RIDGID ATHEOS User Manual Download Page 1

ATHEOS timestretching soundscape machine

for KONTAKT (v5.8.1+)

User Manual

Summary of Contents for ATHEOS

Page 1: ...ATHEOS timestretching soundscape machine for KONTAKT v5 8 1 User Manual ...

Page 2: ...ines Page 9 6 Engine Controls Page 10 7 Envelope And Filter Controls Page 15 8 The Sequencer Page 18 9 Sequencer Targets Page 23 10 Table Editing Page 27 11 External Modulation MIDI CC Page 29 12 Engine Presets Page 30 13 The FX Section Page 33 14 Keysplits Page 36 15 Audio Routing Page 37 16 Troubleshooting Page 42 ...

Page 3: ...s of source sounds a flexible sequencer and a comprehensive multi fx section for each engine Each engine in Atheos features 300 source sounds with the exception of the noise engine which only has 150 source sounds All sounds can be played back forward reverse or both at the same time There are 260 presets Kontakt snapshots with more to come in free updates ...

Page 4: ...t the downloaded release archive RA_ATHEOS zip that you have received via e mail to any location you want On OSX use the default Archive utility for extraction On Windows use 7 Zip WinZIP or WinRAR The content of the archive after extraction should look like this ...

Page 5: ...activation for it In KONTAKT use the Files tab browser to navigate to that location Load the _atheos_ snapshots nki instrument NOTE If you are experiencing loading problems or missing content warnings from Kontakt please head over to the troubleshooting section of this manual Once that is done click one the wrench icon in the upper header section directly above the Rigid Audio logo You are now in ...

Page 6: ...ton to the right A message might appear asking you to create a new snapshots path for your instruments Click on Yes A window with the snapshots location appears Now copy the _atheos_ snapshots folder from the release archive RA_ATHEOS Snapshots into this folder snapshot location Now close the _atheos_ snapshots nki instrument in Kontakt and reload it ...

Page 7: ...w be able to browse all the preset snapshots The presets in Atheos are categorized by type You have bright damaged dark lofi noise rhythmic split texture and warm presets Listen to some of these to get a feel for the sound of Atheos ...

Page 8: ...4 GUI Overview ...

Page 9: ...s back samples normally As you would expect from a sampler The time machine uses a high quality timestretching algorithm to play back sounds The tone machine uses a similar technique but with this engine the samples will sound more like a vocoder The noise engine is similar to the time machine engine Also plays back samples with realtime timestretching Each engine has the same set of controls whic...

Page 10: ...ou can choose a sound category for each engine except the noise engine You can mix categories freely this will affect the sound selection menu underneath Sound Selection e g 104 pad rotating saw wave Click on this menu to select a sound for the choosen engine Note that this menu list will update change depending on what sound categories you have selected This is especially useful if you only want ...

Page 11: ...back Mode Button forward backward or both Click on the button with the playback icon to cycle through the three sample playback modes forward backwards reverse forward and backward together A word on panning and the Playback Mode Button When you play back samples forward which is the default or reversed the panning will work like you would expect it to Turn the pan knob to the left to hear the sam...

Page 12: ...ompletely to the right will play back the forward sample on the right side and the backward sample on the opposite side This can be useful to get some stereo feel with just a single sound and can create interesting variations Randomize dice button The dice button will open up a menu from where you can let Atheos choose a random tone for the currently selected engine You can also choose to randomiz...

Page 13: ...engine This is useful if you have playing more than one engine at the same time and only want to apply pitch bend to e g the sampler engine You can choose from which equals zero off 2 5 7 and 12 semitones Volume Controls the individual engine volume ranging from infinite to 12 dB Pan ...

Page 14: ...vidual engine panning Glide Controls the individual polyphonic note gliding To disable the gliding simply turn the knob all the way to the left 0 00 The maximum glide time is 2 5 seconds turned all the way to the right ...

Page 15: ...ifferent filter types Use the engine select buttons to control these The options from left to right Curve amp envelope attack curve This lets you change the shape of the amp attack envelope In the above picture the curve is set to 0 Negative values will result in this Positive values will result in this ...

Page 16: ...f envelope amount With this you can control the filter cutoff envelope It is basically the same as the normal volume amp envelope but it will be applied to the filter cutoff You can choose negative values to get an inverted envelope Use the controls to the right to adjust the filter envelope Curve filter envelope attack curve Att filter envelope attack Dec filter envelope decay Sus filter envelope...

Page 17: ...r Type e g ar lp2 Use this to select the filter type for the currently selected engine The following filter types are available ar lp2 ar lp4 ar bp2 ar bp4 ar hp2 ar hp4 daft lp daft hp sv notch4 phaser vowel ...

Page 18: ...steps buffers These preview up to 32 steps so that you know what is inside them Click on these to view and edit the contents in the big main sequencer window Note that the sequencing will always start with the first table buffer Beside each table buffer there is a x1 symbol These are multiplicators and specify how often that buffer will be played Click on the x1 symbol to change the number of repe...

Page 19: ...le buffers for the current sequencer An arrow will indicate that visually You can also do that for all four sequencers at once Choose end 3 all for that purpose Copy steps Let s you copy the currently selected table buffer data Paste steps Let s you paste the previously selected table buffer data to any sequencer buffer of any sequencer Loop When set to on the sequencer will repeat all buffers for...

Page 20: ...esets again highlighed in the picture above and the table will revert to whatever was in there before To load a preset and make it permanent click on the okay button on the top of the sequencer Note that table presets won t alter sequencer targets so you won t loose you sequencer target routings Retrig When turned on the sequencer will restart at the first step on every new key press note on Loop ...

Page 21: ... 3 7 r ps This will start the pattern at a random position 4 7 flm This will flam the pattern Useful with fast table speeds 5 7 altr This will alter the pattern slightly with every cycle 6 7 rnd This will randomize the pattern with every cycle 7 7 rev This will reverse the pattern with every cycle Bypass Will bypass the sequencer modulation when turned on 128 steps This let s you select the number...

Page 22: ...t least two different sequencer speeds e g 1 16 and 1 32 The rnd button will light up white to indicate that the random sequencer speed is turned on The speed will be choosen randomly from the list with every pattern cycle The pattern playback speed indicator will show the currently choosen speed To disable random speed changes choose clear ...

Page 23: ...inserted into effect slot 3 Besides this we are also modulating the filter cutoff frequency from the current engine Before you can select a target for any of the four available target slots you ll first need to select a target category Choose if you don t want to modulate anything with the current target slot The button underneath the target category let s you select the actual target parameter th...

Page 24: ...very new key press note on pitch track The current engine s pitch tracking Use this to e g fix make a sound static in pitch speed The current engine s playback speed Only valid for the time machine tone machine and noise engine smooth The current engine s playback grain smoothing Only valid for the time machine tone machine and noise engine grain length The current engine s grain sample length Onl...

Page 25: ...g volumes and or dry wet controls as these can shift the volume up to 24 dB Watch your ears and speakers For each target you can set up a random category and target to modulate which will also take all inserted effects into account Simply click on the dice button for that purpose With every button press a random category and target will be selected There will also be choosen a random minimum and m...

Page 26: ...quencer In the above picture the maximum high range of target slot 4 of sequencer a has been set to be modulated by sequencer c This is best explained by an example Let s say you modulate the filter cutoff in sequencer a with a repetitive pattern Using the sequencer range modulation you can set up a long sweep in sequencer c that will then automatically modulate the maximum range of sequencer a Th...

Page 27: ...der does only alter steps that have a value higher than zero So if you have an empty pattern the slider won t do anything To make these changes permanent click on the sequencer button of the currently selected sequencer e g sequencer a Each sequencer also features a comprehensive functions menu From here you can Shift table pattern data to the left or right by a single step nudging Increase Decrea...

Page 28: ...table operations are non destructive That means that the changes you have made won t be permanent until you click on the apply button If you don t want to apply the changes you have made simply click on the function button again to revert back to what was in the table buffer before ...

Page 29: ...l be set to a single step and react to incoming MIDI CC data automatically Pattern data won t be played back no more The mw stands for modulation wheel and reacts to the continous MIDI controller number 1 If you want to use a different MIDI controller click on the cc button and use the little menu next to it to choose a controller number This external modulation can be set up for each sequencer in...

Page 30: ... here you can load one of the 120 categorized engine presets The following categories are available Damaged distorted raw and driven presets Filter filter related presets Gated rhytmic and gated trancegate presets Lofi degraded and crushed presets Rhythm rhythmic presets Spacey flanged echoey and reverberated presets Subtle presets that only have subtle tone variations ...

Page 31: ...tantly and the changes will be permanent You can also create a random preset based on a selected category Click the dice button to open a category selection menu Choose any category you want and a random preset will be created and loaded Note that this will alter all engine settings However you can choose to only manipulate certain settings Using the wrench icon menu you can decide which options s...

Page 32: ...eset loading A word on Time Tone engine presets These presets are designed for the time machine and tone machine engines but can also be loaded into any other engine Certain effect parameter settings simply won t work then e g the grain length of the time machine engine 13 The FX Section ...

Page 33: ...Each engine in Atheos features an effects section with five freely assignable effect slots The following effects are available ...

Page 34: ...eft to right in the effects chain So it goes from fx slot 1 fx slot 2 and so forth When the effect is inserted you can manipulate it using the six available knobs to the right To bypass an effect simply click on the big bypass button You can also shift nudge effects left right in the effects chain Any sequencer target routings you might have set up will stay intact ...

Page 35: ...Finally you can insert a random effect by pressing the dice button ...

Page 36: ...way you can define key splits easily This is useful to e g have a pad sound on the lower range of the keyboard and e g a texture on the upper range The snapshots labelled with split at the beginning demonstrate some possibilites of using keysplits Whenever you adjust a keyrange the virtual Kontakt keyboard will show the defined range s as well for a better visualization ...

Page 37: ...Each engine in Atheos has its own bus audio output This way you can easily route any engine to a physical output in Kontakt To route each engine to its own output in Kontakt do the following Open up the Kontakt Outputs ...

Page 38: ...Then click on the Outputs sign to add 4 channels ...

Page 39: ... this example we are using physical outputs in Kontakt standalone mode In the above picture you ll see the four new channels st 2 st 3 st 4 and st 5 Click on the areas at the bottom to assign a physical output to each channel In this example we are routing each channel 01 left 02 right to a physical RME RayDAT Adat output ...

Page 40: ...ing mode by clicking the wrench icon Then scroll down until you ll see the Instrument Buses section If necessary click on the triangle to expand the section You ll see the Instrument Buses 1 4 which correspond to the Atheos engines 1 Sampler 2 Time Machine 3 Tone Machine and 4 Noise ...

Page 41: ...Click on the Output inserts menu to assign each bus to its own output ...

Page 42: ...raction problems corrupt data or other issues We suggest to extract the ZIP archive using the default OSX archive utility or by using 7z 7zip On Windows we suggest using WinRAR or WinZIP Missing files problem On some machines Kontakt will tell you that files are missing If you re getting such a warning please click on Browse for folder ...

Page 43: ... instrument normally Once that is done make sure to re save the instrument by clicking either the save button Or by using the file menu Make sure to save the patch only Slow loading times If you are experiencing slow patch loading times please do a batch resave Information on batch resaving https www youtube com watch v T7BmaI5unE8 https www youtube com watch v 4reaZG5cCn0 https www youtube com wa...

Page 44: ...www rigid audio com ...

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