Probably the most well known functions of Absynth is its ability to create a
wide variety of pads that have a full, rich sound. In addition, with the
powerful envelopes available in Absynth, it's possible to create "movement."
This means that pads in Absynth can change their timbre (i.e. sound quality)
continuously, making them more dynamic, like an orchestra, rather than flat,
like a dial tone.
This recipe starts from the absolute basics of
creating a static pad. Additions will address several ways to improve the
richness and depth of pads. Although this chapter will eventually include
numerous ideas for making new pads, it only scratches the surface of what is
possible. Also, I personally don't think the end result of the initial tutorial
is very interesting. It's set up for learning purposes and so the simplicity
means it's a bit dull. A bit of creative tweaking will result in better end
products than what I've proposed here.
Patch Window
All sounds in Absynth start in the patch tab, which shows oscillators. For this
initial pad, a prototype often used for creating church organ sounds is used.
One of the most important concepts in creating an organ pad is using multiple
oscillators pitched at different intervals to represent the multiple pipes used
for generating sounds. To keep things simple, this patch starts by using only
sine waves. Oscillator 1 is left at its original pitch, oscillator 2 is set a
perfect 5th (7 half steps) above oscillator 1, and oscillator 3 is set a full
octave (12 half steps) below oscillator 1. You will also note in the image below
that the oscillators are placed out of phase with one another. Oscillator 1 is
left in its original phase, oscillator 2 is set at 50% forward, and oscillator 3
is 25% forward.
Effects
Playing this pad you start to get a sense for the way that an organ might sound,
but there isn't really that sense of "space" or "depth." It still sounds like
it's trapped in a computer! To give the sense that this organ is being played in
a large, spacious cathederal, we can add a resonantor effect. This is a new
effect for Absynth 3 and it really provides a unique sound of ambient
reverberation. Click on "resonators," click "on" and turn on all three
resonators with check boxes. If you try your note again, you'll notice that it
sounds far more "spacious." You may notice that after adding the resonator your
sound is going to distort because it gets very loud. We'll fix this problem in
just a little bit, after we take care of envelopes and LFOs.
Envelopes
Of couse, envelopes are the real "meat" of Absynth. I think that this patch
sounds more interesting if the three oscillators don't arrive at the same time.
To achieve this effect, I dragged the envelopes (using only the first "high" box
for each envelope") to a different point in time. The effect is that low waves
will be heard first. Dragging the initial attack point forward produces a soft
attack and swell (i.e. gradual increase in volume), which is often desirable for
slow pads.
LFO
LFO stands for low frequency oscillator. There are lots of explanations of LFO
out there on the internet, so I won't describe this fundamental property of a
synthesizer here. Suffice it to say that it creates a very low wave that can be
very useful for creating swirling effects in pads. In this case, the LFOs will
be synched to the beats rather than seconds. You don't have to do this, but I
find it more intuitive and it also means that the speed will correspond to
changes in metronome markings.
You first need to turn on LFO 1 and LFO
2. Then, click on the "sec" box (right below Wave[sine]) for LFO 1 so it changes
to "beat." Adjust the beat to be 6.5, meaning that a single cycle of the LFO
will occur every 6.5 beats. Then go down to effect time and enter 1%, and 3% for
pan. This will produce very subtle shifts in the sound over time. Follow the
same procedure for the second LFO but with different values and changes in
amplitude rather than effect time, as shown in the picture, and you'll have a
very subtle, dynamic movement that only repeats itself every 65 beats.
Patch window
The final stage in finishing this sound is to set up the patch window and save
the sound. Because this is a very clean, simple pad, it will be possible to
stack several voices when you play it. Thus, it is useful to increase the
polyphony to 12. This also has the effect of making the patch a little quieter,
and eliminating the distortion you may have been encountering when playing
multiple notes simultaneously. If a patch is still distorting, you can always
lower the dB. Now you can save the patch by clicking in the patch name box that
used to say "default" and typing in a name like "sine organ." Select "save" from
the "file" pulldown menu and you're done with a very simple pad.
Simple Spices
The following are extremely basic ways to change up this patch. When you want to
modify a patch that you like, make sure that you're using "store to" so that
you're never actually changing the original patch. Just click store to and click
a default patch so that you're working with a copy. There's nothing worse than
inadvertently saving over a patch that took a few hours to create!
1)
Different waveforms: one obvious way to change this patch is to try switching
some of the waveforms in the oscillator window. A few particularly effective
options include using a smooth sawtooth, the woodwinds, and the various organ
patches (of course). By using different combinations (e.g., using a low
sawtooth, a middle woodwind, and high organ, etc.) you can make thousands of
different sounds.
2) Try turning on the waveshaper (at the bottom left
of the patch window). It obviously makes your patch louder, but at moderate
levels can create a warm distortion sound that is useful for those of us who
don't want mechanical sounding pads.
3) Using different modes: the sound
is currently set to the "single" mode. If you set the sound to "double" mode you
now have each oscillator creating a second tone. Then, go to the "uni" tab and
increase the number of voices from 1 to 3 for each oscillator. Set the trans to
12 and you now have each oscillator being doubled at one octave above and below
itself, making for an especially full sound.
Experiment with different trans values to create complex chords
with a single note. For example, by setting each trans to a 5 (a perfect 4th)
you have instant Claude Debussy chords with every single note you play!
Heavier Spices: Filters
Absynth's sound is famous in part because of the great filters. Like the LFO,
there are lots of online descriptions of what filters do. Although every
synthesizer has filters, there are no two that are designed exactly the same,
and Absynth has some especially nice sounding filters. In this discussion, the
focus will be on the bandpass (BPF) and comb filters. By combining filters with
LFOs or envelopes, a whole new set of sonic possibilities opens up.
Start with the basic patch window. Turn on all three filters for the
oscillators. The default is a lowpass filter that allows low sounds through and
stops higher frequencies. Although useful for more complex tones, with simple
sine waves you won't hear much difference with these filters turned on because
you have essentially no harmonics.
The BPF filter rejects all sounds except for those near the selected Hz
value. The effect of a BPF filter with a Q factor (or resonance frequency)
turned up to about 8 is to create a narrow sliver of sound that emphasizes a
specific slice of the harmonic spectrum. By selecting different values for the
three filters, each oscillator's unique role in creating an overall sound is
emphasized. Potentially interesting settings for the BPF are shown below:
Filters are great ways to shape a pad by themselves, but the most interesting
application of a filter is shown when you step into the envelope mode.
Click on "New Env" to generate a new envelope; Select filter 1 --> filter
1 freq from the list. This will enable you to modify the Hz that the BPF is
emphasizing. One very simple way to get an interesting filter sweep is to
highlight the filter 1 freq envelope and set it to "link" (in the "mode" menu)
to osc1 amp(1). Now, as oscillator 1 gets louder, the BPF filter will emphasize
a progressively higher frequency. The result is that the sound of osc1 becomes
brighter.
You'll also notice that I stretched out the "tail" of the pad. As the sound
gets brighter, I think the sudden release sounds too abrupt, so now the note
will sustain longer.
Now that you've drawn your envelope, try out different filters. Go back to
the patch window and give the comb filter a try. It's very interesting in this
context because as the filter frequency drops off, the comb filter will actually
change the pitch you hear quite distinctly, so it sounds like you're going out
of tune. Whether you like that or not is a matter of taste, of course.