Tweaking sound and response and adding tone color presets

Comments

• Perry

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  One of the things I tend to do is apply sometimes "drastic" external EQ to achieve a desired sound. The onboard tools like formant and resonance are pretty effective too. I think you have a great idea in having a preset sharing spot on this forum.
  
  I wonder if including an actual filter and EQ within SWAM would be beneficial? It might be cool to have an air "balance control" where you not only turn up the air noise but turn down direct sax sound in contrast. I would love to see a "spit & grit" setting in there as well! -Perry-
• Giorgio Tommasini

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  Why are you referring to SWAM? Our incoming major upgrade to Kontakt based Brass will yield multitimbral features, which SWAM based instruments are far from providing. As repeatedly said, the two lines of Samplemodeling instruments are complementary. We strongly believe that Kontakt based instruments still represent the state of the art of virtual intruments. :-)
  
  
  
  Giorgio & Peter
• Kobir

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  I am referring to SWAM since it is the main engine I use, but everything can apply to both the Kontakt instruments and the SWAM instruments and I am aware you continue to develop for both.
  
  
  
  I think less knowledgable people like me, are having hard time softening some instruments harsh sound for certain styles of music, tweaking the timbre to match their artistic desire or controlling and mapping some advanced features like portamento and wah wah mute.
  
  
  
  I thought it would be great to have step-by-step tutorial for tweaking SM instruments for different goals and a library of presets of different styles, created by SM and the community.
• Kobir

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  I spent yesterday hours tweaking some settings on SWAM saxophones and clarinets with my WX5 by trial and error and managed to get softer alto sax, deeper tenor sax and clarinet sound and better vibrato control on all (I found that mapping both vibraro depth and speed to same controller allows control of some very smooth transitions on both wind controllers and keyboards). I also noticed that adding a bit of constant flatter (around 3-4) make sound a bit more alive and edgy. It is fun experimenting with these incredible instruments.
• lafauna

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  Thank very much you Kobir. Very good tips!
• Kobir

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  I did lots more tweaking in past few days of SWAM saxes and clarinets, using hi-end headphones to notice each small nuance. I noticed default compression was too high for my taste for all instruments and that the more reverb you mix over 50, the more flat the sound gets. I also noticed the dynamic range from quiet to loudest of the clarinet is much wider than that of the saxes, so lots of the setting needs to be adjusted differently. I noticed breath noise add some strange noise that can be heard with headphones on all instruments, so I turned that down quite a bit. I am now happy with the settings I have for the tenor and baritone saxes and especially happy with the clarinet.
  
  I will be happy to share my presets, if anyone is interested.
  
  Kobi
• lafauna

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  I'm very interested.
  
  Thanks again.
• Kobir

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  Here are the two presets I most happy with:
  
  
  
  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/trza83cwh20ybj2/KaCR1ylvPN
  
  
  
  Keep in mind they are tweaked specifically for my Yamaha WX5 and to my personal taste.
  
  
  
  Let me know what your feedback.
  
  
  
  Kobi
• lafauna

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  When loading the presets, doesn't make any changes,
  
  it's strange.
  
  Are you using 32 or 64 bits versions?
  
  I only have installed the 64 bit versions.
  
  
  
  EDIT
  
  
  
  Sorry, I didn't donwloaded right!
  
  I'll try your presets
• lafauna

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  Excelent work! I'm enjoying a lot your presets,
  
  The only things I changed is switch off the reverb ( I use
  
  Vienna MIR), and asign vibrato rate and depth to the same
  
  controller (as you sugested), in my case cc1 in the lip sensor (I'm very bad controlling pitch bend with the lib).
  
  Sure this will be my new default presets.
  
  
  
  Thank you very much to share your hard and excelent work.
• Kobir

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  I am glad you like it. Vienna MIR sounds amazing, but I don't think the price is right for me. I will likely buy a very recommend and light on resources reverb that fits live playing, like Reverberate. (http://www.liquidsonics.com/software_reverberate.htm)
  
  
  
  On mapping vibrato depth and rate to same controller: I noticed on live playing I sometimes needed more depth, but only 50% of rate. I also got high rates that sounded unreal sometimes when pushing button quicky. ideally, I would want to limit the max value of vibrato rate, but get the full range of vibraro depth. At this point in time you can't do it in SWAM UI, so I compromised on fixed rate that fits most of the music I play.
  
  
  
  P.s. I updated the presets late last night with some minor tweaks, without renaming the files, so I recommend you make sure you have the latest version. In the future, I will post more presets there under different names...
• lafauna

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  It would be great that Swam can map controllers.
  
  For this kind of problems I use a program called
  
  Pure Data, very useful for manipulate MIDI, but it
  
  complicate the setup, and have to add virtual MIDI cables.
• Kobir

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  I had an idea of using some midi convertion plugin like insert piz midiconvertor3 and map CC17 (mod wheel down on my WX5) to two different CC and limit the range of the one for vibrato rate and then map the two output CCs in SWAM (this is actually built into Kontakt...)
  
  
  
  I am currently preperring for my first live gig with WX5 this Saturday, so will probably not have time to do this experiment before, but hopefully after.
• dickbarbour

  May 2013 edited 9:30AM

  Kobi,
  
  Thanks for sharing your clarinet and tenor presets. I finally got around to trying them and I like them, especially the clarinet. I had been able to get a tenor sound that I like, but never too happy with the soprano clarinet. I'll now have to spend some time figuring out what you did!
  
  Dick
• Kobir

  June 2013 edited 9:30AM

  I added two new SWAM presets to the DropBox folder for both SWAM Tenor Sax and SWAM Soprano Clarinet.
  
  
  
  The new presets are called:
  
  
  
  Tenor-Sax-Kobi-v13-dry-SWAM-WX5.swam
  
  Soprano-Clarinet-Kobi-v14-dry-SWAM-WX5.swam
  
  
  
  These presets are dry from reverb since I use LiquidSonics Reverberate in my new live setup (if you don't have external reverb, you can move reverb mix slider to 26.7, to match reverb mix of previous presets). I also removed the transposition of the tenor, since I use instead a Reaper transposition plugin, which is easier to transpose on-the-fly. The tenor sax new preset have several tweaks that generated softer and less squeaky tenor sax sound (especially in higher octaves) that works great in bossa nova, ballads and swing. New preset for clarinet have more character and dynamics that I love playing for old swing and bluesy tunes. These presets also have less compression, since I use them for live playing and I have more control to blend better with band, when compression is reduced.
  
  
  
  Let me know what you think. Do they sound better/worst than previous presets to you?
  
  
  
  DropBox folder with previous 2 presets + 2 new presets is:
  
  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/trza83cwh20ybj2/KaCR1ylvPN
  
  
  
  Kobi
• lafauna

  June 2013 edited 9:30AM

  In my first impression, I thing I prefer the new versions,
  
  specially the clarinet, I like less compression too.
  
  But both versions are very good.
  
  
  
  Thanks for sharing.
• dickbarbour

  June 2013 edited 9:30AM

  Kobi,
  
  Thanks for sharing more of your presets. I don't think they are either better or worse than the first ones, just different. I usually don't use any external reverb on the SM instruments, just some delay in addition to the built-in reverb, but I thought I would try Reverberate that you mentioned, so I downloaded the 30-day demo. Man, that is one complex package; I'm not sure I want to spend the time to learn how to use it fully, but maybe some of the presets will be useful. Thanks again for your contributions here.
  
  Dick
• Kobir

  June 2013 edited 9:30AM

  Internal SWAM reverb is not bad, but I needed anyway good quality and light reverb for other virtual instruments.
  
  
  
  I like the factory "basic hall" preset in Reverberate and just reduced in the mixing tab, the total mix of reverb to around -12.
  
  
  
  Reverberate sounds great to me, very light on cpu resources and works great for live playing (I just put it on master track and leave most instruments dry).
• dickbarbour

  June 2013 edited 9:30AM

  OK, I tried Reverberate with the dry clarinet and sax. I found the Basic Hall a little too much, but played with some of the other presets (there are a lot of them!) and like the Bright Chapel sound.
  
  Dick
• Kobir

  June 2013 edited 9:30AM

  Thanks. I will check out the chapel preset, since I haven't played with that one. I like mixing only small amount of reverb to add some echo, without muffling the sound.
• Kobir

  March 2014 edited 9:30AM

  I did many tweaks to my wind controller SWAM sax and clarinet presets (works great on both EWI and WX5) recently due to SWAM updates to 2.2.0 and also test results that made me move to use external compression instead of the SWAM internal one (I use the great freeware BLOCKFISH compressor). I am super happy now with both tenor sax and soprano clarinet tones, so thought it is good time to share it with you all.
  
  
  
  I use mostly external reverb (leave just a bit of internal for thicker sound), so it might sound too dry without adding reverb and too dynamic without adding external compressor. In addition to SWAM presets, you will find here a folder with my full Reaper live setup, with macro shortcuts and many tweaks for midi and sound done to each instrument. Even if you miss instruments or plugins in your VST library, Reaper is smart about loading what you have, so you might find it useful even if you own only some of the instruments (live setup includes tracks for selected SM instruments and couple from other vendors). The keyboard macros is what allows me to switch quickly between instruments or select combos.
  
  
  
  Here is the link to the shared folder:
  
  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/trza83cwh20ybj2/KaCR1ylvPN
• dickbarbour

  March 2014 edited 9:30AM

  Kobi,
  
  Thanks as always for sharing your findings and settings for all of us. I'm going to give some of these latest ones a try as soon as I can.
  
  Dick
• jazzist

  March 2014 edited 9:30AM

  Hi Kobir,
  
  thanks for sharing. I tried your setup (including Blockfish), very nice indeed!
  
  Two remarks
  
  a) I used your tenor setup for the alt. This makes an ultra mellow sound, really cool.
  
  b) I am also using the WX 5. For me, in general, pitch bend responsiveness was really not there (large sweet spot problem), so I detuned the Sax to 450 Hz, set the Lip Zero point (knob at the instrument) pretty high, so that I have to bite really hard to reach Zero, and set PB D 2.5 and U 3. This way I am really happy, pitch bend is really responsive (even though I am effectively using only half of the range). Of course recorded MIDI PB values have to be edited when played back with an "in tune" instrument.
• Kobir

  March 2014 edited 9:30AM

  After 4 years with WX5, I bought EWI USB a month ago and I like it. I found PB range on WX5 to be very tricky, since the reed sensor seems to jump between values, so if range is high, it sounds jerky and unrealistic. I find EWI bite sensor to be easier to bend smoothly and in general the saxes sound better on EWI for some reason (maybe due to more dynamic range of breath sensor). The main reason I bought the EWI is the key delay setting on WX5 was not working for me. The key delay technology on EWI is indeed much better and allow you to play smoothly with no weird attack issues. I am still getting used to touch keys and octave rollers, but in general, I think EWI is better.
• MSchnell

  March 2014 edited 9:30AM

  Did you ever try a WX7 ?
  
  
  
  I played with same some 20 Years ago and it still waiting for me to purchase the Swam Saxes.
  
  
  
  I never noticed that the lip sensor "jumped", even though I used a rather high pitchbend rage for same (only playing funny DX-Synth sounds with the device).
  
  
  
  In fact I am no decent sax player at all. I never owned any hardware Wind instrument. So I can't decide which is a decent feel for those sensors.
  
  
  
  -Michael
• Kobir

  March 2014 edited 9:30AM

  Never tried WX7 and based on forums, it might be better in these areas. I find the Lip sensor on WX5 to create a flat response, similar to the finding of this article:
  
  
  
  http://www-acad.sheridanc.on.ca/~degazio/AboutMeFolder/MusicPages/EWI-WX5.html
  
  
  
  My personal expirience trying to get realistic vibraro using lips on WX5 was not good and it maybe due to the reason outlined in the article (most vibraro in my WX5 recordings is done using vibraro depth mapped to CC 17 pitch wheel)
  
  
  
  The ewi bite sensor is not as natural to use for sax players, but can produce smoother vibrato response using lips and teeth.
  
  
  
  I think WX5 was meant to be used with VL70m and it works best with it (I believe WX port has more data transmitted than midi port), but as midi controller for VSTi, it is more limited than ewi.
• MSchnell

  March 2014 edited 9:30AM

  It might be possible to tweak the controller value curve by using a tool like Bome's MidiTranslator:
  
  
  
  http://www.bome.com/products/miditranslator
  
  
  
  -Michel
• Kobir

  April 2014 edited 9:30AM

  I updated my clarinet and tenor sax SWAM presets today, after some additional tweaking. Managed to get fuller and more dynamic sound and more responsive sax for quick key changes for latest SWAM versions. This tweaked for wind controller playing. Let me know if you have any questions.
  
  
  
  It is in the shared Dropbox folder (as well as latest live multi setup Reaper project file):
  
  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/trza83cwh20ybj2/KaCR1ylvPN
• dickbarbour

  April 2014 edited 9:30AM

  Kobi,
  
  Thanks as always for sharing. Will try them soon. I've been using some of your previous Reaper setup ideas and Clarinet/Sax presets and they are nice!
  
  Dick