Attack
Waldorf
29
Operation Manual
a static FM but change the amount by an envelope, the sound gets really exciting. The
noisy FM effect changes over time, resulting in a very lively hi-hat sound. You will pro-
bably have to experiment with the settings of Oscillator 2 Pitch and FM Env, but the re-
sults are very much worth the work.
A good rule of thumb is to start with the Open Hi-hat sound, and copy that sound to
the location for the Closed Hi-hat. Making a hi-hat sound shorter almost always suc-
ceeds, but making a short hi-hat longer may result in an unwanted characteristics. Also,
don't forget to set the sounds to the same XOR Group so that they cut off one another.
Cymbals
With cymbals, the situation is similar to hi-hats. A sample is provided for an authentic
crash cymbal, though you can achieve more interesting and unique results using filte-
red noise or FM.
Ride cymbals are more difficult to create, and their sound is so special that you might
wish to use a good sampler or sample player to generate those sounds. If you want to
create your own ride cymbal sounds anyway, you might come up with interesting re-
sults using FM and ring modulation.
Toms
Tonal percussion instruments can be created easily. Just set one oscillator to produce a
sine or a triangle wave, modulate its pitch by an envelope, and set up the second os-
cillator to create either the attack noise or the resonance skin. When you want to do the
latter, just copy the settings of the first oscillator and change the pitch or the envelope
depth a little.
Also, it might be interesting to remove a little of the "tone" from Oscillator 1 by
applying FM from the second oscillator producing noise. Note that a short envelope u-
sed for FM creates astounding drum stick hit sounds. Furthermore, you can high pass
filter the result to get more punch and less tone into the sound.
Congas
Congas can be made by using a sine wave oscillator, with a very short envelope cont-
rolling the FM amount of Oscillator 2 producing noise. This, together with a medium
fast attack on Envelope 2, creates very authentic conga sounds.
Muted or slapped congas can be made by increasing the basic FM amount a little and
using a high pass filter to dampen the "tone".
Shakers and Maracas
Both are made with noise, either unfiltered or used to frequency modulate Oscillator 1
in order to create strong colorization. A high pass filter can be applied to remove some
low end.
The difference between shakers and maracas from the synthesist's viewpoint is that a
shaker has a longer attack and decay phase than maracas. Of course the sound de-
pends a great deal on how you play, so don't forget to set up velocity-based changes to
the amplifier.
Summary of Contents for Attack
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