Sculpture V ES2 Synths in Logic Pro 9
Sculpture
With Sculpture, the aim is to design an instrument that gives the sound one desires. The basic sound medium is a 'String' that can be constructed of different materials and manipulated physically in different ways such as striking, bowing, plucking and
When designing instruments in sculpture, the secret is to think of oneself as an instrument maker and with Sculpture, it is possible to adjust the fundamental parameters that describe an instrument’s physical model.
Sculpture's user interfaces are:
The Sound engine, which is the top green section which is split into five sub-sections:
String parameters: The circular Material Pad in the center.
Object parameters: the area at the top left that stimulates or affects, the string's sound.
Processing parameters: Which provide further tonal control using filter, Waveshaper, pickup, and amplitude envelope parameters.
Global parameters: Set up the overall behavior of Sculpture.
Post-Processing parameters: These affect the overall tone and behavior of the instrument and post-processing parameters such as Delay, Body EQ, and Level Limiter parameters.
Modulation section: The area below the sound engine contains the modulation sources—LFOs, jitter generators, and recordable envelopes.
Global control sources: The bottom section is for assigning MIDI controllers to Sculpture parameters. and also incorporates the Morph Pad, a dedicated controller for morphable parameters.
A plucked Double Bass is programmed as follows
This certainly has a timbre more like a real instrument
A solo Cello would look like this
Maybe this would not convince a Cellist but it seems to have the attack, delay, sustain and release of a real bowed hollow instrument.
As well as having various filters and envelopes that behave in similar ways to the ES2, sculpture's attraction is in being able to choose the string material such as nylon, wood, glass or steel or any point in the four matrix formed by the four coordinates, by moving the ball. Intuitively one might expect a piano sound to be steel but as the keys may be wood, somewhere between wood and steel may give the best. Other parameters such as stiffness, tension and length can also be finely adjusted, along with the harmonic content using vibrato and finger noise. The way the 'String' is 'Excited' includes bowing, striking, plucking and blowing; this latter somewhat stretches the string analogy! the ball's position can be automated as the sound progresses and this is similar to ES2 use of router and Vectors.
As with any synthesizer, a good understanding of the ADSR characteristics of a sound are important when modeling a sound, insight and inspiration are important too. few people will make it their life's work to create the perfect grand piano or Stradivarius violin sound from either of these synthesizers when the real sounds are available from libraries. The joy of synthesis is in being able to create unique sounds and play with the ADSR and chop up and create samples of each ADSR element of a sound and enhance and layer these samples to produce a sound that perhaps sustains the note longer than normal.
As with ES2 where most users will start with presets and the subtract harmonics, add distortion and alter elements of ADSR, so will most users of Sculpture start with the presets to get an idea of what parameters contribute to particular sounds. Being able to view the the wave shape and alter it in many ways gives visual feedback and educates the eye and ear in how different acoustic instruments wave behave and the harmonics fade.
Another term for Sculpture is a component modeling synthesizer.
The signal flow of the core synthesis engine
it is possible to vary the way the modeled strings behave in some innovative ways using the three Object controls to move the pickup and combine different Excite types such as striking and bowing which can add distortion to the sound and each of these elements can be further varied by the strength that is applied to them.
The Pickup section is similar to a guitar pickup and picks up different fundamentals and harmonics depending on its position
Some parameters can be controlled by Sculpture’s Morph ‘joystick’ section on the The Morph pad
This feature is unique to Sculpture and allows a set of parameters to be stored at each of the four points: ABCD and the circle and then recalled by moving the ball across these five Morph points. This can also be driven by a midi controller and by using the Morph envelope and a joystick is a popular way of driving this feature. A continued comparison of all Sculptures features would be tedious as the underlying processes are very similar and ES2s have been covered in some detail.
The Sculpture software gives the musician the options of reproducing acoustic sounds, albeit with the inescapable synth quality but unique sounds can be created too and its appeal is the visual feed back and intuitive use of real string materials, environments and physical playing techniques. Most of the features are similar to those of the ES2 and if a user gets to understanding the basics such as filters and delay, they can then concentrate on the fundamental sound-generation components. The sophisticated digital synthesis engine will enable sounds to be generated that are original and can be used in a huge variety of ways.
The Morph feature also adds functionality as a performance tool
Sound On Sound accepts that Sculpture won't put sample libraries out of work, being after all, a traditional synthesizer in many ways, however they see it as a very flexible sound-generation system that allows for compositions that do not sound ‘generic Logic Pro’
I guess that ES2 can achieve most of the sounds that Sculpture can and whichever synth you use, a basic understanding of how particular instruments are constructed, behave and react to different stimulation coupled with how to replicate this behaviour with your chosen synth will give good results. the user of ES2 needs a considerable technical knowledge to achieve this whereas Sculpture as a performance bases synthesizer rewards a more intuitive approach that is arguably more satisfying and musician like and for a non-musician could aid musical understanding. Maybe the advantages of Sculpture could also be its limitations, that it is too tempting to work with the visuals that might constrain a dynamic Brian Eno approach of constructing sounds from no musical base at all.