Audjoo Helix Software Synthesizer User Guide

23 Pages·2008·0.35 MB·English

Audjoo Helix Software Synthesizer User Guide
www.audjoo.com c/o Jonas Norberg
95 Cervantes blvd #102
San Francisco, CA 94123
USA
email support: [email protected]
website: www.audjoo.com
2008-10-24
Delay ........................................................15
Table of Contents Reverb.......................................................16
Limiter ......................................................16
Design Goals of Helix..............................4
EQ .............................................................17
Development with Help...........................4
Keyboard................................................17
Installing Helix.........................................4
Arpeggio System.....................................17
System Recommendations.......................4
MODULATION ROUTING..................18
Installing Helix on a Mac.........................4
Envelope Generators...............................18
Installing Helix on a PC............................4
LFO Generators........................................18
Using Helix...............................................5
Sequencer..................................................19
Trial Version...............................................5
Continuous Controller mapper.............20
General Signal Flow..................................5
Modulation Matrix..................................20
User Presets................................................5
Modulation sources.................................21
User Waveforms........................................5
Modulation destinations........................22
Synthesizer Engine..................................5
Credits.....................................................23
Oscillators...................................................5
Wave Oscillator........................................7
Multi............................................................7
Morph..........................................................8
Shape Time.................................................8
Shape Amplitude.......................................8
SHAPE FREQ.............................................9
Noise Generator.......................................9
Analog Oscillator.....................................9
String Model...........................................10
Filter / Shaper Stages.............................10
Signal Flow...............................................10
Filters.........................................................10
Standard....................................................11
Equalizer...................................................11
Ladder.......................................................11
Oscillator...................................................12
Delay.........................................................12
PMDelay...................................................12
String.........................................................12
Dynamics..................................................13
Distortion Shapers...................................13
GLOBAL SETTINGS AND FX.............14
Distortion..................................................14
Stereo Chorus / Flanger..........................14
Stereo Phaser............................................15
Installing Helix
Design Goals of Helix
System Recommendations
Helix was made with a few things in mind.
Helix is implemented as a VST plug in.
Sound quality This provides the highest degree of
flexibility, since this plug-in format is
One of the goals was to provide the highest
supported by most leading DAWs.
possible sound quality. Used “normally”
Helix should not produce any unwanted For all platforms:
sounds.
● CPU > 1GHz
● RAM > 1GB
Efficiency/Performance
● HDD > 10MB free
Many synths provide a lot of features and
Known supported hosts on PC:
sound great at the expense of high CPU
usage. In a real arrangement, you have a Cubase, Tracktion, REAPER, Samplitude,
lot of plug ins going at the same time, the EnergyXT, Renoise, Minihost, Podium,
goal is for Helix to be a synth you can add Bidule, Usine, Orion, Cantabile, Live,
without worrying about the CPU-hit too Project5, FL Studio, VSTHost, ACID, Logic
much. 5, Sonar
Known supported hosts on Mac OS X:
Flexibility
Cubase, Ableton Live, Metro, Logic 8 and
As much as possible of the inner workings
Garageband (via fxpansion VST-AU
of Helix is exposed. Don't be scared by the
wrapper).
number of knobs and sliders.
Installing Helix on a Mac
Development with Help
1. Drag the downloaded “.tar.bz2”
During development in 2007, Helix was
archive to your vst folder. The
originally published as a public beta. Over
archive is called something along
30 beta versions were released. During
the lines of audjoo_helix2008-MM-
that time excellent feedback, bug reports
DD-MacOSX.tar.bz2
and feature requests were generated from
2. Double click the file to extract
users. All of which made Helix a better
synth. 3. Place the license file in the newly
created folder
Installing Helix on a PC
1. Drag the downloaded self extracting
archive to your vst folder. The self
extracting file is called something User Presets
along the lines of:
Helix uses a file system approach to
audjoo_helix2008-MM-DD-Win32-
loading user waveforms and presets. In
SelfExtracting.exe
the folder where you've installed Helix (eg:
2. Double click the file to extract
C:\Program Files\Vstplugins\Helix) there is
3. Place the license file in the newly a sub folder titled "cycles" and "patches"
created folder respectively.
Each preset is organized in a “bank”
(typically named based on author) and a
Using Helix
“category” (leads, bass and so on).
Basically a two level folder structure. To
This guide will go through each element of
create a new bank, simply create a new
Helix one at a time. But first let's cover
folder for your bank and folders for each
some global topics.
category.
Trial Version
User Waveforms
If you have not purchased a license (yet)
Custom waveforms (singe cycle) are also
Helix will run in trial mode, you will see it
possible. In the folder “waves” you can
in the lower right corner of the window.
place loopable 8/16/24/32-bit MONO WAV
files, no larger than 4096 samples.
The limitations of the Trial mode is:
Synthesizer Engine
● random tuning after a while
● rind modulated noise after a while
Oscillators
● no saving
The oscillators have little to no aliasing in
General Signal Flow output. Band-limitation principles are
employed in Helix's synthesis architecture,
Every voice in Helix consists of oscillators
while still striving to keep CPU usage at a
creating sounds, filters that cut or boost
minimum with maximum sound quality.
frequencies, Distortion Shapers that add
An oscillator (OSC) can be on or off, if it's
new harmonics and a final amplification
off it consumes no resources and doesn't
step that shapes the amplitude of the
show any settings on the screen. Common
sound over time. All the active voices are
controls are below
then added together and global effects are
applied to them.
Amp
Controls the individual OSC's initial
loudness. Volume control is bipolar,
therefore an amplitude below zero will
result in an inverted output. (Note that you
will not see the inversion on the OSC
Preview.)
Stage
Phase
Indicates where in the signal chain is the
Adjusts the starting point of the oscillator.
OSC going to be routed, where it
Logically, the start of a sound would have a
corresponds to the 6 stages of the Filter
click if it were to start beyond the center.
Stages section
You can use this to move the starting point
closest to the center amplitude
Type
Change the OSC type you wish to use. Free
There are currently 4 to select: Wave,
A derivative controller for OSC Phase, from
Noise, Analog, String.
which it sets a random starting phase on
each note trigger. On Wave shaper mode,
Mask
you will see a blue overlay being drawn on
the OSC Preview, parallel to the Red Super
Adjusts the note range of the OSC. Lo Key
Overlay, which is discussed further on.
(left) determines the lowest, whereas Hi
Key determines the highest note allowed.
You can assign individual note ranges with Pan
all 4 OSCs, therefore allowing the
Controls the panorama, or stereo balance
possibility to use more than one type of
of the OSC.
sound in a single preset.
Unstable Amount / Speed
Key Trk Lo/Hi
Controls the stability of an OSC's pitch.
This is a modulation source that follows
Like an analog synthesizer, the pitch
the keyboard, except it is clamped at the lo
sometimes changes randomly. You can use
and hi keys, the output of this is zero
this control to simulate that effect.
below the low key, one above the high key
Note: Faster speed almost resembles
and a linear ramp in between.
pitched noise.
Amp Key Trk
Oct
How the clamped key tracking should
Adjust the central octave of the OSC
affect the amplitude if this oscillator.
Semi Super Count (CNT)
Transposes the OSC to a different key, in Select the number of voices (or copies) of
semitones. the oscillator. A dim, red bar is shown on
the OSC preview, where more voices will
Detune mean a vertically-larger bar.
Adjust how “off” the OSC sounds to the
Super Spread (SPRD)
correct pitch, in cents.
This controls the pitch separation (in
Keyb semitones) from each voice. The larger the
value, the more spread out the pitch of
Pitch Key tracking amount, tuned in Equal
each voice, and the more "fatter" the sound.
Temperament
Super Wide
Wave Oscillator
Adjusts the width of the Multi OSC. You
can decide whether or not you want each
super voice heard in stereo, or if you want
to condense the sound through a single
speaker.
Super Phase
Like the OSC Phase controller, this controls
Helix's primary OSC type is the "Wave"
the starting phase of each super voice.
mode. As shown above, you're given
Basically, lower values will restrict each
plenty of controls, as well as a nice little
voice's phase to the same point of the
graph that shows you what your sound
waveform, which will most likely give a
looks like.
"phaser" effect. On the OSC Preview, the
red bar will flex horizontally where the bar
Multi overlaps the starting points of each super
voice.
The multi section allows you to modify the
current waveform by layering itself with
Super Free
copies of the same waveform for a single
note, in order to get that "super" sound. It's This controls the ability to trigger a super
very similar to a Unison Mode found in voice without starting on the same phase of
some synthesizers, only this time you can any of the other voices. The higher the
have up to 4 of them in total! (In addition, value, the less likely there will be any
you can play these sounds in full "phaser" effect. This is shown on the OSC
polyphony!) Preview as a red horizontal wipe across the
waveform.
Morph sound while you breed from one wave
shape to another. The variable controls are
The Shape Morph control is a variable that
as follows:
allows you to change between the two
wave shaping configurations made for the
Shape Time
OSC. There are three morphing modes, all
which alter the phase treatment of the
These change the characteristics of the
shaped waveforms.
waveform based on time. (ie: Horizontal)
KEEP - All phases are kept. Pitch does not change, but will change the
formant tone, if not add a subharmonic
COPY- Copies the first waveform's phases
per-cycle.
to the rest.
RESET - Resets all phases to zero.
Bend (T.SHP)
The two latter modes makes for smoother
This squashes the original waveform, while
morphing, so if you have modulation of the
stretching out the tail of the single cycle.
morph, try these.
Mirror (T.MIR)
Harm
This adds a reversed copy of the original
You can also control the available
waveform, and another.
harmonics of the OSC waveform. This is
simply a "brick wall" low-pass filter that
Wrap (T.WRP)
fully cuts out the upper harmonics of the
waveform, only to leave lower harmonic Wraps extra copies of the original
tones present. Keep in mind that this will waveform. This is akin to "Hard-Sync"
cause the upper notes to be inaudible, oscillator morphing, only the secondary
which you may consider attaching a KBD1 pitch harmonic is the determined value of
(Key track) onto it. the wrapped shape
Shaping Shape Amplitude
One of the more powerful features of
These change the characteristics of the
Helix's synthesis engine is the wave
waveform based on height. (ie: Vertical)
shaper. This section gives you several
All changes made to the function based on
ways to transform your basic OSC
amplitude will remain at the same
waveform, into a completely different
loudness/volume.
sound. With every different base
waveform results in different results of
Mirror (A.MIR)
sound. The great thing about this is, you're
given the ability to use two for a single Virtually, this cuts through the vertical
OSC! Not to mention the Shape Morph position of the waveform and flips the
option will give you even more changes in exceeding part of the function inward
Wrap (A.WRP) retaining total amplitude.
Wraps the waveform vertically, where the
SHAPE FREQ
extreme peaks are shifted to the bottom of
the graph, similar in behavior to the Amp
Mirror. This can be used as an alternative Freq Fundamental Boost
for adjusting Pulse Width (PW) of any
This boosts the fundamental of the
waveform, only the bit after the asymptote
waveform, while attenuating the other
aren't purely flat.
partials. At full setting only the
fundamental will be heard, effectively
Bit reduce (A.BIT)
turning the wave into a pure sine wave.
This decreases the amplitude resolution (ie:
the amount of possible changes from the
Noise Generator
center) of the function by quantizing the
waveform. This works exactly like a
Similar to old sound chips (like those in
simple bit-crusher
early home computers), Helix Noise uses a
"Sample and Hold" style. The only
Octave (A.OCT)
parameter specific to it is whether it should
Layer an identical-but-higher-octave generate mono or stereo noise.
waveform
At first glance, it would appear to sound
nothing but a simple White Noise
Octave Phase (A.OCP)
generator. Try adjusting the OSC to -11
octaves below to hear the distinct pitch
Changes the relative phase of the layered
noise. Consequently, OSC Unstable can
octave OSC
alter its pitch stability
High Pass (A.HP)
Analog Oscillator
High Pass Filter which attempts to remove
lower harmonics of the waveform, then
The analog oscillator generates a full-band
amplifies the remaining high frequencies.
Square wave where the pulse width can be
adjusted. Its PW Morph parameter
Low Pass (A.LP)
corresponds to the OSC Morph setting in
Low Pass Filter which attempts to remove the matrix. Unlike the wave shaper's
higher harmonics of the resultant Square Wave, this can be useful to create a
waveform from above, then amplifies the sound that can cut through frequencies
low frequencies. without any attenuation while morphing
Clip (A.CLP)
Flattens the peaks of the function while
String Model Filter / Shaper Stages
The string model is a mathematical model Helix has a semi modular
of two vibrating strings.
Signal Flow
The common signal flow mode is when all
filters and shapers are connected in series.
Frequency Spread (F.SPREAD)
Adjusts the detuning between the two
strings. The less common mode is called parallel,
where “ab” and “cd” are processed in
Low Pass (LP) parallel, then mixed together before being
processed by “ef”.
When a wave bounce at the end of a string
it looses some high frequency. Beware of
that this can introduce some phase
smearing on higher notes.
Damp
When a wave bounce at the end of a string
Filters
some of the energy is lost.
You can use three filters at the same time.
Morph (PWM) Each one can be of any of the below types.
The central theme for the filters are that
Changes the position of the pick-
they add or remove frequencies, as
up/microphone along the string body.
opposed to the shapers they seldom add
Modulating this sounds similar to pulse
harmonics that are not there, or otherwise
width modulation.
drastically change the original input
sound.
Cross Talk (XTALK)
When a wave bounce at the end of a string On
some of the energy is transferred to the
Enable or Disable the filter stage.
other string.
Type
Lists all the different types of filters