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Preparation tutorial
Our new physical modelling instrument ‘Preparation’ is out now. This post provides an overview of the plugin and its parameters. Preparation uses mathematical models of two basic elements; a string and a rattle. Each voice of the plugin is an instance of two strings and a rattle that connects them together, and there is 8-voice polyphony. The model uses a direct numerical approximation of the equations of motion using the finite-difference time-domain method.
1. User Interface
The UI is seperated into several sections of related controls. At the top is a representation of the model with the pair of strings and the rattle. You can move the rattle around by grabbing it with the mouse, as well as moving the pluck position along the string. Next to this are amplitude envelope controls; a gain for each string, and attack, tailboost, and release controls. The tailboost increases the gain over several seconds, allowing you to hear detail in the tail of the sound.
The bottom left section has 2 different views, String setup and Rattle control, which group together parameters. There is then a small effects section for the low shelf EQ, overdrive and reverb, and finally an output mix. This mirrors the signal path as shown in the diagram above.
2. Real-time vs Setup controls
The plugin uses two different types of controls; Setup controls that take effect at the next Note-On event, and real-time controls that continuously affect the sound.
String setup controls (Note-On)
The strings, which can also be configured as bars, have the following setup controls:
– Sustain: the decay time in seconds.
– Tone: dampens the high frequency content.
– Inharmonicity: changes the harmonic structure of the string.
– Nonlinear: the nonlinearity of the top string.
– Chorus: the pitch offset of the bottom string from the top.
– String / bar.
The attack, tailboost and release are also picked-up at Note-On.
Rattle setup controls (Note-On)
The rattle has 6 main controls, each of which has a Velocity modulation setting that increases the parameter above it’s control knob value according to Note-On velocity. The top and bottom Masses, as well as the Stiffness, are picked-up at Note-On as shown in this video.
Rattle real-time controls
The Gap, Edge and Strength controls, along with the position of the rattle along the string, are all real-time continuous controls which directly affect the sound as you change them.
MIDI control
The plugin uses a fixed setup of MIDI controls, as shown on the Info screen (the ‘i’ button). These are:
cc1 – Pluck position
cc21 – Vibrato
cc22-23 – String gains
cc24 – Rattle stiffness
cc25 – Rattle edginess
cc26 – Rattle gap
cc27 – Rattle strength
cc28 – Rattle position
Note that the MPE button is for MIDI Polyphonic Expression mode. This should only be used with controllers that send pitch (X-axis) and cc74 (Y-axis) on separate channels for each Note-On. In MPE mode, the Y-axis is used to vary the pluck force and can be used with the velocity modulators on the rattle controls. Note-On velocity and pressure are not mapped.