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Trumpet/ brass sounds

PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:38 am
by rhrock3
Hi all
Loving some of the sounds coming from this group. I have recently come into possesion of a gaia from a friend who thought it was a peice of crap, I love it though!
anyway I have used it a couple of times at gigs and am really chasing a trumpet/brass instrument sound, but I have no idea where to start. Any ideas?

Re: Trumpet/ brass sounds

PostPosted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:48 am
by neamerjell
Start with a triangle wave, then the octave above at half volume, then add the fifth two octaves above at one quarter volume. That should get you started. Search YouTube for explanations of harmonics. That info comes in handy.

Also, flutes and strings start with a sine wave, clarinets start with a square wave. Saxophone? Well, you're on your own there, 'cause I haven't got a clue.

I learned all of this on YouTube.

Re: Trumpet/ brass sounds

PostPosted: Sun Nov 11, 2012 12:10 am
by rhrock3
Cheers for that, I'll give it a crack! If you have any specifically good youtube vids feel free to post the link for me ;)

Re: Trumpet/ brass sounds

PostPosted: Tue Nov 13, 2012 2:46 am
by neamerjell
I'm sorry. Triangle might give you a decent sound, but saw waves are what you need. My first try at a trumpet-like sound, actually ended up sounding like a saxophone. I just bought my Gaia a couple weeks ago and still waiting on some cables to properly hook it up. I have it kind of jury rigged right now so that I can at least hear what I'm doing :)

3 saw waves: 2 of them are exact copies of each other to fatten the actual note so that the harmonics of the third which is set one octave higher and at half volume aren't over powering.

Initialize a new patch and set all 3 oscillators to saw
make one of the saws pitch one octave above the other two
select all three oscillators and set the filter to high pass, 12db per octave
The cutoff is 71 (just above half) leave the resonance at 0
Filter envelope: A:0 D:0 S:127 (100%) R:0
Amp level is 127 (100%)
Amp envelope: A:0 D:122 (96%) S:122 (96%) R:37 (29%)

This sounds remarkably like the trumpet voice on a Yamaha PSS-595, which used samples.



I got all the numbers from the Gaia tool by Grauw. Great tool, but make sure to download the Java runtime environment in order to run it. I'm using it to document all the patches I create.

Re: Trumpet/ brass sounds

PostPosted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:15 pm
by Grauw
Nice walkthrough and info! :)

Re: Trumpet/ brass sounds

PostPosted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:30 am
by rhrock3
Aw yehh! Cant wait to give that a crack tomorrow! Cheers for the insight, legend!

Re: Trumpet/ brass sounds

PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 1:12 am
by neamerjell
Thanks for the props, but I am literally just starting.

My knowledge came from band class from 5th grade through high school, fooling around playing guitar, making some simple songs using the midi synth on my computer's sound card and watching videos on the internet. I never learned to sight read music, I still struggle just to read music. I have always played by ear.

What I now understand to be the physics of sound and music has always fascinated me. This is most of the reason why I bought the Gaia in the first place. I wanted to explore how create sound from scratch. My compliments to Grauw for creating a great free tool for documenting and saving the patches from the Gaia. Most of my knowledge of the physics and harmonics of sound came from YouTube videos of college professors doing visual explanations and demonstrations.