Hi guys, my vocal doubler (or any sound really) combi, requires Polar

Need some fresh sounds? Want to show off your sound design skills? Here's the place!
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Theo.M
Posts: 1092
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

21 Jan 2015

Hi, this is a tweaked version of the one I posted at the PUF ages ago.. The reason that one sounded wrong was because I didn't realise that Polar had latency even when the dry signal was active. So I couldn't work out why i had set the polar's delay to only a few ms and it sounded much more than that LOL, until some kind soul informed me what was going on.

I have spent a couple hours on this and I am not joking, to get levels and stuff just right, and even the filter frequency if one wants something even more subtle (ran out of combi buttons so just turn filter on or off on polar itself).

I must admit it has kind of done my head in - Normally I would want to set a doubler's lfo to random but it just sounds weird here sometimes. I worked out that it depends on the type of vocal. Either *soft* random or Triangle will work. None of the other modes sound right at all for doubling. The default in this combi is soft random.

For some reason, no matter how hard I try, I just can't get the smoothness of antares Duo, Waves Doubler, ADT, or Schwah CMX. 

Now please note, i have used VMG to accurately measure Polar's latency..For some reason it fluctuates occasionally by 8 samples but that really won't be noticeable with a vocal timing at all in the context of a mix.  I  disabled all LFO's and measured the static basic latency of Polar, with dry disabled and the dual delays on polar both set to 0. I have then matched the dry latency to the actual plug in latency, and then designed the doubling patch from there.

You will notice the DRY delay is set at 58ms which is the closest polar can get to the the VMG sample measurement of 2561 samples..That is the figure you need to use for other tracks to align them, again that's 2561 samples. As i said it rarely fluctuates by 8 and goes to 2569, but 2561 is the measured figure 19x out of 20. 

Now, this is the most important bit.. This is for 44,1 sample rate but i will get to doing other SR versions, and using the Medium polar buffer. This is the overall best quality/latency compromise :)  - If you change the polar processing buffer to small or large, this combi won't sound right at all, nor will the VMG figures given be accurate. Same goes for any SR other than 44.1. It's just the nature of the beast in Polar's case.

It also sounds great on synth leads if you push the combi delay knobs further, and the pitch detune combi knobs a tad more. For vocals, the standard combi presented here is more subtle. If anyone is interested i am happy to make further presets using this basic combi, but to suit other instruments, but for now for leads, just dial the delay knobs on the combi itself a bit more to the right, and the two pitch combi knobs a bit more to the left and right respectively. :)

Cheers and enjoy

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/926 ... oubler.cmb






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eusti
Moderator
Posts: 2793
Joined: 15 Jan 2015

21 Jan 2015

Thanks, Theo!

D.

tibah
Posts: 903
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

21 Jan 2015

Thanks for the share!

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Purpleb
Posts: 114
Joined: 17 Jan 2015

21 Jan 2015

Can't wait to mess with this when I get home.
THANKS!!!!!!!!

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Theo.M
Posts: 1092
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

21 Jan 2015

You are most welcome! Do let me know what you think, even if it's negative. I will work on it more if so but I am somewhat convinced at this point that I don't know if I can make it sound any better with Polar. I did my best. But yeah, I am willing to have another go tomorrow if you guys don't like it.

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