SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

SONICCOUTURE

GEOSONICS
CONTENTS
INSTALLATION
ABOUT CHRIS WATSON
ABOUT GEOSONICS

THE KONTAKT INSTRUMENTS

INSTRUMENT PANEL
OPTIONS PANEL
EFFECTS PANEL

SUPPORT
E.U.L.A

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INSTALLING YOUR SONICCOUTURE PRODUCT

If you do not own Kontakt, you can install the free Kontakt Player

If you have an earlier (pre 5.6.8) version of Kontakt, click here

1. Open NI Kontakt in standalone mode.

2. In the Libraries tab, click Add Library

3. NI Native Access will now launch. Login or create an account if you don’t have one.

4. Enter your products serial number (shown in your SC account with the download
product).

5. Navigate to the downloaded product folder and select it.

6. Click INSTALL to complete the installation.

NOTE: The login for NI Native Access is not the same as your login for the Soniccouture
site. You must create an account with Native Instruments if you don’t already have one.
SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

ABOUT CHRIS WATSON

Chris Watson is one of the world's leading recorders of wildlife and natural
phenomena.

Born in 1953, in Sheffield, Watson was a founding member of the influential

Sheffield based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire during the 1970’s
and early 1980’s. His sound recording career began in 1981 when he joined
Tyne Tees Television. Since then he has developed a particular and
passionate interest in
re c o rd i n g t h e w i l d l i f e
sounds of animals, habitats
and atmospheres from
around the world. As a
freelance composer and
recordist for Film, TV &
Radio, Watson specialises
in natural history and
documentary location
sound together with sound
design in post production.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

His television work includes many programmes in the David Attenborough

‘Life’ series including ‘The Life of Birds’ which won a BAFTA Award for ‘Best
Factual Sound’ in 1996. More recently Watson was the location sound
recordist with David Attenborough on the BBC’s series ‘Frozen Planet’ which
won a BAFTA Award for ‘Best Factual Sound’ (2012).

Watson has recorded and featured in many BBC Radio productions

including; ‘The Ice Mountain, ‘The Reed Bed’, ‘Jules Verne's Volcano’, ‘The
Ditch’, ‘The Listeners’ and ‘The Wire’ which won him the Broadcasting Press
Guild’s Broadcaster of The Year Award (2012). His music is regularly featured
on the BBC Radio 3 programme ‘Late Junction’.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

ABOUT GEOSONICS

Geosonics was first conceived as an idea when we heard a documentary

about the wire fence recording projects (www.wiredlab.org) taking place in
the Australian outback. Chris featured on this programme, and we were
captivated by the sounds and the concept of these huge expanses of space
producing micro-sound along wires.
There was no way we could produce these recordings ourselves, so that
meant we had to try and contact Chris. We had been fans of his for a long
time, and this seemed a great opportunity to work with him.

Contacting Chris is not always easy; it takes time, because generally he is

away in the Arctic or the Sahara when you want to to talk to him. But over a
period of a year to 18 months we collaborated with Chris, and he spent
some time going through his archives to supply us with interesting
recordings for the project.

As we worked with Chris selecting material from his archives, the idea
evolved to select material according to 4 distinct environments :

Swamp | Ice and Water | Wind | Wires

Each recording from Chris was then used to make a single Geosonics
instrument - these can be found in the ‘Original Recordings Presets’ folder in
the library. Each instrument also contains specially created pitched sample
material, for the purpose of blending with the natural recordings, in order to
create musical soundscapes that can be played as instruments.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

These instruments were the starting point for the sound design process in
the Geosonics project.

ABOUT THE RECORDINGS

We spoke with Chris at length over Skype about the various recording
processes used in the Geosonics archive. These form the basis of 4 videos,
which you can view on our Youtube channel.

INTERVIEW VIDEOS

Swamp | Ice and Water | Wind | Wires

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

THE KONTAKT
INSTRUMENTS
TIP : You can hover your mouse over any control in Geosonics to
get Info about its function if you have the Kontakt Info pane
activated.

THE INSTRUMENT PANEL AND FOCUS

Most of the presets in Geosonics are in Focus mode, which looks like this.

Note the three tabs along the top: Pitched 1, Natural, and Pitched 2.
If an Instrument is in Focus mode, you will be playing one Chris Watson
Natural ambience sound, often together with one or two pitched waves. If you
turn Focus mode OFF, the instrument panel then looks like this:

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

Note that the two Pitched tabs have disappeared and there are a few extra
switches available to the Natural sound section at the top. The lower part of
the panel does not change.

In non-Focus mode, each key plays a different slice or “view” of the current
Natural ambience, and each can be edited independently. If Select By MIDI
is on, playing a key sets up the editor for that “view”.

TRY THIS Play a key, then hit the INIT switch in the lower centre of the
panel, play the same key again and you will hear that sound as Chris
originally recorded it.

WHAT IS FOCUS MODE, AND WHY ?

When we first loaded Chris’s original sounds into Kontakt, we mapped a

single ambience across the entire keyboard. Since the ambiences are not
generally pitched, we decided it was interesting to allow the user to edit the
sound differently for each key. This “un-focused” preset would then have 127
different variations available, all made from the same original recording. It’s

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

a handy way to explore the possibilities of the current ambience, especially if

you’re not interested in using it for pitched music.

However, if we do want to make a pitched Pad or other sort of instrument

from one of the ambiences, we enable the FOCUS mode. FOCUS takes the
last sound played and maps it across the entire keyboard. It also loads up
two extra tabs for layering pitched waves together with the ambience. We
found this was a very creative set up, so most of the presets included with
this library are in this mode.

Note that you can always take an instrument out of FOCUS mode to get
back to the original ambience files.

CONTROLS SPECIFIC TO NON-FOCUS MODE

At the top right you’ll see the following switches:

SELECT BY MIDI The last MIDI note sets up the editor for that note.
We recommend keeping this ON most of the time.

EDIT ALL Any changes you make will affect ALL keys at once.
SHUFFLE Randomize the key layout, for exploring the preset.
RESET Reset the key layout.

CONTROLS SPECIFIC TO FOCUS MODE

BACKDROP This turns the ambience wave into a non-pitched,

non-retriggering, well... “ambience”.

There are also two drop down menus in FOCUS mode that allow you to
choose the PITCHED 1 and PITCHED 2 waveforms.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

GENERAL CONTROLS ON THE INSTRUMENT TAB

The following controls on the Instrument panel are the same whether or not
the instrument is in Focus mode. They generally work on the last sound
“selected”. If you are in Focus mode, this will be the tab that is currently
selected (NATURAL, PITCHED 1 or PITCHED 2). If you’re in non-Focus
mode, it will usually be the last key you played.

On the left we have the basic controls for PITCH, PAN, WIDTH, and START
time. There is a small knob to route Velocity to Pitch to the left of the PITCH
knob. The PITCH knob itself works on semitones unless ALT (Option) is
held down, and then it works on cents.

To the right of that is the FILTER section:

VEL Velocity to LPF Cutoff Frequency

CUTOFF LPF Cutoff Frequency
RES LPF Resonance
FOLLOW Envelope follower to LPF Cutoff Frequency (NOT key follow)
ENV 1 Amount of Filter Envelope to LPF Cutoff Frequency
ENV 2 Amount of Filter Envelope to HPF Cutoff Frequency
HPF HPF Cutoff Frequency

At the lower left there are the ENVELOPE controls, with the standard
ATTACK, DECAY, SUSTAIN, RELEASE controls. These can be set
independently for the AMP envelope or the Filter Envelope (FEG), using the
small menu at the top right. There is a VELocity control for both the
Amplitude and the FEG, note that Amplitude velocity is unipolar, whereas
FEG velocity is bipolar.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

On the lower right is the LFO section. There are two LFOs, which you can
select with the drop down menu. LFO 1 can be routed to PITCH or LEVEL,
LFO 2 can be routed to PAN and FILTER cutoff frequency.

In the centre there are some switches and a bus routing. Any sound can be
routed to either FX BUS 1 or FX BUS 2. These effects busses can be set up
independently on the Effects tab.

The other switches in the middle are INIT and MUTATE (and JAM if the
Jammer is on).

INIT will reset the current editor to an initialized state. This is handy for
getting back to a starting point if you are making your own preset.

MUTATE will randomly change some of the parameters in the current editor.
Usually this only changes the parameters within about 10% of their current
settings, but if you hold down SHIFT when you click MUTATE it will
randomize the parameters at a more extreme 40% of current state. If you
hold down ALT when you click MUTATE it will completely randomize the
parameters in the current editor.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

THE OPTIONS PANEL

This panel contains various options for setting up the patch to behave the
way you prefer. There are two tabs with the Options panel, JAMMER and
PREFERENCES.

JAMMER

Jammer is a generative arpeggiator that uses the currently held notes to

create new patterns. In order to hear Jammer you must have the ACTIVE
switch turned on on this tab, and at least one of the JAM switches turned on
in the Instrument panel. (The JAM switches on the Instrument panel allow
you to select which elements follow the jammer and which do not.)

Jammer offers controls for:

RATE The speed of the arpeggios, based on tempo note values

TIMING Randomization of the timing.
VELOCITY Randomization of velocity, based on played input.
NOTE Randomization of the notes, based on those held down.
OCTAVE Randomization of the Octave.
MOD Use the ModWheel to increase or decrease the velocity.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

To the right you will find a keyboard that allows you to limit the pitches
selected by the Jammer. This can be set to any of the scales available in
the PRESETS menu, or you can use LEARN to play in the notes you want to
use.

DOUBLE NOTES will create two notes at each “strike” of the Jammer.

PREFERENCES

REDUCE NOTE BUILDUP

This will limit the polyphony of each key to prevent note buildup if either
Jammer or the sustain pedal is used. We recommend keeping it ON unless
you have a special reason to turn it off.

LPF KEY FOLLOW

Chooses whether or not the Low Pass Filter will follow the played note or not.

MODWHEEL FADES / RAISES BY...

This function allows you to modulate the level of the Pitched or Natural
waves with the ModWheel. It’s a useful real time modulation for Focussed
presets.

PITCH BEND NORMAL

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

If you change this to PITCH BEND GLISSANDO, the Pitch Wheel will
introduce endless glissando to any held notes.

THE EFFECTS PANEL

The effects panel is divided into three tabs. FX BUS 1 and FX BUS 2 contain
identical sets of insert effects, but can be set independently. (Routing to
these two busses is set on the Instrument panel.)

INSERT EFFECTS

CHORUS
The standard Kontakt Chorus effect. You have control of MIX level, DEPTH,
SPEED, and PHASE of the chorus.

DELAY
The DELAY effect has controls for MIX level, TIME, PAN, and FEEDBACK of
the Delay .

SPACE
This is the SEND amount to the Space convolution. Controls for the
convolution itself are on the SPACE tab, explained below.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

SATURATION
This effect has one knob to control the amount of saturation, named DRIVE.

PHASER
The Phaser section has controls for MIX level, DEPTH, SPEED, and
FEEDBACK of the Phaser.

COMPRESSOR
The Compressor section has controls for INPUT (Threshold), RATIO,
RELEASE, and output GAIN of the Compressor.

LOFI
Here you can reduce the BIT depth or the sample RATE of the sound.

LIMITER
Finally you have the option to use a LIMITER at the end of the insert effects
chain, which you can enable or disable with the small switch. You can also
control the INPUT gain to the LIMITER using the knob.

SPACE EFFECTS

The SPACE tab gives you control over the convolution reverb. There is a
drop down menu at the top, and you’ll see there are three categories of
SPACE effects to select from:

REVERB SPACES
These are SCs own IRs of natural reverb spaces.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

GEOSONIC SPACES
These are IRs made from Chris’s original material, which results in more
experimental reverb type effects.

EFFECT SPACES
These are IRs made by SC that are more experimental in nature.
You can also select ALL SPACES in which case the lower menu will display
all IR options at once.

Within the SPACES editor you can adjust the following:

SIZE The size of the impulse response.

DELAY Predelay before the convolution effect.
HPF A High Pass Filter.
LPF A Low Pass Filter

ACTIVE Turns the Reverb on or off.

ECONOMY Uses the IR at half its original sample rate, to save CPU.
REVERSE Reverses the IR, for a special effect.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

SUPPORT
If you have any problems or questions relating to the use of this product,
please feel free to contact us. You can either email us at :

[email protected]

or we have a support forum within the KVR Audio community, which can be
found here :

Soniccouture Support Forum

We will always endeavour to reply to any enquiry within 12 hours, but do

bear in mind the differences in time zones, so please be patient!

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

E.U.L.A.
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

PREFACE: This End-User License Agreement ("EULA") is a legal agreement

between you and Soniccouture LTD for the Soniccouture product
accompanying this EULA, which includes computer software and may
include associated media, printed materials, and online or electronic
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terms of this EULA, you may not use the software.
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is licensed, not sold.

Soniccouture Ltd grants the Owner of a Soniccouture product the right to

create finished musical works and performances using the sounds and
software that comprise the Soniccouture product.

The making of sample libraries in any form, commercial or otherwise,

using Soniccouture audio or software (be they single hits, loops, fully
mixed audio clips, or scripts) is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN without express
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text, and "applets" incorporated into the Software ) is fully asserted by
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The Owner may only install and use Soniccouture libraries and software
on multiple computers strictly under the following conditions: where
multiple computers comprise part of a single composition workstation for
a composer; or where the Owner has two non-concurrent sites of work,
for example a studio desktop and a laptop for live performance.

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SONICCOUTURE GEOSONICS USER GUIDE

The Owner may not transfer, modify, rent, lease, loan, resell, distribute,
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DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: The software is provided "as is" and without

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