Sculpture - shaping attacks other than with ADSR?

[camillo jr]

I hardly ever use Sculpture but I'm giving it some time now and I'm noticing that what little I knew about standard synth programing is not really working here. I'm trying to have more control over the attack and I've got part way there - between the ADSR and choosing certain object types, it's getting close but it's no where near what I can get for example on the EXS or the ES2. Ideally, I'd like to have some velocity control of the attack but even more, I'd like the attack to sound less, well, attackish, or to have an attack with a different character. I'm going for a clarinet sound and the timbre is mostly there but no matter what I do, the attack is always kind of strange.

 

Any suggestions welcome, even just general Sculpture programing philosophy.

 

Thanks!

[David Nahmani]

The sound of the attack depends on the exciter object(s) (object 1 and/or 2) used, but also on the position of those objects on the string. If you're a guitar player or if you've ever tried playing a bit of guitar you may have noticed that the notes don't sound the same if you pick them by your fretting hand, or from the middle of the string, or by the bridge. That applies in Sculpture.

 

Are you trying to get a realistic clarinet sound? After a few initial attempts when Sculpture was first released, I decided to reserve that plug-in for anything non-realistic, and use sample libraries whenever I need something to sound realistic. Making a realistic clarinet sound in Sculpture is quite a challenge - I would love to hear your results if you feel like sharing.

[camillo jr]

I will plug at it for a while and if anything close comes out, I'll definitely share the results. If nothing else, this will get me more familiar with how Sculpture works. And make me read the manual!

[ski]

Yeah, man, it's totally time to RTFM. Especially YOU. That's right, I'm talkin' ta you.

 

 

Suggest experimenting with the filter and EG modulation to create a more realistic attack...

 

The onset of of the sound needs to increase in both brightness and amplitude (volume) simultaneously. If your filter's cutoff is set low enough so as to almost completely block the passage of sound, introducing envelope-->cutoff modulation -- with the EG set to a somewhat slow attack and full-up sustain as starting points -- will cause the sound to more naturally increase in brightness and amplitude than if your filter was set to a static tonal position and the EG used only to open the amplifier. I believe you can then use velocity to modulate the amount of EG-->cutoff modulation.

 

HTH,

 

Ski