Ondes Martenot???

[jensa]

It sounds absolutely wonderful! Great work boys!

[Hitchcock Bell]

Very interested in this Ondes recreation. A couple of questions:

Will the impulse responses be available to use in other convo reverbs. A great advantage of this would be to use them in conjunction with the French Connection ribbon keyboard/analog synth module combo to produce very authentic Martenot sounds.

Also, how does the sampled Ondes cope with wide mulit-octave glissandi? I've loved that particular feature of the instrument ever since I heard this beautiful TV series theme tune (Out Of The Unknown) when I was child in the 70s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQBMGl-kjOE

Notice how the glissandi "scoops" - the volume ducks slightly before it hits the top note, thus producing a very emotional, violinistic effect. This is a key feature of the instrument even between shorter note spans. Also notice the intensity of the vibrato - quite fast and deep. Again, this is very emotional and beautifully expressive. Any of this possible? If so, could Soniccouture post a demo?

Thanks.

p.s. the actual tv episode featured in the youtube video above is not only a poor example of the series, but also actually unpleasant and irresponsible (the thoughtlessness of some 1970s TV producers!). Ignore it and just listen to the main theme.

[EvilDragon]

Since Ondes is a Kontakt Player library, the impulses are packed within the monoliths. So the impulses are not available for usage in other convolvers.

Should handle multi-octave glissandi just fine. Even the factory Unisono-Portamento script handles 88 keys worth of portamento without a hitch.

[soniccouture]

Very interested in this Ondes recreation. A couple of questions:

Will the impulse responses be available to use in other convo reverbs. A great advantage of this would be to use them in conjunction with the French Connection ribbon keyboard/analog synth module combo to produce very authentic Martenot sounds.

they aren't currently available seperately, no, since they are a valuable part of the Ondes package.
the french connection controller can be used to control Kontakt if used over a CV to MIDI convertor, although not as smooth as CV on it's own, of course.

Also, how does the sampled Ondes cope with wide mulit-octave glissandi? I've loved that particular feature of the instrument ever since I heard this beautiful TV series theme tune (Out Of The Unknown) when I was child in the 70s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQBMGl-kjOE

Notice how the glissandi "scoops" - the volume ducks slightly before it hits the top note, thus producing a very emotional, violinistic effect. This is a key feature of the instrument even between shorter note spans. Also notice the intensity of the vibrato - quite fast and deep. Again, this is very emotional and beautifully expressive. Any of this possible? If so, could Soniccouture post a demo?

i think a few of our audio demos have multi-octave swoops, no? i'd have to double check. they certainly have plenty of vibrato.

Anyway, your question about the volume modulation - this is not a feature of the Ondes per se, but a feature of the the player on that piece of music - the volume envelope of the ondes is controlled in real time by the player, using the touche d'intensité. Vibrato speed is also entirely controlled in realtime by the players hand, so it too is down to you how fast you play it once you have setup your controllers. we also offer an 'easy' LFO based vibrato, but for authentic results, the vibrato should be played manually.

we have provided several different ways to set these parameters up over MIDI -you can download the MIDI quickstart guide and the full manual from the PDF section of the webpage :

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/g27-ondes/

[Hitchcock Bell]

Ok. Thanks. Yes, I've been listening to more of the audio demos and there are indeed a few wide gliss effects. I'm a glutton for them so I'd love to hear even more.

Would you recommend the Doepfer ribbon controller over the French Connection? If so could you say why? The problem with the Doepfer seems to be that its ribbon is not pitch graded - there's no indication of what note you're about to play until you you touch the strip. Whereas the French C has the physical keyboard layout as a guide, just like the real Martenot.

I hadn't realised that technology had advanced to where midi samplers like Kontakt could be used with CV ribbon controllers like the Deopfer and French Connection. Could you or someone else explain a bit more how that works? They certainly seem to be the ideal controllers for the Ondes.

[soniccouture]

Alfred,

I think I should clarify a couple of points here:

Although the Kontakt engine can do wide glissandos that work very nicely with the Ondes library, we don't realize these with a direct pitch controller like you find on the Ondes Martenot or the French Connection. That kind of direct control of pitch is far beyond the scope of MIDI resolution.

Instead we do it with controlled portamento. Kontakt can do very convincing pitch glides so long as it's given a "destination MIDI note". So by controlling that portamento, with varying speed and real-time vibrato, we can get a very convincing result. But in fact the input data is quite different.

In the demonstration video you see me use a Doepfer ribbon, but I'm not using this in the same way as the "ruban" of an Ondes or a French Connection, I'm using it for pressure and vibrato (ie. small pitch variations). Any pitch glide beyond a few semitones I need to invoke the portamento to achieve.

I hadn't realised that technology had advanced to where midi samplers like Kontakt could be used with CV ribbon controllers like the Deopfer and French Connection. Could you or someone else explain a bit more how that works? They certainly seem to be the ideal controllers for the Ondes.

Unfortunately it hasn't. Even if you convert your ring controller to MIDI, you won't be able to accurately control the sampled Ondes in this manner. As you're probably aware, the ring on the French Connection covers several octaves, and you can't convert this with any precision in MIDI. (In fact, pitch resolution is just one of several problems in converting this behaviour to MIDI, but it's the primary one.) There's a reason your French Connection doesn't come equipped with a MIDI out; Analogue Systems haven't found a solution either.

New protocols such as OSC can provide the kind of pitch accuracy needed to imitate the Ondes behaviour with electronic instruments, but it's early days yet, and no firm conception exists of how a sampler (essentially a legacy MIDI device) should operate within that framework.

Hoping not to be just a bringer of bad news... our sampled Ondes can sound very real, as I think is evident in the demos. But it requires a slight shift in performance method to get the desired result. We do provide MIDI files of several of the demos to demonstrate how each was achieved.

All the best,
Dan
Soniccouture

[Hitchcock Bell]

Belated thanks for your detailed reply. I shall be investigating your Ondes with enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, roll on the day when expressive controllers like ribbons can finally control midi with accuracy. It might change everything.

Luck and thanks for your imagination and persistence of vision
Hitch (Alfred... heh heh... liked that)

[audiosabre]

I am interested in buying this library. I love these ancient synths (I also own the Novachord library).

Just a quick question; is it possible for me to manually control vibrato using Aftertouch? After watching Thomas' performance, this method would seem pretty authentic; just like wobbling the keyboard.

Thanks.

[soniccouture]

Hi,
yes, and it works very well -you can see it in our tutorial video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOB_hgGxkSo


you can also control vibrato using any other MIDI controller as well.


James

[audiosabre]

Hi,
yes, and it works very well -you can see it in our tutorial video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOB_hgGxkSo

That's great news. Mine's a CME UF7. How are those UF v2?

I'm definitely in

[Korky]

The Kurzweil PC3 with the Kurz ribbon controller and a Yamaha breath controller is a crackingly good combo for playing Ondes - I've been using these to great effect. The ribbon covers a maximum two octave range (one octave up/down either side of the centre point) which is fine for most note transitions. I found it best to divide a melody into shorter musical phrases, playing only the starting note of each phrase, and using the ribbon to play the rest of the phrase. The markings on the ribbon, which are marked out conveniently in whole tones, make it quite easy to play melodies with accuracy and very authentic 'real life' vibrato and ballistics when sliding from note to note. The breath controller also does the 'touch d'intensite' duties with much better controllability than aftertouch. If you co-ordinate your breath and sliding movements well, you can get incredibly close to the expressivity of the real thing. Until I find a spare £15,000 to buy one of those new repro Ondes Martenots, this slightly cheaper alternative will do me nicely!

[ErikH]

I assigned many of the functions of the Ondes to my Novation ZeRO SLMkII which works just fine. Only: I would like to assign the pitch/portamento to the Zero's pan slider, which is feasable, so I could use the Modulation wheel of the keyboard for the vibrato intensity. This I don't seem to be able to do.
Is this possible, and if so: can someone give me a hint on how to proceed?
Thanks!
BTW: Ondes is addictive. Never had more fun with a virtual instrument than with this one!

[Korky]

I assigned many of the functions of the Ondes to my Novation ZeRO SLMkII which works just fine. Only: I would like to assign the pitch/portamento to the Zero's pan slider, which is feasable, so I could use the Modulation wheel of the keyboard for the vibrato intensity. This I don't seem to be able to do.
Is this possible, and if so: can someone give me a hint on how to proceed?
Thanks!
BTW: Ondes is addictive. Never had more fun with a virtual instrument than with this one!

Hi Erik,
I'm guessing you mean you want to assign the portamento speed to your Pan slider? This is very easy to do:

Note that the portamento speed knob is pre-assigned to the mod wheel, and needs to be unassigned from that first, or it will stubbornly continue to receive mod wheel messages, whatever else you do! Go to the Ondes Setup page, and right-click on the glide speed knob. It will pop up a 'Learn MIDI CC# Automation' message - click on this. Now waggle any controller slider (even the mod wheel), and the knob should respond in turn. Now, right-click the knob again, and you'll see two pop-up items - 'Learn MIDI CC# Automation' and 'Remove MIDI Automation'. Click on the 'Remove' item, and the knob should stop responding to all MIDI CCs.
Next, look at the controller assignments on the right - click in the CC# box next to 'Glide Speed' and select CC2 from the drop-down menu. Then, click in the CC# box next to 'Vibrato Depth' and select CC1 from the drop-down menu.
That's it - your Pan slider should now control Glide Speed, and your mod wheel control vibrato depth.

You may find that the default vibrato speed is too slow, but you can change this, as long as you're running Ondes in a full version of Kontakt (not the Kontakt Player). It's a little more complicated, but still easy to do.
Click on the Wrench icon (the instrument's edit button) at the top left of the Ondes instrument. When the editing page opens, click on the Group Editor button near the top, and make sure the 'Edit All Groups' button is on (it should go red). This is important, otherwise you'll only be editing one of the Ondes timbres - and you need to do the next bit to all of them identically.

Now, scroll to the bottom of the edit page where you'll see a collapsed bar titled 'Modulation', with an arrowed button by the title. Click on the button - the panel will open to reveal three modules: Pitch, Volume and Cutoff. In the Pitch module, change the value of the Frequency knob to, say, 1Hz (or thereabouts, depending on taste). If the mod wheel is up, you'll hear the speed change as you change the LFO frequency value.

Needless to say, once you've got everything the way you want, re-save the Ondes patch under a new name, so you can come back to it any time you like.

Hope this explanation helps - let me know how you get on.

You're right - Ondes is very addictive

[Korky]

Hi again Erik,

I just realised I said to assign CC2 for the pan knob, when I meant to say CC10..! CC2 is of course for breath control, not pan. Just substitute 'CC2' with 'CC10' and you'll be OK.

My brain hurts... Dur!!!

[ErikH]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to explain this in detail.
I am indeed running Kontakt 5 , not the player as Glassworks and Ondes gave me the option to crossgrade, making it a bargain.

Thanks again! Much appreciated.