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356 Chapter 24 Sculpture
Sculpture uses a method of synthesis called component modelling. This approach to
tone generation shares some aspects and parameters with other synthesis techniques,
such as those found in additive and subtractive synthesizers. As such, many of the
parameters used by Sculpture will be immediately familiar to you, such as LFO’s,
Vibrato, Envelopes, and so on. Many others, however, will be very new.
Fortunately, the GUI of Sculpture is incredibly elegant and intuitive to use, so you
should find yourself creating amazing sounds in next to no time.
Sculpture’s recordable envelopes provide massive scope for sonic animation, with the
payoff being some just plain astonishing sounds! Sculpture’s flexibility in this area
provides a new level of control that we’re sure will amaze and delight you.
We encourage you to make full use of every control and parameter that is available to
you—both when initially auditioning some of the supplied factory sounds, and when
creating new ones of your own. Don’t be afraid to experiment with sound design—
that’s what Sculpture was created to do!
Before taking a look at the product features, we’d like to briefly touch on the synthesis
core of Sculpture. We will also take a look at the creation of particular types of sounds
in “Programming: Quick Start Guide” on page 409.
The Synthesis Core of Sculpture
We have included this section at the top of this chapter to give you a feel for the way
Sculpture works. Component modelling, as you’ll discover, is quite different to
“traditional” synthesis methods—and so are the results!
We have followed the signal path (shown in the diagram) of the core synthesis engine
in the layout of the manual’s parameter descriptions. We invite you to check out each
parameter’s options as you read about them. This will give you a better feel for where
things are, and what’s available. So let’s get to it …
Pickups
Wave
Filter
Amplitude
Envelope Shaper
Body EQ Level Limiter
Stereo
Delay
Objects ↔ Strings