Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
I hope you’ve paid attention to previous issues, as this month we will be steaming ahead. If you did not, I strongly advise that you do. However, to avoid confusion, we are looking into ZynaddsubFX (Zyn from now on) that comes with LMMS. I want you to know that, as ugly as Zyn is (ugly as Zyn… OK, I’ll see myself out), you can make almost any synth out there on the market with this. Not kidding!
Fire up LMMS and let’s start!
First, Addsynth. Pull Zyn into your song editor. Click the show GUI button. Click advanced. Click edit instrument. Click the add button under addsynth. Click show voice parameters. Next to the sine wave, click change.
This may look like an equalizer, but it is not. It is a little counter-intuitive, the base function is to the left and the Oscillator is to the right, but you get used to it.
In the equalizer-type board that fills the bottom half of the screen, the even numbers usually mean an octave (just keep that in mind). The first one, top and bottom is a special one. Use this to make your instruments sound ‘fuller’. You should experiment with even numbers as well as 2, 4, 8, 16, 32.
In the Addsynth voice parameters, one screen back, you will find your new voice / instrument in the picture window. Just below that in the bottom-left, you should see “Unison”. It is off by default. You can add as many as you like, and by using the slider right next to it, you open the “Frequency Spread” that allows Zyn to move the tuning a bit – giving you a wider spectrum of sound, if you would.
Please, you have to play with this and hear the difference to understand; I cannot tell you; you need to learn this, so if you do not follow along and fiddle (don’t worry, you won’t break it) you will not understand what it sounds like. This will allow you to turn a simple chord into a trance piano sound, for instance, if you ever wondered where they get those sounds.
Then next to the “Frequency Spread“ you should see a knob with the word “Stereo” above it; this spreads the sound in the left / right spectrum. The more you crank this knob, the ‘wider’ the sound will be. Try it! Spreading your instruments in stereo allows for better sounding tunes in the end.
If your goal is to create special effects for your games, the next two knobs are your friend. Vibrato makes those warbling sounds. Finer tuning for these can be done in the frequency LFO, but again, I cannot tell you, you need to actually play with it and find what you like or what works for you. If you have a large screen, move the piano out to the side, as there is no “play” option here. If you make a boo-boo, just click on clear to the right, to reset all the harmonics.
The nice thing about this is that each “instrument” you create has its own volume control, so you can add loud and soft versions of the same instrument to use in your song, without having to fiddle with volume automation. You can also have multiple instances of Zyn in your song editor, so don’t be shy.
Also remember that all these are dependent on your sound card too. My laptop’s built-in sound card is probably made of cardboard, so it is quite horrible. When I connect my external Soundblaster card, the difference is chalk and cheese. Thus, if you are just mucking about like we are, don’t try to make anything too serious, you need a decent sound card for that.
On to Padsynth, (I am skipping Subsynth as I don’t see how it is useful.)
Things may look different and also similar, but it will sound different than Addsynth. If you look at the interface, you will see ‘apply changes’ is highlighted in a different color. (Supposedly red) as you need to press this every time to apply the changes you have made, before you will hear them. You would be surprised how often you forget.
To the right of the sine wave, we have our change button, which will allow us to choose a new wave type, the same as in the other two synths. The reason the Padsynth sounds so much different to the Addsynth is – if you look above the wave, you will see two blue dotted lines intersecting the cyan harmonic. This is adjustable by the bandwidth knob in the bottom-left. It tells you above that that it is the frequency distribution. That is what is filling out the horrible PC speaker-esque sound to something that does not make your ears bleed.
In the image, top-left, there is a word that is marred by the outline, just below ‘base type’. It says Gauss; changing that to square should get you into the synthwave-type sounds. I know some of you have been on a synthwave trip (shout out to Peter), now here is your chance to create your own! The next one on that list, double exp, is basically a combination of the two above. You can also use the “AmpMultiplier” to multiply the amp, but what does that mean? It creates another hidden copy of the harmonic and allows you to shape the tune a bit more. Again, if you have tinny speakers, you may not hear the difference, so I urge you to get semi-decent speakers and a semi-decent sound card if you plan on playing with Zyn. Or… if you are tone deaf like me, you can just sputter ahead. (No, really, I listened to Rob Lande's video of violins that cost between $70 - $10 million and they all sounded the same to me!).
As the name says, it is made for making pads, they sound really great when you use octaves? (bear with me on the music terminology, I don’t know it, I know what I like and I know how to get it, and that is enough for me). Bear in mind that this is a base. Top-right it will even say “base type”.
I have led you to the ‘points of interest’ – however, the onus is on YOU to fiddle and find sounds you like. This is a really great way to do remixes of songs with arb instruments.
Hope you guys had fun; we will continue this in the next issue.
As always, redirect your queries to misc@fullcirclemagazine.org