Velocity Controlled Distortion

[BrettM]

File Name: Velocity Controlled Distortion

File Submitter: Brett M

File Submitted: 02 Nov 2014

File Category: XW-Synths

I like my E.P.s with plenty of bark, so ...

Attached is a performance that routes zone 2 through the solo synth in zone 1. Also attached is a silent solo synth patch with the distortion DSP enabled and a virtual controller routing key velocity to distortion gain. Touch sense can be altered by changing the depth parameter in virtual controller 2. Knob 2 can be used to set the gain baseline, but there's no point in setting it very high.

Put the solo synth patch in zone 1 and whatever PCM tone you want to add distortion to into zone 2 and make sure the DSP line is on for that zone. Given that the solo synth is involved, the resonant filter is available to help tame that notorious XW distortion. This can change the character of the distortion a lot, even on the distorted guitars. EQ helps as well.

This is also useful for quickly auditioning the effect of distortion on various tones. On the G1, the multifunction key can be set up to toggle the DSP line on zone 2 to help make the comparison.

Click here to download this file

[BrettM]

I just realised that there is another way - there's always another way.

 

Instead of routing a PCM tone through the solo synth, create two versions of the PCM tone, one with distortion (or some other DSP) enabled and one without any DSP. For this second version, set the touchsense value to -64. Then assign these two tones to zones 1 and 2 of a performance. This creates a velocity based cross fade between the two zones so when you play lightly the undistorted tone is loud, but when you dig in the undistorted tone softens and the distorted tone is turned up.

 

P1 owners can probably do even more complex switching between PCM versions using the hex layer.

 

The advantage of the solo synth method, as per the download, is that the resonant filter is involved so more variation of tone is possible.