Phonetic

Description

INTRODUCTION

PHONETIC is a syllable-based vocal morphing engine for Native Instrument’s Kontakt 6. It is loaded with 44 female and male vowel/consonant performances recorded across a broad range of pitches, arranged in three layers: Body, Loops and Air.

The over 3000 total possible sound combinations can be sculpted into evolving pads, pulses, pad/pulse combinations, and also keys and riser sounds with the Shape, Morphing and Movement controls in the user interface.

PHONETIC contains 125 presets, ranging from minimalism-inspired looping female single syllables, via gently evolving formant-filtered pad sounds, to gritty distorted riser sounds.

USER INTERFACE

PHONETIC sports an intuitive three-screen interface:

Home Screen

The Home Screen contains top-level controls for the layers, including:

• Source selection
• On/off switches for each layer
• Layer Volume
• Individual Level Meters for each layer

The Home Screen also contains the master controls, with selectors for dynamics:

• Edge CC1 (Modwheel) on/off
• Expression Velocity/CC1 (Modwheel) switch
• Volume Velocity/CC1 (Modwheel) switch
• Visual “tube” style CC1 (Modwheel) dynamics animation

As well as controls for:

• Master Volume
• Master and Individual Layer Panning
• Stereo Width
• Level Meter

Layer Screen

The layer screen contains in-depth controls for the layers (envelopes), specific controls for each layer type, morphing and movement tabs, and a vibrato tab for each of the layers individually.

Layer Screen – Sound Elements

PHONETIC’s Engine comprises three layer types – Body, Loops and Air. Each contains a distinct set of sounds (phonemes), with unique processing variables. All sounds were recorded in a female (f) and male version (m).

BODY

This layer contains sustained open vowel sounds such as “Ah”, “Oh”, “Eh”, “Ooh”, “A-E-I-O-U” and hums. The unique layer controls adjust sample start.

LOOPS

This layer contains looped consonant/vowel combinations (syllables) sounds such as “Na”, “Bo”, “Mi”, “Lu” and “Mo”. The unique layer control adjusts tempo-synced looping speed.

AIR

This layer contains sustained sibilant consonant sounds such as “ff”, “sh”, “vv” and others. The unique layer controls allow for controlling weight (amount of low-end body).

Layer Screen – Morphing

The Morphing Tab is designed to create smooth, gradually evolving textures. It contains the following possible morphing parameters:Low Pass Filter, Band Pass Filter, Formant Filter, Distortion. Morphing Amount and Time can be individually adjusted, as can the Direction of the effect.

Layer Screen – Movement

The movement tab contains three LFO types (sine, square and triangle) to control Low Pass and High Pass Filters. This effect is tempo-synced and creates very effective pulses, tremolo effects and other tempo-based textures. As in the morphing tab, the direction of the filters opening/closing can be reversed.

Movement & Morphing in practice

For more details on how to use the movement and morphing sections to create luscious soundscapes, please check out “How To Create Evolving Vocal Soundscapes with Phonetic in the Videos tab above.

Effects Screen

Tape Saturation

The tape saturation effect allows for gentle warming up of the sound all the way to screaming distortion. The “warmth” slider adjusts the amount of high-frequency content in the saturation.

Filter

The Filter section offers a choice of Band Pass, High Pass and Low Pass filters.

Delay

The Delay section comes with controls for Amount, Feedback, Delay timing, as well as a switch between standard and diffusion-type delay settings. Diffusion delay is very useful for creating washes and big cinematic soundscapes.

Reverb

The reverb section is simple and allows for control of room size and mix.

EQ

3-band EQ – low, mid and high frequencies, complete with Q control.