USER MANUAL
Information in this manual is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Applied Acoustics Systems DVM Inc. The software described in this manual is furnished under a license agreement. The software may be used only in accordance of the terms of this license agreement. It is against the law to copy this software on any medium except as specifically allowed in the license agreement.
Contents 1 Introduction 6 1.1 System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.2 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3 Authorization and Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3.1 Your Computer is Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.3.2 Your Computer is Offline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
CONTENTS 5 Parameters 21 5.1 General Functioning of the Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.1.1 Knobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.1.2 Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.1.3 Drop-down Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.1.4 Modulation Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 5.1.
CONTENTS 7 Audio and MIDI Settings 45 7.1 Audio Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 7.1.1 Selecting an Audio Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 7.1.2 Latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 MIDI Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 7.2.1 Selecting a MIDI Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 7.2.
Introduction 1 Introduction The Lounge Lizard EP is a software electric piano based on the classic instruments of the seventies (Rhodes, Wurlitzer). Each component of these instruments has been modeled with AAS cutting edge physical modeling technology to provide realistic and lively sounds. Physical modeling uses the laws of physics to reproduce the behavior of an object.
1.2 Installation 1.2 Installation Simply double-click on the installer file that you have downloaded and follow the instructions of the installer. 1.3 Authorization and Registration Lounge Lizard EP uses a proprietary challenge/response copy protection system which requires authorization of the product. A challenge code is a long string of capital letters and numbers that is generated uniquely for each machine during the registration process.
Introduction Figure 1: Online Authorization. Your serial number as well as the automatically generated challenge code are displayed but you need to obtain the response code. To do so, take note of your serial number and challenge code and proceed to an internet connected computer. Launch your browser and go to the unlock page of the AAS website located at: http://www.applied-acoustics.
1.4 Getting Started 9 Figure 2: Offline Authorization. 1.4 Getting Started 1.4.1 Using Lounge Lizard EP in Standalone Mode Lounge Lizard EP comes with a standalone versions allowing you to play it without having to open your sequencer. This can be convenient to explore Lounge Lizard EP and its library, play it live or do some sound design work.
Introduction Audio and MIDI Configuration Audio and MIDI configuration tools are available by clicking on the Audio Setup button located in the lower left corner of the Lounge Lizard EP interface. The Audio Setup dialog first allows you to select an audio output device from those available on your computer. Multi-channel interfaces will have their outputs listed as stereo pairs. On Windows, the audio output list is organized by driver type.
1.5 Getting Help 1.5 Getting Help 11 AAS technical support representatives are on hand from Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm EST. Whether you have a question on Lounge Lizard EP, or need a hand getting it up and running as a plug-in in your favorite sequencer, we are here to help. Contact us by phone or email at: • North America Toll Free: 1-888-441-8277 • Worldwide: 1-514-871-8100 • Email: support@applied-acoustics.
2 2.1 The Electric Piano The Electric Piano A Short History The electric piano was invented by Harold Rhodes (1910-2000) during the forties when he was in the army. The first instruments he built were made of aircraft pieces and were intended to entertain army servicemen. The Rhodes piano as we know it today grew out of a partnership between Harold Rhodes and Leo Fender who released the Fender Rhodes Piano Bass a 32-note version of the instrument.
2.3 Tuning an Electric Piano 13 Figure 3: Geometry of an electric piano and corresponding elements on the Lounge Lizard EP interface. Figure 4: Reed and electrostatic pickup of a Wurlitzer electric piano. 2.3 Tuning an Electric Piano Electric pianos provided adjustment for pitch, timbre, and volume. On the original Rhodes, the tine is fitted with a spring which can be moved along its length for fine-tuning.
3 General organization of Lounge Lizard EP General organization of Lounge Lizard EP Lounge Lizard EP is a complete electric piano solution including complete modeling of the different electro-mechanical elements of a piano, a vast library of sounds and a multi-effects module. The graphical interface of Lounge Lizard EP has been organized around three different views as shown in Figures 5, 6 and 7.
3.3 The FX view 15 Figure 5: The Play view. Figure 6: The Edit view.
General organization of Lounge Lizard EP Figure 7: The FX view.
Bank and Program Management 4 17 Bank and Program Management Lounge Lizard EP comes with several factory presets, called programs, covering a wide range of sounds. This collection of programs lets you play and familiarize yourself with this synthesizer without having to tweak a single knob. Soon, however, you will be experimenting and creating your own sounds and projects that you will need to archive or exchange with other users. In this section, we review the management of programs. 4.
Bank and Program Management Figure 8: Bank and program manager window. A new bank can be created by clicking on the + button below the bank list. This opens the Create New Bank window in which the name of the new bank can be entered. A bank can be deleted by first selecting it in the bank list and then clicking on the - button. Be careful, this command erases a bank and all the programs it contains; this operation is permanent and can not be undone.
4.4 Using MIDI Bank and Program Changes 19 original bank. A multiple selection of programs can be used with the Copy and Move commands Programs can be deleted from a bank by first selecting them and then clicking on the Delete button. This will move the programs to a special bank called Trash which is located below the regular list of banks. This means that deleted programs can always be recuperated as long as they are not deleted from the Trash bank.
4.7 Bank and Program Management Restoring the Factory Library If necessary, it is possible to restore the original factory library of banks and programs.
Parameters 5 21 Parameters This section can be used as a reference on the different controls appearing on the Lounge Lizard EP graphical interface. We begin by describing the behavior of the different types of controls appearing on the interface and then describe the parameters of each module of the synthesizer. These parameters are accessible from the Edit and FX views of the synthesizer. In addition, some of them are also available directly from the Play view as will be indicated. 5.1 5.1.
Parameters knob. Turning the modulation knob to the right has the opposite effect and increases the value of the parameter for high notes while decreasing it for low notes. The Vel modulation knobs are used to modulate the value of a parameter depending on the velocity signal received from the keyboard so that the value of a parameter will increase as notes are played harder on the keyboard. The position of the knob is used to adjust the amount of modulation applied to the parameter.
5.2 The Edit View 23 thereby limiting the interaction time. A softer hammer (knob turned to the left) produces a more mellow tone while a harder one produces a brighter sound. The Key modulation knob controls how the stiffness of the hammer is related to the pitch of the notes played on the keyboard. When this knob is turned to the right, the hammer will become stiffer as the notes played on the keyboard get higher.
Parameters The Key knob is used to modulate the amount of noise depending on the pitch of the notes played on the keyboard. In its center position, the amount of noise is the same for all notes and equal to the value set by the Noise knob. When turned to the left, there is more noise for low notes than high notes. Turning the knob to the right has the opposite effect and the noise component is higher for high notes than low notes.
5.2 The Edit View 25 tone bar. The Decay knob controls the time necessary for the oscillations of the tone bar to fade out when a key is depressed and a note is held. Turning this knob clockwise increases the decay time. Note that the Tone and Tine parameters can also be set on the Play view. The Release Time The Release knob in the Fork module applies both to the tone and tine bars and is used to control the decay time of the fork oscillations when a key is released and dampers are applied on the fork.
Parameters the tine has the same effect on the spectrum of the sound as moving it above by the same amount. The Symmetry parameter is also adjustable from the Play view. The Distance knob sets the horizontal distance between the pickup and the tine bar. Turning this knob clockwise, increases this distance and moves the pickup away from the tine. Note that the sound becomes more distorted (overdriven) as the pickup is moved closer to the tine.
5.3 The FX View 27 Note that the Damper module responds to the sustain pedal signal via the Damper MIDI Control Change message (CC#64). In order for Lounge Lizard EP to respond to a sustain pedal, simply set your synth or MIDI controller to send its sustain pedal signal via this MIDI Control Change message. 5.2.5 The Tremolo Module The Tremolo module, introduces low frequency amplitude modulation, or tremolo, in the sound. This is an effect extensively used with electric pianos.
Parameters located at the center of each module for a wide range of possibilities. The effect list includes a Delay, Distortion, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Wah Wah, Auto Wah and a Notch filter. The Multi-Effects module is also visible from the Play view just below the utility section. This allows one to see rapidly which effects are selected for a given sound, turn the effects on or off and rapidly adjust the amount of each effect. The Compressor, Equalizer and Reverb can also be adjusted from this view.
5.3 The FX View 29 The EQ module features two peak filters, labeled LMF and HMF, allowing to shape the signal in two frequency bands as illustrated in Figure 12. The filters apply a gain factor to frequency components in a band located around the cutoff frequency of the filters. This cutoff frequency is adjusted using the Freq knob and can vary between 100 Hz and 10 kHz. The gain factor applied a the cutoff frequency is controlled by the Gain knob and can vary in a ±15 dB range.
Parameters Tuning The level at which the Compressor starts to enter into action is determined by the value of the Threshold parameter. This value is in dB and corresponds to the amplitude of the input signal as monitored by the first level meter of the module. The amount of compression applied to the part of the signal exceeding the threshold value depends on the Ratio parameter which varies between value of 1:1 and 1:16.
5.3 5.3.3 The FX View 31 Delay The Delay module consists in a stereo feedback loop with a variable delay in the feedback. It is used to produce an echo effect when the delay time is long (greater than 100 ms) or to color the sound when the delay time is short (smaller than 100 ms). The Delay knob is used to adjust the amount of delay, in seconds, introduced by the effect. Turning this knob clockwise increases the delay.
Parameters The Drive control is a gain knob acting on the input signal. This parameter allows one to adjust the amount of distortion introduced in the signal by controlling how rapidly the signal reaches the non-linear portion of the distortion curve applied on the signal. In its leftmost position, the amplitude of the input signal is reduced by -6 dB; turning this knob clockwise allows one to increase its amplitude. Note that the Drive parameter is also adjustable from the Play view.
5.3 The FX View 33 Figure 13: Chorus module. The Fat button is used to control the number of voices in the chorus effect. Switching this button on increases the number of voices. The Spread knob is used to adjust the amount of dispersion of the different voices in the stereo field. When in its leftmost position, there is an equal amount of left and right output signal on each channel. In other words the signal is the same on both channels.
Parameters Figure 14: Flanger algorithm. The effect of the Flanger module is to introduce rejection in the spectrum of the input signal at frequencies located at odd harmonic intervals of a fundamental frequency as shown in Figure 15.
5.3 The FX View 35 Light effect (mix=0.1) Amp Medium effect (mix=0.25) Strong effect (mix=0.5) 0 dB f0 2xf0 3xf0 4xf0 5xf0 6xf0 Frequency Figure 16: Effect of the mix between wet and dry signal on the frequency response of a Flanger module No Feedback Amp Feedback = 0.5 Feedback = 0.9 0 dB f0 2xf0 3xf0 4xf0 5xf0 6xf0 Frequency Figure 17: Effect of the amount of feedback on the frequency response of a Flanger module.
5.3.7 Parameters Phaser The Phaser module implements the effect known as phasing which colors a signal by removing frequency bands from its spectrum. The effect is obtained by changing the phase of the frequency components of a signal using an all-pass filter and adding this new signal to the original one. The algorithm implemented in this module is shown in Figure 18. The input signal is sent into a variable all-pass filter. This wet signal is then mixed down with the original dry signal.
5.3 The FX View 37 module. The filtering effect is different however, since the Phaser module only introduces rejection around a limited number of frequencies which, in addition, are not in an harmonic relationship. Light effect (mix=0.1) Amp Medium effect (mix=0.25) Strong effect (mix=0.5) 0 dB 250 Hz 2435 Hz Frequency Figure 19: Frequency response of a Phaser module. Effect of the mix between wet and dry signal on the frequency response.
Parameters the auto-wah, the variations of the center frequency is controlled by the amplitude envelope of the incoming signal. The Freq knob is used to control the central frequency of the filter. Turning this knob clockwise increases the center frequency. In the case of the Wah Wah effect, the center frequency will oscillate around the value fixed by the Freq knob while with the Auto Wah effect, the setting of the Freq will fix the starting point value of the varying center frequency.
5.3 The FX View 39 Amplitude (dB) 0dB −3dB Center Frequency Frequency (Hz) Band Width (Q=1) Figure 20: Frequency response of a notch filter. since we always listen to instruments in a room and thus with a room effect. Impulse Response of a Room The best way to evaluate the response of a room is to clap hands and to listen to the resulting sound. Figure 21 shows the amplitude of the impulse response of a room versus time.
Parameters Amp dB Direct Sound Room Response Time Early reflexions Late Reverberation Reverberation Time (TR) Figure 21: Impulse response of a room. The duration of the reverberation time depends on both the size of the room and the absorption of the walls, which is controlled with the Decay knob. In a real room the reverberation time is not constant over the whole frequency range.
5.4 The Play View 41 Reverb as well as the active effect modules. Key effect parameters are also adjustable as presented in the description of the different effect modules in section 5.3 The lower part of this view is dedicated to piano parameters. Key controls are provided as described in section 5.2. This section also includes a so-called Character parameter that is only accessible from this view.
Parameters wheel, the Trem switch located below the wheel, starts to blink. Once this switch is turned on, the value of the Depth parameter follows the position of the modulation wheel. Note that the position of the Trem switch is not saved in a program which means that once it is turned on, it will remain so until it is switched off even if new programs are loaded. Ribbon The lower part of this view includes a ribbon controller.
Utility Section 6 43 Utility Section The utility section is located at the top of the Lounge Lizard EP interface and it includes important parameters and monitoring tools. For information on Banks and Programs please refer to Chapter 4 6.1 The MIDI LED The MIDI LED is located on the left of the level-meter. The LED blinks when the synthesizer receives MIDI signal. If the application is not receiving MIDI signal, make sure that the host sequencer is sending MIDI to Lounge Lizard EP.
Utility Section The Compare button, located above the Program display, is used to switch between Edit and Compare mode. This button is visible only once a modification is applied to a given program. It allows one to revert to the original version of a program in order to compare it with the current version. When in Compare mode, edition is blocked and it is therefore not possible to modify any parameter.
Audio and MIDI Settings 7 45 Audio and MIDI Settings This chapter explains how to select and configure Audio and MIDI devices used by Lounge Lizard EP. Audio and MIDI configuration tools are accessed by clicking on the Audio Setup button located in the lower left corner of the Lounge Lizard EP interface and the MIDI button located just below the MIDI led in upper part of the interface. Note that in plug-in mode the audio and MIDI inputs, sampling rate, and buffer size are set by the host sequencer. 7.
Audio and MIDI Settings Depending on your machine you should choose, for a given sampling frequency, the smallest buffer size that allows you to keep real-time for a reasonable number of voices of polyphony. 7.2 MIDI Configuration 7.2.1 Selecting a MIDI Device The list of available MIDI inputs appears at the bottom of the Audio Setup dialog.
7.2 7.2.4 MIDI Configuration 47 MIDI Program Changes Lounge Lizard EP responds to MIDI program changes. When a program change is received, the current program is changed to the program having the same number as that of the program change message in the currently loaded bank. If you do not wish Lounge Lizard to respond to MIDI program changes, open the MIDI configuration window by clicking on the MIDI button and uncheck the Enable Program Changes option. 7.2.
8 Using Lounge Lizard EP as a Plug-In Using Lounge Lizard EP as a Plug-In Lounge Lizard EP is available in VST, RTAS and AudioUnit formats and integrates seamlessly into the industry most popular multi-track recording and sequencing environments as a virtual instrument plug-in. Lounge Lizard EP works as any other plug-in in these environments so we recommend that you refer to your sequencer documentation in case you have problems running it as a plug-in.
8.6 Performance 8.6 Performance 49 Using a plug-in in a host sequencer requires CPU processing for both applications. The load on the CPU is even higher when multiple instances of a plug-in or numerous different plug-ins are used. To decrease CPU usage, remember that you can use the freeze or bounce to track functions of the host sequencer in order to render to audio the part played by a plug-in instead of recalculating it every time it is played.
9 License Agreement License Agreement IMPORTANT! CAREFULLY READ ALL THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT BEFORE OPENING THIS PACKAGE. OPENING THIS PACKAGE INDICATES YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT, PROMPTLY RETURN THE UNOPENED PACKAGE AND ALL COMPONENTS THERETO TO THE PARTY FROM WHOM IT WAS ACQUIRED, FOR A FULL REFUND OF ANY CONSIDERATION PAID.
License Agreement 51 5. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY.
License Agreement rendered inoperative but the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect. 9. ENTIRE AGREEMENT.
Index about, 44 architecture, 14 audio, 45 configuration, 45 configuration;MIDI configuration;sampling rate;buffer size, 10 device, 45 latency, 45 authorization, 7 auto-wah, 14, 27, 37 backup, 19 bank, 17 backup, 19 create, 17 delete, 17 factory library, 20 rename, 17 sharing, 19 bank manager, 17 buffer size, 45 challenge code, 7 character, 41 chorus, 14, 27, 32 mono, 32 stereo, 32 clock, 22 coarse, 21 compare, 43 compressor, 14, 27, 29 contact, 11 cpu load, 43 damper, 26 sustain pedal, 27 default MIDI map,
configuration, 46 device, 46 link map, 46 links, 46 pitch bend, 41, 47 program change, 17, 19, 47 receiving, 43 MIDI controller, 46 MIDI led, 43 minimum system requirements, 6 modulation, 21 modulation wheel, 14, 41 modules, 21 multi-effect, 14, 27 auto wah, 37 chorus, 32 delay, 31 distortion, 31 EQ, 28 flanger, 33 notch filter, 38 phaser, 36 reverb, 38 synchronization, 22 wah wah, 37 notch filter, 14, 27, 38 numerical displays, 21 overdrive, 31 parameters, 21 peak, 44 phaser, 14, 27, 36 pickup, 25 pitc
INDEX voices, 43 volume, 44 VU meter, 44 wah wah, 14, 27, 37 warm tube, 31 55