How about a community refill project for wavetables?

Need some fresh sounds? Want to show off your sound design skills? Here's the place!
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Enlightenspeed
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09 Jun 2020

Hi folks,


this is just a suggestion coming off the back of the Supersaw Refill project overseen by Joeyluck, that appears to have been largely successful. :) I've personally wanted to do something of this nature for a good while now, and it appears like this is the right moment.

In another recent thread, someone was asking for more wavetables for Europa and/or Expanse - and this seems like one of the most obvious places to go in order to really beef up the soundbanks of these types of devices.

There's obviously two parts to this, of course, building the wavetables themselves, and then patch design which uses those wavetables. So, I propose three stages to this. The first stage is simply an exploration stage, where we discuss the requirements for how to make a wavetable that is compatible with Europa, where this differs from Expanse etc, and some discussion of the types of things that will work well with different styles etc.

The second stage would then be to have a month or so as the wavetable submission period, then another month for patch design.


What are everybody's thoughts and suggestions on this?

Cheers,
Brian

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Loque
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09 Jun 2020

You mean, a waveform as basis for the supersaw? Or just a type of "saw" for a supersaw? Or really a "sampled" supersaw "saw" for Europa? Or maybe everything together? I am a bit confused.
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Jackjackdaw
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09 Jun 2020

You could check this out : http://waveeditonline.com/

Wavetable orgy.

NDKay
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09 Jun 2020

If you guys would get a nice and easy way of creating a wavetable for the first step i think i would try to participate.

Another way could be that the ones who know how to build a wavetable do exactly that and contribute them.

Out of all the contributed wavetables we make a "Patch Competition" with no Losers, as all get the Final Refill for free. :?:
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Jackjackdaw
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09 Jun 2020

Making a wavetable for Europa is just a short wav file with some movement in it. Sample a filter sweep for instance then load it into Europa and you can morph through it. I guess it applies an index to it automatically? I don't know how it works but there are no special requirements. Simple things work best. I have seen a few terrible tutorials from respectable channels trying to make wavetables from complex samples and they invariably sound like metallic shit. Keep it simple. Sample slight modulations that can be moved through.

NDKay
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09 Jun 2020

Jackjackdaw wrote:
09 Jun 2020
Making a wavetable for Europa is just a short wav file with some movement in it. Sample a filter sweep for instance then load it into Europa and you can morph through it. I guess it applies an index to it automatically? I don't know how it works but there are no special requirements. Simple things work best. I have seen a few terrible tutorials from respectable channels trying to make wavetables from complex samples and they invariably sound like metallic shit. Keep it simple. Sample slight modulations that can be moved through.
ok

in your previous post you gave a link to a source with many different wavetables (or are they just "waves" ? )....

....so basically i download a bunch, "cut them together" like i want and it will be a "my" custom wavetable ?
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Enlightenspeed
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09 Jun 2020

Jackjackdaw wrote:
09 Jun 2020
You could check this out : http://waveeditonline.com/

Wavetable orgy.
Excellent! I never knew about this site. I'll investigate this a bit, to see how possible it is to use it for Europa etc.

Not so keen on using the library they have put up for an RT community project though; in my mind these should all be generated via a specified process that is customised to Europa (and then maybe Expanse etc, if it proves easy enough). Remember this is an RT community thing though, and I'm starting this as a community member rather than "Enlightenspeed - the business", so if others reckon this should be allowed, then it should be considered.

Cheers,
Brian

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Boombastix
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10 Jun 2020

This is not so easy I think. Expanse and Europa gives different results when loading wavetables. And Expanse can load Serum tables, of which there is a huge amount of free ones already.

Europa - I have done some experimentation, but with mixed results tbh. Not entirely sure I'm confident how to make good sounding ones for Europa. It surely could use new/better ones, but you can only add one though.
I've loaded single shot samples in Europa and sweep through them, but you get a very different sound if you try to lively them up, if not, then it is pretty static. The one benefit is to use the Europa unison with a sample, but it is a bit like a Rompler then.

But what is a wavetable without the programming of a stellar patch. I did this stuff for my Expanse ReFill but the time it actually took was quite enormous.

But maybe someone else has had more success with user wavetables in Europa than me?
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Arjanders
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10 Jun 2020

On the Blamsoft website there is a good tut on this matter for Expanse.
https://blamsoft.com/tutorials/expanse- ... avetables/

And for Europe the same I think, I'm totally not an expert but in the Reason 10 manual (page 715) for Europe as well the (multiple of 2048 sample rule:


If the sample length is a multiple of 2048 samples (“Serum compatible”), no pitch detection is being made. Then, Europa automatically assumes that 2048 samples is one complete waveform cycle (period). If the sample is not an exact multiple of 2048 samples, a pitch detection is being performed by Europa to determine the pitch. Longer samples (with a stable pitch) will render better pitch detection results, so don’t use very short samples.

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Enlightenspeed
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10 Jun 2020

Arjanders wrote:
10 Jun 2020
On the Blamsoft website there is a good tut on this matter for Expanse.
https://blamsoft.com/tutorials/expanse- ... avetables/

And for Europe the same I think, I'm totally not an expert but in the Reason 10 manual (page 715) for Europe as well the (multiple of 2048 sample rule:


If the sample length is a multiple of 2048 samples (“Serum compatible”), no pitch detection is being made. Then, Europa automatically assumes that 2048 samples is one complete waveform cycle (period). If the sample is not an exact multiple of 2048 samples, a pitch detection is being performed by Europa to determine the pitch. Longer samples (with a stable pitch) will render better pitch detection results, so don’t use very short samples.
Wow,

this is a really cool tutorial from Blamsoft!

I hadn't considered the differences in sample rates when I was building my first one last night. I was really just trying to do something so that could be used as a rough guide, but this will serve our purpose much better!

thanks,
Brian

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Enlightenspeed
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10 Jun 2020

Loque wrote:
09 Jun 2020
You mean, a waveform as basis for the supersaw? Or just a type of "saw" for a supersaw? Or really a "sampled" supersaw "saw" for Europa? Or maybe everything together? I am a bit confused.
Completely different refill, dude :)

The relation I mention is the "Community Project" bit, not the refill itself.

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selig
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10 Jun 2020

Jackjackdaw wrote:
09 Jun 2020
You could check this out : http://waveeditonline.com/

Wavetable orgy.
I was going to mention this! I've been using it for a little over a year for my Cloud Terrarium Eurorack module, and it's tons of fun. Highly recommend, though I've not yet tried to import my wavetables into other synths.
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Loque
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10 Jun 2020

Enlightenspeed wrote:
10 Jun 2020
Loque wrote:
09 Jun 2020
You mean, a waveform as basis for the supersaw? Or just a type of "saw" for a supersaw? Or really a "sampled" supersaw "saw" for Europa? Or maybe everything together? I am a bit confused.
Completely different refill, dude :)

The relation I mention is the "Community Project" bit, not the refill itself.
So any kind of waveform? No specific sound target?

Why not start with the Adventure Kit's stuff:
https://www.adventurekid.se/akrt/wavefo ... waveforms/

I think they are added to Nostromo and can also be integrated into a bunch of other synths. Avenger has a conversion of them. On the site itself are a bunch of different conversions available too.
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selig
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10 Jun 2020

BTW, the WaveEdit app is free and is here:
https://synthtech.com/waveedit
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Enlightenspeed
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10 Jun 2020

selig wrote:
10 Jun 2020
BTW, the WaveEdit app is free and is here:
https://synthtech.com/waveedit
Hi Giles,

I'd recommend this as one possible avenue for doing things. I found the interface a little clunky last night, although it's growing on me. One limitation it has is that there is only 64 frames, although there must be some relatively easy way around that? You could just export 4 files and join them, I'd suspect, and providing that you're careful it would work reasonably well.

There's no rules here, though. Well, it's more accurate to say that nothing is standardized, yet. But I don't see any issue with using 64 frame tables, providing they work in Europa and/or Expanse.

Cheers,
Brian

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Enlightenspeed
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10 Jun 2020

Enlightenspeed wrote:
10 Jun 2020
There's no rules here, though. Well, it's more accurate to say that nothing is standardized, yet.
...and just to elaborate on this for everyone.

One of the things we will need to establish here is version compatibility. People on 11 can't necessarily be sure that a patch will work on 10 etc. More relevantly, people on Suite can't program Combi patches for people on standard without being very careful about which devices get added.

So a suggestion for debate is:

All patches must be compatible with Reason 11 Standard.

This cuts down on a lot of possibilities sonically, like using Rad Keys as a support oscillator, or any usage of Polar. Of course many standard users will have these but there is no guarantee on that, of course. There is also the implication that this means we're doing it for Europa, and not Expanse etc, which would become a kind of side-project to the main library.

Penny for your thoughts folks,

Cheers,
Brian

NDKay
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Location: Suite 11

10 Jun 2020

Arjanders wrote:
10 Jun 2020
On the Blamsoft website there is a good tut on this matter for Expanse.
https://blamsoft.com/tutorials/expanse- ... avetables/

And for Europe the same I think, I'm totally not an expert but in the Reason 10 manual (page 715) for Europe as well the (multiple of 2048 sample rule:


If the sample length is a multiple of 2048 samples (“Serum compatible”), no pitch detection is being made. Then, Europa automatically assumes that 2048 samples is one complete waveform cycle (period). If the sample is not an exact multiple of 2048 samples, a pitch detection is being performed by Europa to determine the pitch. Longer samples (with a stable pitch) will render better pitch detection results, so don’t use very short samples.
Thank you, this is a nice "howto" for making wavetables.

I tried the examples and worked my way a bit further. At least i can understand now what you guys mean when you say that user wavetables sound and also work better through expanse than through europa. :geek: :D

The Waveedit App wont open for me. Everytime an Error 1114 occurs sayin something about a DLL routine going wrong. Does anybody else have problems ?
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Boombastix
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10 Jun 2020

You need to think how you organize the wavetables in folders so you don't end up loosing the patch reference to the table, and have to do a search for each patch. Especially as you will consolidate from multiple sources.
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TheDragonborg
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11 Jun 2020

I've created some custom wavetables for my Blofeld but that's about it...

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SebAudio
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11 Jun 2020

Nice idea ! I'm interested in it because I can't achieved anything with wavetable synths so I'm exited to hear what kind of sounds you can do with "new" wavetables. I mean I've tried a lot of the wavetables from http://waveeditonline.com/ in Europa and didn't "envision" any final sound which I couldn't achieved by other means (whereas based on the WT already there in Europa or by using its other synthesis methods aka "wave shaping" and filters).

NDKay
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12 Jun 2020

On my "Course" to Wavetables and experimenting with them i got to small "aha" point.

In the blamsoft "howto" they are going with sampling 8 Bars at 120 BPM. Because i did not get "good" results for europa with this i tried other lengths.

- Sampling 16 Bars ( including stretch of the maybe happening wavechanges) i got to much better results.

- Sampling 32 Bars was somehow "bad" again, but different than the 8 Bars ( like adding more noisy elements)

I also would say that i got a wavetable ( sampled 16 bars) that sounds "good" in Europa and Expanse, but nowhere "the same" to each other; and like SebAudio mentioned, europas integrated Wavetables will be more efficient to get the same ( when not even better) sound than you could get with custom Wavetables, in my momentary opinion.

Fwiw i "just" experimented with resampled Subtractor Waveforms, sometimes mixed.
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