Yoshimi extras

[Martin Walker]

Very pleasing demo Will

Tempo syncing of parameters via MIDI Clock can add a lot of real-world realism, particularly with vibrato-based parameters including LFO freq and filter freq, as this is what string players tend to do anyway.

Martin

[Folderol]

A question came up today, variations of which have been frequently asked.
"Can you get Yoshimi to use an incoming waveform?"
The answer is, basically, No.

To a degree it could be done for the PadSynth engine, as that is a wavetable generator. However, the result would not be as good as the internal oscillator. For AddSynth and SubSynth it's quite impossible.

A simplification of the reason why, is that these sounds are directly calculated in real time sample by sample. Hardly any of the controls directly touch the sound output. They adjust the formulae that are used to generate the sound.

It is this that gives Yoshimi its character. If you go right into the waveform editor of Addsynth you will find that not only can you change the harmonics in real time, but also various filters and shaping controls - including real-time randomisation. You can't do that with a wavetable based engine. The best you can do is period based adjustment, with interpolation to take out the jaggies.

Please bear in mind that this is not the same as morphing between two waveshapes. In that situation the actual forms are fixed, so the mathematics (while way beyond me) are comparatively simple.

[Drew Stephenson]

For a moment there I almost thought I understood something...

...and it's gone.

[Martin Walker]

Thanks Will - I can confirm that this made perfect sense to me, and that I will at some point be exploring the possibilities.

Martin

[Folderol]

Something that is far from obvious is the way you can build up and then actively modify multi-layered sounds. This is something I discovered myself some years ago, but then became so 'but of course!' that I didn't think to mention it before.

To see this in action, from my 'Will_Godfrey_Collection' bank, select 'Master Synth High'.
Don't play it yet

First wind the part volume down to about -10dB

Click on the edit button, and in the new window click on Kit Edit.

On the square blue surrounded 'Mute' buttons, check all of them except the top one 'Breathy Pad'

Hold down a chord, then uncheck 'Ice Field'. Nothing seems to happen... until you press more keys. Then do the same with 'Smooth', and finally 'Full Strings' to hear the full sound - You'll hear why I said to wind the volume down

But there's more!
Any check box that has a blue surround is MIDI-learnable, and these particular ones are next-note so you can silently switch them while playing, and if you have a controller with enough buttons, you can learn them and dynamically change these multi-layered patches while playing.

Notice you can also switch the individual engines of and on. However, switching on a padsynth one for the first time will briefly cancel all sound on that part - this is because it has to generate the wavetable.

P.S.
That particular patch is something like 10 years old now

[Folderol]

Ho Hum, every day a learning day
I've just made an interesting discovery about Yoshimi's noise options.
I started with an AddSynth engine, and went straight into Voice 1, setting the sound to spot noise.
I then switched to voice 2, enabled it and set the sound to pink noise, and listening for a decent balance wound the volume down to about -20dB.

Backing out I went into the instrument Effects window, and based on what Elf has said about noise in the 2500 (see! I do read other stuff) set phaser and tweaked the depth down to 50%. That sounded quite nice when pressing a few keys on the middle of the keyboard, and it's very much velocity sensitive.

Checking The 'Analog' switch made an interesting change, and then 'Sub' made it quite surf-like. I fiddled with the frequency control a bit, but actually preferred the default.

The icing on the cake was to go to effect 2, and set it to Reverb.

P.S. Almost all effects controls are real time.

[Folderol]

How to make a Yoshimi flute starting from the basic 'Simple Sound'.

Go into AddSynth voice 1, waveform. Set the Square base function.
Back out to the voice itself and enable the amplitude envelope
Set attack to about 13mS
This gives you the basic slightly hollow sound.

Select voice 2 and enable it.
Change sound to white noise.
Set volume to about - 30dB, Vel Sens to about -5dB
Set D.dt to about 900mS, S.val to about -20dB and Stretch to zero
This gives you a burst of wind noise.

Go further back, enable SubSynth and go into it (we change quite a lot here).
Set volume to about -24dB, Vel Sens to -8dB
Set attack to 13mS, D.dt to 10 Sec, S.Val to -10dB
Go along to the bandwidth slider and set it to 75 (approx 110 cents bandwidth)
Finally step up Octave to 4
This gives you a broad band pitch relative background wind noise.

It now sounds pretty good but not quite there, so we are going to apply some magic

Go back to AddSynth and into Resonance. Enable it.
Set Max dB to somewhere between 35 and 40dB
Click on Rnd3 - see if you like the sound (best on lower middle pitches)
If you do, save the patch immediately! You may never be able to repeat it

Generally Rnd3 and occasionally Rnd2 give best results.

Enjoy your new flute

[Martin Walker]

Thanks for that info Will - sometimes having a step-by-step guide can kick-start you into learning more

Martin

[Folderol]

Actually I forgot a bit
SubSynth harmonic 1 bandwidth multiplier needs to be set to maximum - sorry!

A personal preference is also to have reverb on

[Folderol]

Some fun with the AddSynth Waveform.

Work your way up the AddSynth window stack to the Waveform one, then select 'Gauss' as the base Function.

Next, MIDI-learn the base function Par. control to your keyboard pitch bend control.
That's it

As this is a real-time control, you get an interesting tonal change along with the bend. It sounds even better if you add one of the reverb effects.

If you set 'Block' on the learned line, then you just have the tone change with no pitch bend.

[Martin Walker]

Thanks again for all this info Will

Martin

[The Elf]

and based on what Elf has said about noise in the 2500 (see! I do read other stuff)...

And I remain Yoshimi-Pi-curious too, and read all your stuff!

[Folderol]

and based on what Elf has said about noise in the 2500 (see! I do read other stuff)...

And I remain Yoshimi-Pi-curious too, and read all your stuff!

[Folderol]

Something I completely forgot about

In January, one of Yoshimi's Little Band of Helpers produced this youtube vid of the then brand new LFO sync feature. One thing I particularly like about this is that he is clearly experimenting and finding out what happens when just twiddling knobs (in the time-honoured way). Also right at the end he proves that the lock is very responsive to changes in real-time.

[Martin Walker]

You didn't forget Will - I remember watching this video some time ago, but it's just as fascinating this time round

Martin

[Folderol]

Aaand another thing

A most under-used feature of Linux window managers is the ability to switch between up to 4 different screen views. This is especially useful where screen real estate is limited - such as with the 7 inch screens used with Yoshimi Pi, so here is a scenario where this is especially useful.

You want to run Yoshimi on a new project using Rosegarden as a sequencer and eventually recording with Audacity. You only have a single keyboard controller outputting on channel 1

Start up QjackCtl, then Yoshimi. Select an instrument from a bank, but leave the bank window open. In one corner of QjackCtl you'll see a small 'pin' icon. Set it.

Over a clear area of the desktop background scroll just one 'notch' (most wind managers accept this for screen change), and you'll now only see QjackCtl.

Start Rosegarden, and make sure it is connected to Yoshimi. Also open the 'Transport' window if it isn't already, and pin that as well.

Set Rosegarden track 1 for recording. Hit record and play. Once you have enough done, you can stop and then dodge backwards and forwards between the screens editing the track, and changing instruments, master volume, key shifts etc. for best results.

With Yoshimi showing, change part 1 to MIDI CH2, enable part 2 and set its channel to 1. Flick to Rosegarden and uncheck record for track 1 and set it's channel to 2. Set track 2 for recording and channel 1.

Record your next track to part 2.

Rinse and repeat.

Once you have a substantial amount there you might want to flick to Yoshimi and start tweaking parts effects etc. which you can do while Rosegarden is playing the piece. With it's Transport window being visible you can stop, start, rewind at any time.

With Yoshimi and Rosegarden project files saved, it's now time to record your masterpiece, so flick to an empty window (just the Jack and Transport windows visible) and start up Audacity.

Check it is set up to receive audio from Yoshimi. Click record, then Play on Transport. While it's recording you can flick between this window and the others to monitor their status.

You'll immediately see any Xruns in the Jack window even if they are inaudible, so can stop and take appropriate actions.

At one time with the kit I had at the time, this was the only way I was able to work.

[Folderol]

I've just listened to a track on soundcloud. I would never have guessed this was done with Yoshimi

https://soundcloud.com/diegosimak/2022a

[Drew Stephenson]

It certainly demonstrates quite a range. Secret submission for the next one-synth challenge!

[Folderol]

I've just been reminded of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifdOGFZkeT0

It's the work of one of Yoshimi's little band of helpers. See how he's using Pure Data to control Yoshimi in real-time. As well as switching various parts on and off and playing with internal settings while sending MIDI data, he's applying that low pass EQ to the entire output, and has MIDI-learned the cutoff point

[Folderol]

Layering sounds the Yoshimi way

Mostly people seem to go with using multiple instruments set to the same channel. Well you can do this if you want to, either by redirecting the normal 16 parts, and/or by switching to 64 parts, when you get 4 parts for every existing channel already set to the respective numbers.

However Yoshimi has several more efficient methods.

The first and most obvious is to use all three engine types, which immediately gives you quite different behaviors. As well as pitched sound these can all produce noise, but do so in completely different ways resulting in different spectrum.

Next , you can dive into AddSynth->voice where you then have 8 semi independent voices. Each can have a completely different waveform (or noise pattern) and set of envelopes filters etc. The start of a voice can also be delayed. They can have their own modulation types and waveforms, can be octave shifted and detuned from the group. There is also the unison feature which can give some nice chorus effects. Higher numbered voices and modulators can share the lower numbered waveform oscillators or indeed the entire voice/modulator.

If you find that too limiting, you can set the complete part to kit mode as well. This means you can have up to 16 of these three engine kit items. these can all sound together across the entire key range, or set such that they sound one at a time across the keys, or finally in pairs fade from one to the other for a given key overlap. In kit mode you can change where each kit item links to the chain of the three available part effects.