Outpost: Airlock – A Free Zebralette & Zebra 2 Soundset

Modulate This! – Synth Tech & Technique Artilcles by Mark Mosher

December 7, 2011

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Download

April 16, 2014 update: The outpost has been offline for some time (long story about server moves and such), but it's back!

Click here to download a zip file containg the patches.

About

"OUTPOST: AIRLOCK" is a free soundset made up of patches for U-HE's free shareware synthesizer Zebralette. The patches will also load into Zebra 2. This themed soundset picks up where “Sounds from a Distant Outpost” soundset left off and again takes place at the fictional dark and distant “outpost”. This outpost exists in the same “signals universe” as my two albums REBOOT and I HEAR YOUR SIGNALS. The 12 patches in this soundset will help you explore the sounds, technology, and creatures of this world. Listen through nice headphones or monitors as there is a lot of stereo movement in these patches (keep the volume low while you get to know the library).

Project Goals

One goal with this project is to spark your imagination and inspire you to create your own soundtrack for this world. Of course, the instruments will also help add an interesting "edge" to any sound or music project.

Another goal was to inspire you to go deeper with synthesis with Zebra 2 (and programming in general) by giving you a smaller set of expressive patches created only with Zebralette. Since Zebralette is subset of Zebra 2 it’s well suited to this notion of boosting creativity by constraining your toolset. The manual summarizes this nicely – “Zebralette is a single oscillator plucked from Zebra2 and transplanted into a much simpler, easy-to-learn framework… The LFOs, MSEG and effects in Zebralette are also simplified versions of those in Zebra2.” For me personally, constraining myself to program within limits was a fun challenge. For example, Zebralette has no filter. This just forced me to learn new ways to transform and filter the waveforms with oscillator SpectralFX instead. As a result I understand Zebra 2 a whole lot better and will be able to get more unique sounds with a bigger sonic range.

I encourage you to dig into some of these patches to see how I used SpectralFX, modulation, and hand drawn waveforms and wavetable synthesis to achieve some of these sounds.

The Story

Phase 2 of the Outpost Experiment begins. You are teleported to an airlock within the alien outpost. Play each patch in order. Take some time with each patch. Play across the entire range of your keyboard. Experiment with mod wheel, velocity, and aftertouch. Do this and you will experience the journey through the airlock which connects the outer ring of the outpost to the first inner chamber. You might hear creatures along the way so stay alert.

A Looking Glass
Bowing the Sparker
Ghosts
Looking Back at Yourself
Pierce the Mist
Sensing Through Particles
Sliding Organic
String Theory
The Knowing
They Know You Are Here
Understanding Wires
Until You Learn Their Language

Your Mission

Compose music or sound with these patches.
Post your work on a site like Soundcloud. FYI we are listening at http://soundcloud.com/markmosher/dropbox.
Report back using the contact form at http://www.markmoshermusic.com/contact.html.
Pass it on. The more people we get on this, the sooner will discover their plan!

Requirements

This soundset was developed for use with U-HE's Free Zebralette virtual instrument which comes with Zebra 2 (http://www.u-he.com/cms/zebra) can be downloaded separately from http://www.u-he.com/cms/zebralette. Note these instruments work on both Mac and PC. These patches will also load into U-HE’s Flagship synthesizer Zebra 2. To make the most of these patches you’ll need a MIDI Controller that transmits velocity, aftertouch, and modulation wheel.

Installation

License

The Outpost: Airlock soundset is copyright 2011 Newecho Productions, LLC. The soundset (patches, programming, documentation, images) is provided as is and without warranty. Not responsible for data loss (in other words backup before you add third-party sounds or samples to your library).

You are granted a non-exclusive royalty-free license to use the audio output of the patches in this library in the context of any musical and/or sound composition. You may not redistribute or sell the content as standalone sounds or as part of another soundset without express permission from Newecho Productions, LLC.

Performance Notes

NAME: MM A Looking Glass

DESCRIPTION: Silky glass. Round. Morphing Bright.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL - Morph from a pad to a lead.
VELOCITY – Controls Volume
AFTER TOUCH – Causes pitch up by 12 steps. Also causes a pan left which makes interesting for the delay line.

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NAME: MM Bowing the Sparker

DESCRIPTION: A pad with a metallic edge that sounds bowed.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Increase Sync
VELOCITY – Volume
AFTER TOUCH – Phasing

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NAME: MM Ghosts

DESCRIPTION: Ghostly when played at middle C and an octave above. An octave below there is some very warm big bottom end. There is a rhythmic element that fades in and out.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Increase Sync and make brighter
VELOCITY – Volume
AFTER TOUCH – Pans elements more to the right

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NAME: MM Looking Back at Yourself

DESCRIPTION: A gated pad with lots of delays and panning.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Increase brightness. All the way up causes self-oscillation.
VELOCITY – Brightness
AFTER TOUCH – Pitch up

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NAME: MM Pierce the Mist

DESCRIPTION: A pad with an attack that sounds like rapidly vibrating glass. Two octaves down from middle C the timbre has vocal formant qualities.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Sweep the band pass filter into the stratosphere.
VELOCITY – Higher velocities kick in the MSEG pulse
AFTER TOUCH – Pitch down a 7^th

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NAME: MM Sensing Through Particles

DESCRIPTION: Sensing through plastic and glass particles vibrating at high frequencies that react to touch.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Add more power to the particles.
VELOCITY – Volume
AFTER TOUCH – Pitch down

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NAME: MM Sliding Organic

DESCRIPTION: Slides into an organ sound with a plastic pulse with a lot of stereo movement.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Changes character/timing of pulse.
VELOCITY – Volume
AFTER TOUCH – Slight change in sync which adds a timbre shift and a bit of a character change to the organ sound.

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NAME: MM String Theory

DESCRIPTION: Alien sitar-like sound.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Makes bright, tight, and sparkly.
VELOCITY – Volume
AFTER TOUCH – Adds a little thickness and makes it less bright

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NAME: MM The Knowing

DESCRIPTION: Plastic pad with lots of movement.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Brighter & Bigger
VELOCITY – Volume
AFTER TOUCH – Pitch up to hear them speak.

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NAME: MM They Know You Are Here

DESCRIPTION: Creatures floating and pinging you.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Bring them closer
VELOCITY – Volume
AFTER TOUCH – Send them further back.

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NAME: MM Understanding Wires

DESCRIPTION: Signal flowing down wires.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Higher frequency signal flow
VELOCITY – Volume
AFTER TOUCH – Pitch Down

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NAME: MM Until You Learn Their Language

DESCRIPTION: Speaking through the plasma.

USAGE:

MOD WHEEL – Pan control
VELOCITY – Volume
AFTER TOUCH – N/A I used too many mod slots to generate movement :^)

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Hi, it’s Mark. I’m a Synthesist, Sound Designer, Electronic Musician, and Multimedia Artist out of Boulder, CO. Subscribe if you’d like to receive emails when I post.

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