here’s the deal:
i am working together with a group of people making a play (theater). it is a loose and humorous take on The Hobbit. the scene it considers here is one where a group of dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf are sitting in a tree, while the Wargs (essentially big evil wolves) are approaching. you hear them howling in the distance, and they are coming closer and closer until they are right underneath the tree. one dwarf falls out and gets ripped to shreds. i need to do the soundscaping/special fx for this scene.
i got a thousand howling-wolf samples, a bunch of growling and biting animals and whatnot. the samples aren’t the real issue here. the issue is that in a play, people will sometimes go slower and sometimes go faster with their lines, their movements and whatever. so i need to be able to adjust the speed of my soundscape. what i especially need to control is the speed with which the wolves (Wargs) draw nearer.
if this was a movie, and stuff could be perfectly timed, i’d simply build wolves howling with rising volume and added reverbs and other nice fx. in this case i need to build the same, but still be able to control the speed of the buildup in real-time, live. i could of course trigger all the wolf-samples myself, but that would be pretty error-prone, plus very very tedious. i am aiming for some sort of combination of both, so a soundscape of which the speed can be controlled, while adding additional live samples when necessary.
seeing how you guys always have great ideas, i was hoping you’d have some for my situation too.
(this might be abundant to add, but i want to do all of this in Renoise)
I’ve done a setup for something like this about 2 years ago, to simulate distance in combination with panning, using a X/Y controller. Simple panning controlled on the X-axis and distance on the Y-axis, controlling several devices and params (volume, EQ, Filter, Reverb (specially wet amount and pre-delay) and maybe a delay with a Hydra. Have to look, if I still can find this. But it actually shouldn’t be too hard to build something like this.
Edit:
Okay, couldn’t find the setup anymore. I did a new setup, which enables you to position (and move) a sound in a 2D environment, simulating depth of area and panorama, controlable via X/Y-controller. Actually I think this one sounds pretty good and way more realistic than the old one.
I’d suggest you put this setup on a couple of tracks, where you can add also additional FX like a dedicated Reverb and similar stuff. Then you use some of the tracks for static environment sounds, like wind, background music, birds and stuff like that. And for the sounds you want to add live, you use the rest of the tracks, also prepared for your needs, with different details on them.
Actually it would be a nice idea to auto-route some of the samples, by assigning them to a specific channel and switch to a related Send channel by Key-Tracker. But that doesn’t work, as soon as you use 2 different sounds at the same time, that would be routed to different channels. This would end up in a mess. So, like it or not, at least for the live sounds you have to switch between the channels by hand. But the task is inspirational. I’m gonna setup a soundscape console for Renoise, with automated fade ins/outs by trigger, 3D sound positioning and stuff, I guess. Someday…
Download:
Check my signature (Closed downloads) for info on how to get the download link.
thanks a lot Bit_Arts. i am not currently behind a Renoise-PC so i only understand half of what you’re saying, but i’ll start working with this stuff as soon as i can and see what the possibilities are and what issues i run in to.
we’re doing a rehearsal of the scene tonight, so will be able to experiment some tonight as well. let’s see how this’ll all work out. it is an interesting experience for sure!
Of course it’s not really elegant - or let’s face it, it’s ugly - but I’d try this: pre-program sequences with all FX and volume, render them to new samples, organize them in a timeline C-0 - B-9 in an XRNI, and trigger them manually live. (Disable VEL->VOL in keyzones.)
^ well i don’t really care about it being ugly or not, i simply care about the usability and, of course, the way it will sound. your method might be useful for me, so i’ll definitely consider it, i hadn’t thought of doing that myself. thanks effdeeka
so, we rehearsed that scene tonight. turns out it is a lot shorter than i thought, and therefore a lot easier to do. i’ll probably just go with live-triggering most of the stuff, then triggering a pattern for when the dwarf gets ripped to shreds and the rest flies off on giant eagles.
i guess that’s settled! thanks bit_arts and effdeeka for your help! really appreciate it.
I did a new setup, which enables you to position (and move) a sound in a 2D environment, simulating depth of area and panorama, controlable via X/Y-controller. Actually I think this one sounds pretty good and way more realistic than the old one. 
- but I’d try this: pre-program sequences with all FX and volume, render them to new samples, organize them in a timeline C-0 - B-9 in an XRNI, and trigger them manually live. (Disable VEL->VOL in keyzones.)