NoisyLittleBugger

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Tempest Recipes: Sub-bass

Analogue purists avert your eyes now. It’s time to look at the digital oscillators.

Logic dictates that having 2 digital-sample oscillators provides us with a massive additional palette of sounds. The on-board samples are pretty good, although they are short. To my ears many of the samples sound highly saturated, evident in a noticeable buzzing. Are these the boosted harmonics? Nobody is telling…

Consider a sine wave. A perfect sine wave contains only one harmonic – the fundamental frequency. Apart from self-resonating filters, analogue sines are not easy to achieve and only a few synthesizers have the option – even then these are not perfect sines. Given the choice, I prefer the perfect sine sample.

Today we will use the 130.81Hz sine sample to make a highly usable sub-bass patch:

  • Start with a initialized patch and hunt down this sample to put in Osc 3. Turn it’s pitch down to -24.
  • Use ADSR envelopes and set the Amp with an attack and release both at 40, full sustain. The idea is to get just the sub-tone on key-down without any envelope clicks. On key-up the sound should stop fairly abruptly. Set Amp envelope amount to a generous level (64 or so) and turn-down the velocity sensitivity to around 32.
  • Leave the Filter wide open with zero resonance. Since sines have no additional harmonics, there is nothing to filter.

This should already be a familiar sound – more ‘felt’ than heard. Alone it sounds unspectacular, but it shines when layered under a kick drum or dropped-in at key moments of your beat. It’s the ticket for copious low-end. Moving-on…

  • I like to give a tiny amount of pitch envelope – barely noticeable – to give the attack more interest. Because our amp-attack is set at 40, we need to give our pitch envelope a similar slope, however there are lots of interesting variations to be had with the pitch envelope. For this patch I’ll leave it at Attack of 26, decay 60 and amount 10. These settings are best set while a beat is playing so that the envelopes can follow the groove.
  • If you are finding it still a little plain, we can add harmonics with the Feedback control. But again, use the ‘fixed level’ option on pads to prevent unwanted surprises. Another way to add harmonics would be to use FM, that is using Osc1 with a low frequency at Osc mix 0/100).

Of course, playing this chromatically = deep subby basslines.

Tempest Recipes: Donk Bass

That familiar hollow ‘thwank’, mainstay of a gazillion garage records. Nevertheless a great foundation for our own, less cheesy variants.

  • Start with a square wave on Osc2 and set Osc mix to 0/100 so we only hear Osc2.
  • Use a 12dB filter with cutoff at 40 and a modest amount of resonance to start – say 30 also. Set filter keytracking to 15 or thereabouts. (To access this parameter, on the filter screen press the right arrow. The parameter is called LP KEY>FREQ).
  • Now use the Filter envelope to get our ‘twang’. Perhaps a decay of 60 and amount of 20-30. A pinch of velocity control – but not too much as we want to keep the filter fairly subdued. Bend it if you wish.
  • To give more volume, change the amp envelope amount to 32 and reduce it’s velocity sensitivity to 64 also (in general a nice compromise, I find).
  • You could also try adding a little pitch envelope – but short and barely noticeably to give the attack more interest.

Now we’ll apply some FM. Fellow fans of FM synthesis will know that the most pleasing sounds pop out when the frequency of the modulator(s) is at integer ratios of the carrier’s frequency. As we detune the frequency of the modulators we hear first a vibrato effect on the carrier. As we detune further we are led into to the familiar clangorous tones that only FM can do. Well, the same principle applies on the Tempest, although less dramtically. Nevertheless useful to know.

Even if you don’t understand FM, you can easily hear this difference. Osc1 is our modulator (which we don’t hear) and Osc2 (or more correctly, the filter input) is our carrier – what we hear. So…

  • ..put another square wave in Osc1 and set it’s pitch to one octave above Osc2 (C5 if you left Osc 2 at at default). Now turn-up the Filter FM (Audio mod) about half way. The sound should become perceptibly more hollow. Play with the filter and it’s envelope until you get the sound you want – in my case a bouncy bass where the harsher frequencies are still filtered out.

Now if you change the frequency of OSC1, one semitone at a time, you will notice the tone becoming less ‘pleasing’ and more metallic at certain ratios, but seems to ‘fit’ at others. Lots of scope for experimentation here. In particular where controlling the pitch and volume of Osc1 with envelopes should open the door to plucks and various weirdness. Next time….

For now, back to our bass. We could apply a little feedback to beef-up the sound. As you have probably already discovered yourself, velocity-sensitive sounds with feedback can give some loud and potentially damaging surprises if a pad is hit too hard. So for setting Amp feedback I first switch-on ‘Fixed’ level’ for the pad. In this way I know I am hearing the maximum feedback level at all times and thus it can be set more precisely. Usually just a small amount is sufficient.

Tempest Recipes: Apito – The Samba whistle

So it’s been a while – life and all that – but I’ve somehow found time to rekindle my love for the Tempest. Let’s get back to the business of making sounds on this thing.

To start, a nice ‘n’ easy analogue take on the apito – the brazilian samba whistle – otherwise used world-over by your friendly local match official.

  • Start with 2 Triangles – around F6 and F#6
  • Apply extreme detuning to Osc 2 (fine +/-40)
  • For the Amp envelope, use ADSR with a decent amount of sustain and shorten the default release time to around 30.

Sounds vaguely familiar, but needs some movement…

  • Arm LFO1 with the random waveshape map it to Osc1 frequency – a high rate 126 but only a small amount 5.
  • Map LFO 2 (square) to Osc 2 frequency and give it some welly with a rate of 120, Amount 83. This mimics the little ball inside the whistle.
  • Try both filter slopes with lots of Filter FM and a slight envelope to emphasise the attack. Also, use the high-pass filter with a setting of about 50.

As always, not set in stone – play around with it. You can spice it up, perhaps by adding a little pitch envelope or noise to model referee spit. 😛

Plenty of bonus sounds open-up when played chromatically, especially at low and high octaves where Tempest’s analogue character really shines through.

Try it through a nice delay. Mmmmm.