Hello everyone!
I've been loving delving into Alto and Virta and the Soundplane.
I have a big nasty plastic PC dedicated just to Madrona.
I'd love to chat with anyone about techniques to CALM the storm that is Aalto as i'm struggling to make expressive, warm and subtle sounds (to be performed soley by the Soundplane) and would love any advice and discussion.
Spending half a day looking through our shared sounds, I did notice that they're almost all harsh, noisy, machine-like and random… one was a hilairous trap: a gently named but offensive wall of noise (you know who you are hah! Well played, sir).
I should make more Soundplane-specific examples. Right now the way I approach a mellow Soundplane patch is often to start with one of the "aalto keys" patches and then change the modulation over to Soundplane.
The Factory patches, specifically keys and pads, really represent my best efforts at making things musical and mellow.
@andrew
with the soundplane (and other expressive controllers) , I tend to keep patches simple, as much of the character comes from the player thru the controller.
one thing, I like, is whilst all my patches sound different, I like them to behave in a similar way ,this (for me) makes the SP feel more like an instrument, because it has a 'character'.
what I tend to do is control level directly with z,(usually with LP enabled) this leads to subtle control, as the SP is relatively 'slow'. (you need to use velocity,envelopes if you want punchy) . then y, i often use to drive timbre/cutoff, to brighten the sound. z sometimes also does this, so when you push in it accents the notes.
one 'problem' I have with Aalto (and Ive mentioned before ;)) is the modulation amount is per input ... this means you are limited in how you can use multiple modulation sources, as you cannot tune in the effect correctly
e.g. imagine your using Y to modulate cutoff freq, and you want it to be quite 'pronounced', but you also want cutoff freq to track pitch, you cant really get a good balance.
in code we have amt * ( y + pitch) when we really need ( yamt * y ) + ( pamt * pitch)
anyway, this is just how I use Aalto with the soundplane, for sure there are lots of other ways, Id love to hear more about others approaches.
Id also love some advice on Kaivo, Ive alot more difficulty getting good things out of it with SP, than aalto.
I'm going to remember that name; "Big Nasty Plastic"
^.~
LOL, me… failing to push the "post" button almost a year ago.
People, we need more Soundplane videos up on youtube and on stage… both! Specially technofear… you really sound like you're engaged in making awesome sound.
I think last time I saw one was at an NIN concert!
Definitely looking forward to more discussion on this; for 2017, Aalto's talent at making aggresive sound has mainly been screaming through the SFX in video-post!.