Relative Newbie Question - Creating Unique Sounds

[hojoland]

Hello all,

I purchased Zebra 2 a few weeks back and am absolutely enamoured with it. However, I have always been of the type to tend towards preset banks, primarily for two reasons. 1st - I lack the necessary knowledge of creating my own sounds from scratch. 2nd - I lack the time usually required. I find I normally just start with a patch/preset I somewhat like and tweak away (sometimes randomly) until I like what I hear. How many of you guys/gals do this? I recently purchased the Transmissions add-on which has numerous templates for creating your own sounds. I'm wondering which of these I should focus on at first? I think to myself, should I start with a OSC 1 routed thru a XMF and then to a RING? Or should I start with a COMB? I've read most of the Zebra 2 manual but some sections are a bit too laborious to fully understand. I have read the section on MSEG's maybe 4x and still don't fully understand what it is used for. (shrug) Sorry for the long first post and TIA for the help.

The style of music I am attempting to create is mostly techno and IDM, artist influences include Jesper Dahlbeck, Vector Lovers, Thomas Fehlmann, Matthew Dear (Audion), Woody McBride, Dan Bell, Apparat, Modeselektor, Aux 88, Cybotron.

/naive.in.maryland\

[Urs]

I have read the section on MSEG's maybe 4x and still don't fully understand what it is used for.

Sorry, yes, the manual is a bit confusing here...

Just check out a patch that uses an MSEG and start tweaking... they're a great resource for unique sounds that sport a lot of "movement" while holding down a note... the concept is really much easier than the manual suggests...

Urs

[hojoland]

I have read the section on MSEG's maybe 4x and still don't fully understand what it is used for.

Sorry, yes, the manual is a bit confusing here...

Just check out a patch that uses an MSEG and start tweaking... they're a great resource for unique sounds that sport a lot of "movement" while holding down a note... the concept is really much easier than the manual suggests...

Urs

If you say so...

I wish I wasn't at work right now to try this.

[bmrzycki]

I wish I wasn't at work right now to try this.

I understand your confusion, it took a while for me to start to understand them as well. It really helped me to read Jim Aikin's book "Power Tools for Synthesizer Programming: The Ultimate Reference for Sound Design". He has a section on MSEGs which helped me visualize the concept a lot.

I think of an MSEG as a 2-dimensional graph. For example, take the following table of values:

Code: Select all

Time (X-Axis)    Value (Y-Axis)
0/4                    50
1/4                    80
2/4                    40
3/4                    20
4/4                    30
5/4                    40
6/4                    65
7/4                    15
8/4                    0

If you visualize (or draw on paper) the points on a graph with the positive X-Axis being Time in quarter notes, and the positive Y-Axis being the modulation value from 0 to max.

Next, connect the dots with lines. It should look a lot like a basic MSEG shape. Of course, being a u-he product there's a lot of extra functionality found int the Z2 MSEGs than these basic principle ideas.

However, this should be enough to get your started thinking about MSEGs and how to use them. Anywhere you can apply a modulation source can be an MSEG.

I found the MSEGs used in Zebralette patches to be very informative. Because there's far fewer modulation sources in Zebralette than Z2 more preset designers used them. Almost all the Ambient presets in the Zebralette factory bank use them. Move the points around see how it colors the sound. THEN read the manual. I find the current documentation to be a lot like Unix man pages; they won't teach you the concept but are invaluable when you forget how something works.

[stevechristian]

I'd also recommend picking up the "Transmission" preset pack. It's got ALOT of good foundation patches that you can tweak, add an MSEG to and start creating new sounds quickly. For me, I almost always start with one of its 2 Osc base patches, throw in two MSEG's and start creating sounds I've never heard before. Super simple!

[beej]

I'd also recommend picking up the "Transmission" preset pack. It's got ALOT of good foundation patches that you can tweak, add an MSEG to and start creating new sounds quickly. For me, I almost always start with one of its 2 Osc base patches, throw in two MSEG's and start creating sounds I've never heard before. Super simple!