Hello all,

I want to write for Smax, which aren't sampled in VDL. I figured the dreadlock samples are a good starting point. Taking the bright edge off of these should do the trick.

Can I change the brightness / EQ of a VDL instrument using continuous controller messages?

What are Smax? Inquiring minds want to know. :)

Yes. All knobs in VDL are controllable with CC messages. You'll see a diagram of this in your VDL User Guide under ";Instrument Knobs."; EQ low is controlled with CC 24, and EQ High is controlled with CC 25. These aren't very detailed EQs, but they may give you some control over the sound.

Depending on what you want to do, adjusting the Attack knob (CC 26) can also provide some interesting results.

Smax are an implement that are somewhere between wire brushes you would use indoors to play jazz and the dreads we use outdoors. They are made by Promark:
http://www.steveweissmusic.com/category/s?keyword=smax

They come in different hardnesses, which is the ";floppiness"; of the brush. They are a mellow, quiet alternative to dreads (which tend to cut quite a bit). The drawback is that if you get the velocity too high, the brush material starts to flop out of the way, and the shaft starts to make the dominant sound. Then it just sounds like the line is playing with mushy sticks.

[quote author=Jim Casella link=topic=4407.msg23074#msg23074 date=1340391630]Yes. All knobs in VDL are controllable with CC messages. You'll see a diagram of this in your VDL User Guide under ";Instrument Knobs."; EQ low is controlled with CC 24, and EQ High is controlled with CC 25. These aren't very detailed EQs, but they may give you some control over the sound.

Depending on what you want to do, adjusting the Attack knob (CC 26) can also provide some interesting results.
[/quote]Thanks. I always look at the VDL readme that comes with templates and think of that as the ";manual";, but I forgot about the actual VDL user guide.

Lowering CC25 all the way to 1 is good enough for a quick fix, although I don't think this makes VDL dreads sound like Smax. It makes them kind of not sound like dreads, though, which is good enough in this case.

Changing CC26 doesn't seem to do anything significant in this case.

This is unrelated to ";Smax";, but whenever I want a brush sound, I'll first enter my music using the dreadlocks sound. Then, bump the CC24 (lows) to 90, set the CC25 (highs) to 0, and the CC26 (attack) to 85. This lowers the initial attack sound, beefs up the bass a tiny bit, and removes the brightness of the dreads. In the score, it ends up looking like this:

~C24,90
~C25,0
~C26,85

Seems like for the Smax you could do something similar, but just not as drastic with the attack. Fun with MIDI messages!