Tips, Tricks and "Secret" Functions!

[vcvr]

Might be a good Idea to share usefull things we find out about vital and collect them somwhere. Don´t know know if the title i picked is a good choice. Usually treads like this get “pinned” to the top? So maybe someone can do that.

Feel free to post whatever you found out yourself or what you find somwhere else. Please qoute the original source if you find things somwhere. But maybee copy the important things and paste em here, in case the original source is deleted.

I found quite a few usefull things in the last time so I´ll just start.

[vcvr]

First something from www.kvraudio.com One Synth Challenge #142: Vital by Matt Tytel

Minimizing CPU Usage: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=556809&start=45
[IV!]

KVRist

201 posts since 31 Oct, 2019

Post Fri Dec 04, 2020 1:16 pm

ELEX wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 04, 2020 8:18 am

@ IV!: Regarding CPU usage: Don’t forget the oversampling settings on the ‘advanced’ tab, defaults to 2x , but there’s also a draft mode. And when a patch is ready, don’t play it with GUI open, that takes way more CPU than the audio processing.
Thank you for your valuable tips! Indeed, I have just discovered two interesting things:

1. 50-70% of the CPU load in Cakewalk is occupied by processing the synthesizer interface (I don’t know if it is actually processed by the GPU or the CPU, but this is a fact).
2. Vital Standalone works MUCH MORE efficiently than VST in a DAW, even on 8x oversampling. So it looks like I’ll be creating presets in the Standalone version, and only writing the track itself in the DAW, which seems pretty convenient for now)

Hanz Meyzer

KVRAF

Post Sun Dec 06, 2020 6:07 pm

Hi, how do I draw the harmonics of a waveform in the wavetable editor?

z.prime

Post Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:19 pm

photonic wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:11 pm

Now I tried some drum sounds instead and failed too. Couldn’t get out some sound I like. I think this synth in not compatible to my brain
One thing I just learned (like 5 minutes ago) is the SMOOTH setting on the LFO . For some reason I was overlooking it. I almost never would want it, but it defaults to .005 seconds which makes using the MSEG result in some strange and unexpected behavior. Maybe that is causing some pain for you? For example, if you switch to keytracked LFO to try to use it as an FM oscillator, you will not get normal results without setting smooth to 0.

I’ll certainly make myself a default preset with this turned off. I would suggest to Matt to think about defaulting this setting to 0.

… and speaking of defaults, I know Serum does the same thing, but why not default the oscillators to Basic Shapes instead of just a saw wave? It seems like that would save a lot of clicks to get quite a lot of sounds?

Nonetheless, I’m loving this synth. Such a great job, Matt!

z.prime

Post Mon Dec 07, 2020 9:03 pm

MrKarolus wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 07, 2020 8:49 pm

Is there global/master pan knob in Vital? Can’t seem to find it
Does not appear so, but you could of course assign a macro to all the oscillator pan controls.

[vcvr]

Tipp: WT Editor: Audio File Source and "Window Size" parameter - What does it actually mean

Damn, I’m so silly and just recently found out the meaning of the “Window Size” parameter. It’s connected with the sample frequency and the sample rate. Giving an example. I have a Mellotron Choir Sample. It has been sampled with 44.1 Khz. And it has been sampled playing the note A2. What the heck. Now you can do some computations… I show you with the example. First look up the frequency for A2 … or you might know it from A4 of 440Hz. It is 110 Hz So just compute - 44100 Samples/Second : …

if you click and drag a wav file into the wavetable window you have three options
-wavetable
-vocode
-pitch scale

[vcvr]

Can Vital export a Wavetable that Serum can import?

Can Vital export wavetables that Serum can import? Or also, I have VPS Avenger. I think Avenger can import Serum wavetables too.

export to .wavfile, click the 3 lines on top of wavetable editor

[vcvr]

you can paint something in the lfo window and then copy&paste it to osc window.

from some youtube video i don´t renember.

[vcvr]

you can change a preset with mouse click on the little arrows, then stay with mouse on the arrow press return to change to the next preset. muki testet it on other arrows and it works too.

[vcvr]

Sound Design Tip - Arp

If you want to modulate pitch with LFO to create an arp, drop hov, or similar sound. 24=1Octave. Where 24 is modulation amount and considering you have the lfo points to either top or bottom.

[vcvr]

Sample Player Button Combinations How to Guide

Hi there I have documented the multiple combinations of the sample player buttons and published a matrix of the functionality each variation gives here… Vital Synth Sample Player buttons. I have added a few beginner tips too and I hope you find it useful I hope to add more tips next month Feedback is welcome if I have missed anything. Cheers Andy

[vcvr]

How to Import Vital Presets [A How-To Guide]

Hey everyone! Here’s a link to the full post for those in a hurry: How To Install Vital Presets (Windows/Mac) One of the more frequent questions I’ve gotten since the launch of Vital is “How do I import presets into Vital?” And while Vital does make it really easy to import banks and presets via the drop-down menu within the synth, there are more than a few stumbling blocks for those not as familiar with the process. So, to help everyone out, we created a short guide that contains everything…

[vcvr]

when preset browser is open, right click on macro to enter value then change to another preset and it will copy the value to the new preset.

[andrew_a]

Just tried the discord server for the first time and found this Vital FAQ

Edit: looks like it was written before the official release, so some things may have changed.

[andrew_a]

Also from the discord server, this pinned post written by @glorkglunk

vocode: this keeps the formant steady no matter the note you play, which means it will probably change your sound a little bit by default. Good for text to speech stuff or just if you wanna keep the formant of a sound in one place, the range is relatively small of the formant shifting.
formant scale: this sorta moves the harmonics up or down the spectrum further than vocode mode while still retaining more of the sound’s original harmonic structure than say something like sync. Like vocode but doesn’t keytrack at all.
Harmonic stretch: this increases the distance between the harmonics from the fundamental essentially. if you move it to 62.5% you shift all the harmonics up so that it actually takes all the even ones out and squarifies it, keep going further and the spaces between the harmonics get wider and wider (and of course this one’s great for screeches). stretch modes do nothing to a sine as there’ no harmonics to stretch.
Inharmonic stretch: like harmonic stretch but without as even of a pattern, I don’t quite understand the difference between the two, but in practice this sounds way more metallic.
smear: sorta a blur for the spectrum, it’s a bit hard to explain. it spreads harmonics up and up by kinda stacking more on until they pretty much highpass out and disappear. this sorta sounds like those kinda additive phaser sounds in razor/harmor but it works by adding stuff rather than subtracting.
Random amplitudes: this is a filter that takes out harmonics really sharply and moves them up and down, random isn’t exactly the right word bc it will always have the same movement, good for spectrally metally sounds or super resonant stuff or bells
phase disperse: moves all the phases in the sound around so clicky things become squishy. try it on a saw as a demonstration while looking at the spectrum. the spectrum won’t change but you’ll be able to hear a clear difference.
lowpass/highpass: just extremely sharp linear phase filters

[vcvr]

Thanks a lot. Didn´t know about this discord server.

[andrew_a]

Another bit of info found on discord, via ShibuyaCyana to be specific.
Vital’s multi-band compressor explained.

Crossovers are 120hz and 2.5khz (via @afro)

[vcvr]

when you use asdfgh keys to play vital try x and y/z to switch up and down an octave.

[vcvr]

this is probably not so new, when you hold alt and klick on a value, you can enter value with keyboard.

hold ctrl when left click and hold mouse, for fine tuning.

[caowasteland]

It was news to me. Thanks, mate!

[andrew_a]

LFO fun

These are for a Mac keyboard:

• Shift + mouse drag on a tension point: adjusts all the tension points asymmetrically
• Shift + Option(Alt) + mouse drag on a tension point: adjusts all the tension points symmetrically
• Shift + double mouse click on a tension point: resets all points back to linear

(via the discord server)

Plus (not shown in the GIF):

• Command: temporarily activates the “paint brush” for drawing

[vcvr]

Thanks a lot!

This also works in WT editor with Line Source.

[vcvr]

Clear search boxes

on the mac with small buetooth keyboard the “esc” (on the keyboard) works i.e.: clears the entry in the wavetable search and presetbrowser search (LFO search does not work)