How To Use Soundfont Modulators

[BlueTronic]

In creating soundfonts, I'm trying to make use of the modulators. No matter what editor I use, no modulators of any kind seem to have any effect as I can observe through the editors. Is there something I'm missing?

I have an instrument that simulates a modulated filter by having several samples of the same sound with different filter settings. I want to put them all into one instrument and have the modwheel cycle through all the different samples. How do I do this?

Edited August 4, 2014 by BlueTronic

[Nabeel Ansari]

In creating soundfonts, I'm trying to make use of the modulators. No matter what editor I use, no modulators of any kind seem to have any effect as I can observe through the editors. Is there something I'm missing?

I have an instrument that simulates a modulated filter by having several samples of the same sound with different filter settings. I want to put them all into one instrument and have the modwheel cycle through all the different samples. How do I do this?

I'm not sure there's a soundfont engine out there that will let you map MIDI CC data (like the modwheel) to cycle through program states (samples) like that. Short of scripting in a sampler engine like Kontakt, I don't think plugins allow that kind of control.

However, might I suggest a different approach? Swapping samples to simulate filter modulations will achieve glitchy, undesirable effects. You may instead want to directly modulate an actual filter placed on the soundfont after the fact; this is much easier and more common to do.

EDIT: I would give this a good read.

Edited August 5, 2014 by Neblix

[Nase]

you could also just use velocity layers for that example.

assign the volume to the modwheel instead, so you can control it independently.

Swapping samples to simulate filter modulations will achieve glitchy, undesirable effects.

unrelated, but while it might be undesirable for this, that could be really cool to play around with.

Edited August 5, 2014 by Nase

[Nabeel Ansari]

unrelated, but while it might be undesirable for this, that could be really cool to play around with.

You could simulate the effect by turning down your buffer size until your computer can no longer handle your DAW processing.

[timaeus222]

You could simulate the effect by turning down your buffer size until your computer can no longer handle your DAW processing.

Funny, I was actually imagining something would happen like the quick flashes you see here, but in sound instead. I actually tried it though with FL's soundfont player. Unfortunately it only changes the sound on new keypresses, so when I tried it, nothing happened mid-envelope.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Funny, I was actually imagining something would happen like the quick flashes you see here, but in sound instead. I actually tried it though with FL's soundfont player. Unfortunately it only changes the sound on new keypresses, so when I tried it, nothing happened mid-envelope.

Humans don't react to light wave discontinuity. They do, however, react to acoustic discontinuity. It sounds like a pop.

Convince yourself that the straight line messes up the smoothness of the sine sound using the straight lines in squares and saws as your frame of reference.

Edited August 6, 2014 by Neblix

[timaeus222]

Humans don't react to light wave discontinuity. They do, however, react to acoustic discontinuity. It sounds like a pop.

Convince yourself that the straight line messes up the smoothness of the sine sound using the straight lines in squares and saws as your frame of reference.

Why are we talking about pops? Sure, I can see that that part of the sine wave is slightly off in its shape, but I was just giving a testimony on something I tried. To be fair though, I can hear pops, but it's not something your everyday human can hear. A few years ago, I couldn't.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Why are we talking about pops? Sure, I can see that that part of the sine wave is slightly off in its shape, but I was just giving a testimony on something I tried. To be fair though, I can hear pops, but it's not something your everyday human can hear. A few years ago, I couldn't.

What are we talking about then? Because until you entered the thread, we were talking about swapping samples using the modwheel mid-sound. This gives rise to discontinuous audio. Sound discontinuity is when the end of one thing doesn't align with the start of the next. Not sure what you're confused about.

It's the same reason you can't swap out your impulse response in a Convolver plugin during live playback without a glitch occurring. It's relying on static periodicity (in other words, it pretends it's been repeating back to infinity and will continue towards infinity), and when you change it, the next thing you have relies on its *own* static periodicity. This causes a phase issue and thus start and end samples of each segment don't align, causing a pop.

Edited August 6, 2014 by Neblix

[timaeus222]

What are we talking about then? Because until you entered the thread, we were talking about swapping samples using the modwheel mid-sound. This gives rise to discontinuous audio. Sound discontinuity is when the end of one thing doesn't align with the start of the next. Not sure what you're confused about.

It's the same reason you can't swap out your impulse response in a Convolver plugin during live playback without a glitch occurring. It's relying on static periodicity (in other words, it pretends it's been repeating back to infinity and will continue towards infinity), and when you change it, the next thing you have relies on its *own* static periodicity. This causes a phase issue and thus start and end samples of each segment don't align, causing a pop.

Well, yes, but that didn't occur like you described (and what you described was what I expected, sans *substantial* popping). When I linked the modwheel to the program number in the FL soundfont player in a soundfont with many programs (i.e. FluidR3, Squidfont, etc.), it still scrolls through to a new sound, but the first sound that played didn't change, and I had to play a new note to hear the new instrument after I stopped moving the modwheel. Hence, I said nothing happened mid-envelope [of the instrument's ADSR envelope].

[Nabeel Ansari]

Well, yes, but that didn't occur like you described (and what you described was what I expected, sans *substantial* popping). When I linked the modwheel to the program number in the FL soundfont player in a soundfont with many programs (i.e. FluidR3, Squidfont, etc.), it still scrolls through to a new sound, but the first sound that played didn't change, and I had to play a new note to hear the new instrument after I stopped moving the modwheel. Hence, I said nothing happened mid-envelope [of the instrument's ADSR envelope].

Right, but we're not talking about changing the instrument that the soundfont player is set to. We're talking about changing the sample being played in the midst of its playback. If you read the OP, he wants to do this to simulate a modulating filter.

I'm not telling you that discontinuous audio occurs when you cycle the program number. I was never talking about that.

Edited August 6, 2014 by Neblix

[timaeus222]

Right, but we're not talking about changing the instrument that the soundfont player is set to. We're talking about changing the sample being played in the midst of its playback. If you read the OP, he wants to do this to simulate a modulating filter.

I'm not telling you that discontinuous audio occurs when you cycle the program number. I was never talking about that.

Yeah, I read that already. We just interpreted it differently. Can you just lighten up, please? I don't mean to offend you, but I would like you to correct people more politely. Thanks.

Anyways, I've used Viena soundfont creator before, and I don't recall being able to link modwheel to scroll through samples, so there's my account on working with soundfonts.

Edited August 6, 2014 by timaeus222

[Nase]

oh you two. you're so cute together!

[BlueTronic]

you could also just use velocity layers for that example.

assign the volume to the modwheel instead, so you can control it independently

I can break the link between velocity and volume? I was going to use velocity but there's so many samples, it there would be volume discrepancies. Can you elaborate on this?

And does anyone know why the modulators would seem to have no effect on instruments?

[Nase]

i don't know if you can break the link, i just thought it likely. isn't there a way to rescale the range of volume percentage you get from 0-127 velocity?

[timaeus222]

i don't know if you can break the link, i just thought it likely. isn't there a way to rescale the range of volume percentage you get from 0-127 velocity?

There's likely a velocity curve setting in your DAW, if that's what you're referring to. With FL, I see "Link note on velocity to:" none, Velocity, Mod X, or Mod Y. I don't see "Other" or something similar, though.

[Nase]

no, in the soundfont's settings i mean.

i think most of my soundfonts have different velocity settings by default. as in, 0-127 velocity doesn't equal 0-100% volume. so there should be a setting for changing that, up to 100-100% volume.