Wind Patches for XV (Patchman-Like)
Posted: 22:28, 4 November 2017
Are there fellow wind players, here? Any insight into building wind-friendly patches and performances?
Just got my first Roland product, the XV-2020. Will really help me build a live setup with wind controllers (Yamaha WX-11 and Eigenharp Pico).
Took me a while to get the editor to work on one of my systems, but it’s now working fine. So, time to work on patches. As a learning experience, it can be fun. Plus it’ll get me to know the device a lot more.
The obvious advice would be for me to get the wind-savvy bank from Matt “Patchman” Traum .
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/rolandXV5080.html
The guy has clearly put a lot of effort in those patches and some of them do sound relatively fitting. It sounds like his emphasis is on realism, which is quite far from my own musicking needs, especially for live situations. And he’s only willing to sell whole banks, not individual patches or performances (did ask through email). Might eventually pony up the money for that bank but, to a teacher trying to learn a couple of tricks, it just feels too weird to pay more than half the price of a device to check on how someone tweaked a couple of parameters. No offense intended at all. The guy sells a quality product, according to the testimonials on his site and a few other places. But that product differs significantly from my needs.
At this point, trying to figure out two things: about chords and CC#2 setup. Would probably like to start from this performance:
https://youtu.be/1-rEcnDU268?t=13m56s
Don’t particularly like the sound (would likely change the waveforms), but the harmony and breath control sound fitting enough to give me a head start. If someone has an example patch or performance like this, it could be useful.
In my experience with other wind-enabled synths, the key tends to be to use CC#2 to drive the cutoff frequency of a low-pass filter. That’s one basic trick which gives me fitting results on a variety of devices and softsynths. Did try that on a few XV-2020 patches, increasing the sensitivity to SYS-CTRL 3 which has been assigned to cutoff and level. But the results aren’t yet optimal. From this older thread, it does sound like it’s in the right direction:
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=49425
Will probably tweak things more, especially with the cutoff offsets. But it’d be nice to get a headstart.
Not quite sure about the chords. To my ear, it doesn’t sound like those are parallel harmonies, meaning that each note might use its own voicing. That might be just an illusion, though. Point is, got no idea how to set up a performance like this. The editor is a bit convoluted, honestly.
Something which is almost a disappointment is that this older device doesn’t do rotating chords (popularized by Michael Brecker), though it does sound like the Roland Fantom XR offers support for those:
http://patchmanmusic.com/rolandFantomXR.html
Robby Kilgore, who created that effect for Michael Brecker on the Oberheim Xpander, has blogged about this and even created an Arduino-based device for it:
http://robbykilgore.com/?p=19
http://robbykilgore.com/?p=30
Was able to emulate that effect in Sonic Pi, which does work on a Raspberry Pi. In a way, my Pi-based setup is more advanced than the XV-2020 (not to mention smaller, lighter, battery-powered, and less expensive). But the XV-2020 will likely come in handy for several situations because it’s sturdy and gives direct access to patches through knobs and number display (my Pi setup uses a local web interface).
So… If anyone here has advice, insight, suggestions, or an example file to speed up my exploration of the XV-2020 editor, any help would be greatly appreciated.
— Alex
Just got my first Roland product, the XV-2020. Will really help me build a live setup with wind controllers (Yamaha WX-11 and Eigenharp Pico).
Took me a while to get the editor to work on one of my systems, but it’s now working fine. So, time to work on patches. As a learning experience, it can be fun. Plus it’ll get me to know the device a lot more.
The obvious advice would be for me to get the wind-savvy bank from Matt “Patchman” Traum .
http://www.patchmanmusic.com/rolandXV5080.html
The guy has clearly put a lot of effort in those patches and some of them do sound relatively fitting. It sounds like his emphasis is on realism, which is quite far from my own musicking needs, especially for live situations. And he’s only willing to sell whole banks, not individual patches or performances (did ask through email). Might eventually pony up the money for that bank but, to a teacher trying to learn a couple of tricks, it just feels too weird to pay more than half the price of a device to check on how someone tweaked a couple of parameters. No offense intended at all. The guy sells a quality product, according to the testimonials on his site and a few other places. But that product differs significantly from my needs.
At this point, trying to figure out two things: about chords and CC#2 setup. Would probably like to start from this performance:
https://youtu.be/1-rEcnDU268?t=13m56s
Don’t particularly like the sound (would likely change the waveforms), but the harmony and breath control sound fitting enough to give me a head start. If someone has an example patch or performance like this, it could be useful.
In my experience with other wind-enabled synths, the key tends to be to use CC#2 to drive the cutoff frequency of a low-pass filter. That’s one basic trick which gives me fitting results on a variety of devices and softsynths. Did try that on a few XV-2020 patches, increasing the sensitivity to SYS-CTRL 3 which has been assigned to cutoff and level. But the results aren’t yet optimal. From this older thread, it does sound like it’s in the right direction:
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=49425
Will probably tweak things more, especially with the cutoff offsets. But it’d be nice to get a headstart.
Not quite sure about the chords. To my ear, it doesn’t sound like those are parallel harmonies, meaning that each note might use its own voicing. That might be just an illusion, though. Point is, got no idea how to set up a performance like this. The editor is a bit convoluted, honestly.
Something which is almost a disappointment is that this older device doesn’t do rotating chords (popularized by Michael Brecker), though it does sound like the Roland Fantom XR offers support for those:
http://patchmanmusic.com/rolandFantomXR.html
Robby Kilgore, who created that effect for Michael Brecker on the Oberheim Xpander, has blogged about this and even created an Arduino-based device for it:
http://robbykilgore.com/?p=19
http://robbykilgore.com/?p=30
Was able to emulate that effect in Sonic Pi, which does work on a Raspberry Pi. In a way, my Pi-based setup is more advanced than the XV-2020 (not to mention smaller, lighter, battery-powered, and less expensive). But the XV-2020 will likely come in handy for several situations because it’s sturdy and gives direct access to patches through knobs and number display (my Pi setup uses a local web interface).
So… If anyone here has advice, insight, suggestions, or an example file to speed up my exploration of the XV-2020 editor, any help would be greatly appreciated.
— Alex