MMorph - Sound Design Discussion

[TheCatBurglar]

Firstly - wanted to say a big shout to MeldaProduction for making a nice set of Plug-Ins. Only having recently discovered their stuff, I've been fast impressed with the capabilities of some of their stuff.

Wanted to start up a thread about MMorph Sound Design. Share some tips and settings as I couldn't find one with a generic search. If there already is one, please excuse my poor searching!

Personally I've been finding some nice combinations using a modulated bass as a main signal whilst using various foley sounds side-chained. I'm still looking into specifics setting wise. Pushing the settings to the extreme then sweeping between the A & B can bring through some really interesting tones. Traditionally it may not make much sense. But after some further processing, chopping and arrangement. It can be very powerful for genre's which are a little bit more complex in their production value.

So - What tips you guys got?

[Alphacodex]

I just recently played around with MMorph, although I was using it more in the style of a vocoder, so for example:
- use a drumloop as the "modulator" and a distorted monophonic (but octaved) saw-bass as "carrier"
- use a voice as modulator and chord-harmonies (with pads, leads etc.) as carrier

I found out, that much like a vocoder it makes a big difference what signal is A and what is B (you can easily use the "Swap A and B" Button to try the different results) - so A and B is a bit misleading (because it does not suggest, that the order is quite important).

I also found out that I get fairly impressive results when I insert an MPhatik after MMorph. Also the Flattening parameter in MMorph makes a big difference.

Other than that the result is heavily dependent on the material you feed into MMorph of course. When experimenting with the drumloop I wished I could get a bit less "snap" because even when I turned the ratio almost all the way to the carrier, it still sounded as if there was a very sharp transient although the carrier was just a unmodulated saw-sound.

[jmg8]

Well if your using it to morph from one sound to another over a time period. Then in the advanced settings the morphing curves and the dry range are essential for balancing a nice smooth transition.

If you are using the effect statically to create new interesting sounds, then really there are no rules at all. A hihat morphed with a cat is never going to sound natural, so when we are in this creative area its best to try some extremes.
It can be hard to find some super strange sounds that you would have never thought of, especially when only changing one parameter at a time, so here are some tips:
Randomize the whole plugin a few times until you here something interesting. Then switch to bank B (to the right of the plugin) do this for bank A,B,C and D. Then open the bank ABCD morph window and find a sweet spot between your randomized states.
When you start getting a good idea of how each control sounds and what it does to the signal, its a good idea to use the lock feature along with randomize together. First use randomize and when you hear something you like in the sound, work out what parameter is "good" then lock that parameter. Then keep on with random then locking in the parameters you like until you hone in on a great sound. It can take you to a place you would have never been, but without loosing the control and going completely random.
Lastly use randomize correctly, it can be very powerful. Hold CTRL to do a small random adjustment, hold shift to undo the random, hold ALT to completely bonkers full random (as just random is a smart random that only changes certain parameters to give more pleasing results)
Have fun.

[Chandlerhimself]

I saw a cool tutorial from spitfire audio on how to use a vocoder with percussion and a pad to make interesting sounds. I want to try the same thing with MMorph. I bet there are tons of cool things like that you can do. I'll post the video later when I'm at home.

[TheCatBurglar]

A hihat morphed with a cat is never going to sound natural, so when we are in this creative area its best to try some extremes.

Oi! - What are you trying to say?!

But yeah - thank you for the advice here. There's some really good snippets of information I hadn't even known about or considered before (RTFM!). Haven't even looked into using the ABCD morph window yet. So far my process has been mapping the AB knob and amount of effects, then recording the output to resample. Which has mostly been disappointing but there are a few gems of sound every now and then which make it entirely worth it.

As for the short keys when clicking, I didn't know about the different increments of randomization. Absolutely vital information. Thank you!

[MeldaProduction]

Hehe I was always more like "feeling" type of guy, so I tend to do simple thing - if I just don't know what to do now, I put it in and morph random 2 things I have currently nearby and see if it works . I generally like to morph nonpercussive with percussive stuff, seems working the best.