Paul White reveals more cheats and workarounds aimed at making sequenced instruments sound more realistic.
Coming as I do from a guitar‑playing background, one of the things I find most frustrating about synths is that when you operate the bend wheel, all the notes bend rather than just the ones you want. Some synths offer a little more control — for example, letting you bend keyed notes while sustaining, yet leaving unkeyed notes unbent (which was one of the few really good points about the old FB01 FM expander module), but you still don't have the flexibility you do when playing something like a guitar, or any of the other instruments that offer a similar degree of independent pitch control. Some of these restrictions can be sidestepped when using a sequencer, and the purpose of this brief article is to detail a few specific cases that may be useful to you as they stand, or may even set you thinking in new directions — in which case, please send your ideas back to me so I can print them!
Bagpipes
OK, I'll admit that if you compiled a list of the world's most popular synth patches, the chances are that bagpipes wouldn't be on it, but the GM sound set includes bagpipes, so I suppose that somewhere, somebody wants them, even if only to play cover versions of Mull of Kintyre. The problem with the GM bagpipe patch, though, is that it's perfectly in tune, and, as a consequence, sounds entirely unlike real bagpipes! Serious pipers pride themselves on being able to fix the relative tuning of their pipes just far enough out of tune so as to set the listeners' teeth on edge, and as a refinement, the tuning drifts depending on the pressure in the bag, and the ambient temperature and humidity. No wonder, then, that even the Scots define a gentleman as somebody who can play the bagpipes — but doesn't!
The melody is played on a pipe which has finger holes, is fitted with a reed, and has a range of around an octave. This is known as the chanter, though some variations on the bagpipe, apparently, have two of the things, ostensibly to double the listening pleasure. The remaining pipes (and there may be up to six, depending on how much of a sadist the designer is) are fixed in pitch, and are known as drones. Air is supplied to the pipes by the player blowing into a tube connected to an air bag (often made from some small, dead furry animal with the insides scooped out) which may be compressed under the arm, thus maintaining a flow of air while the player breathes. Some people have been known to ask why anyone could possibly want to maintain a sound like this a moment longer than necessary — but that is outside the scope of this article, and more properly belongs in a journal of human psychology. Others have been known to ask why the player should be encouraged to breathe at all...
To simulate the bagpipe, it is essential to set up the drones slightly out of tune with each other, and the easiest way to achieve this is to record each note on a separate track of the sequencer and assign it to a different voice of a multitimbral synth. Of course, all the voices used must be set to the Bagpipe patch. You then use pitch bend information to provide the detuning — this may be recorded afterwards on a separate track, and only a small amount is needed to achieve a convincing effect. It may help to vary the pitch bend slightly to further enhance the demonic skirl (Scottish term which elevates out‑of‑tuneness to the status of a positive attribute) in which case the bend data may be looped to save time, and if different loop lengths are used for each drone, the whole thing sounds more natural. The melody line is played on yet another voice, and may be left nominally in tune, though you may wish to use the pitch bend just to ensure that the odd high note is played excruciatingly flat, just to perfect the illusion.
Sitar
The sitar is in many ways similar to the bagpipes; it features drone notes which aren't necessarily perfectly in tune, and a considerable number of people can't understand how anyone derives any pleasure from listening to it! The fact that the Eastern scale also includes quarter tones means that most Westerners can't tell the difference between someone playing the sitar and someone repairing one.
I've found that the drone notes may be played as a slowly arpeggiating chord using a sitar sound with a long sustain, and if you can edit the patch to slow the attack of the sound, the simulation is even more realistic. The natural chorusing of the strings can be faked by duplicating this track on another voice of the synth (possibly delayed by a bar or two), and then adding subtle amounts of pitch bend (again, you can loop the bend data to save time) to create the necessary detuning. The lead line should be played on a different voice, using generous amounts of pitch bend to create the necessary quarter‑tone bends and flourishes.
Tablas
Still on an Indian theme, I'm told that it takes many years of training to play the tablas properly, and that there are hundreds of nuances of sound that can be coaxed from these expressive little drums — which is rather sad, because as far as the Western ear is concerned, it's pretty much a case of having two drums, the larger of which varies in pitch and goes 'Bloommmm', and the smaller of which is fixed in pitch and goes 'Bick'. There are plenty of excellent tabla 'Bick' sounds available for samplers, and my favourite is to be found on the Roland U110 Ethnic sound card. Getting a good 'Bloommmm' sound isn't quite as easy — I've settled for using the Bend Up and Bend Down talking drum sounds from my Alesis D4, and then modulating these with a loop of pitch bend data to produce seemingly random pitch changes. If you don't have a D4, try sampling a good conga sound and using pitch bend to create the talking drum sound.
Because the two sounds are recorded on two different sequencer tracks, and in this case also using two different sound sources, it is a simple matter to apply pitch bend to the 'Bloommmm' drum but not the 'Bick'.
African Percussion
I was recently helping guitarist Rob Parrett out with an African track for a library music album, and we wanted to add synthesized percussion sounds to some sampled African voices. After selecting the usual toms, wood blocks, congas, shakers and whatever else was on offer, we programmed a rhythm track which sounded fine, but didn't really say 'Africa' so much as it said 'pretty average mass percussion backing'. Never being one to do jobs properly when a couple of mouse clicks might get me out of trouble, I added a loop of pitch bend information which affected the whole of the drum machine (D4s not being multitimbral and all that), and immediately, the percussion took on more of an ethnic, carnival feel. However, I still wasn't quite happy with it, and decided that a gospel‑style tambourine might help. Of course, the tambourine was also affected by the pitch bend data, which transformed it from a commonplace sound to a mystical tribal instrument that really made the track; it also supplied the much‑needed 'something going on at the top end' that the track had hitherto seemed to lack.
Wind Chimes
Wind chimes are popular in New Age and relaxation music, and there's no argument that miking up the real thing produces the most satisfying result. Even so, there are advantages to faking your own wind‑chimes on a sequencer, simply because that way, you aren't limited to any one musical scale or sequence of notes.
Most wind chimes are based on commonly‑used scales or modes, and have either six or eight chimes. If you're not sure which notes to use, check out a wind chime catalogue at your local hippy supplier, as many manufacturers obligingly tell you what notes the various models produce.
The whole point of a wind chime is that it produces random music, so sequencing it (ie. giving it a pattern that is far from random, but in fact carefully pre‑programmed) might seem pretty pointless, but by recording each note on a separate sequencer track, and then setting up different loop lengths on each track, you can end up with a pattern that only repeats every several hundred bars — which, in most instances, is as near to random as makes no difference.
Each sequencer track must be recorded with a random pattern of the same note, and it is imperative not to make the part too busy — spread the beats between one quarter and three seconds apart. If you can't play randomly enough, try tapping out morse code slowly — and if you don't know morse code, make it up! The track loop lengths can be anything from four bars long to as long as you like, and the longer the loops, the more random the result will appear. If you're into maths, try using prime numbers as the loop lengths: 7, 11, 13, 19, 23 and 29 will do for starters. I don't know if this actually sounds any better, but at least it makes you feel smug and clever. Finally, choose your favourite bell or chime patch, and set the thing running. The tempo value is roughly equivalent to wind speed, and you could throw in a few tempo changes to simulate wind gusts!
'Limited Only By Your Imagination...'
Most of the above examples (other than the wind chimes) rely on using more than one synth voice to create a sound, but with so many inexpensive multitimbral modules around, this isn't really as extravagant as it might appear. These techniques really work, and once you're tried them out, other ideas spring to mind, such as simulating instruments that play the same notes in unison (such as the top two strings of a 12‑string guitar), or even programming guitar power chords, where the same note often occurs twice. In fact, few real instruments are as clinically in‑tune as a digital synth, and it's surprising how often a little contrived chorusing (using pitch bend on duplicated tracks) will add vitality to a patch; chorus units are too regular to produce the same result.
Other tricks to try include adding loops of gentle vibrato wheel data to a flute or other solo instrument track that's been played straight, and creating complex percussion parts by using several tracks, all with different loop lengths, just as in the wind chimes simulation. It all goes to show that even if you only use 5% of the features in your sequencer (as I'm convinced I do), you can still do a lot of creative things with it using sound modules you already own.
Pitch Bend And Drum Machines
Most drum machines don't respond to pitch bend data in the same way as synths do — that is to say that the sounds don't actually change in pitch as the wheel is moved. What tends to happen is that the drum sound pitch depends on where the bend wheel was set just before the drum sounds were triggered. That's why in the tabla example, I chose the bend‑up/down talking drum sounds, because these have the necessary bend incorporated into the original sample. Adding pitch bend data then causes these samples to be replayed at different, seemingly random pitches which works rather better than it has any right to.
If any drum machine designers are reading this, how about more drum machines that respond to pitch bend properly, where you can decide which drum sounds respond to pitch bend, and which ones ignore it? Furthermore, how about multitimbral drum machines? Multitimbrality would make it easier to combine different types of drum sounds without having to go to the hassle of creating a new program or drum map. Just an idea...