Korg Forums

[Sympathy Orchestra]

Hello Everyone,

I have been trying to create a church bell sound on the Wavedrum, but I am not having much luck.

Has anyone else attempted this? I would be grateful for any suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

[WaterDrum]

not shure how a churchbell sounds
you have a sample ?

I made this bell from Algo 2 both on the head and on the rim
no samples

recorded with stereo flanger (not much but Stereo (!) )
and some external reverb (Stereo)

headphones recommended

http://www.speedyshare.com/w36qf/maybe-churchbell.wav

[Sympathy Orchestra]

I used the Algo 2 on both the head and rim as well. The head PCM is 08 BD Dry and the rim PCM is 01 Multi Pitched BDs.

The first four hits are the Head and the second four hits are on the rim. It's still very synthetic sounding to me. I'm thinking that the attack needs to be sharper, at least for starters.

Thank you so much for responding.


http://www.speedyshare.com/U7Rbd/Church-Bell-Attempt-01.wav

Here is an example of the kind of sound that I am striving to simulate:

http://www.speedyshare.com/egpmT/Real-Church-Bell.wav

[OhioBuckeye]

Program #90, When the clock strikes 12 has a sound similar to a church bell.

[WaveDrummer]

I've been exploring this a bit lately. I'll post some results of my experiments in a day of two. Unfortunately, I am yet again faced with a recurring problem when creating melodic or semi-melodic sounds on the Wavedrum.

As I've mentioned previously in other threads, the algorithms and the PCM sounds seem to be calibrated to different reference pitches. It is impossible to get them "in tune" with each other. If you start with a melodic PCM, trying to blend it with a pitched algorithm means you end up tuning it either just slightly sharp or slightly flat from the other sound. The pitches never line up exactly. I've no idea why this is but I've encountered this dilemma every single time I've created dual melodic programs. You can fake it a bit by experimenting with different volume levels between the two, and using some of the parameters in Edit 2 mode, but it's never quite exact.

Anyway, I'll share some findings as soon as I settle on something decent.

[WaveDrummer]

This turned out to be pretty interesting, and I think I've come up with something useful. I am going to have to assume that anyone attempting this sound is already familiar with how to edit on the Wavedrum. If not, explore the appropriate threads for that info.

Simply copying the parameters below is one thing, but if you really want to gain some insight into how the Wavedrum works, and what some of the possibilities are, I would strongly suggest referring to the owner's manual to see what all the parameters are actually doing—especially the ones in Edit 2 Mode. Some of those settings only have a minor affect on the sound, while others have a very significant role in making this sound right. That being said, as you dial in these settings, don't be surprised if it doesn't sound like a church bell until ALL the parameters have been programed. Each one affects the others in unpredictable ways, so getting them all right is very important.

To simplify things a bit, I didn't use any sounds for the rim, just the head. For our purposes here, you will have to set the Level [LEV] adjustments to zero [00] for the Rim Algorithm and Rim PCM. It won't matter what sounds and settings are there, we won't be hearing them. This program is only for the head. Feel free to create a complimentary sound on the rim on your own, I just didn't go that far with it.

As OhioBuckeye stated above, program #90 contains a church bell. That sound is generated by PCM sound # 97 Shaker & Church Bell. I had wanted to created two similar bell sounds—one on the head, and one on the rim—with different tunings between them, but that particular PCM sound is only available for the head.



A few things about creating this program

I, too, originally approached this by starting with Algorithm # 02 Temple.
Since the description in the manual begins with "This algorithm produces the sound of a temple bell," it seemed like the logical place to begin. The only reason I didn't begin with the obvious PCM sound #97 is that like many PCMs, it's a combination of sampled sounds, and not one isolated sound by itself.

One of the perplexing things to me has always been some of the sound combinations within the PCM list. I have to believe that some of them were simply created with a sense of humor. Why else would you combine a church bell with...a shaker? I can't imagine two more disparate sounds—and maybe that was the point, but seriously? However, the two sounds themselves are separated by the velocity of the strike. Play the sound softly and you hear the shaker; play it hard and you hear the church bell. Simple enough. But there's also a delay on the bell sound that's built right into the sample. It can't be adjusted in terms of delay time. It's fixed. But I discovered a way to get around that.

By adjusting the Decay time of the sample, you can eliminate (or enhance) the sound of the delay effect. To be clear: this is different from the delay settings that are available to every program in Edit 1 Mode. The delay on the church bell is part of the original sample itself.

There are two different ways to manipulate the delay on the bell, and both ways will produce the same result.
The first is to adjust the Decay time[dcy] (not "delay") of the PCM sound using the decay parameters of Edit 1 mode. By setting the decay time to -10, you only hear the bell once for every time you strike the head. The longer the decay time, the more times the bell sound will repeat. But since the delay is built right into the sample, there is no way to adjust the rate (speed) at which the delay occurs. You can only adjust the number of times that you will hear that delayed sound. (If you want to apply a delay that you can control the timing of, use the Delay [dLy] feature in Edit 1 Mode.)

The other way to manipulate the delay is by adjusting the Pressure Decay P.dc. With the proper settings, this will allow you control whether or not you hear the delay by how hard you press on the head.

It's easy enough to separate the shaker sound from the bell sound. When you strike the head with any decent amount of force, you won't hear the shaker sound, you'll only get the bell sound. Obviously, if you don't strike the head hard enough, you'll only hear the shaker.

I combined all this with Algorithm #02 Temple. The algorithm provides the low, metallic resonance, and PCM # 97 provides the attack and primary pitch. Blending the two properly is crucial. I would imagine that the desired settings will change according to what type of speaker system one is using, and what the actual application of this sound will be. I've provided the parameters that work best for me in my listening environment. A bit of experimentation will probably be necessary for each individual, but these settings should provide a good starting point.

I find that the PCM actually sounds a bit better, and more realistic, when you can hear the delay a couple of times. By using a shorter Decay, the PCM can become a bit choked sounding, but I designed the Algorithm to make up for this somewhat. With a longer Decay setting to the PCM, there is a nice, ethereal sci-fi texture that is present when you press on the head. This may or may not be appealing to everyone though. Again, this can be achieved by altering the Decay parameter, or the Pressure Decay parameter in Edit 1 Mode.

Tuning of the PCM in relation to the Algorithm is critical for this program to sound good. Algorithm #02 is one of the few that allows for incremental tuning by using one of the parameters in Edit 2 mode, in this case parameter #7 [hd7] Bell Width.

I chose the overall pitch at random, and it sounds good to me. But if you want to alter the pitch, you'll have to make adjustments to both the PCM sound tuning and the Algorithm tuning. It will probably be necessary to make some adjustments in Edit 2 Mode as well, because changing the pitch will affect they way those parameters interact.

I find that striking the head dead-center, using a hard felt mallet, works best, but most sticks should work fine as well. If you use the pressure feature to affect the delay of the bell sound, try pressing in the center of the head with the heel of one hand while striking as close to the center as possible with a mallet or stick in the other hand. If you hear only the shaker and not the bell, you’re probably not hitting hard enough.



Here's the breakdown:

Remember to set the Level to “00” for buttons 3 and 4. This will silence the rim completely. The following settings are for the head only. I didn’t include the Pan settings. I usually just leave them at “00” (for center panning) but you may have other preferences. The first number for each parameter corresponds to Button 1, the second to Button 2.


Edit 1 Mode

ALG: 02_97

LEV: 15_25 _00_00

tun: 37_02

dcy: 96_ -10 _ _ [pay attention to that (-) negative setting in the second parameter]

v.Cr: --- _ 06

P.Cr: 000_03

P.tn: --- _00

P.dc: --- _25

rEb: 05_50_60_35

dLy: 00_00

---------

Edit 2 Mode

EQ H-H

hd1 050 Bell Color
hd2 000 Harmonic Shift
hd3 100 Bell Type
hd4 050 Bend Range
hd5 000 Pressure Level
hd6 070 Bell Height
hd7 050 Bell Width
hd8 050 Bell Thickness



Oh, by the way, if someone (like that Japanese dude on Youtube) comes along and poaches all this info, and then puts up a video that suggests that that they somehow created the exact same sound, with the exact same settings, without including a link to this thread, then in the future I will simply correspond through Private Messages and nothing more.

Here's the link to this thread:
http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=78084

[WaterDrum]

tried your combi ... cool
a good trick with this extended decay time
to (nearly totally) avoid the shaker layer I used vel curve 8 or 9

[Sympathy Orchestra]

Wow WaveDrummer! Thank you for all of your hard work. I got very frustrated trying to work out this sound. I am anxious to hear what you came up with. I will try it this weekend.

[WaveDrummer]

Remember, the louder the better.

(Seriously, if you put this sound through a decent system, and turn it up, the overall effect is greatly enhanced!)

[Sympathy Orchestra]

Bravo! WaveDrummer! That sound is excellent. It will definitely come in very handy.

Thank you so much for all of your hard work. I have so much to learn about editing and creating new sounds. Going through this step by step and comparing the original settings with the settings that you came up is very helpful in understanding how all of the settings work and effect the overall sound.

And you are right...The louder, the better with this sound.

[Sympathy Orchestra]

I used the Church Bell from WaveDrummer in performance last night for the first time. it sounded AMAZING !!!