The meaning of V.A.S.T.

[Theo Verelst]

Probably over half the people here know about the Kurweil Variable Architecture Synthesis Technology, the powerful sound engine which evolved out of the earliest products to the latest versions and it's variations.

 

It's based on layers with samples and processing at note-level, of course making a lot of sounds primarily variations on the samples in the machines. Like a piano sample is called up by a single layer sound, it's volume is controlled by a parameter at the output volume point, and the layer settings are to make the proper sample sound in the proper keyboard range, etc.

 

Not, apart from basic parameters like velocity sensitivity, there are "blocks" with 1, 2, 3, 4 or 8 "units" of complexity, of which there are 4 per layer, and in the latest VAST incarnations, you can make a variety of connection between the blocks. Inside the "layer" blocks (I'm not talking about the "effect" blocks like reverberation and reverb and other, which are global per sound) you can stuff things like filters (all kinds) oscillators (simple and pretty deep ones) signal distorters, mixers, and a few more kinds, and they act on the signal coming from a signal note being played, which can use multiple (connected) layers. Also, there are modulations per layer like envelopes and LFOs that can drive parameters of the processing blocks, so you could make a stereo layer and have a LFO drive a panning block, or a envelope generator control a filter cutoff frequency.

 

Now all that is known to more than a few Kurzweil users, but my point is, if you take for instance ROM sounds as example, what are the various layer blocks actually doing ? Would you use a low pass filter to change the spectrum of a piano sample, or what about adding harmonics at a certain point of the envelope of a note, like the additive synthesis early Kurzweil where known for, or maybe a complicated layer cross fade algorithm instead of the crude velocity switching often used ?

 

Looking at the ROM sounds, it's not completely clear how the sounds are created in terms of the logic people could learn from the examples sounds, sure some of it is normal and makes sense, but 1) making good sounds is pretty hard, and 2) a lot of layers and blocks seem only loosely connected to the actual sounds in the machine.

 

Please note I like synthesis, and more than proficient in more than a few sides of it, but I think it's hard to teach the right way of making mixes from the rather superficial layers and their meaning, so I'd like some people's opinion about what they think works good!

 

T.V.