Velocity Guitar 1 [Concepts, Part I]
You've heard me say it here before: Velocity is just a sample playback device; that's all. But it's features are geared toward drum sounds, which traps you in a certain mind-set. They could just as easily be used to shape any kind of sample. Those featured parameters do lend themselves well to percussive instruments, and in my mind that includes sharp-attack instruments like piano, and all manner of plucked strings. I'm calling this one
Velocity Guitar just to shake things up a bit, but keep in mind that the concepts presented here are easily transferable to other instruments. There's a lot to cover, so let's get to work. I'm going to sketch out some possibilities for Velocity (in no particular order), and I'll flesh them out later on, should there be a call for it, and this turns into another tutorial series. Here we go:
Keyboard Remapping: Because you can load any sample at any pitch into the pads, and trigger it from any MIDI note, you can easily rearrange your KB by triggering samples that don't correspond to the MIDI note involved. That means that you can reverse your samples to play down-scale as you finger the notes up-scale. Or transpose the samples to playback an
A# augmented scale while you perform in
C Major. Perhaps you feel more comfortable playing in
Am than the
Bbm that's called for. Now, this is nothing that you can't do with the Transpose MFX, but the features here lend themselves to easily changing things up. Think about it: what range of notes do you usually actually cover in a single melody, chord sequence, or bass line? Maybe two octaves, or so? You can cover that within the eighteen pads of Velocity, with a couple to spare (assuming non-chromatic/non-twelve tone scales).
You can also use this concept as a type of algorithmic composition aid: Grab yourself one of those guitar sample CDs from the trade mags, and start loading samples at random by clicking on the empty pads. Then play some of your favorite licks with the randomly remapped samples. I'll bet that you find some inspiration there, and even if a note or two clash heavily with the rest of your sequence, they're easily changed by Repl above the Sample Edit Controls [SEC].
Abusing the Choke Groups: Now this is where it's at, mates. The whole idea behind choke groups is to mute all the other notes in the group when one of the group is triggered. Here's how that applies to a guitar emulation: Want a finger-picking syle of playback? Program the notes found on each guitar string to it's own choke group. For example, in an Em scale, group E3, F#3 and G3 to the low E string group, but jump A3, B3, and C#4 to the next group [A string], while D4, E4, and F#4 go to the next group, and so on. No two notes from the same string will sound together, as they are damped by choke grouping; just like a real guitar. Unfortunately, there are only 5 choke groups, and six guitar srings, so something has to give. I usually make the choice based on context: let the low E string remain ungrouped for songs with walking bass lines, or let the high E string ring out for most other styles.
For lead lines, put all of your scalar notes in a single choke group, to simulate the natural palm muting that guitarists utilize. Another handy technique involves chords [more coming up on that]. Place enough samples [2-6] in a pad to produce a guitar chord, then duplicate those samples in another pad. Both pads are in the same choke group, but mapped to adjacent KB notes. Damp the notes in one pad down with the Start and End controls in the SEC, and perhaps even add some noise by using the Bit reduction there. Leave the other sample set alone. Now just by playing the alternating notes, you can switch from a chunky palm-muted crunch to the chord ringing out.
Power Chords: As mentioned earlier, you can easily load up layers of samples in one pad for chording. But what if you don't have every note that you need to produce the chord? Load the samples that come closest to the desired notes that make up the chord, and use the Tune control in the SEC to bring it to the correct pitch. There's a bit of trial and error here, depending on the actual samples. Sometimes it's better to Tune down an A#4 sample to F4, rather than the closer method of tuning up an E4 to F4. Trust your ears on this one; it really becomes second-nature, once you've done it a few times. And don't trust that the sample is at the actual pitch that it's name implies. I've found quite a few samples that were way off. Fortunately, there's an easy solution: The controls in Velocity are among the most accurate in Project5, when used in conjunction with the Shift key. You can move any control in the sampler by single-digit increments by holding the Shift key. Remember this one, as it applies to
everything; not just the Tune knob.
This procedure can be adapted for simulating twelve-string guitars, with samples placed an octave apart, or simultaneous lead and bass lines, or triple-threat harmonized guitar solos, with a minimum amount of effort. And double-stops are easy, too. Just load two notes a fourth apart in one pad.
Velocity Switching: Until now, we've assumed a full velocity range of 0-127 for the samples, but Velocity [the sampler] has the easist method of implementing a velocity switch in P5; much easier than the DS864. Just click on the numbers and drag them. Keep in mind that they all work backwards, though. Dragging the V Lo to the left increases the value, and dragging the V Hi to the right decreases that value. Same for the Gain numbers. It's weird, but I'll trade that off for the ease of use. Just Add another sample, adjust the V Lo & V Hi ranges, and keep Adding another sample until you're satisfied. I haven't found the upward limit on the number of samples yet.
This also opens up some possibilities based on initial key pressure. You can adapt the palm muted/open chord method described above to velocity switching, and go from chunky to ringing with playing technique. But there is no rule that says the velocity layers have to be the same sample, or even the same pitch. This allows for some great guitar-like pyrotechnics, like hammer-ons and pull-offs. Just load two samples a minor third, fourth, or even an octave apart, and slap between them with your playing style. Watch out, Eddie Van Halen: There's nothing stopping you from doing right-hand style tapping riffs using velocity switching, alternate pads, and choke groups together, and you'll burn up your controller in the process!
Here's another one: Often guitar players will use a combination of open strings and barre chords, striking a chord with open strings and three fingers, then rapidly hammering-on the index finger to complete the barre chord. Program one pad with the open strings at low velocity; the barred notes at a higher velocity, and the remaining three 'fingers' covering the full range. Remember that you can adjust gain level to minimize the effects of the velocity message, and smooth out any level changes between chord shapes.
Pitch Bending: Well, there had to be something missing from this adaptation. I can't for the life of me understand how the programmer of Velocity didn't anticipate me using the sampler in this way! <g> So, with no pitchbend recognition, and the Tune control unable to be automated, we'll have to work with what we've got. If you really need some severe upward-bending whammy bar effects, you'll have to bring in a specific sample with that as an intregal part already. For more limited effects, we'll use the Pitch EG. You can pitchbend downward using the Decay knob, but anything too extreme begins to resemble disco drums. You can get some great low E string dive-bomb effects with conservative settings.
The special feature here, though, involves the velocity knob. With a low Decay setting, and subtle velocity knob settings, you can simulate the slight increase in pitch when a taut string is struck sharply. There's another effect with increasing velocity knob positions that I like to call "Tin Cans in the Wind". Set this up across two "strings" [pads], and vary your striking pressure to the controller keys. The samples dance around close to a cental pitch, but are distinctly out-of-tune with each other. It's great stuff for industrial or movie score material. And remember the double-stop sample pair described above? Use only the velocity knob, and bend those notes up with your KB controller 'attack'.
There's another effect that invokes a guitarist applying downward pressure to the whammy bar while trilling between two notes on a string. Set up a pattern of alternating trilled sixteenth notes in P-Seq over a measure or so. Select velocity and the Automation Tool, and Shift-click a straight line from top to bottom over the length of the trill. The result is a steady bending of the alternating notes downward, into a natural fade-out, caused by the decay of the guitar strings in a real-life scenario. Ctrl+A to select everything, then Retrograde [Ctrl+R] the whole thing to fade-in and trill in an upward direction. Very realistic!
Enough Already!: Whew! My head hurts! There's
way too much to explore for a one-part tutorial, even with only sketching out the concepts. Next time, I'll put together some thoughts on the Loop, Filter, and Amp EG sections, along with reversed samples, in-depth Sample Editing Controls, and anything else that I may have forgotten to include from my explorations. And this is just the introduction! I hope that this tutorial gave you a new sense of what can be done with the included synths in Project5, if you just look past the obvious uses. Please feel free to ask for any expansion of the concepts into a more detailed form, and I'll see what I can come up with. I've been working on a set of example files to go with this stuff, but the project just keeps getting deeper and more involved. I thought it best to just get some ideas out there, and let all of you shape what direction these concepts go in. Have fun with this ...
Minor Editing Adjustments Performed.
post edited by b rock - 2005/03/27 23:35:50