Subject: Taurus Patch Programming #3
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 15:27:45 -0800
From: timkoelm@iconz.co.nz
To: jv1080@emccta.com

Greetings JV/XP'ers!

First of all, thanks to Dave Hallock for setting things straight on group etiquette -
I'm sure Dave spoke for a lot of us on the list in his recent post.

This week, I've decided to share with you a dreamy pad, called "Seven Seas". There's
nothing much to this patch really, and it sounds great. This is perhaps a good example
of how important movement can be in a pad sound.

The basis of this patch is the 'Soft Pad' sample, to be found in the INT A wave bank.
I've started by assigning the 'Soft Pad A' sample to tone 1 and the 'Soft Pad B' sample
to tone 2. Using the TVA, I've sculpted a long attack and release to the sound. The TVF
is inactive but a LPF removes some of the Hi-freqency content of the samples. I've
panned tone 1 hard-left, and tone 2 hard-right. I've added a random pitch value of 2 to
the two waveforms and a random pan value of 20 to give a bit of subtle variation to the
sound - an organic programming approach, if you like!

The use of the Low Frequency Oscillators (LFO's) is what makes this patch. For tone 1,
an LFO is modulating the pitch, the filter and the pan position at values of +3, -10 and
-63 respectively. This means that the pitch of the sample is being moved up and down in
equal values (from the center value defined in the WG/PITCH) by a small value of +/-3.
Try cranking this value up to +/-63 to see what happens...the cutoff frequency of the
LPF is also being moved up and down...and the stereo postion of the sample is being
moved from extreme left-to-right (through the maximum value set at +/-63). The speed at
which these changes occur is defined by the RATE of the LFO, here set at 4 for tone 1 -
a slow setting.

These values are copied but inverted for tone 2. Modulating the pan position from an LFO
is a great technique for animated pads - here you can here one tone slowly revolve
around the other. The LFO modulating pitch adds a unique quality here when both tones 1
and 2 are played together - a 'natural' chorus/flange effect. Listen closely with the
effects disabled to hear what I mean...yummy.

Tones 1 and 2 are copied and placed in tones 3 and 4. This pad is still animated and
'floaty' even with EFX disabled - a result of all the modulation taking place through
the LFO's. Even so, I've decided to pipe the tones through the EFX processor to make for
a really rich sound. Here, I am using the MODULATION-DELAY program which is great for
pads. It also happens to be Christian J. Krause's favourite EFX program, and I can see
why! The DEPTH is set to a high value but the RATE is set to a small one - a trick that
works well for pads with any modulation-based processor (like the Stereo Flanger, Stereo
Chorus and HexaChorus programs, for example). The stereo delay part of this program
really works well with pads, too.

Feel free to experiment with this patch - take it apart and see what makes it tick. Any
comments or suggestions, feel free to email me. Enjoy!!

Best regards,

Taurus3

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