This technique is interesting because it’s easy to use and re-use. It gives good results, especially with sounds that are close to the vocal human spectral activity. It’s also perfect if you want to use it on a raw bass for example.
However, I find that it doesn’t give clear results with “higher sounds” (i.e. for altos/sopranos), the quality is “average” in this situation.
So I’ve found an alternative method if you want to increase the quality. But it’s a bit longer to setup.
Benefits of the alternative version :
it’s based on a 5 bands model instead of 3 - the final quality is higher you hear it instantly - it’s able to deal with high tones, the range of filterings is vastly increased
Downloadable HERE.
More details about frequencies used and references on my blog here.
Great Job! The sound is really cool, but to me the biggest effort is the really clever idea to use multitap as a multi-filter. This enables you to use (at least the first variation) as a single DSP-chain on a single track. There’s actually no need for a send channel. A huge benefit imo. I’d stay with the multitap as filter and just drop the 5th frquency table (always the highest freq) from your second version. The sound difference should be quite small, but therefore you’D still be able to keep everything on a single track.
As a second hint: you can use multiple key-trackers on a single track, spliting up the ranges by setting the ranges to “soft”. “soft” means, it only sends data when keys within the defined range are pressed. so you could for example define a small key-range to select the vowels and simply exclude that key-range from the instrument itself in the sampler settings then. Enables you to select vowels by notes from within the pattern with the same instrument, which imo is way more comfortable than selecting them by automation.
Also the Exciter makes more sense (and better sound) on the master track between compressor and maximizer. Maybe you want to try this yourself.
… yes, Bit_Arts, interesting, I’m going to test it.
OMFG I even didn’t realized that the “soft” option could help me to “split” the keyboard and create a “virtual keyboard controler”. I need to test it. Il could simplify a lot the vowels’ selection.
Indeed, pushing any sound into just 3 BP filters with such a small bandwidth, turns it into a poor sound, that needs to be re-excited IN THE END (and not at the beginning). I’ll fix it.
Thanx for your tips !
And this chain could probably be improved even more (and become longer), with a “Filter Band Amp Control” and with an “Automatic Bandwidth Control” mechanism.
Regarding the frequencies to drop for a single-track-chain it might make more sense, to drop the frequency in each vowel, that is set to lowest amplitude(?). Haven’t tested this, but seems more logical to me, since you’re offering multiple vocal ranges. Simply cutting the top freq might not really be the optimum then. My bad.
Edit: And btw… it totally makes me grin to see you on fire like that. Just because I know what it feels like. Keep it up!
Right-click somewhere on the Track DSP chain. - Select Device Chain => Save As… - Select your target directory and give a name to the chain. - It must have the .XRNT file extention. - Then when you edit your song, right click somewhere on your Track DSP tab. - Select Device Chain => Load… - Find your .XRNT file, load it. - That’s all. How to modify Formants ?
Formants here are “Keyboard Controled”. - Use the C-0 to C-2 Keys to modify formants. - Go into the Sample Keyzones. - Modify your Sample Layer so that it doesn’t use notes from C-0 to C-2. - By this way you’ll be able to both play your sample & control the filter in the same track. How exactly did you placed formants on the low notes ?
Formants are composed of 5 cycles of 5 ‘aeiou’ vowels.
This V2 breaks the limits. It’s pretty easy to insert LIVE formants with it.
But… WTF ?
Oops
I’ve uploaded the wrong version on my blog, this version has NOT the famous RExciter ™ in the chain.
If you’ve previously loaded the new V2 last hour please drop it and re-download it from here.
The feedback on each formant and the feedback controlling Hydra to me seem to be redundant. The delay times are set to 0 anyway. So you’re only double layering the input signal with the feedback. That’s what’s producing those nasty peaks on the formant track. Delaying 4 separate formants with the same amount is redundant anyway, since a single and independent delay on the summary could do this too (and already does so on the master channel ).
Fix: I guess it would save some CPU load to set the routing for all taps from “input & feedback” to “input” only and completely delete / drop the feedback control Hydra. Sound should be exactly the same, but with a stable amplitude. Just don’t forget to set all L+R feedback amounts to 0 then.
I’ve made lots of tests this afternoon and while I was removing the delays, I realised that increasing the feedback / drive still does something strange (metallic and glassy) to the sound when used with higher parameters. It’s probably a bit CPU consuming, but when used in conjunction with the Robot Voice, it adds some strange personnality to the overall result, So the Feedback thing has been kept. But of course, it’s probable that users that need more CPU cycles will delete this and the associated Hydras.
-deleted- (No, there was nothing nasty here. I just tend to get lost in details ) Your setup and fine and outstanding the way it is. Sorry, if I dived a bit too deep into this.
it’s true that I’m a bit worried about the CPU% usage of this chain. In a dubstep music production, 140BPM, it’s won’t be a problem. But in a breakcore / dnb 280BPM track…
There should be a method to reduce the chain size, and to reduce also the CPU.
When I check for example the Wikipedia reference for Formants, they say that [b]most often the two first formants, f[sub]1[/sub] and f[sub]2[/sub], are enough to disambiguate the vowels.
What about testing those filters ? And by the way, you can see that there are more formants than AEIOU there. Reducing the 4 filters to 2 filters will logically allow me to remove 2 LFOs, 2 Inertial Sliders. It would also allow me to reduce the size of the left “keyboard control part” (25 keys, that’s maybe a bit large and the notion of “cycles” looks redundant in the end)…