Automat Sidechaining Trick (midi gate, envelope, lfo, etc.)

ewik · Post by **ewik** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 9:27 am

anyone using the automat soft synth ( www.alphakanal.de ) will enjoy this, and sorry it's only available as an audio unit (windows users, stop reading now). using automat's new sidechaining feature, it's possible to control, via midi, the volume of an incoming audio signal with ahdsr envelopes (that's attack HOLD decay sustain release, by the way), drawable envelopes, drawable lfos, drawable looping envelopes, whatever (ok, i'll stop saying drawable, i know it's not a word).

anyways, to do this:

-set up your track that you want the effect on
-create a midi track for automat
-route the 'audio to' to the automat track and '1/2-Automat'
-keep the oscillators on the left all off, which is default
-send some midi to automat while the track routed to it is playing something (note: automat will act as a midi gate in this way, gating the incoming audio signal)
-mess around with the amp envelope and also the modulation stuff in the 'mod' view
-play with the synth itself! it's pretty great, also note that the audio is going through the filters, drive/eq, chorus, and delay

have fun! i really hope i wasn't too thorough or anything, it's 4:30am, anyways, knock yourself out, i really enjoy this feature myself.

lata

stiwi · Post by **stiwi** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 11:31 am

ewik wrote:anyone using the automat soft synth ( www.alphakanal.de ) will enjoy this, and sorry it's only available as an audio unit (windows users, stop reading now). using automat's new side-chaining feature, it's possible to control, via midi, the volume of an incoming audio signal with ahdsr envelopes (that's attack HOLD decay sustain release, by the way), drawable envelopes, drawable lfos, drawable looping envelopes, whatever (ok, i'll stop saying drawable, i know it's not a word).

anyways, to do this:

-set up your track that you want the effect on
-create a midi track for automat
-route the 'audio to' to the automat track and '1/2-Automat'
-keep the oscillators on the left all off, which is default
-send some midi to automat while the track routed to it is playing something (note: automat will act as a midi gate in this way, gating the incoming audio signal)
-mess around with the amp envelope and also the modulation stuff in the 'mod' view
-play with the synth itself! it's pretty great, also note that the audio is going through the filters, drive/eq, chorus, and delay

have fun! i really hope i wasn't too thorough or anything, it's 4:30am, anyways, knock yourself out, i really enjoy this feature myself.

lata

Hi ewik. This is the first post i've read about automats side-chain feature.

I am glad you like it. But there is more to come! The next feature will be an build-in granulator (with midi control) for the chide-chain audio signal to mess it up even more. Stay tuned!

cheers,
stiwi

ejectorset · Post by **ejectorset** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 2:27 pm

stiwi, it is probably the first post about it, because your site doesn't explain it as clearly as it could.

i love automat (i still use the old red version). i checked out the new version on your site, but had no idea what the side chaining meant. it sounded to me like you would use it almost to get vocoder-ish sounds.

it sounds like it is more like audio in to process audio through the envelopes. that is much more fun.

a grainulator that you could pump audio through would be very nice.

i'll have to download the new version tonight and check it out.

stiwi · Post by **stiwi** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 2:48 pm

ejectorset wrote:stiwi, it is probably the first post about it, because your site doesn't explain it as clearly as it could.

lol. Yeah, you're right. The automat documentation is ... very special.

ejectorset wrote:it sounds like it is more like audio in to process audio through the envelopes. that is much more fun.

That's it. The "side-chaining" works like a 4th oscillator just with live audio instead of computed waveforms. e.g. Saw, puls, and the like. The audio signal runs through the filter, shaper/eq, amp, chorus, and delay. It's great for audio destruction.

I need to come up with a new name for that feature.

ejectorset wrote:a grainulator that you could pump audio through would be very nice.

The first granulator (grainulator) beta sounds allready very well. (just a little buggy)

cheers,
stiwi

ejectorset · Post by **ejectorset** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:38 pm

oh wow, so it does go through the filter section. awesome. the synth already has such awesome modulation abilities, im downloading now.

if you need any beta testers for that, i could abuse it and let you know what bugs out.

also, you might think about calling it, line in, or whatever the good old synths like the sequential circuits stuff did. they let you pump audio through in the same way. i can't remember how they labeled it though off the top of my head, and my stuff like my juno106 doesn't support audio in.

that is a huge additional to me. good job.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:41 pm

stiwi wrote:That's it. The "side-chaining" works like a 4th oscillator just with live audio instead of computed waveforms. e.g. Saw, puls, and the like. The audio signal runs through the filter, shaper/eq, amp, chorus, and delay. It's great for audio destruction. I need to come up with a new name for that feature.

how about "external input"? That seems to be the industry standard

stiwi · Post by **stiwi** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 5:16 pm

Machinate wrote:...how about "external input"? That seems to be the industry standard

I choose the expression "side-chain" because Logic and Cubase use it with some of there synth / samplers / efx and documentation. (see EXS24). So i thought that's a industry standart with software synth and the like. "External input" and "Line in" seems to be used more often with hardware stuff.

But "External input" makes more sense for me too.

ejectorset · Post by **ejectorset** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 5:23 pm

yeah i know what you mean, line in and external in get very confusing in the soft world.

maybe all it needs is a descriptor on the site that you can run automat as an effect and process audio in through all of the fitlers, envelopes, etc.

just one sentence in bold describing the new feature. i could be dense though, i would have understood a statement like that and side-chain went right over my head.

i think of side-chaining as applying one signal's amplitutde information to somehow shape another signal. like with compression or vocoding.

any idea when an update including the grainular stuff will be available?

also, can you already route the mod env's to pan, and delay settings?

i dont recall.

being able to map them to grain settings would be amazing stuff.

womoma · Post by **womoma** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:15 am

stiwi!!!!

automat ROCKKKKKKKS!!

thank you!

PM me if you ever want some free GUI/Skin/mod work done.

Thanks for automat. ITS BRILLIANT! - Scott Solida- he writes Synth Essentials colomn for Computer Music magazine - he said on the CM foum that he loves it too.

YAAAAY FOR AUTOMAT!

womoma · Post by **womoma** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:50 am

keep the oscillators on the left all off, which is default

I just turned on the oscilaltors and programmed a little bassline, Then the source in was an acoustic drum beat loop- this had a kooool effect as every different automat note had a slightly different timbre. Try it!

I also noticed that if you put more than one note on at once, it gets louder. So I used the lower notes on the first of every 4 beats, this let more rhythm through.

its kick ass.

The Phat Conductor · Post by **The Phat Conductor** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 7:55 am

can it vocode a live input?

leisuremuffin · Post by **leisuremuffin** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 6:24 pm

wow!

i hadn't updated my automat in a while!

keeps getting better and better. amazing.

thanks stiwi!

.lm.

womoma · Post by **womoma** » Tue May 02, 2006 4:29 am

just to let people know - theres a new version of automat out now with more features and an improved GUI - ableton style!

jeskola · Post by **jeskola** » Tue May 02, 2006 1:32 pm

is there any patches for automat - i dont know enough about creating my own from scratch

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Tue May 02, 2006 1:51 pm

the covops always have something around for their favorite synths

http://users.telenet.be/Vayner/automat% ... resets.zip

presets go in user/library/audio/presets/alphakanal/automat

cheers

Automat Sidechaining Trick (midi gate, envelope, lfo, etc.)

Automat Sidechaining Trick (midi gate, envelope, lfo, etc.)

Re: Automat Sidechaining Trick (midi gate, envelope, lfo, etc.)