midi notes?

[Shay]

how can you make every individual note in the piano roll have sort of a fade out before the next one and so on? im not talking about volume change like you can do in automation. i want the note to sustain and slowly come down until the next note. kinda like hitting a key and holding on a piano and letting it just kinda fade out. how can i do that but to my specific time fade out?

[ski]

This can't be done in the piano roll editor editor. What you're talking about requires some tweaking of the sound being generated by the instrument you're using.

 

Each note you see in the piano roll editor is really just a simple switch. The left edge of each note tells the instrument when to turn on a note of a certain pitch (and at what velocity); the right edge of each note then tells the instrument to turn that note off. On, off. On, off. If you were playing an organ sound, which has an instant attack and instant release (no "ring" to it), you'd hear that kind of "switching" I'm talking about. On, off. On, off.

 

Sounds to me like you want to change the shape ("envelope") of the sound so that it has a long decay which causes the volume to fade down to (perhaps) zero even if the note is held for a long time. Tell me which instrument you're using and I can point you to the controls you need to change.

[Shay]

i have the hip hop strings using the exs24

[ski]

OK, great, EXS-24. That makes things simple!

 

You'll want to focus on the controls of ENV 2. You have attack, decay, sustain, release. Right off the bat, set the sustain value to 0. Then set your decay at about 2 seconds or so. That should immediately give you something resembling what you're looking for.

 

Pointers:

 

• Adjust the decay time to taste

• If you don't want the sound to totally fade out, raise the sustain level a bit

• If the sound cuts off too quickly at the end of notes, increase the release time

 

Hope that gets you the effect you want.

[Shay]

man your a genius. how did you learn how to use all the little knobs and slidders and things? im starting t learn but man it seems like its going to take forever and im just turning things and pressing buttons aimlessly.

[Beer Moth]

I suspect he's been at it a bit longer than you.

8)

[pantomimeHorse]

 

 

im just turning things and pressing buttons aimlessly.

 

Keith Emerson started out like that.

there's hope for you ...........

 

-

C

[Shay]

you guys are f ing cool. what does env 1 do?

[ski]

I'm no genius. Trust me! But I have been doing this a looooong time... 8)

 

I don't have the patch you're talking about, but there's a good chance that ENV 1 isn't doing anything. Most EXS patches don't. I could be wrong tho... Look at the area above the Envelopes and stuff --- that's the "modulation matrix". If you don't see ENV 1 assigned anywhere in the matrix then ENV 1 probably isn't doing anything. But if it is assigned in there, post back with the destination (every matrix 'slot' has a source (SRC) and a destination (DEST)). Then I can tell you how it will affect the sound.

[Shay]

is the matrix the thing that has 3 rows of green lettering across 10 slots? its funny cus i see env1 in the src in the third slot and destination is flt cutoff and i dont see env 2 anywhere yet when i move the env 2 slidders and such it makes a difference in my sound that i can hear.

[ski]

Oh, OK, then. ENV 1 is affecting the filter after all. Hey, could you post a screenshot of your EXS? I running L7 right now and I don't have that sound. But if you could post a screenshot I could tell you more about what's going on.

 

Yes, the mod matrix = those 10 slots.

 

Why ENV2 isn't programmed in the mod matrix: ENV2 is "hard wired" to control the overall volume (the Amp ("amplifier") stage of the EXS) and so it doesn't need to be programmed in the modulation matrix to have an effect.

 

Real quick, the EXS works like this:

 

Samples---->Filter---->Amp

 

The main filter control is "cutoff". The filter needs to be switched on in order for cutoff to have any effect. So if the filter is on, the filter type is one of the LP ones (LP = "lowpass") and cutoff is turned down somewhat, the sound will get duller. If ENV 1 is routed to cutoff, then when you play a note, ENV 1 "fires", raising and lowering the cutoff control according to the envelope shape.

 

So if, say, cutoff is all the way down, the amount of ENV 1 modulation in the matrix is set all the way to max, and ENV1's attack is set to be kind of slow (like 1000 ms or so), the sound will start dull and gradually get brighter as you hold the key down.

[Shay]

here is a quick look at my exs24

[ski]

Cool, thanks for posting that.

 

Quickly, here's what's going on with those modulation matrix assignments (BTW, is this the way the sound come up from the factory settings? Or did you modify it (other than ENV2)?

 

SLOT 1 & 8: Modwheel controls volume. Move the modwheel up and the volume increases. This is duplicated on slot #8. This may have the cumulative effect of producing a more drastic (exponential) increase in volume as you move the wheel up as opposed to having just the one slot programmed for this (which would produce a more even, linear increase in volume).

 

SLOT 2: Again, Modwheel controls volume by way of the modwheel? Hmmm... On top of what's going on with Slots 1 and 8, I'd have to try that out to see if it actually does anything to the volume, other than maybe make the modwheel--->increase in volume response even more exponential.

 

SLOT 3: ENV1 controls cutoff (filter). With the ENV1 shape you have dialed in, the filter will more or less bang open when you play a key (though you won't hear it "bang" because ENV2's slow attack masks this). If you hold a note, over a period of time the sound will mellow out just a tiny bit. I have the feeling that you wouldn't really hear the effect of ENV1 unless you made the attack time pretty slow.

 

SLOT 4: Velocity controls start point of the sample. But it's inverted, so the harder you play, the more of the sample's original attack you're going to hear. Otherwise, playing softly starts the samples from some point past their original start point.

 

SLOT 5: Modwheel controls filter. OK, now when you move the modwheel up, it increase the volume. What this does is it makes the filter duller as you increase the volume. This being the case, ENV1 might be heard to affect the filter more, but you'd have to move the modwheel up to hear that effect.

 

SLOT 6: LFO3 to Filter. Does nothing (amount = 0)

 

SLOT 7: Velocity controls resonance. So the sound gets a little tiny bit more "eeoooww" when you play harder.

 

SLOT 9: This is a complex one. Velocity opens the filter (make it brighter) but only if you're playing at low velocities and using aftertouch.

 

SLOT10: LFO2 does an auto-pan thing.

[fader8]

Keith Emerson started out like that.

Didn't we all!

 

I was 14 when I first sat down to a sparkling new Minimoog. I was clueless, but it didn't stop me from making crazy sounds, much to the chagrin of my parents!

 

Keith was my inspiration back then. I don't recall if it was Tarkus or Brain Salad Surgery or maybe both, but it pushed me to the dark side!