User Guide

Chapter 28 Sculpture 511
Programming: Quick Start Guide
This section of the manual contains a collection of programming guidelines, tips, tricks,
and information to assist you in creating particular types of sounds. A more involved
look at programming can be found in “Programming: In Depth” on page 527.
Approaches to Programming
Given the flexibility of Sculpture’s synthesis core, you can take a number of different
approaches to sound design.
If you’re the type who prefers to sculpt a sound from scratch—parameter by
parameter—you can.
If you prefer to make use of Sculpture’s morphing capabilities to create new sounds,
you can also do this. This is discussed in “Using Randomization” on page 502.
If you’re more of a “tweaker” of factory or user patches, then the parameters that affect
the entire instrument may be more your style. These include, the Body EQ and Filter
sections, plus the Modulators, for example.
Whatever camp you fall into, you’ll be able to achieve new (and hopefully interesting)
results.
You should experiment, and familiarize yourself, with each approach. You will find that
each has its strengths and weaknesses, and that a combination of methods may strike
the balance between satisfying sounds and a social life.
Basics
Throughout the manual, the signal flow of the core synthesis engine has been followed.
When programming from scratch, this is the approach you should also take, working
on each component of the sound in isolation.
Obviously, when you’re starting out with Sculpture, you won’t be familiar with the
impact of each parameter on your end results. Don’t sweat it; this (and following)
section(s) provide pointers when particular types of sounds.
First up, you’ll need a plain vanilla or from scratch patch. When you first launch
Sculpture, this is exactly what you’ll get—a default set of neutral parameters. Sonically,
this patch won’t set your heart racing, but it will provide you with a starting point for all
of the examples in this chapter.
Note: This patch is saved as the “#default” settings file. It is advisable to save a copy of
this setting (now!), and name it as desired—maybe “neutral,” “plain vanilla” or “from
scratch”? This setting can be reloaded as you work through the examples.