emusonacid! legacy

override wrote:JAHs suggestion is the first logical option. unfortunately the hold time (aka gate time, whatever) cannot be modulated with a midi controller or patch cord routing using that env set up. if you want realtime control adjusting the VEnvDec is the closest way to do it.. the alternative is to adjust Attack 2 Rate manually/"live" with the data wheel from the amplitude envelope window.

Are you quite sure about that?

you guys gave me incredible input and I really have to think about what you two just wrote. You really made things clear how the eos developers were thinking of the envelopes. It clearly makes sense, how these work now, but imo there would have been a better solution. I will fire up the machine tomorrow and wrap my head around your input. thanks guys, glad this conversation didn't went offhand.

Tbh: I didn't really understand the modwheel thing, but I think in practical use I might understand it.

Set rate of Atk1, Atk2, Dcy1, Dcy2 and Rls2 to ZERO.
Set levels of Atk1, Atk2, Dcy1 and Dcy2 to 100%
Set levels of Rls1 and Rls2 to ZERO.
Rate of Rls1 is the Hold-/Gate-Time.

Cord settings:
01 Vel+ -> Switch: 100%
02 Switch -> AmpVol: 100%

Disadvantage:
The sample is always played at maximum volume.
When trying to use the cord settings "Vel< -> AmpVol" with any amount than ZERO, the sound will be faded out according to the Rls1 rate.

Hi ja-ki
What you were after is as follows, yes?..

An envelope that has an adjustable hold level in the first portion of the drum hit followed by a envelope decay that's also ajustable.

Judging by your initial question I assume you want this envelope to tailor drum hits, so that you may create your own unique sounds.

A simple decay envelope might remove too much transient energy from the early part of a hit and still not be able to fade enough towards the tail end.

You might want to combine a few drum hits into a preset all mapped to the same key
Individually adjust volume
Individually adjust tuning
Individually adjust amp envelope settings
Individually adjust filter values & filter types
Individually alter delay offsets and sample start offsets

By combining sounds with different frequency characteristics you could create hybid drum hits that could be re-sampled to produce unique drum sounds.
You might use sounds from an existing library with top mid and bass frequencies such as...
clicky electro kick
mid sounding vinyl break kick
and perhaps a third sub bass TR808 long boom

Here's the envelope setting to create hold befor a decay.



To shorten the hold time just reduce the value of Attack 2 rate
To shorten decay/release reduce their rate values.

If you have a keyboard or controller surface you can use the following cords to shape the sound in real time using controllers A & B



You can hear a demo of this setup here https://soundcloud.com/jahfunk/drum-env-demo

If you want this you can download the preset below.

just tried your preset (actually there are two, but I don't think they differ from each other)
and it works exactly as intended, nice work. But I do have to ask 2 questions about it:

first:

Why is this cord setup working? Attack2 has a rate of 127 and MidiA is set up so it adds "50%" to it, but when I raise the cc value of MidiA the attack2 gets shorter and I simply don't understand that.

second:

Is it now possible from there on to have a third Midi controller to soften the attack of the sound, so it doesn't interfere with MidiA and B?

cheers

1. Both controllers are set to change the ENV but kind of upsidedown (higher C/C values = lower ENV rates)
This is done within cords by assigning with + values. Try changing cont A to a -50 and the attack fades in. E-mu quirks worth knowing.
I don't fully understand what's happening my suspicion is maybe the chords - value works on attack rate 1, while + values tell the sampler to work on attack rate 2.
Some further experiments might get some answers!
Any takers?

2. No, I tried, but it doesn't really matter as any sample can be edited with the fade feature. Set start and end markers and the amount of volume change to alter the drum hits attack amount. This will be surgicaly accurate compaired to the sluggish rate settings in the Attack envelope.

I just had a thought. I don't see any reason why you couldn't assign this cord to ENV 3, set it to pitch and have some radical pitch bend effects on the tail of the drum sounds. Perhaps with another controller set to env 3 amount?

Some further experiments needed.

Or I could cord the auxenvelope to amp aswell, assign a third midi controller to attack? I will try this today.

It's weird. Even after owning my ultra for some years I still feel there are so many avenues I haven't begun to explore yet.
DEEP OS!

Okay, just tested assigning the auxenvelope to the attack:

cordsetup as follows:

#01 AEnv+ --> AmpVol +100
#02 MidiC --> C01Amt -100
#03 MidiD --> AEnvDcy -100


Auxenvelope setup:
Attack1 0 -100
Attack2 0 -100
Dcy1 0 0
Dcy2 0 0
Rls1 0 0
Rls2 0 0


Explanation (I hope I get everything right):

The attack has negative level values as we want to substract them from our sample. (We want to soften the attack)
Cord #01 adds 100% of Auxenv to our sample, as the max level of the Auxenv is 0, nothing will be added, but the attack (-100) will substract.
MidiC then controls how much will be removed. This adjusts at which volume the attack will start, if you want a very subtle softening of the transient you can dial in a little if you want to start from absolute silence, move your midiC controller all the way down.
MidiD then adjusts the time the attack will take to gain to "0" as we started from "-100" (I used the decay setting for this, as Attack was already in use, but it makes no difference since it's also part of the attack stage until dcy2 level, which equals sustain). This should combine very well with JAHFUNK's hold envelope preset. Only drawback I see: As I adjust the initial attack portion, to soften the attack, I will have to dial in new settings for the hold phase. This might interfere at some point, but for now this works great. More testing needed.

Okay, just combined two ideas into one preset (or voice) and tested. It works! Only thing that's a bit confusing is that the midi controllers I set up "add" when moved up, and the midi controllers you set up, jahfunk, substract. But absolutely no problem, this is sufficient enough! Incredible what you can do with the cords, and I guess this is just the very beginning... I try to elaborate how to set all 4 Midicontrollers to behave similar

edit: I guess to make all 4 midi controllers to behave the same you would have to move the hold phase which is currently setup to attack2 to the decay stage
edit2: But you'd loose the ability to controll hold and decay indipendetly... difficult!
edit3: Okay, at least you can inverse MidiB by setting Ampenv Dcy1 0 0 Dcy2 0 0 and then set the MidiB cords to -100%. I have no solution (and no understanding) for the hold part. Maybe you have to use "switch" or something like that. Anyway. It works perfectly.

I don't fully understand what's happening my suspicion is maybe the chords - value works on attack rate 1, while + values tell the sampler to work on attack rate 2.
Some further experiments might get some answers!
Any takers?

It is kind of odd that each point in the env isn't available as a cord destination so perhaps you're on to something there with the negative/positive values. would be nice if there was documentation for that! that is where i gave up. When I was trying to figure out how to adjust the 'holdtime' i kept getting ATK1 rate increasing which was ruining the gated effect. I thought the adjusting DEC env settings do just as well but i admit i never fully understood what ja-ki was trying to achieve with this. i'll have to check out the preset he posted as it now makes sense in the context of layering drums & resampling.. as for the ATK1 ATK 2 and the +/- values of the chords I'm not certain.. will have to look into it further. i'm always surprised by what can be accomplished via cords on the emu's. i'm pretty sure you can accomplish essentially anything one would want to.. if you can figure out the cords!

glad to see you guys figured it out! nicely done ;D

I guess something I should have clarified in the beginning was the noteon lengths. This preset Jahfunk and I created works as originally intended, independent of a notelength longer than the envelope. If the hold time is over and there's no release or decay setting the sample WILL stop. Of course it would have been possible to set a holdtime by adjusting the notelength, but this preset/technique is great as you only have to set triggers in your sequencer and can concentrate fully on the sample, instead of moving back and forth sequencer <-> sampler, adjusting notelength, adjusting envelopes. The notelength should be at least as long as the holdtime is, but thinking practically you won't necessarily let a midinote overlap into the next one when sequencing drums also you want to "see" your midinote, so setting something ridiculously short doesn't make sense aswell.

I still have to think about layering though, as there are already 4 midicontrollers in use for one single sample resulting in three layers (voices) being triggered in one preset with different midi controllers. So you'd have to set up your drumprogramm in multimode, one preset on channel 1 with just the kicks, one with just the snares on channel 2, etc. Setting that up in particular presets via layering voices ensures there's no miditiming issues which I heard is a problem at least on the non Ultra samplers. Also everything can be resampled afterwards :)

Btw, you might have a read at this too: viewtopic-f=9&t=4723.php.html this perfectly combines with the just created preset

(Also these techniques combined will put any akai sampler to shame, hahahahaha! :P )

override wrote:It is kind of odd that each point in the env isn't available as a cord destination so perhaps you're on to something there with the negative/positive values.
D

Maybe, maybe not, but let's hope so, as you say if the E-MU engineers built control for all ENV points why didn't they tell us?
Perhaps they might not have sold so many romplers with knobs on if users were aware that an Ultra was essentially the the same thing when a midi controller was connected, only with the added advantage of not being limited by the built in waveforms of a proteus/orbit etc (god they made the same thing over and over with different paint jobs and rom sound sets, and they sold very well)
Or maybe the hold cord setup is the glitch in EOS.

ja-ki wrote:
I still have to think about layering though, as there are already 4 midicontrollers in use for one single sample resulting in three layers (voices) being triggered in one preset with different midi controllers. So you'd have to set up your drumprogramm in multimode, one preset on channel 1 with just the kicks, one with just the snares on channel 2, etc. Setting that up in particular presets via layering voices ensures there's no miditiming issues which I heard is a problem at least on the non Ultra samplers. Also everything can be resampled afterwards :)
)

Perhaps not every sound needs the 4 controllers. if not attack fade-in uses two that could be used for EQing by setting controllers to frequency & Q, I have some experience using this type of control on drums and it can be great. With a HPF you can remove loads of low energy from a kick so that only the mid and top remain, while a second kick sample has a Peak filter boosting the lower end.
Combine this with a third kick add adjustable envelopes and alter the levels and pitches and your in drum builder heaven.

I do like the idea of 3 drums of the same type with 12 controllers X 16 midi channels. Once the shaping/tuning of the mutant kit is sweet.... Re sample!