Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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FEATURES .................................................................................................................................................................. 3
THE PIANOS ............................................................................................................................................................... 3
A. VIENNA GRAND IMPERIAL .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................3
B. 1929 GERMAN BABY GRAND ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................4
C. GALAXY STEINWAY.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................4
INSTALLATION: ........................................................................................................................................................... 4
A. INSTALLATION UNDER MAC OS X: ...............................................................................................................................................................................................................4
B. INSTALLATION UNDER WINDOWS XP...........................................................................................................................................................................................................6
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1. FEATURES
Welcome to GALAXY II - a collection of three great sounding grand pianos with three distinct characters. Includes
The 5 star awarded GALAXY STEINWAY - a STEINWAY D, sampled in stereo and 5.1 surround with an incredible dynamic range.
The VIENNA GRAND IMPERIAL -a huge and powerful BSENDORFER 290 with great bottom end and punch,
and the 1929 GERMAN BABY GRAND - an 75 year old VINTAGE BLTHNER with a beautiful intimate tone.
2. The Pianos
A. VIENNA GRAND IMPERIAL
Galaxy IIs Vienna Grand is comprised of sampling a BOESENDORFER IMPERIAL 290 grand piano. Established by Ignaz Bsendorfer in 1828, Bsendorfer are the oldest
piano manufacturers still in production and have a history of constructing some of the worlds finest instruments. The Model 290 Imperial, a 96 grand piano, is famous
for its powerful soundboard and its extended keyboard; going as far as a bottom C0, making a full eight octave range or 97 keys. Sometimes, these extra keys are hidden
under a small hinged lid, on others, the colours of the extra white keys are reversed (black instead of white). The extra keys are added primarily for increased resonance
from the associated strings; that is, they vibrate sympathetically with other strings whenever the damper pedal is depressed thus creating a fuller tone. With the VIENNA
GRAND they are playable.
The Vienna Grand was recorded at Hansahaus Studios/Germany which is famous for its outstanding Jazz Recordings and has received two Grammy Awards. We placed
great emphasis on capturing the Bsendorfers huge dynamic range and energy, especially its powerful low end; using additional microphones in the lower register.
C. GALAXY STEINWAY
Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, piano maker of the Steinweg brand, emigrated from Germany to America in 1850. In 1853, Steinweg founded Steinway & Sons, by the year
2000, Steinway had made its 550,000th piano. The Steinway Model D 270 is probably the most popular concert grand of all. For Galaxy II, a Model D was recorded in
Galaxy Studios, Belgium; one of the most sophisticated high-end studios in Europe, which also boasts a huge recording hall. The instrument was chosen by studio owner
Wilfried van Baaren from a range of dozens of instruments at Steinway/Hamburg. It has been recorded in 5.1 surround and stereo with a tremendous microphone setup
to capture its size and dynamic range with 6 channels.
3. Installation:
(Although this manual includes basic instructions on how to install the Galaxy II and loading its instruments, it primarily deals with the instruments and how to use them. If you want to read
more about installation, plug-in formats and hosts, etc; please refer to the Kontakt Player 2 Manual on the installer disc or as a download on www.galaxypianos.com .)
Insert the Galaxy II Install DVD into the DVD drive of your computer.
Double-click the installation program INSTALL GALAXY II to start it.
The start screen appears first. After clicking Continue and confirming the License Agreement, a window opens where you can select the
Installation Destination of the K2 Player, which will usually be the application folder on your system disk.
Next is the Installation Type: You can choose Easy Install if you want to install all formats (Standalone, AU, VST, RTAS) or Custom Install if you want
to (re)install just one or more items without installing everything again. Or if you know that you do not need certain items to be installed (like an RTAS
installation, if you dont use Protools). In this case, leave the necessary items unchecked.
After choosing install you will be asked to enter your name and serial number.
After choosing install again you will be asked to choose a destination folder for the Library, which, including all pianos, has a size of 29 GB. With the
installer, all files, which are used for all pianos, will be installed (Instruments, BASIC Samples, PAD Samples, Galaxy II Impulses). Afterwards you
have to drag the remaining nkx-files from the other 4 DVDs manually into the library folder. The Library Path could
look like this:
In case you dont want to use one of the pianos (for instance the Galaxy Steinway 5.1, if you dont have a surround system), simply dont copy these files to
your hard disk or delete them afterwards. Just be sure to copy or keep all of the other files!
Finally you will be asked to start the NI Service Center for Authorizing your Galaxy II Library
Now the setup gives you a Library installation note saying that the basic samples will be installed within the installation process. Please drag all
remaining .nkx-files manually from the other DVDs into the library folder. In case you dont want to use one of them, simply
dont copy those files onto your hard disk. Just be sure to copy or keep all of the other files!
In the next window you will be asked to enter your name and serial number.
The setup program will suggest C:\Program Files\Native Instruments\KONTAKT PLAYER 2 as a path for the destination folder, as well as for the different
components like VST or RTAS, but you may also choose another folder.
Afterwards the install program will also suggest a Library destination path and a destination location for the VST Plugin. Please remember that the library
contains about 29 GB of samples, that the Library folder does not have to be on the same hard disk as the Player, and that you have to copy the remaining
.nkx files from the other DVDs to the Galaxy II Library folder.
Now you can entert the name of the Program Manager groupto add Galaxy II icons to
Finally the setup gives you a Installation complete note where you can choose to load the Galaxy II UserManual, to start the Kontakt Player 2 now and to
start the NI Service Center.
D. Format
GALAXY II may be used as a standalone application and as a plug-in within a host sequencer.
Standalone operation is ideal for situations in which GII is the only audio software you need to run on the computer, for example-live or if you just want to play.
To use GII as a standalone application, go to the Program Files or Applications folder and launch Kontakt Player 2. When you do this, KP2 communicates directly
with your computer's audio and MIDI hardware interfaces, therefore you have to go to the SETUP Menu and choose your audio and midi hardware.
Used as a plug-in, KONTAKT PLAYER 2 works as a module that can be used within a host sequencer.
KP2 is available for use in VST, DXi and RTAS formats on the PC and in VST, AudioUnit (AU) and RTAS formats on the Macintosh. It depends on your sequencer, how you
load the K2 Player. (take a look at the Kontakt Player 2 Manual in the document folder)When GII is used as a plug-in in any of these formats, it's not necessary to set up
Audio/MIDI settings. KP2 operates within the host sequencer, automatically receiving the MIDI that the host sequencer sends to it and sending back its audio output to the
host sequencer. Because of this, settings regarding audio and MIDI interfaces as well as buffer sizes (latency), are governed by the host sequencer, not by KP2.
E. Player Window
After loading the K2 Player, you will find several buttons at the top of the Player window for basic navigation:
Pushing the Browser button opens GIIs browser on the left, where you will find all instruments and Info on GII. Below, you
will find out more on loading the instruments.
Pushing Outputs opens the output window where you can assign the outputs of your system to GII using the Config. Button.
Keyboard opens a virtual keyboard at the bottom of the interface to play without using an external keyboard.
In the Master Control section, you can turn on a Metronome, control its tempo and switch on a reference tone. Mastertune
is also controllable in GII.
Load/Save obviously deals with loading and saving instruments. In GII there are a couple of convenient ways of loading an
instrument. The only way to save adjustments however, is to save an instrument via this little menu since Presets within Kontakt 2
are not saveable. If you save an instrument into the User Patches Folder of K2, it will appear in the Library Boxes User
Instruments. If you save it to the instrument folder of the library folder, it will appear with all the basic instruments in the Library
Box.
The Options Menu gives you access to some of the Player basics, e.g. the size of the interface, audio engine, handling... For
more information read the Kontakt Player 2 Manual in the documents folder or go to www.galaxypianos.com.
Purge analyzes which samples were used in an arrangement, and removes from RAM any samples that werent used.
Click on the downward arrow to access the following functions.
Reset Markers: Deletes all tags that mark samples as used.
Update Sample Pool: Unloads unused Samples from RAM, and loads newly marked Samples in RAM.
Purge All Samples: Unloads all Samples from RAM.
Reload All Samples: Reloads all Samples used in an Instrument.
The View button offers three different sizes for interface size. You can adjust the three presets in the Options Menu.
Clicking on this button in the Master Control will instantly zoom onto the currently selected instrument and will hide all other
areas of the KP2 Interface.
4. LOADING instruments:
In GII you wont find any multis, except the one that says its all in the instruments, which is true! The way GII is designed means there is no need for multis because you
have access to all sounds and controls via the instrument.
There are different ways of loading GIIs instruments into the player, lets start with the most convenient one:
1. If you click on the arrows just to the right of the
Instruments button in the Library Box, the content of
the library will appear in an easy-to-use menu. A click with your
mouse and itll be loaded
The VIENNA ALL nki contains all samples, so its possible to use Soft Pedal Samples with the Una Corda Pedal and the other 15 Pads, which also extends the possibilities
of the Warp Engine as youll find out later. The Basic NKIs do not contain Soft Pedal Samples and feature only the 5 basic Pads. Because the Vienna Grand is based on a
Bsendorfer Imperial with an extra low octave; you will find two basic NKIs, the VIENNA 88 KEYS BASIC with its the regular 88 keys and the VIENNA 97 KEYS BASIC
which includes the extended low octave, meaning a total of 97 keys. In case youre not interested in Una Corda and the extended low octave but want to use all options of
the Warp Engine, you should choose VIENNA BASIC WITH ALL PADS.
Its pretty much the same with the 1929 German Baby Grand. BABY GRAND ALL includes Soft Pedal Samples and all Pads. BABY GRAND BASIC does not contain Soft
Pedal and features just the basic 5 Pads. The BABY GRAND BASIC WITH ALL PADS adds the remaining Pads to the basic NKI.
The GALAXY STEINWAY has not been recorded with Una Corda Pedal, so the difference between GALAXY STEINWAY ALL and GALAXY STEINWAY BASIC is just the number
of the Pads.
That also applies to the GALAXY STEINWAY 5_1 recorded in 5.1 surround. There is just one more instrument in the 5_1 folder called ROUTING CHECK. If you press C3
with this instrument loaded you will hear a voice telling you the names of the output channels (left/right/center/LFE/left surround/right surround), so you can check if
you have the right output routing.
But enough of installation, authorization, formats, options and loading procedures!
If you managed to get through all that, this is what you might see:
Lets start with the basic Player features, before talking about the instrument itself:
In the upper part of the interface you can see the Instrument Name
and the left/right arrows next to it, allowing you to step through the NKIs.
Underneath the Instrument Name you can choose Output and
Midi Channel,
assign and watch the number of Voices
and see how much Memory is used.
With the S button - you can solo the instrument
with the M button - you can mute it.
The Tune knob tunes up or down in cents or halftones (which is possible in GII as well),
the left/right slider is for panning
and the fader on the right for changing the volume
This meter shows you the output level.
The x in the top right hand corner closes the instrument,
the -/minus button closes the edit view
and Aux opens the auxiliary sends, assigning the aux channels in the Output Menu.
The gear icon
on the upper left leads to Instrument Options, giving you access to
the voice steal mode, midi transpose, key and velocity range, DFD settings, controller assignment
and player info. Because you dont necessarily need to change any of these, we would once
again like to refer you to the Kontakt Player 2 Manual in the document folder.
One feature, which you might find helpful when navigating through the instrument, is the Help
Window on the left hand side of the interface, which welcomes you after startup. If you click
on any button or knob within the instrument, youll see a short about info telling you what the
chosen controller or menu is good for.
6. GLOBAL PRESETS
Underneath the Help Window there is a pop-up menu called GLOBAL PRESETS. It offers you 4 types of helpful
presets.
A. STYLES
The Styles Presets dont use any of the Pads or the warp section. . They create sounds appropriate for different
music styles. For example the Vienna Compressed Pop will work very well in a dense pop arrangement by
using the pop-compressor, reducing the dynamics and giving the piano a more brilliant sound with a harder
attack by changing tone colour and loudness. On the contrary, the Vienna Creamy Hall creates a warm and soft
sound using tone colour and warmth and closes the lid, reducing the stereo width and placing the piano in
a chamber music hall fairly far away from the microphones.
B. PLAYING WITH PADS
This one offers the combination of grand piano and a couple of pads, fitting the pianos tone section to the
chosen Pad.
C. WARPED PIANOS
Warped Pianos are pianos, which have been modified via the Warp engine. The Piano Bass for instance, is a
mixture of piano and double bass depending on the velocity. Flange Funk uses the Warps Spiritualizer to
modulate the piano, combined with a tougher sound and light compression. If you are looking for FX sounds,
which basically sound like a grand piano, choose one of these.
D. TOTALLY WARPED
With the Totally Warped presets its pretty hard to hear that this was ever a piano, these presets are real FX
sounds - give them a try!
At the top of the list is the preset Reset. This resets ALL parameters of GII, so be careful with this one!
If you load any presets and want to save them, you have to save the instrument as a User Instrument, not
as a preset. After saving it to the path
you will find those in the User Instruments pop-up menu in the Library Box. When saving it to the libraries
Instrument Folder it will appear in the Library Box together with the original instruments.
7. MAIN MENU
Because there are quite a few parameters in GII which you might want to, but not necessarily, need to change, we chose to have a MAIN MENU with all the main
parameters and 11 SUBMENUS with everything you (n)ever thought about changing!
After loading an instrument you will see the Main Menu with its 6 Menu Buttons:
In the diagram of the MAIN MENU above, the MAIN button is highlighted.
The other menu buttons TONE, ANATOMY, NOISES, SPACE and WARP are both buttons for entering the submenus and titles for the controllers underneath. For
example, the knobs Colour and Reso. belong to the TONE section and the Dynamic knob and the Velocity Editor button belong to the Anatomy section.
Lets go through the MAIN MENUs CONTROLS:
8. TONE MENU
All three grand pianos have been recorded the way they are. We used a combination of different microphone settings to expose each instruments character but theres
no EQ or compression on the samples: that, and a whole lot more, is in your hands when you enter GIIs TONE MENU.
A. Colour:
Lets check out the Colour knob again. As mentioned earlier, this knob is not an EQ at all; it uses different samples for different settings. To let the cat out of the bag, its
a dynamic way of mapping, while balancing the volume differences between softer and harder samples. As a result of turning the Colour knob clockwise, you will hear
the piano sound harder, crispier, and with more attack. Turn it anticlockwise and itll sound warmer, softer and with less attack. All without losing dynamics, and
with barely any volume changes between soft and hard. Its One-Knob Control of Tone Colour.
B. Resonance:
How about a little excursion into grand piano mechanics:
The pedal on the far right of a grand piano is called the damper pedal because pressing it raises all the dampers at once. Any notes played while the damper
pedal is down blend together and sustain until they die out naturally. Or until you release the pedal and the dampers kill the swinging strings. A single note
played with the damper pedal down sounds different, more pure than the same note with the pedal up. This is because releasing the dampers from the
neighbouring strings allows them to vibrate sympathetically, adding a much fuller, but less distinct sound to the note.
We sampled the sympathetic string resonance with the damper pedal down separately, without the dry tone. Its volume is controlled by the Tone-sections Reso. knob. You
can change its volume without affecting the dry tones. In this way you can control the pianos liveliness: keep it pure, make it very resonant or with the so called Ghost
Mode in the Warp Sections Alterizer- you also can play just the resonance without the dry tones! When the Reso.-knob is turned to the very left, the resonance is
completely switched off .
D. Loudness
Lets take a closer look at Loudness:
We wanted to incorporate a Loudness button into GII, but because its not really meant to just compensate our ears inaccessibility but for sound design, its controlled
with a knob, so that you can push low and high frequencies as desired.
E. Low Keys:
Its always a question of taste how much intensity the low keys on a grand piano have. We recorded the low strings as they really are, however with the Vienna Grand for
example, they might sound too intense (for a pop arrangement) or maybe you want to add more. Thats where the Low Keys knob comes in- it pushes or reduces
the low keys (lower than middle C) in volume: the lower the key, the stronger the effect.
F. Lid:
With a grand piano you can position the instruments Lid in three positions: open, half closed and closed, which obviously affects the sound. But in what way?
Lid
In a grand piano, the string vibrations are transmitted through bridges to the soundboard, which amplifies them, so the
radiation of sound from a grand piano is determined by its soundboard, but is changed by reflections from the lid.
In the lower registers the sound radiation is fairly symmetrical. In mid frequencies, the open lid starts to reflect sounds out
of the instrument with greater directivity and in the horizontal plane, theyre radiated pretty symmetrically too.
The upper registers of the instrument are much more strongly affected by the lid, with a strong directivity between 15 and
35 degrees from the horizontal towards the front. Above and below these limits, the upper harmonics can be as much as
10dB below the maximum found 'on-axis'.
The changes to the sound radiation when the piano lid is closed are fairly obvious. The sound becomes duller as the high
frequencies cannot radiate as effectively and the overall level decreases slightly. If the lid is half open, the overall effect is
of a slightly duller sound projection, without the full brilliance and clarity of which the instrument is capable.
GIIs Lid-function simulates this effect, offering those three lid positions. And if you say Id never play with a closed lid!, start
experimenting with it, especially, when turning the tone-colour to the left to produce a real warm and intimate sound.
G. Pedals/Soft Pedal:
Moving on to the next button of GIIs Tone-Section, lets talk a little bit about PEDALS:
Pedals:
Usually grand pianos have three pedals.
We talked about the one on the very right already: the Damper or so-called Sustain
Pedal. It raises all dampers at once and lets you sustain the played notes without having to
hold the keys, also leading to sympathetic resonance of the strings, which are not played. GIIs
Reso. Knob adds this resonance.
The middle pedal is called the Sostenuto pedal. Its also used to sustain notes, unlike the damper pedal the sostenuto pedal does not lift any dampers, but
holds only those ones, which are already lifted when the pedal is pressed. Notes played after the pedal is pressed behave in the usual manner.
For example, you could play a chord in the bass as a pedal point, press the sostenuto pedal to sustain those notes and then use both hands to improvise on it in
the usual way without sustain, while the original chord sustains, until you release the pedal.
The pedal on the left is the Una Corda pedal, also called the soft pedal. When you press the soft pedal, all keys shift slightly to the right so that in the upper
bass the hammers strike only one of the two strings and in the treble, the hammers strike only two of the three strings.
Having fewer strings hit per note makes the notes not just quieter, but also changes the timbre. That's because a two-string unison simply sounds different, more
hollow, than a three-string unison, and because the hammers are now hitting the strings with a less-used part of the hammer surface, generating a softer timbre.
If you have three pedals, they usually output Midi Controller #64 for the Sustain Pedal, #66 for the Sostenuto Pedal and #67 for the Soft Pedal.
In GII, MidiCC #64 (Sustain) and #66 (Sostenuto) sustain the played notes and trigger the corresponding resonance samples.
If you press the Soft Pedal button (Midi cc #67) with the Vienna Grand and the Baby Grand, you will hear different samples because we sampled those two grand pianos
with soft pedal up and down. The reason is that you cant really simulate the impression of a real Una Corda Pedal by just using some sort of filter. The Una Corda sound
isnt just quieter and duller, its timbre is really different, more hollow, less full. In case you dont have a Soft pedal with you keyboard, but want to play the samples, go
to the Tone Section and hit the Soft Pedal button; from then on you will just hear Una Corda samples.
Please keep in mind that the BASIC instruments dont have Una Corda Samples, so you have to load the ALL NKIs.
H. Compressor:
Finally we get to GIIs COMPRESSOR. Especially in Pop Music, but also in Jazz, a compressor is a very important sound tool, not just a dynamic one.
Compressors are one of the most common audio processors of all. A Compressor is a specialized
amplifier used to reduce dynamic range.
When sound enters a compressor and exceeds a certain Threshold, its volume is being reduced within a
certain Ratio. The sooner a compressor reacts after excess of threshold, the faster is its Attack Time.
And the quicker it returns to its original gain after the input signal has fallen below threshold, the
shorter the Release Time.
Now, if for example a compressor has a low threshold and a high ratio, the input signal will be reduced
strongly and very early on. If you then choose a short attack time, the sound will be affected within the
tones attack phase and the instruments attack will sound different. If you now add a short release time
the tones envelope will quickly return to its normal gain. This will result in a so-called pumping
sound. With a longer release time the result will be more like a breathing envelope.
So a compressor, besides controlling the dynamic range, changes a sounds envelope and in this way the sound itself. Thats why
youll find our compressor in the Tone Menu, because in GII compression is about sound, not controlling dynamics. You wont find
controls for ratio, attack, release or threshold with GIIs compressor. We merged those parameters into one knob and a few presets.
So the Compressor knob is not just for Threshold, but for a combination of all important parameters, depending on the musical
preset you select. You can hear it in a couple of the Global Presets. The best way is to just experiment with it, because its a
question of taste and musical context.
This basically applies to the whole GII TONE MENU: EXPERIMENT with all the parameters, try different combinations, go to extremes to hear the contrasts. Or use the
Global Presets and experience it all from there!
9. ANATOMY MENU
Anatomy, coming from the Greek anatomia (to cut up, cut open) is the science of the shape and structure of organisms and their parts.
Our organism is GALAXY II and talking about its anatomy is talking about its design regarding playability and structure. Lets have a look:
If , for example, you want to position the piano in a concert hall with the listener quite far away, it would make sense to switch to the audience listening position, reduce
the stereo field by turning Width way to the left and then adding a fair amount of IR Reverb from the Space Section.
Before we talk about dynamics and velocity, wed like to tackle the other parameters of the Anatomy Section. Since the Velocity Editor will demand some attention, let
s deal with the Tuning Division first.
vibrate freely. Lets go back to our example of playing the Concert A at 440Hz. If you now play the E underneath with 330Hz, the free A string will start to resonate
sympathetically with their shared overtone of 1320 Hz, an E two octaves above the triggering E.
We programmed this system up to the 4th overtone and you can switch it on using the SSR button. Unlike other piano libraries, GII does not generate (we could also
say fake) overtones from the dry tones. We sampled the grand pianos overtones for each key. So with GII you have Sympathetic String Resonance with REAL
OVERTONES.
E. Repedalling
Repedalling or Pedal Catch refers to a situation, where you release a key and then push the sustain pedal while the note is in its release phase. In this way the
remaining sound sustains and as all dampers are being raised, you will hear the other strings resonating.
Weve already mentioned the release phase in the Main Menus Noise Section: when a key is released, the damper cant stop the string vibration right away and so the
string dies, we call this- the release phase. The release phase is much longer in bass notes than in the mid and treble range. The same applies to repedalling: the longer
the release phase, the longer the time within which repedalling occurs. And the stronger the string vibration after releasing the key the stronger the effect of repedalling.
So the strength of repedalling depends on the time between releasing a key and pressing the pedal, and on velocity and key position, because the release phase is
stronger the lower the key. So, this is what happens when you press the Repedalling button in the Anatomy section.
F. Silent Key
If you press a key very softly on a real piano, the hammer wont make it to the string and you wont hear a tone. Silent Key does the same in GII. This function is useful,
if you just want to play around with Sympathic String Resonances, because they are still active also with silent key.
G. Dynamic
Now lets go back to the dynamic section.
In the context of the Main Menu we already talked about GIIs dynamics-knob, described as one knob-control of the dynamic range. It changes the instruments dynamic
response on incoming keyboard velocities without affecting the pianos volume.
Turning the Dynamics knob anticlockwise reduces the dynamic range. The upper range, meaning the loudest notes, stay the same. The more you turn it to the left
however, the louder the soft notes will get. This is useful when playing a pop piano within a dense arrangement, where you cant use low dynamics, simply because you
wont hear them. Turning the Dynamics poti all the way to the left, gives all notes pretty much the same loudness independent of key velocity.
On the other hand, turning the knob to the right, leads to an expansion of the dynamic range. Again the loudest note stays the same, you just have to push the keys
harder to get there, and its easier to reach to the softest samples.
H. Velocity Editor:
Galaxy II features a special Velocity Editor so you can customize GALAXY IIs velocity response to your keyboard and your way of playing. You enter it by clicking on
the Velocity Editor button within the Anatomy Menu.
On the right you can see a graph showing the current velocity curve. The horizontal X-axis represents the incoming velocity and the vertical Y-axis the corresponding output
velocity after modification in the velocity editor:
If you want to edit the velocity curve in detail, click into the graph and draw your own velocity curve.
For faster editing, simply use one of our preconfigured curve types. Use the Curve Menu to choose the curve
type you prefer. Here is a detailed explanation of every type:
The Allround Curve works in many situations. Its a linear curve which can be bent
using the Curve Knob. This results in a harder or softer way of playing. In addition
to that you can shift the curve up or down by using the Offset Parameter.
There are two additional linear velocity curves available called Linear Curve 1 and
Linear Curve 2. Unlike the Allround Curve, the two Linear Curves arent bendable.
Instead the Curve Knob controls the slope of the curves. Again the curve can also be
shifted by using the Offset Parameter.
When using a very sensitive keyboard of playing a soft song it would be a good idea to
use the Soft Curve 1 or Soft Curve 2. The goal of both curves is make softer
velocities easier to be played. Bend the curves with Curve Knob as you desire or shift
them via Offset Parameter.
Now lets have a look at the 3 Split Curves, a unique function in Galaxy II. When
selecting a Split Curve the velocity curve will be split in 4 to 6 zones plus velocity 127.
By clicking into the velocity graph and holding the mouse button you can easily shift the
different velocity zones up and down. For easier editing of velocity 127 you might want
to use the Vel. 127 Parameter. After all velocities zones have been adjusted to
the right position, click on the Smooth Button.
Now all of the zones will be connected to a velocity curve. Not smooth enough? Just click
on the Smooth Button again and the Velocity Editor will smooth the curve again. Note
that the Curve Knob is not available when using a Split Curve.
The last preconfigured curve is the Fixed Velocity curve, which means that there is
only one velocity step available. Choose your desired fixed velocity level by using the
Offset Parameter.
A. Release Samples
When hitting a key, the damper leaves the string. When releasing the key, the damper comes down to the string again. The energy generated by a loudly vibrating piano
string, especially by the longer more powerful bass strings, cant be stopped by the small felt damper right away. So the sound just sort of dies away, which takes some
time especially in the low strings. With the Boesendorfer, the low strings even make the dampers bounce because there is so much energy! In the higher midrange you can
hear more string resonance coming from other strings than of the actual sound of the dying string sound.
The strength of this Release Phase depends on the key position, on the velocity the key is being hit and on the time between hitting the key and releasing it. We sampled
the release phase with different velocities and different time offsets to create a strong release noise when playing strong staccato notes without making softer notes
sound unnatural.
B. Hammer Noises
After striking the string, the hammer drops back to an intermediate resting position. The noise of this rebound is part of the normal dry tone and can not be changed.
When releasing the key, the hammer returns all the way to rest. This noise, which happens along with the Release Sample, is called Hammer Noise and can be switched
on and off and adjusted.
C. Damper Noise
The Damper Pedal raises all dampers from the strings at once when pressed and drops them back on the strings when released. Both result in a short Damper Noise,
which can also be switched on and off and is fully adjustable.
D. Pedal Noises
Because the pedals in a grand piano are such strong mechanisms, they transfer a lot of energy to the whole piano body and the soundboard, resulting in some low
frequency resonance. If you connected a subwoofer to your monitor system, you would feel them!
E. String Noise
When the dampers leave the strings after pressing the damper pedal, each damper pulls its corresponding string a little bit, resulting in vibration of each string with its
resonance frequency. When played loud this noise is barely noticeable. When playing very soft however, this resonance triggered by the dampers seems louder than the
resonance initiated by the played notes. As with the Damper Noise, we sampled String Noise a couple of times and triggered them randomly.
To add a reverb effect to your piano first choose between the IR Reverb or the ECO Verb by clicking the corresponding button.
The primary goal of a convolution or IR Reverb is to sample real spaces, in order to simulate the
acoustics of the sampled space. These spaces are 'captured' using a special sweep tone played by a speaker
and recorded by microphones in the actual space, or by firing an alarm pistol and recording that with
microphones. A convolution reverb adds this same impression to any sound that it is used on, the
impression being what the room did to the gunshot or sweep. This sample is called an Impulse Response, in
short: IR; its a bit like the a rooms fingerprint. GII offers 21 fingerprints in the IR Preset Menu.*
When loading the Galaxy Steinway 5.1 in surround, there will be 5 additional IRs in the presets, which are
sampled in 5.0 .
An IR Reverb is unbeatable in quality and realism when it comes to simulating real acoustic spaces like
concert halls, churches or studio rooms. Convolution can, however, require great amouts of cpu power
especially when using large rooms. Please keep that in mind.
Some of GIIs IRs are taken from the DVD Halls of Fame, distributed by Best Service.
For users who want to save on cpu power or simply like the sound of a normal digital reverb unit, we have included the ECO Verb.
Only one of the two reverbs units can be active at the same time. For example if you activate the ECO Verb with an already activated IR Reverb, the IR Reverb
will be automatically deactivated.
Now the reverb is ready to be used. Just play some notes on your keyboard and you should hear the piano in your chosen room. Maybe the reverbs too quiet or too loud?
In both cases the Send Knob will help you. It controls the volume of the audio signal that is sent into the reverb unit.
Two further knobs of importance are:
the Length Knob; this controls the length of the reverb signal. Use it to increase or reduce the rooms size.
And the PreDelay Knob which is used to control the delay between the original audio signal and the reverb signal. By delaying the onset of the reverb, you can
simulate what an early reflection does. Using pre-delay adds clarity and greater depth to an instrument.
As you can see, all the Warp Controls from the Main Menu (the Random Warp Button, the Bypass Warp Button and the Reset Warp Button) have
moved to the bottom of the instrument. The Bypass Warp button bypasses the whole engine and the Reset Warp button resets all machines. When using the Random Warp
button, GIIs warp engine offers you a new Warp sound with every click. So if you dont want to edit a sound yourself but want to leave the presets behind, just push the
Random Warp button and listen to what GII comes up with!
In the centre you will see five new buttons. Clicking on them activates the corresponding Warp Machine. In addition to that, a Preset Menu and an Edit
Button pop up when switching on a Warp Machine. Heres an example of what your screen should look like:
Now, after powering up the machine, click on the Edit Button to bring up the machines interface on the screen and to edit it in detail. If you want to go back, click on
the Warp Button.
Its important to know that deactivating a machine (clicking on the button with its name again) is like bypassing it. It wont use cpu power anymore (and it wont affect
the sound), but it will remember its settings. So if you activate the machine again, all your settings will return. If you want to reset the settings, open the corresponding
Preset Menu and choose the Reset Preset. If you want to reset all machines, use the Reset Warp-Button.
The signal flow of the Warp Section cant be changed. The signal first enters the Pad-Machine, then the Degrader, then the Spiritualizer and so on.
A. The Pad-Machine
The Pad-Machine is an easy-to-use sample player, which is designed to play atmospheric pad sounds. After clicking on the Pad-Machines Edit Button, your
screen should look like this:
Use the Select Pad Menu to a choose your desired pad sound and start playing: your piano will be accompanied by pads. A simple, but effective way to add more
depth to your sound. If the pads volume is not to your taste , no problem: simply use the Volume Knob on the right!
The Pad-Machine also includes a special low-pass filter. Use the Cutoff Knob to change the cutoff frequency. A value of 100 means that the filter is completely
open.
The Release Knob controls the release time of the pads (the time it takes the pad sound to fade out after releasing the key that triggered it).
Now lets move on to two special parameters: Fatness and Voices. Both are very effective for making your pad sound bigger. The Voices parameter ranges from 1
to 7. 1 means that only one pad sample is triggered when hitting a key. 7 means that 7 pad samples are triggered, equally panned from left to right.
Ok, now on to the Fatness parameter because this parameter only works with Voices that have a value of 2 or higher. Fatness ranges from 0 to 100. Increasing this value
pans the voices hard left and right of the stereo image and also slightly detunes them in relation to each other.
All instruments have 5 basic pads integrated. If you use one of the ALL or WITH ALL PADS NKIs, you will find a total of 20 Pad Sounds. We limited the basic NKIs
to 5 Pads to save RAM, if you want more pads, just load one of the other instruments.
B. The Degrader
The next machine we come to is the Degrader. The Degrader features all tools needed to distort, deform and destroy your audio signal. Have a look at its interface:
Lets cover all controls from left to right. First, theres the Roughness Knob. Simply turn it clockwise and your signal will be distorted and some noise will be added.
To add more variety to the Roughness Knob, we have included the R. Color (Roughness Color) parameter, which influences the sound of the distortion and the
noise. A higher R. Color value (it ranges from 0 to 100) results in a warmer, less hard sounding distortion.
Hacker works similarly to a bit crusher. The higher the Hacker value is (it ranges from 0 100), the less bits are available. High Hacker values result in a very distorted
and cut off sound.
Whereas the Hacker reduces the bit rate of your audio signal, the Sharpness Knob reduces its sample rate. Turning the knob clockwise adds a sharp sounding touch
to your audio signal until it is completely distorted.
S. Range (Shifting Range) and S. Time (Shifting Time) are two parameters which work hand-in-hand. Theyre used for time controlled pitch shifting.
S. Range defines the number of halftones your piano sound is being pitched up or down to. It ranges from 48 to +48, so you can pitch 4 octaves. S. Time defines the
time (in micro-seconds) it takes the pitching process to reach the next halftone.
Last but not least, the Degrader includes an effective detuning function. Choose from different detuning settings in the Detuning Menu and the Degrader detunes
every key in a random way. Not satisfied with the settings ? Just click on the same menu entry again and all keys will be reset and detuned again. If you want to return to
the pianos normal tuning, use the No Detuning menu entry.
B. The Spiritualizer
After destroying the piano sound, lets add some spirit to it with the Spiritualizer:
Lets have a look at the Madness Knob and its corresponding menu first of all. The Madness function creates metallic and flange sounds. Choose a setting from
the Madness Menu to select between different effect characters and then turn up the Madness Knob to bring in and increase the effect.
To the right, is the Spiritualizers Global Multimode Filter, a very flexible filtering unit. Heres how it works: First use the Filter Menu above the Filter
M. (Filter Morph) Knob to choose a filter curve. Then use the Filter M. Knob to morph the filter curve from a horizontal line into the chosen form. With the
Cutoff Knob you can now move the filters cutoff frequency and the Reso. (Resonance) Knob will boost the frequencies around it.
Now to something special: the Ghost Mode. Activating the Ghost Mode deactivates most of the pianos samples but allows you to play the pianos resonance, as you
would a normal sound! This is a great function for creating atmospheric or pad-like sounds.
C. The Alterizer
Heres a complete-morph-in-one-click tool: the Alterizer. It looks like this:
The Alterizer is a simple but very effective Warp Machine. Select a Mutator from the Select Mutator Menu and your audio signal will be completely
transformed via impulse response technology. Use the Original Knob to let some of the original audio signal pass through the Alterizer unaltered and use the
Volume Knob to control the Alterizers output gain. Thats it- simple and effective!
(Please note that some Mutators require a lot of cpu power.)
The first parameter we encounter is the Time Knob. This knob simply controls the delay time (the time between two echoing sounds). The Time Traveller allows delay
times between 5 ms and 2,5 sec.
Next to the Time Knob is the Damping Knob: the more you turn it clockwise, the more the delay will be low pass filtered.
The Pan Knob allows you to create ping pong delays: the delays will jump from one side of the stereo panorama to the other. Turning the knob clockwise increases the
effect.
The Feedback Knob controls the feedback intensity: more feedback means more delays. Finally we have the Send Knob. This knob controls how much of the
audio signal is sent to the Time Traveller. With the Send Knob turned completely to the left, you wont hear the effect at all.
Thats it! Youve learned the most important things concerning the Warp Section. Now try all parameters, activate different machines simultaneously and see how
they work and influence each other.
And remember: if you need inspiration- use the Random Warp Button and let Galaxy IIs Random Warp Algorithm warp you into new sound dimensions. Its a
very powerful tool!
Special Thanks to
Andrei Wedel, Gert Kapo, Mark Joggerst, Klaus Tenner, Martin Doepke, Xaver Fischer, Klaus Genuit @ Hansahaus Studios, Wilfried van Baaren @ Galaxystudios, Klaus
Kandler & everbody @ Best Service, Dan Santucci, Gerald Zollner, Frank Elting & Nicki Marinic @ Native Instruments, Dominic Raths, Christoph Schmid, Borgato/Italy,
Monika & Lillianna Dmer