TUTORIAL:

Theodore Krueger Technique for Eliminating
"Machine Gun Effect" in Repeated Samples in
Kontakt 2

 


This Tutorial will show you all of the steps necessary to create your own implementation of modified instruments in Kontakt 2 which implement the "Theodore Krueger Technique", as discussed in the "Info" page.

Why Would You Want To?

It just sounds better. (For more details, see the original "Info" page.)

Selecting an Instrument

In the beginning, constructing an instrument which utilizes the "Theodore Krueger Technique" (hereafter referred to as simply "TKT"), simply involves selecting an instrument that has exhibited the dreaded "machine gun effect" that you would like to eliminate. Typical candidates include almost any staccato instrument, some sForzando instruments, and other instruments which suffer in a repeated note scenario.

[ EDITORIAL NOTE: For the remainder of the Tutorial, the screen snapshot will be above the material which explains what is going on. For the most part, numbers (in YELLOW) on the screen shot will correspond to the steps which are shown with the corresponding numbers below the image. ]

  1. For this Tutorial, we have selected a staccato Violin from the included VSL content which comes with Kontakt 2.
  2. Select the instrument on which your modified Patch will be based.

  1. Drag the chosen instrument into the Kontakt 2 "Multi" area.
  2. Open the detailed view of our selected instrument by clicking on the wrench icon.

Now we have the basic expanded view of the details of the selected instrument and we can select the various areas that we want to modify.

  1. Click on the "Group Editor" button at the top.
  2. Now we can see the "groups" which comprise the instrument. In most cases of applying TKT, there will only be one "group" inside our instrument.

Now, we want to "clone" our original instrument into the number of copies that we want to use to eliminating the "machine gun effect". For these examples, we will have a total of FIVE (5) instances of the instrument spanning 5 semi-tones. There are cases when you may want more (and that will address later under "Advanced Topics").

  1. Click on the "Edit" button in the "Group Editor" area. A drop-down selection is shown.
  2. From the drop-down, select "copy selected group(s)". You can think of this action as having placed the selected group(s) in your "clipboard".

  1. Now, click on "Edit" again, and
  2. select "paste group(s) with samples". Repeat this for a total of 4 times (making a total of 5 sample groups).

When you have successfully copied the original group 4 times, your Group display should look as above.

Now we are ready to do "the magic" on the first of the cloned Groups.

  1. Select the first "cloned" Group by highlighting it.
  2. Click on the "Mapping Editor" button to highlight and open the "Mapping Editor" section.
  3. Check that the "Selected Group(s) only" is "on". (Like a lot of controls in Kontakt, this is a "sticky" setting, so yours may or may not be set at the time you are performing this step.
  4. The samples which make up this group are displayed in "Mapping" area (when not selected, these are shown in aqua).

Now, select ALL of the samples for this group by (for example)

  1. dragging your mouse from the upper left
  2. to the lower right so that ALL of the samples indicated are highlighted. (Be very careful in dragging the proper number of semi-tones.)

TECHNICAL NOTE: In the case of the particular instrument in this example, close examination of the "sample map" reveals that for the most part samples are shared between two semi-tones (which is not uncommon in less complete sample sets).

There are a number of options that pertain to samples.

  1. These are shown when you right click (Mac: control-click) on this highlighted area.
  2. Check that the "auto move root key" option is NOT selected (i.e., does not have a selection "dot" next to it).

Again, this is a "sticky" option and once set remains that way (or until it is changed by loading a different setting). Typically, while doing a series of "TKT conversions" you probably don't need to check it again. However, it is a very key setting as leaving it to "auto move root key" would defeat the shifting of samples that we are about to do.

  1. Now, with all of the samples still selected, shift this Group ONE semi-tone to the left (one lower key),
  2. which will result in an "uncovered" area being shown to the right.

With the second Group marked, highlight and shift the samples TWO semi-tones to the left.

  1. Notice that we now can see TWO semi-tones of samples that are not included in this Group.

Continue with the third and fourth Groups in the same manner as the first two, but moving the third UP one semi-tone to the right and the fourth two semi-tones to the right.

When you have successfully manipulated all four Groups, with the original Group selected,

  1. you will see the "shadow" of the two lower Groups on the left, and
  2. the two upper groups on the right.

NOTE: By pulling 2 sample sets to the left and 2 to the right, technically we have created notes for this instrument which are outside the formal range. See "Range Workaround", below, for one way to correct his. (The exposure here is that if you played these "outer notes" they would only have 1 or 2 sample sets to draw from and would potentially revert to having the "machine gun effect". In addition, the top and bottom two semi-tones will be missing samples for 2 of the 5 sets.

Finally, we want to set the option for how this total Group starts.

  1. Click on the "Group Start Options" button and a section pertaining to those choices will open.

  1. Making sure that the "Edit All Groups" option is ON (bright red),
  2. click on the "Group Starts" default choice (initially "always") and a drop-down list appears. Select "cycle random". (IMPORTANT NOTE: There are a few additional steps in constructing a "round robin" Patch, so for the remainder of this section, we will be making this TKT Patch as a "random". See the section below -- "VARIATION for Making ROUND ROBIN Patches" -- for the steps which are different for constructing a "round robin" TKT Patch.)

CLONING NOTE: If you want to make both a "cycle random" and a "cycle round robin", start by first making the "cycle random" (and save with a "TKT RD" suffix). Then, modify that TKT Patch to a "cycle round robin" (with a "TKT RR" suffix) according to the variation below under  "VARIATION for Making ROUND ROBIN Patches".

 

SHARING NOTE: Since we are trying to set up a climate where folks can SHARE these Patches, we encourage you to stick with the "TKT xx" naming suffix as these will be clear to others who download your contributions.

Let's proceed with saving this as a "TKT RD".

  1. Click on the "Load/Save" button near the top,
  2. and "save edited instrument" will appear for the name of the instrument we have been working on.

A standard "Save" dialog is presented. There are a couple KEY things to observe here.

  1. First, we will have the opportunity to change or amend the name of the instrument being saved. CAUTION HERE as not giving this Patch a new name will overwrite you original Patch "nki" file. Although we consider all of these "TKT" Patches to be a vast improvement over the originals, you might be later confused if you have modified original Patches and are expecting to get the standard "Violins ens (stac 1)". We recommend a name for this TKT Patch of "Violin ens 14 TKT RD".
  2. Check that the "patch only" selector has been chosen (as we want to save ONLY the "program patch" without incurring the cost of duplicate samples), and
  3. Check that "absolute sample paths" is NOT checked. This will make your "TKT" Patches useable by others who have the same relative directory structure.

Proceed with completing the Save by pressing the "Save" button.

The new instrument will not show in the list of instruments in the lower navigation box. However,

  1. when you return to this directory in the future,
  2. the Patch will be among those listed.

AS NOTED EARLIER, if you now want to make a "round robin" TKT Patch, follow the instructions immediately following.

VARIATION for Making ROUND ROBIN Patches

Constructing a "cycle round robin" TKT Patch involves a few additional steps and is easiest after you have made a "cycle random" Patch for the selected instrument. (For a discussion on the different between the two approaches, see the discussion in the original "Eliminating the Machine Fun Effect" page.)

If you are now making the "cycle round robin" TKT Patch immediately after making the "cycle random" Patch, simply continue with the following steps. If you do not have the corresponding "TKT RD" Patch yet loaded, load it now. With the "TKT RD" Patch loaded (or equivalent steps up to the point of selecting "cycle random" or "cycle round robin") we are ready to specify the necessary variations for a "round robin" Patch.

  1. Click "Edit All Groups" so that it is "OFF" (not lit bright red).
  2. Clicking on the "Group Starts" drop-down, select "cycle round robin".

  1. Highlight the first Group.
  2. A new "Position in round robin chain" specification field will have appeared with a default of "1". This is fine for our first Group. Note that although we have five Groups here, the specific order of the separate Groups need not be 1-2-3-4-5. (If you were constructing a hybrid Patch, for example, where Groups 1, 2 and 3 were one instrument and 4 and 5 were another, you might want to round robin to cycle 1-4-2-5-3.) For our example, however, it is probably simplist and least confusing if we stick with 1-2-3-4-5.

  1. Select the second group, and
  2. set the "Position in round robin chain" to "2".

Continue with the remaining Groups, setting each "Position" to a different number.

Save your "cycle round robin" TKT Patch as above. We suggest a "suffix" of "TKT RR" for "round robin" Patches so that they can be easily shared with a common naming strategy.

Range Workaround

The transposing of the samples up and down, means that the last and first notes of the group will be either transposed, or moved. So where a C4 was the first sample before, now that we moved the group to the right, the C4 has become a C#4 and there is no sample for C4 anymore! What we have to do is grab that sample and stretch it back to C4 so the original range of the instrument is intact.

There is one more problem in this sample group: Our last sample is a G6, when we move the group to the right the instrument range now extends to G#6. There are two occasions and two fixes for this problem:

Advanced Topics

[ To be added as they are developed. ]

PLEASE COMMENT!!

If you've gotten to this page, you have been either explicitly or implicitly invited to review this draft and it would be greatly appreciated if you can report any errors or omissions that you find. Here's the EMAIL LINK. Please use it!

 

Possible Future/Related Topics:

 

[ NOTES: This Tutorial was developed by Kevin Fletcher Tweedy with the guidance of Theodore Krueger and additional material original documented for the "Theodore Krueger Technique" by ScottCairs without whom these detailed instructions would not be possible. ]

last updated on Sunday, November 19, 2006 03:02:03 -0700 -- you are viewer # Hit Counter