My search for a tiny synth lead me to the Alesis Micron, and I also checked out some demos from Alesis ION since they basically share the same guts. I came accross this blog called matrixsynth, and found a surprisingly well done brass sound. The brass is not a synth brass, but it's an orchestral brass sound. Given ION's limited capabilities, I'm surprised these brass sounds do so well, better than any physmod brass I've heard.
http://home.att.net/~synth6/Ion_Brass.mp3
I just wonder how the heck this was done. ION has 3 osc, sync and FM.. clever filtering? Not sure. I think I now have a new project. If this can be done on ION, I know it can be done in modular. It just sounds so darn good, I'm actually a little upset that I hadn't done something similar in mod.
Original article:
http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2005/11 ... hardt.html
Best brass sound ever, from Alesis ION
Re: Best brass sound ever, from Alesis ION
well, there is a decent chorus/delay reverb(?) to glue the sounds together, but imho the convincing 'realism' is due to the authentic orchestra brass arrangement.kensuguro wrote:... Given ION's limited capabilities, I'm surprised these brass sounds do so well, better than any physmod brass I've heard...
focussing on the individual 'instruments' I'd even suspect you can do the very same thing on a Yamaha TX802, the multitimbral version of the DX7II, but it's a pita to program... even picking the programs from existing presets and setup a performance isn't exacty fun
it's a good example to use the tools we have instead of constantly searching THE perfect solution
cheers, Tom
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synthetic88
- Posts: 134
- Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2007 9:48 am
Sounds pretty good for a synth. Check out Wallander Instruments' WIVI for better
orchestra brass using physical modeling.
http://wallanderinstruments.com/
orchestra brass using physical modeling.
http://wallanderinstruments.com/
Exactamente !!
But, the sound must be there as well. I still use the Santana mod wheel feedback sample from my 8 bit Ensoniq Mirage ( 1984 ) converted through the years to EOS, to Gigasampler, Gigastudio, GS3, and now GVI. Funny I have spent over 1500 USD on sampled guitars, even the Steve Vai VSL library can't touch it. But it all boils down to how it's played, or if it's playable. The reason this sample sounds so good is real time control of just 2 layers, so simple. Layer one is the recording of the actual Gibson SG through a distorted amp, and layer 2 is the feedback on the fifth, which the player bleeds in as desired. I have pissed many guitarists off when I do fingerpicked 12 and 6 string acoustic compositions, and even more with the Santana MW.
GS4 from what I hear will allow me to take all of my favorite content and add enormous amounts of performance control and mix multiple libaries together to get everything totally customized.
I Am Stoked.
But, the sound must be there as well. I still use the Santana mod wheel feedback sample from my 8 bit Ensoniq Mirage ( 1984 ) converted through the years to EOS, to Gigasampler, Gigastudio, GS3, and now GVI. Funny I have spent over 1500 USD on sampled guitars, even the Steve Vai VSL library can't touch it. But it all boils down to how it's played, or if it's playable. The reason this sample sounds so good is real time control of just 2 layers, so simple. Layer one is the recording of the actual Gibson SG through a distorted amp, and layer 2 is the feedback on the fifth, which the player bleeds in as desired. I have pissed many guitarists off when I do fingerpicked 12 and 6 string acoustic compositions, and even more with the Santana MW.
GS4 from what I hear will allow me to take all of my favorite content and add enormous amounts of performance control and mix multiple libaries together to get everything totally customized.
I Am Stoked.
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synthetic88
- Posts: 134
- Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2007 9:48 am
im far from an expert on this stuff, but to me that patch doesnt sound particularly remarkable, it think it is indeed the way its played (as stated above)...that said, have you checked out the 'synth secrets' articles from soundonsound? here is a link to a part on synthesizing brass instruments, with diagrams and such....may be helpful.
It's interesting what I stumble across by accident in Google. I seem to find new message boards I've never heard about when I find a post about my synth work.
Those Alesis demos are mine, and you can also hear some Ion trumpet and trombones in the Westen Demo. I believe there is text there explaining what all of the sounds are in that demo and the order they come in.
I should point out that it's not just about the playing since the sounds need to sound somewhat real in the first place. And since in that brass demo I'm mostly just playing block chords, there's nothing that's really pushing any kind of performance realism very far anyway. If I wanted more realism in playing, I'd multitrack all the parts separately so they'd all vary somewhat. I'd also use separate patches for trumpets, trombones, and tubas as opposed to a generic brass patch that kind of covers all the bases as I did in the main part of that demo (the semi-french horn near the end is an unrelated patch).
It's been a long while since I've looked at my Ion brass patches, but I don't believe I'm using any onboard effects, but if I am it's something rather subtle. The Ion doesn't have reverb or a long delay. There is outboard reverb and EQ used though. I tried to come up with a filter configuration to get something close to real brass and that was a hi-pass and low-pass in series giving a somewhat bandpass response, but the hi-pass has a decent amount of resonance to give me the main brass instrument formant/resonance. There's velocity sensitive loudness/brightness for individual note expression and also a foot pedal doing the same thing for brass swells and such. I believe the envelopes are VC controlled so the harder they're hit the faster they respond. I have a tiny bit of FM brass-like gurgle on the attack. I've got some very realistic brass on the Arturia Moog Modular and am working on the end all and be all of subtractive synthesis brass synthesizers in Reaktor in addition to woodwinds and strings.
As for Wallander brass, it's NOT physical modeling. It's some form of additive synthesis. Actually it's a resynthesizer. It gets its data from real brass instruments and each brass sound takes up several megabytes. I'm trying to get close to that realism and expression with my Reaktor based brass synth.
-Elhardt
Those Alesis demos are mine, and you can also hear some Ion trumpet and trombones in the Westen Demo. I believe there is text there explaining what all of the sounds are in that demo and the order they come in.
I should point out that it's not just about the playing since the sounds need to sound somewhat real in the first place. And since in that brass demo I'm mostly just playing block chords, there's nothing that's really pushing any kind of performance realism very far anyway. If I wanted more realism in playing, I'd multitrack all the parts separately so they'd all vary somewhat. I'd also use separate patches for trumpets, trombones, and tubas as opposed to a generic brass patch that kind of covers all the bases as I did in the main part of that demo (the semi-french horn near the end is an unrelated patch).
It's been a long while since I've looked at my Ion brass patches, but I don't believe I'm using any onboard effects, but if I am it's something rather subtle. The Ion doesn't have reverb or a long delay. There is outboard reverb and EQ used though. I tried to come up with a filter configuration to get something close to real brass and that was a hi-pass and low-pass in series giving a somewhat bandpass response, but the hi-pass has a decent amount of resonance to give me the main brass instrument formant/resonance. There's velocity sensitive loudness/brightness for individual note expression and also a foot pedal doing the same thing for brass swells and such. I believe the envelopes are VC controlled so the harder they're hit the faster they respond. I have a tiny bit of FM brass-like gurgle on the attack. I've got some very realistic brass on the Arturia Moog Modular and am working on the end all and be all of subtractive synthesis brass synthesizers in Reaktor in addition to woodwinds and strings.
As for Wallander brass, it's NOT physical modeling. It's some form of additive synthesis. Actually it's a resynthesizer. It gets its data from real brass instruments and each brass sound takes up several megabytes. I'm trying to get close to that realism and expression with my Reaktor based brass synth.
-Elhardt