Recording - June 2012 - 24

B Y PA U L V N U K J R .

together. Resonator choices include an elastic string, a single tuned beam, a variably resonant marimba bar, a closed or open tube, a plate, or a membrane (drum head), as well as a manual mode with 1–4 adjustable partials. Below these two sections is a 2-stage multi-effects processor that includes everything from overdrive to delay, chorus, flange, eq, tremolo, wah, reverb and more, many of which can be tempo synced. Also along the bottom is a global vibrato and an adjustable and assignable LFO for modulating many of Chromaphone’s parameters. The top has program/bank select menus and volume and reverb knobs. Speaking of parameters, each section offers a small but purposeful set of tweakable parameters and a few dropdown menus. There is not enough space to get into detail of each one, especially when the manual (complete with a trial version) does a much better job of taking you through the specifics.

Applied Acoustics Systems

Chromaphone
Physical modeling takes a beating in this new software synth
Physical modeling synthesis is a technique that uses scientific equations to create playable computer models of both acoustic and electronic instruments down to their component level. While not always as “fool the ear” accurate as a good multi-layer sample library, physical modeling has three major benefits: it excels at recreating the anomalies and acoustical resonances found in the real world, it typically only takes up a few Megs of hard drive space (as opposed to the multiple Gigabytes of most sample collections), and it can be easily manipulated to create virtual instruments that don’t and often can’t exist in reality, and yet still retain said acoustic principles. One company that has long been at the forefront of this technology is Canada-based Applied Acoustics Systems (AAS) with its modular softsynth Tassman and products like String Studio VS-1, Ultra Analog VA-1, and the virtual electric piano Lounge Lizard EP3. In this issue we look at its latest offering, Chromaphone. Chromaphone’s concept is simple: hit or vibrate a resonant material and it will make a sound, and then you can take that sound and alter it in interesting and twisted ways. While billed as a percussion synth, Chromaphone is much more than a collection of physically modeled drum and percussion sounds—it is a full-on soft synth with evolving pads, keyboard-type textures, string sounds, as well as things that beat, boom and clang. Chromaphone requires an Intel Mac running OS X 10.5+ or a Windows PC running Windows XP SP2 or Vista/7; it runs as an Audio Unit (Mac only), VST or RTAS plug-in. Excite > Resonate > Effect To get familiar with Chromaphone, a quick tour of its singlewindow GUI is in order (see the screenshot). The instrument starts on the left with the Exciter, in this case a beater such as a mallet or stick and/or a white noise generator, complete with its own ADSR envelope and filter section. These hit or vibrate a pair of Resonators on the right. The Resonators can be blended and placed either in series or coupled
24
RECORDING JUNE 2012

Coupling Coupling is the real big deal of Chromaphone and, as far as I know, a first in the world of acoustic modeling. Think of coupling as what happens when one resonator affects another—a struck drumhead over a drum body, a marimba mallet over a long hollow tube, or a vibrating string stretched over a metal plate. It’s not so much that these component parts have never been modeled before, but AAS has modeled the actual interaction of the two rather than simply run one into the other in a series. In the words of AAS, “this interaction between components results in a new object which, while being related to its original elements, behaves and sounds differently”. In other words, a skin and a shell on their own do little, but combined in the right way they make a drum. Performance Chromaphone is small and efficient in every way; it literally downloads and installs in less than two minutes. The same can be said for how it behaves in a DAW. In average use with a healthy combination of instrument types, including some selfevolving drones, I was able to run an impressive 16 instances of Chromaphone in Cubase 6 with about a 50–60% CPU hit on my 17" quad i7 Macbook Pro; considering all the math going on under the hood that is quite respectable. Note that each sound was set to 8-voice polyphony; higher polyphony settings as well as longer and more detailed patches will eat up more CPU. I tried Chromaphone with a Novation MIDI controller and with a Roland Handsonic, and in every case it was very responsive to nuance and playing style, much more than many samplebased sounds. The sounds Chromaphone’s presets run the gamut from mallet type instruments, like vibes and marimba, to electric pianos, bass sounds, chimes and bells, organs, synth pads, plucked strings, special effects and more. To my ears the metallic-based patches are the most believable. Bells, vibes, chimes and such are quite harmonically rich. The electric pianos, string patches and organ patches are interesting, but are more of the “because we could” sound-design variety. As for some of the drum sounds, for example snares and kicks, I am torn. If you want realism, they might work in a layer alongside a sample, but they really work better when you need drum sounds of the strange, alien, or synthetic tribal variety.

Recording - June 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - June 2012