.5GBor 2GB depending on the model; theres a

Random Tip elsewhere in this issue about theright amount to install in a G5. Its impossibleto run most modern sample libraries with lessthan about 1GB of RAM nowadays.

DFD for allIn the DFD tab of the Options dialog box,

youll find a few options to tweak the DFDssetup. Bear in mind that while DFD is readyto be used at any time, in Kontakt 2 its onlyactually in use when an instrument that hasDFD mode chosen in the Source module isloaded. You can mix and match instruments(and groups within instruments) that do and

by David Das

Disk-streaming Settings in NativeInstruments Kontaktseries

Samplers and PlayersAdjusting those mysterious advanced DFD settings

to get the best performance out of your machines

Chances are good that if youre reading VI, you

own at least one Native Instruments Kontakt-

series instrument. Even if you dont own Kontakt

itself, so many popular sample libraries come in

integrated Kontakt-family players that its hard to

avoid in todays V.I. world.If youre only using Kontakt (either the original

version, player versions of the original

Kontakt/Kompakt family, or Kontakt 2) for smaller

instruments that use very short samples, you can

run in Sampler mode. That means everything

gets loaded into RAM, and Sampler mode allows

you to use certain looping options and do things

like playing samples backwards.


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dont use DFD freely. In the Kontakt 1 series,

DFD is on or off globally.Figs. 1 and 2 show the basic and ExpertDFD setup modes in Kontakt 2; Figs. 3 and 4show the regular and Expert DFD screens inthe East West Quantum Leap RA player, whichis based on Kontakt 1. The settings are thesame in the entire Kontakt 1 family, includingKompakt 1.

In the Kontakt 2 basic screen there is onlyone control: the amount of memory youwant to dedicate to DFD. You can requestfewer voices, which demands less memoryand more processing power (due to thesmaller buffer), or more voices and memoryas youll see if you try dragging the slider leftand right.

Despite the poor performance label inKontakt 2 (which really means heavier CPUload) there are no right or wrong settings forDFD. Different combinations of computers,hard drives, and sample libraries may workbetter with different DFD values.

Unless youre using a library with instruc-

tions that suggest otherwise, it should comeas no surprise that the place to start is withDFD at its default settings. In Kontakt 2 thatswith the slider a little under a third of the wayto the right; in the Kontakt 1 family thats theNormal (medium polyphony/medium memo-ry) setting.

Dont be afraid of setting Kontakt for toomany voices; the worst that can happen isthat you will begin hearing audio artifacts(pops and clicks), which is a sign that yourcomputer system is trying to work harderthan it can and you need to back off.

Experts only need applyAt the bottom of the DFD page in Kontakt

2 is an ominous-looking button labeled ExpertMode with the caption, Use this ONLY if youknow exactly what you are doing! (Thiswarning isnt in the Kontakt 1 family.)

In Kontakt 2, the expert settings reveal acouple of new settingschannel buffer size,

and the number of reserved channel buffers

and from that information it calculates theamount of DFD memory required. Kontakt 1has three adjustments: Preload Buffer Size,Voice Buffer Size, and Reserved Voices.

The first thing Kontakt does is load the firstchunk of each sample into RAM (the preloadbuffer). Then it fetches the remainder of eachsample from the hard drive. Actually, Kontaktdoes this in chunks. For example, the preloadbuffer may load the first 100 milliseconds ofeach sample into RAM; then while its playingthat, it goes to fetch milliseconds 101200;while its playing that, it goes to fetch mil-liseconds 201300; and so on.

But many factors determine the streamingperformance. The sample rate and format dic-

tate exactly how large the samples are, andso does the number of output destinations.While the majority of people work with monoor stereo samples, Kontakt 2 is also capable ofhandling larger multichannel surround for-mats.

Figs. 1 & 2: The basic DFD mode and frightening Expert DFD mode screens in Kontakt 2.

Figs. 3 & 4: The basic and Expert mode screens in this Kompakt Player (from Quantum Leap RA) are the same in all Kontakt 1-series instruments.



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The Channel Buffer Size setting allows youto adjust how many channels you want toreserve and how much memory per channelshould be reserved. For example, if youreserve 1024 channels, you could theoretical-ly play back 512 stereo voices, or 256 4-chan-nel voices, or 64 16-channel voices, and soon. This parameter is known as the VoiceBuffer Size parameter in Kontakt 1.

(Kontakt 1 and family can work in surroundif you load the front and rear programs in dif-

ferent slots, trigger them together by assign-ing them to the same MIDI channel, butroute them to different Kontakt outputs.)

Note that the Channel/Voice Buffer settingis a maximum. As youll see in Figs. 5 and 6,the actual amount of memory the computergrabs goes up as you play and the buffer fillsup to its maximum. If youre happily playinglots of programs youve loaded into the avail-able RAM but then suddenly start hearingclicks and pops, this is one possible culprit (inwhich case you just need to unload some-thing to free up enough memory, and usuallyrestart Kontakt).

Simple strategyNow that you understand the concepts,

adjusting the DFD settings is straightforward.Lets take a look at an extreme example.

In terms of DFD performance, probably themost demanding Kontakt-format library is theEast West Quantum Leap SymphonyOrchestra, which is recorded with hall reverb

that rings when you release the notes andtherefore uses a lot of polyphony. ThePlatinum version of this library is recordedfrom three stereo mic positions that you mixand match, so you could conceivably have six24-bit voices for every note.

For that reason, the instructions recom-mend a setting of a 192KB preload buffer,384KB voice buffer, and the maximum 256reserved stereo voices. However, many usershave reduced those settingsespecially thefirst twoand have been able to free morememory for loading programs.

Its that simple. You just weigh the numberof voices youd like to play, the amount of

memory that requires, and the performanceof your system.And now that youve made it through this

article, you know exactly what youre doingand are officially qualified to click on the

Expert Mode button. VI

David Das is a composer and producer basedin Los Angeles. He can be visited on the web atdaviddas.com. This article began as an excerptfrom Davids excellent new book Kontakt 2Power!, published by Thomson CourseTechnology (www.courseptr.com); here its beenadapted and also expanded to include the otherKontakt-series instruments.

Small channel buffers require more seekoperations from the hard drive. Big channelbuffers stress the hard drive less. But harddrives always have certain block sizes thatthey are best at delivering, and block sizesthat are smaller or larger than a certain harddrives optimum block size may mean degrad-ed performance. Theres no way to know howa hard drive will perform, short of runningsome very specialized tests on it.

Figs. 5 & 6: An instance of Kontakt 1 is loaded

inside Steinbergs V-Stack VST host, and the two

Windows Task Manager screen dumps show the

memory use before and after playing for a minute.

The increase of over 35MB illustrates how the

Kontakt voice buffer is a maximum, not a fixed set-

ting. If you have a machine loaded close to the

limit of its RAM and suddenly start hearing clicks

and pops when a sequence is playing, this is proba-

bly the reason.



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Review by

Bruce Richardson

VIr e v i e w

Notre Dame de Budapest Pipe

Organ sample library, $459;

compact version, $129.

Publisher: Shirokuma Ltd., 1192

Budapest, Baross u. 4/1. Hungary.www.ndb.hu.

US Distribution: East West

Sound Warehouse

(www.Soundsonline.com), MTLC

(www.mtlc.net)

European Distribution:

Time+Space (www.timespace.com),

Best Service (http://www.bestser-

vice.de)

Japanese Distribution: Crypton

(www.crypton.co.jp)

Format: GigaStudio 3 (preferably)

or 2.

License: One machine, one user.

Notre Dame deBudapest Pipe

Organ Samples

What if I said you could have a reallyhuge organ for only a few hundreddollars? Would you go for it?

Minds out of the gutter, pleaseIn this case Im talking about the NotreDame de Budapest Pipe Organ Samples forGigaStudio 2.5 and 3.0, and it is a monsterorgan (actually a couple of organs) indeed.A whopping 23 gigabytes of sample data ismapped into one giant orgasm for organenthusiasts and orchestrators alike.

One complaint heard about the pipe organsample libraries up until now is that they lackthe ability to mimic common organ tech-niques, like swellbox, tremolo, crescendo, etc.Not so with NDB, which includes all theimportant combinations of stops, along with

a set of tools sufficient to cover all the coverorgan literature from pre-baroque to post-modern. Also included are impulse files forTASCAMS GigaPulse convolution engine inGigaStudio 3, along with recorded release

tails that provide the two cathedrals ownacoustics as flavor for your work.

GigaI was able to load and install the samples

on my GigaStudio machine easily. Afterrefreshing the QuickSound Database, I foundloads of options for creating organ sounds.These include the basic GIG files, which arecollections of individual programs that sharethe same samples, and the new to Giga 3GSI file, which loads more elaborate set-upsof controllers, effects, etc. To get the pro-grammed organ-specific techniques, there areGSI files that are configurable to your specific

controller set-up.In fact, most ofhow you will ulti-mately use this col-lection hinges uponwhat your musicalgoal requires.Composers lookingfor some pipe organflavor may choose touse the straight GIGfiles. Organistsmight set up anelaborate series ofcontrollers and ped-als to emulate the

performance condi-tions of an actualorgan console.

One nice aspect isa comprehensive setof extra-musicalnoises the organsmake. Using all theavailable tools, onecould emulate anorgan performancedown to the most

minute details. Using the impulses provided,one could even emulate the organistsapproach to the bench.

However one chooses to approach the col-lection, it has more than sufficient amenitiesto get the job done, in high style.

WowThe folks at NDB have created nothing

short of a masterpiece. In recording these twoorgans, a very consistent and lush soundstagewas created by NDB Architect and LeadEngineer Csaba Huszty. These tones are con-sistently full, vibrant, and reverberant, but notthe least bit washed out.

The best I can describe the feeling is thatsitting down and playing this instrument for

One of the worlds most devastatinglyimpressive sample libraries


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the first time brought a huge grin to my face.It sounded exactly the way I hoped it would,that singular point on the scale of transparen-

cy versus saturation that a really amazing pipeorgan possesses. There is plenty of cathedralresonance to give a massiveness to the sound,but at the same time the precise chiff of theattacks and release triggers gives NDB a

grounded, solid image that never floats offinto a wash.

Mr. Huszty made the interesting choice of apair of Neumann U87s for his microphonearray, which may account for a great deal ofthe balance of clarity and lushness. Perhapsinspired would be a better description,since this somewhat unorthodox choice of

microphones delivered an end result thatother sample sets have not matched. If I hadto describe the sound in one word, it would

be stunning.In fact, people almost universally have one

thing to say when I demonstrate this sampleset for them. They say, Wow. This collectionhas the huge, full, rich wow factor of the origi-

nal Peter Ewers collection for GigaSamplersfirst incarnation, but the NDB organs manageto retain a pinpoint soundstage accuracy. Youhear individual pipes coming from distinctivepoints in the soundstage, combining to givethe fullness you want without washing out...avery tricky balance, well achieved by Mr.Huszty and his team.

List price for the full collection is $459according to the manufacturers website. Acompact version is available for $129, which

ships on one DVD versus the four of the fullversion, and which does not implement theimpulse designs, or the advanced swellbox,tremolo, etc., techniques. Still, for someonewho is looking for some excellent organ sam-ples to enhance his palette, this could be justthe ticket.

Greatness thrust upon usThe Notre Dame de Budapest Pipe Organ

Samples is without a doubt the finest set ofpipe organ samples I have heard or played todate. You can lose yourself for hours in thesheer grandeur of the playing experience.

And as if thats not enough, you get an

information-crammed booklet loaded witheverything from general facts about pipeorgans, to detailed photos of the instruments,to charts of what stops and combinations areappropriate for what period of literature.Another nice plus is that a portion of the pro-ceeds of each sale goes towards the upkeepand maintenance of these wonderful sourceinstruments.

This is not only a great set of pipe organsamples, but a great example of what a trulyexcellent sample library can be. VI

You hear individual pipes coming from distinctive

points in the soundstage, combining to give the

fullness you want without washing out...a very

tricky balance, well achieved. You can lose

yourself for hours in the sheer grandeur of

the playing experience.


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by Jim Aikin

VIv e r y d e e p c l i n i c

Thanks to the huge increases in comput-er CPU speed and the cleverness of a lotof hard working software engineers, it

really is possible to start with a moment ofmusical inspiration and take it all the way to afinished, mixed composition without everleaving the comfort of your desktop. The line

between self-contained virtual workstationsand DAW (digital audio workstation)sequencers has blurred; every program offers

its own set of featuressynthesizers, effects,automation, and more.

Cakewalks Project5 is emerging as one ofthe leaders in this field. It has a unique com-bination of powerful modules and a friendlyworkspace for sequencing. In this tutorialwell take a look at some of Project5s hiddenfeatures, and show you some tricks for get-ting more music from it.

Needless to say, the suggestions below areonly the tip of a large iceberg. You can learnmore about the programs capabilities atwww.cakewalk.com/Products/Project5/default.asp.

Hidden dimensionsProject5s Dimension synth is a very capa-ble instrument, and worth getting to know. Afull Dimension tutorial would take many

pages, but here are a few ideas to get youstarted.

The Matrix: Regarded. Dimensions MIDIMatrix (see Figure 2) is where you add real-time modulation to Dimension patches. Openthe Matrix by clicking the little MIDI jack-shaped button in the top row of the

Power inProject5Discover some less-obvious

features of Cakewalks all-in-onevirtual workstation

Figure 1: The big picture in

Project5 includes MIDI and audio

tracks (upper area), plug-in synthslike the drum sampler Velocity

(center), effects such as the reverb

(lower left), and an audio editor

(lower right).


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Dimension interface. The Help file explainshow to use the Matrix, but it doesnt explainthe peculiarities of some of the modulationroutings.

For instance, the Sample Offset destina-tions can be used to offset the beginning ofsample playback so that when you play a key,you never hear the beginning of the sample,only the later part. This trick has been used insample-based drum machines for many yearsso that at low velocities, part of the attacktransient of the drum will be skipped, result-ing in a less punchy sound. It can also be

used with string orchestra samples, in whichlow velocities will preserve a gradual attackwhile high velocities start sample playback ata later point for a more aggressive sound.

The string orchestra effect (higher velocitiescausing a later sample start time) are easy inDimensionbut you might think at first thatDimension cant go the other direction forvelocity-controller percussion, because nega-tive depth settings dont do anything withthis type of modulation. But Jesse Jost ofCakewalk had this solution up his sleeve:

First, choose velocity as the source for aMatrix routing and Sample Offset as the des-tination. Set the amount to about -5000.

Next, choose CC 127 as a source and SampleOffset as a destination, and set the depth to5000. In Dimension, CC 127 always has avalue of 127, so in this routing its setting thesample start point to a later value, allowingvelocity to modulate it backward.

Try this effect with the Electric Kicks &Snares patch. Youll find that it sounds goodwith the snares, but not so good with thekicks. Kicks tend to click because the samplestart point wont always be at a zero-crossing,depending on the velocity.

The solution is to switch on the amplitudeenvelope and right-click in the envelope area

to create an attack segment.Move the breakpoint close tothe left edge of the window andthen zoom in (using the mousewheel) to move it even closer.Watch the Time value in thedata display above the enve-lope. An attack time as short as0.5ms will get rid of the click

without making the drum soundmushy.

Envelope control. Each seg-ment of each Dimension enve-lope can respond to MIDI veloci-ty, MIDI key number, or both.This feature opens up a lot ofpossibilities for designing instru-ments that are more playablefrom the keyboard. For exam-ple, you can give high-velocitynotes a longer envelope decaytime, or give the low notes onthe keyboard a longer releasetime. Both of these effects are

characteristic of the piano andother acoustic instruments.The manuals description of

how to do this is a bit terse. Maybe youresmarter than I am, but when I first read thatpressing V on the keyboard would show redvelocity-amount bars beneath the envelope,and then when I pressed V and didnt see anyred bars, I assumed the feature wasnt imple-mented. In truth the feature works fine, but inmost of the factory patches the velocityamount is zero. When its zero, the red barsare invisible.

The procedure for adding velocity responseis simple: click anywhere in the envelope win-

dow, press V, and then click above or belowan envelope segment and drag up or down.A dim red bar appears (see Figure 3). Thesame technique works when you press K onthe keyboard, except that the bars are blue-grey and control keyboard tracking amount.

Other invisible commands worth remem-bering: select an envelope breakpoint andtype S to make it the sustain level. Choose

another point before the S point and type Lto create a looping envelope.

Multisample editing. Dimension plays multi-samples (sets of WAV files in which variousfiles are mapped to individual keys or keyzones across the keyboard), but unlike a sam-pler, it has no user interface with which youcan change the mapping of samples or loadyour own samples. Or does it? If you thinkyou can only use Dimension to play the mul-tisamples provided with Project5, think again.

Heres how to edit multisample layouts andcreate your own:

Launch your favorite text editor. Notepadwill work fine; I use a very nice freeware pro-

gram called NoteTab Light. Its easier if youdont use a full-featured word processor forthis type of work. If you must use a wordprocessor, be sure to save your work as text-only files with no formatting.

Navigate to the directory where yourDimension waveform data is stored. Open theMultisamples directory and choose a subdi-rectory. In some of the subdirectories youllsee files with the extension .sfz. Open one ofthese files in the text editor. (Before you tryediting the factory .sfz files, I suggest makinga backup copy in some other folder on yourhard drive.) You might want to start with thefile Gibson Les Paul Full.sfz, in the 05 - Guitars

Figure 2: The MIDI Matrix gives the

Dimenion synthesizer 16 real-time

modulation routings.

Figure 3: The dim red bar in Dimensions envelope window shows that velocity modulation is active for that

envelope segment.


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directory. This is the multisample used in theLes Paul (bright) patch.

The first few lines (see Figure 4) begin withdouble slash-marks (//). These lines are com-ments. Theyre included purely for humanreading, and have no effect on the actualfunctioning of the file. The rest of the linesare computer code.

The lines beginning with the des-

ignation are key zones. If you compare the

first line with the directory structure in

Windows Explorer, youll see that this linedirects Dimension to use a sample called E1LOWH.wav in the Gibson Les Paul/LOWHsubdirectory. The rest of the line (key=e2lokey=c2 tune=4) gives Dimension someessential information about how to play theWAV file. Its root key (the key at which it willplay its original pitch) is e2 (MIDI key 40).The bottom key is c2 (MIDI key 36, the low-est key on a standard five-octave MIDI key-board), and the fine-tuning value is 4.

Lets suppose that for musical reasons youneed to play a low B with this patch. All youneed to do is change the middle value so thatit reads lokey=b1. (Tip: its usually important

in computer code not to put any extra spacesaround the equals sign, and to follow theupper/lowercase scheme of the letters.) Savethe .sfz fileagain, being careful to save as atext-only file if youre using a word processor.Then reload the Les Paul (bright) patch inDimension. Youll find that the lowest samplenow goes down an extra key, to B1 (MIDI key35).

To examine Dimensions velocity cross-switching, open the file Grand Piano 3Vm3rd.sfz. Here youll find three separategroups of regions defined. The first group hasthe parameter hivel=54, the second has

lovel=55 hivel=107, and the third haslovel=108. If you know a bit about MIDI keyvelocity (it ranges from 0 to 127) youll haveno trouble interpreting this data. This file alsodemonstrates that MIDI note numbers can beused to indicate key zones in place ofletter/octave designations.

Its the Spectre, Phil...Spectral Transformer is certainly one of the

most complex effects processors in any virtual

workstation program. The easy way to workwith it is just to select it in the Add FX menuand start messing with the controls. When

you get done being amazed, however, youllprobably notice that Spectral Transformersoutput is delayed by a noticeable amount. Inany type of rhythmic music, delay (alsoknown as latency) can be a deadly problem.You may also notice that Spectral Transformereats up CPU bandwidth as if it were gua-camole dip.

You can reduce (but not eliminate) Spectral

Transformers latency and ease the CPU hitsomewhat by changing the analysis settings.This can only be done when the Power but-ton (in the lower right corner of the plug-inwindow) is switched off. The best way tounderstand the choices in the analysis settingsbox (see Figure 5) is to launch Project5s Helpfile and read the Spectral Transformer section.Read it about three times. Eventually it maystart to make sense.

Changing the analysis settings doesnt justaffect the latency and the CPU load; it alsochanges the sound of the effect. If you find asound you want to keep, but cant seem toget it to play along with your song because

its audibly late or doesnt leave any CPUpower for other instruments, the solution isthe Bounce to Track command. Right-click onthe track being processed by SpectralTransformer and choose this command, and anew audio track will be created with the spec-trally transformed sound. After muting theoriginal track, save your Spectral Transformerpreset and unload the plug-in.

That takes care of the CPU load problem.But the bounced track will still be lateper-haps as much as 400ms, which in todayshigh-pressure music is about as bad as beingin the next county.

The solution is simple. In the track view,switch off the snap-to grid. Zoom in on the

left end of the bounced audio clip, drag the

Figure 4: Editing one of Dimensions .sfz multisample setup files in a text editor.

Figure 5: In Spectral Transformers analysis settings box (foreground), you can choose your own compromise

between tight frequency response, tight rhythmic response, and latency. Separate effects are loaded into the

four slots in the upper area.



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Review by

Nick Batzdorf

VIr e v i e w

East West Quantum Leap SymphonicChoirs (EWQLSC) was produced by thesame people responsible for the EWQL-

SO(rchestra): Nick Phoenix and Doug Rogers.It was also recorded extremely well by thesame engineer: Keith Johnson.

This team applied the same approach theyused for EWQLSO, recording the choir in anice hall simultaneously from three mic posi-tions and triggering the natural reverb trail

when release the note. And as with EWQLSO,the gigantic sound of this library just knocksyou over when you first sit down and play afew chords.

What really makes the library work well isthe WordBuilder utility program. The develop-ers figured out all the sounds we use in lan-guage, and recorded them. You enter thewords you want in WordBuilder, syllable bysyllable, and then each successive note youplay triggers the next syllable. Its not quitethat simple, but thats the principle.

EWQLSC includes soprano, alto, tenor, bass(SATB), and boys choirs, as well as soprano,

alto, and boy soloists. It comes in its ownNative Instruments Kompakt player, whichhas in all the standard plug-in formats andworks on Mac and Windows.

PerformanceWhile well worth it, this library is quite

demanding of computer resources. First, therelease trails ring when you release notes, andthat uses some polyphony even though choir

is normally only a 4-part instrument (SATB).On top of that, many of the programs havemodwheel crossfades between layers, andthat uses a lot of voices.

Then you need as much memory as yourcomputer can access. Thats especially true ofthe WordBuilder Multi programs, which arespread across four MIDI channels in theKompakt instrument. With three velocity lay-ers of every vowel and consonant known toman, these programs have a huge number ofsamples.

There are also lower-memory versions,but for example a single Full mic position

East West Quantum Leap

Symphonic ChoirsA massive sampled choir library with autility that makes it sing words

East West Quantum Leap

Symphonic Choirs, $995.

Distributor: East West

(www.soundsonline.com)

Platform: Mac OS 10.2.6+ or

Windows XP; standalone (through

Core Audio, DirectSound, or ASIO)

or as VST, DXi, ASIO, Audio Units,

or RTAS plug-ins.

License: Challenge/response

installer limited to two unique

installs.


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modwheel-crossfade Alto choir takes up about420MB (at the default disk-streaming set-tingsplease see the clinic on DFD settings inthis issue for more about that). On top of that,WordBuilder takes up about almost 200MB,but thats outside the DAWs memory space.

Thats on a dual G5 Mac with 5GB of RAMinstalled. I was able to load one stereo micposition of an entire choir (SATB) plus

WordBuilder in this machine quite comfort-ably, but the choir (plus the DAW itself) tookup about 2.15GB out of Logics approximate-ly 3GB of available memory, which whileimpressive doesnt leave you all that muchroom for other instruments. (See the RandomTip on G5 memory elsewhere in this issue for

a discussion of how this works.)Youll probably want to do some bouncing

to disk to free up memory, and if youreworking with a single Windows machineyoull have to bounce in order to get a fullchoir. In fact, if youre really taking advantageof the three phase-locked mic positions theway theyre designedmixing and matchingthem to get the right balance between defini-tion/intimacy and size/ambience, or throwingthe Surround mic positions in the rear chan-nelsthen youll definitely need more thanone machine for a full choir.

ProgrammingEWQLSC has two types of programs: the

above-mentioned WordBuilder Multis andstandard single-channel programs. For eachchoir, there are standard programs with indi-vidual consonants (e.g. mmmm), about eightdifferent vowel sounds (ooh, ah, eh, etc.),and some very dramatic special effects pro-grams. Each of these is available from threemic positions, of course.

Different people work different ways, butone practical way of dealing with EWQLSC isnot to use the big WordBuilder Multi pro-

grams to play melodies while youre compos-ing, but instead just use standard aah (orwhatever) programs. Then when youre readyto get serious with the words, you canreplace the choirs one at a time with theWordBuilder Multi, and bounce the result todisk to free up memory. (For the uninitiated,that means recording it to disk as an audiofile, which takes virtually no memory or

horsepower and only two voices.)A Full Chorus Church choir is only 32MB,

for example, while a regular alto programwould generally be under 50MB. So in theworst case youre loading 200MB for SATBand those programs still sound really nice.

Many of the EWQLSC programs use the

modwheel to crossfade between layers. Theseare very easy to control, and the programsbrighter and more intense as you raise thewheel. Just a little bit of this adds a lot ofexpression.

Whats really impressive is the under-the-hood programming in conjunction withWordBuilder. This is a very complicatedlibrary, but the programing makes it very easyto deal with.

WordBuilderYou only have to listen to a computer

speak text to know that syllables arent pro-nounced the same way every time theyreencountered. Its the same with singing, andWordBuilders function is not just to triggerthe syllables you enter, but also to let youtweak each one.

You can either type words in English, pho-netically, or by using WordBuilders own pho-netic code called Votox. The latter two alsohave a menu of syllables to select with themouse. While initially the least familiar of thethree formats, Votox is actually the mostdirect path to the sound youre hearing inyour head.

Each syllable is represented by a bar on itsown track, with a timeline above going fromnote-on to note-off. You can adjust the posi-tion and length of each bar, and there areshortcuts to enter values or learn them viaMIDI. Theres also a breakpoint level graphunder each syllable, which lets you go in andfine-tune it (crossfading, etc.). If youre usingmelismas (ha-a-a-a-a-a-a le lul yah), you can

make the a-a-a-s all legato with one com-mand.

With most modern sample libraries it takestime to learn all the different articulations;with EWQLSC it takes time to get good atWordBuilder. The program itself is very easyto useits the musical judgment that takespractice.

However, the latest version comes with adrop-down menu with preset Latin phrases.In all honesty, even with a lot of tweaking,the language you enter wont always be100% understandable. What these presetphrases do is make the sampled choir morethan just oohs and aahs. Sometimes nobody

really knows whats being sung, but thewords just add a vaguely Latin vibe. East Westhas a library of user phrases on their websitefor the same general purpose.

In Mac OS X, WordBuilder receives MIDIfrom your sequencer via an internal MIDI busit creates, processes the MIDI, and sends itback out on another internal MIDI bus(although you could just as easily run it on aseparate machine via regular MIDI). Its notterribly complicated to set up, but I did findmyself having to reload WordBuilder andcheck connections almost every time I loadeda new a new Multi in the EWQLSC player.

With the caveat that it can be a li ttle fussy,WordBuilder is a terribly clever program that

makes a seemingly complicated function veryeasy.

OpinionsThe SATB choirs in this library are just gor-

geous, the boys choir is okay, and the solovoices are especially useful in unison withother instruments. Choir is such an incrediblesound that you could sit on the keyboard andit would sound nice, but this library goes wellbeyond that.

If you listen to work people have done withEWQLSC, youll find that it can sound fantas-tic, and it can also sound just plain wrongnot that everyone would always agree which

is which. Thats because the human voice isso complicated. Its certainly not necessary tobury EWQLSC, but in my opinion it generallysounds best when accompanied by otherinstruments.

So in the hands of a good musician,EWQLSC can sound just like a real choir; usedpoorly, it will show its underwear. Either way,EWQLSC does everything right: good singers,top-notch recording, and very good program-ming.

What none of this says is how spectacular itis to play. VI


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Submersible Musics DrumCore ($249 retail) is aMIDI drum module/search engine/database featuringspecially-recorded loops, fills, variations, single hits,and kits from an A list of ten top drummers. Theadd-on DrummerPacks ($79 each) feature threemore legendary drummers (Matt Sorum, SlyDunbar, Zoro) spanning a broad spectrum of styles.

This easy-to-use program features drag-and-dropinto your DAW. Play these great drummers cus-tom kits with the DrumCore MIDI beats, or pro-gram your own. Use the DrumCore samples andothers in your collection. The Gabrielizer func-tion automatically generates new beats based ona selected audio or MIDI groove.

DrumCore can catalog your entire collection oflibraries, and then let you search its loop librari-an by bpm, musical style, drummer, your owndescriptions, and more. DrumCore is the fastestway to the perfect groove.

Find out how to get your groove on atwww.DrumCore.com.

Another

Mungo

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or $20 for two years. Youll be helping us print more issues and more pages,which will only benefit you. Most importantly, youll congratulate yourself forhaving been so intelligent every timeVirtual Instruments Magazine showsup in your mailbox.

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VIf e a t u r e


Welcome to sound design in musicproduction! This series is not meantas a de facto rule book, guide to

good taste, or even something you wontthink is Chinese water torture. We all have dif-ferent musical tastes and ideas.

And that is great.But over the years Ive seen so many peo-

ple struggle at their computers to come upwith somethinganything in fact. Or if theydo, its a struggle to finish the idea withoutruining what was good about it to start with.

We all go through this production night-mare. But when you have deadlines to meet,

you need solutions, not sympathy.Thus well be offering you some custom

tools for Windows XP and Mac OS X via theVirtual Instruments Magazine website. Theseare not intended to be commercial solutions,but that doesnt mean you wont have a hitusing them. It also opens the arena for YOUto interact and contribute elements you havemade from them into the production pool.

We have two main goals: inspiration andproduction. So lets get on with it!

Inspiration 101Logically we should start with rhythm first,

but instead were covering pitch.

There are only so many techniques fordevising a tune or hook. If youre very lucky,you can hear notes in your head. For the restof us, we usually pick some notes out of achord, and for the clever ones, then extendthis out in to a scale. You might also have achord sequence, and then pick the melodyfrom the notes of the chords (but its effec-tively still scale-related).

Most of us will subconsciously (or blatantly)piece together several tunes we have heardfrom somewhere else. It could be a collage ofanything, from childhood nursery rhymes to aclassical music phrase we heard last month.

Given these techniques, you can see thehigh risk for unoriginality and why self-com-posed album tracks can seem all the same. Sohow can we be inspired with something total-ly unique from our own personal style?

The voice of GodAlgorithmic music composers are one

answer. They tend to use random events (orsometimes a picture) as the seed, and thenput them through some sort of scale correc-tion, or a good taste filter. But most of thetime they sound like plinky-plonk alien catfartsscale corrected but still smelling of

cheese!

WordsWords are a great source of inspiration. But

normally they arent related to music. Well,not till now. And the great thing about wordsis we take things with a meaning and makethem say something else, musically.

You can take them from anywhereyourown poetry, a novel, the Bible, newspapers,TV, or radio. Strangely, cooking programs aregreat for this! Foreign languages are equallyvalid.

The words wont be copyrighted the waywe are going to use them. And the original

speaker is highly unlikely to have thoughtthey were speaking a hit pop riff anyway.

AlgorithmsThe way you translate spoken word into

pitch, is up to you. The point is what evertechnique you devise, you apply it in thesame way to every source word. Thats whatwill give us the musicality, rather than ran-domness.

You could make a table of words in aspreadsheet (like Microsoft Excel) and assigneach a pitch. You could just take the vowelsfrom words and use those as the basis for

BUICK SESSIONS:

Sound design in musicproduction

by Peter Buick

Download a free algorithmic lyric and music program fromwww.VirtualInstrumentsMag.com

more

onlinewww.virtualinstrumentsmag.com


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tions, applying half tempo, and then deleting a pattern ofthe remaining notes. We transposed it into a key. Editingthe pitch of the phrase is always an option, of course.

We kept each stage as a copy, just in case that couldlead somewhere else later.

Wrapping upIf you listen to the test MP3

(MIXDOWN_MindMeld_Test.mp3) on the web site, you

can hear some of the options we came up with.The original word phrase is also available as mindmeld

phrase SPOKEN.mp3 in different characterizations,

which is entertaining itself. A keen samplist could also cre-ate a MindMeld sample set of each word and contributeit to the pool. The waves can then of course be made intoa sampler program.

Note that this was all generated from our Mind Meld word phrase;we never used a keyboard. The rhythms and pitches are all derived bymanipulating or editing layers of the original phrase.

Musically, its highly questionable. But the point is we started thisproject with nothing in mind at all. We threw a few words togetherand within half an hour, and we have something we can apply our pro-duction techniques to. Original music will always be about experimen-tation and having to apply your repertoire of production techniquesand your good taste filter to mold it into art.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. But at least you might now consid-er that there is an iceberg out there somewhere! VI

So have we followed any rules here, or just tinkered? Every noteshould be considered in production terms, but the double note was ahuge trigger point. Do we leave it as two of the same, or do wechange or remove one of them? Or do we assign it a different texture(i.e. through velocity)?

For the bass line, we half removed it by merging the two notes andextending the length. This effectively changes the rhythm, which for abass line seemed appropriate at the time.

For the lead line, we decided to make the second note stand out. Wecheated slightly and changed the pitch, rather than the texture orrhythm. But it is another valid option.

Now we are going to use the production techniques more closely.

The Dissection techniqueWe take the rhythm of the word phrase and turn it in

to a hi-hat part by assigning all notes to a fixed note.Make the line monophonic using polyphony restriction,and transpose to your desired percussion sound.

Now we have a mimic rhythm, but its boring androbotic. We can use our splitting concept to make certain

notes have a different velocity. Its your choice what pat-tern you use; the pattern could stem from the words, orit could be inspired by something else.

You may want to make certain notes unique by assign-ing them to a different sound or texture (either layered orexclusive). Or add a single beat effect to them. Dontunderestimate the power of those sentences!

We then copied our hi-hat part and made it into aplod sub bass line by changing the notes to fixed dura-

A test arrangement in Cubase, starting to assign the variations in our phrase

production to textures

.when you have deadlines

to meet, you need solutions,

not sympathy.

Our edited lead line with passing note and ending answer.


.plinky plonk alien cat farts,

scale corrected, but still

smelling of cheese!

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Ive spent a good part of the last 20 yearspondering the phenomenon we call rever-berance, as well as developing my skills at

using it in music production for a variety ofapplications. Much of my research has had todo with loudspeaker performance and theinteraction of loudspeakers with rooms, whichhas led me down some odd paths and tosome interesting insights.

Without boring you with all my adventures

and misadventures, Id like to make somefairly basic observations about reverberance.To begin with, the wash of sound we hear asreverb is the leftover residue of a sound in aspace that comes well after the sound itselfhas occurred. We often find that to beenveloped in that reverberant wash is a pro-foundly satisfying and pleasurable experience.

Before that reverb trail began, however,

some other things went on acoustically in thespace, as well as in our auditory perceptualmechanism. The main acoustic things thathappened were a volley of early reflections ofthe sound source. These arrive at the listenerfrom a variety of different directions, at differ-ent times.

Early reflections have two characteristics:they all are phase-locked with the originalsound (the direct sound), allowing them tofuse with it; and they all occur afterthedirect sound and beforethe onset of audiblereverberance (or within approximately 50 mil-liseconds of the direct sounds arrival at thelistener). The number of reflections, the times

at which they arrive, and the angles fromwhich they arrive are determined by the sizeand topology of the room, and the relativepositions of the sound source and listener inthe room.

What is profoundly important about thisvolley of early reflections is that it provides arich array of data about the timbre of thesound source (as it radiates in all directions),its position relative to the listener, the bound-aries of the enclosing space, and a fairamount of information about what thoseboundaries are made of. Our auditory systemactually uses this array of information to cre-ate an integrated sensory construct of thesound, identifying it and locating it in space.

At the same time, the system creates an effec-tive sensory construct of the environment.

This all happens pre-consciously and quiteseamlessly. Mostly, we are unaware of theintegration occurring. We dont notice howclearly and easily we hear even in sonicallychaotic small spaces. Also, we are not awarethat our use of early reflections to create thissensory construct is asymmetrical. We make agreat deal of use of lateral (horizontal) reflec-tions, but are somewhat confused/distractedby vertical reflections (particularly from lowceilings). Why this should be so is waybeyond the scope of this article.

One final, very curious thing about rever-

berance, at least in music production, is thatwe dont seem to mind at all the existence ofmultiple simultaneous reverberances. Notonly dont we mind, we actually seem toenjoy the cognitive dissonance inherent inhaving, all at the same time, a long decay onthe lead vocal, a different decay on the snaretrack, some short room ambience on thehorns, and a slap echo on the hand-claps. Ihave no idea why this is so, but it clearly is.

Better mixesWe can create much more powerful and

effective multitrack mixes if we keep these

An audio gurus gurusreflection on reflection

ThinkingAbout

Reverb

By Dave Moulton

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things in mind. There are several features tothink about and address.

The direct sound is that dry mono track(usually its mono, anyway). We usually pan itsomewhere between full left and full right,depending on musical issues and a fewrecording traditions. In most sample libraries(and most live overdubs in project studios) itsrecorded dry, with little or no room sound.

The first reflections are two lateral reflec-tions, from left and right. Normally, we createthese with a spreader (a pair of very early

delays panned left and right, fed by an auxbus). These define the basic dimensions of avirtual room that the dry sound is in. They arenever shorter than about 12 milliseconds, andseldom longer than 40ms. They are almostnever exactly the same, but usually have simi-lar values. These first reflections are notusedon all tracks.

The more complex volley of early reflec-tions that follow can be thought of as shortroom ambience and can be generated by anynormal reverb device, although some are muchbetter than others. I usually dedicate a reverbengine to this short ambience. The point of

this is to create a convincing room-ness with-in which dry sounds can exist convincingly.

This ambience is rich in reflections from

across the stereo panorama that decay duringno more than a second, and usually less, suchas 750 ms. Often I will splice this shortambience to a longer reverberant wash forinstruments that seem to need longer rever-berance.

Finally, we have traditional reverberation.Three concerns exist with such reverb, drivenby the nature of the music in production.

They are reverb time, (whatever that reallymeans), predelay (the amount of time it takesfor the reverb to build up in level afterthe

direct sound), and the spectral quality of thedecaying reverb trail (it is generally assumedthat reverb should become darker as itdecays, as happens in most better concerthalls). It is worth noting that not all musicrequires these reverberant trails.

Typical reverb times run between 1 and2.5 seconds, predelays run from about 30msup to 100ms, and there will be a spectrumcontrol capability that changes the spectrumof the generalized feedback in the algorithm,so that it gets darker or brighter as it decays(both applications have their uses). Happytweaking!

So when we are slaving away in postpro-duction, we have four sort of micro-timezones (relative to each musical event) to be

concerned about (see Fig. 1): the directsound, two early lateral delays (maybe), ambi-ence (probably), and reeeverbbbbbbb(maybe, but it depends on the track and themusic).

Our success in this enterprise will dependon how effectively we can manage time inthese various micro-zones.

Convolution reverbs vs.traditional reverb enginesTraditional digital reverbs use mathematical

algorithms to simulate the sorts of behaviorsthat we encounter in a variety of rooms, halls,and spaces. Unfortunately for us, literal mim-icry of large hall behavior is computationallyexpensive to a point where we simply dontdo it, so traditional reverb engines indulge ina number of tricks and sleights-of-ear toreduce the computation needed for accept-able reverb.

Meanwhile, the developers of traditionalreverbs quickly found that we users wantedflexibility. The algorithms must be easily and

effectively manipulated. In that traditionalreverb engine, the algorithms have thereforecome to include complex arrays of delay times,feedback loops with filtering, output taps ingreat stereophonic profusion and usually somerandomization of time to (a) prevent persistentfeedback loops, ringing and tonal centersfrom developing, and (b) to add a livens andvariability to the reverberant quality. The valuesof all these are usually under the control of theuser, to some extent at least.

The best traditional reverb engines havedone this well and are, to my mind, a pleas-ure to use. However, they are not the realthing, just low-cost simulations, and howevernice they may sound, that can be audibly

obvious.


The number of reflections, the times at which they

arrive, and the angles from which they arrive are

determined by the size and topology of the room,

and the relative positions of the sound source and

listener in the room.

Figure 1. The four micro-time zones we need to be concerned with when filling in reverberance, particularly with synthesizers and samplers. The times, of course, are

approximate and need to be tweaked by ear for each musical context.

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VIi n t e r v i e w

The inventors of GigaStudio take a look

backward, forward, and straight ahead

Theres a very good

chance you wouldnt be

reading this magazine if

GigaSampler (now TASCAM

GigaStudio) hadnt come along

a few years ago and revolution-

ized sampling. Gigas big

advance was streaming sam-

ples off hard drives instead ofplaying them from RAM, which

meant they could be as long as

necessary to capture the full

expressive range of the instru-

ment being sampled.

That greatly improved the quality

of the sounds, which led to the

new musical medium this maga-

zine is all about. Today there are

other streaming samplers, butGiga is still going strong and

breaking new ground.

Giga was the product of a tiny

company called Nemesis before

it became part of TASCAM. Two

of the people who invented it,

Jim Van Buskirk and Joe Bibbo,

still work on it.

GigaInventors:

Jim Van Buskirkand Joe Bibbo

Pic caption: Left to right: Giga developers Jim Van Buskirk, Joe Bibbo,

and Robert Bischof. Out of the pic but on the team: Scott Mitchell.


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You were working on virtual instru-ments back in the day before the day.

Jim Van Buskirk: This stuff started outwith a realization that you could conceivablydo signal processing on a general-purposeCPU like an X86. This was when the 386 wasin its reign and the 486 was the hot newthing. It was during a time that Joe and Iwere working at Texas Instruments Signal

Processing Group doing software synthesizersthat ran on DSP. (Later we moved toRockwell.)

But we realized that the host processor wasbecoming a viable computing resource aswell, and the memory restrictions went awayto a large extent when we went to the host-based system. The trade-off was computationfor memory.

Why is that? One would think youdhave more power using a dedicated,optimized processor.

You could get more MIPS of computingpower, but the systemat least for sample-

based instrumentsseemed to be memory-starved, especially on those embedded-typeDSP designs that we were working on.

One of the things that was prevalent at thetime was that multimedia chipsets were start-ing to become popular for gaming, and westarted putting together solutions that run insoftware that would emulate the behavior ofwhat chipsets were doing on the motherboard.

At the time, the General MIDI stuff wasstarting to become popular, and there weresome 2-operator FM chips on the mother-board. General MIDI was starting to replacethose for better music authoring in games.

So we started looking into how we couldmake a General MIDI solution sound betterthan the chipsets, largely by virtue of the largermemory. We knew we had kind of a weak com-puting engine, but we had all this memory.

I think that was one of the things that led

us to some of the caching-type innovationsthat we have done. We came up with cachingalgorithms to make us sound better than theactual chipset.

The timeframe was the early 90s. ActuallyId just come out of graduate school, and wewent to work for Texas Instruments, whichwas the DSP Powerhousethey were theleader in digital signal processorsand theDSP technology, the chipsets were just com-ing into their own. When we started, theDigital Processing group was small. Now itdominates Texas Instruments, a multi-billiondollar company. DSPs were just kind of find-

ing their place inthe world of tech-nology.

Joe Bibbo: Itskind of strangethat we kind ofabandoned thededicated DSPprocessors and

went to X86. Ifyou put themside-by-side, theX86 is not a goodprocessor com-pared to a dedi-cated, special-purpose piece ofsilicon.

But it had thisadvantage that itwas on everydesktop. Soaccessibility beatsout performance,

and the cost ofyour hardware isfree, because everybodys got one, right? Youdont have to sell them a piece of hardware,because theyve got it in their system.

The whole memory issue becomes a realcost-prohibitive thing, because when you putmemory onto a system and it only serves onepurpose, say a reverb, then it gets veryexpensive. But if youre using the host mem-ory, then its used for reverb, its used for yourfilters, its used for every functionit has amultipurpose value, and therefore it becomesmuch cheaper.

So that whole cost model made program-ming on the X86 or on the desktop a verygood solution, even though DSP technologywas really coming into its own at the time.

How did that lead to GigaSampler?

Was it an outgrowth of this?Jim: Technology-wise it was, because westarted looking at caching really early on. Thiswas at a time when we had proven softwarewavetables; we had shipped them on severalmillion motherboards by then. And it gotunder the Microsoft radar.

We had kind of a jolt right around 1995,when Microsoft came and announced, Oh,wed better put this into the operating sys-tem. What that meant to us was, well,theyre going to put it into Windows, theyregoing to give it away for free and, well, theregoes our measly software royalty that we

derived our livelihood from.We were very scared that we would be out

of business overnight. So we looked intogoing into the high end, going into the pro-fessional market, because the only we couldmake money was with a value-add.

It had to be better than Microsofts, and tothe computer guys, the HPs of theworldquality is a hard sell to them. But inthe professional market its completely theopposite: quality is the sell, and people willpay as much money as they need to if itsthat markedly better.

So thats basically the environment under

which Nemesis was able to spin off fromRockwell, where we were working at thetime. We were to develop into the profession-al market, to continue the value-add strategyin the computer market, which we were notgoing to participate in at all.

Of course, it was a passion of ours as well,that this is really what its all about. Goingafter the quality in the professional marketwas a dream.

Giga changed the way people writemusic, at least for media. How much ofthat had you forseen? Im sure it tookeveryone by surprise how far the

libraries pushed the limits, how big andincredibly detailed they got.Well, at first it was if it was software, it

wasnt as goodthat was sort of the percep-tion. It had to be a big old piece of gear thatwas sitting in a rack.

We had no hardware support eitherwedidnt have a single manufacturer out therewilling to write drivers compatible with ourproduct. So we actually had to write some

Documents

Virtual Instruments V01#03 Dec-Jan 2006