Artiphon

Awesome! Can't wait to try them. I will use my new deploy script to test. Almost made it to version 1.0 but need to find time to add a few additions for stem creation.

Two new synth based presets for the Orba 2. These are a Diatonic Major, and Pentatonic Major versions of a wooden pipe organ type sound. In the higher octave it becomes a bit more like a bamboo flute or whistle, and in the lower octave soft and smooth.  I deliberately chose to keep them clean. No gestures, minimal reverb etc.

Install by merging the Common folders as described above or copying the image and preset files into the  images and lead folders respectively. 

Hope you might enjoy them.

Thanks to the guys above in this thread - they're understanding help a lot.

I have two new sample based presets here to share.

They are both made from samples of an instrument which was built like a hammered dulcimer but tuned like a hackbrett (a chromatic dulcimer).

The first, Dulcihack, is a lead preset. The second, DeepDulci, is a bass preset - for this the sample had to be manipulated and it may be rather odd! So there is a warning about this one - as the notes get higher some overtones in the sound become more prominent which makes it a bit weird.

I have not been able to test these with other keys and scales as much as I would like, but as far as I can tell they work OK.

If you dare to try them I hope you enjoy them. Use the methods to load them that have been described here previously. Either merge or copy all the elements from the Common folder in the zips to the Common folder in your Documents/Artiphon/Common folder (that's for Windows, for other OS's I don't know, I'm afraid.)

@DavidBenton @Ignis32

I had a chance to try all of your Presets this evening. Fun stuff! You've given me some ideas to improve my scripts. I'm thinking that we should combine all of the posted Presets in a single Common folder/zip file so that people who come here in the future can just download one zip with 10 or so Presets in it. Let's wait until we develop some more. I have a bunch of ideas and samples collected, but haven't found the time to work on them. I challenge myself to create a few more Presets in the next two weeks! :P

@DavidBenton 

I noticed a few small errors in the Dulcihack.artipreset file that I needed to correct.

And also:

@Subskybox - Many thanks for your replies.

I had noticed the error in the noteThreshold parameters. I forgot to ensure that I had used the corrected version when I made the zip files.

I hadn't noticed the error in the SampledSound entry though - surprised about that, I thought that I had only cut and pasted the values, so it could have existed in the source for the entries. I will look into that today and post updated versions.

I agree with your idea for consolidating the presets made already and perhaps as a community we should try and create a thread only for submitting presets and keep the discussions about them elsewhere - I appreciate that this thread was perhaps meant for that, and I have been guilty of spoiling that!

I found dealing with the sample based presets quite confusing. I think the 79 should be left out entirely, and that seems to work OK, but I am not confident that that is the right thing to be doing. (In this case there are 25 chromatic samples over 2 octaves.) And I'm really confused about sample groups - but I've not needed to use them yet.

Incidently, as I understand it Audacity converts 16 bit files to 32 bit on loading them - but I have noticed that an installed version reports them as being 32 bit while a portable version does report them as 16 bit. Again I'm confused! but if they work that's enough for me.

(I have been using a portable version for Orba stuff to avoid having to keep changing the preferences.)

Again, many thanks.

I should add that I have noticed the synthPatch and seekers can affect the sample based presets in strange ways. In the process of making mine I got some very strange noises! In the end I resorted to editing the seekers to just the keypress first entry. For a while I was plagued by an effect that cut the note off prematurely when the finger moved towards the centre of the Orba.

Perhaps we should try and establish a "clean" template as a better approach to it than just trying to remove the things we don't want - which is what I have been doing.

There were a couple of errors in my Dulcihack preset posted earlier. That's been corrected now and I'm reposting it with the corrections made.

Thanks to Subskybox for putting me right!

@DavidBenton

>> I understand it Audacity converts 16 bit files to 32 bit on loading them - 

I got some into the same pitfall with Audacity messing with file format and bits silently.   In my case it was even not the correct pcm format  generated by Audacity for some reason, but something else. Turns sound into completely crazy  crushed sounds.  Currently, I use Goldwave to verify wav format, but it is not free and works in a trial mode, so if you guys will find reliable option to ensure the wav format - please share. For me it is surprisingly hard to ensure the exact format, while it should be really something basic.

>> I'm really confused about sample groups 

For me, the key to understand sample groups was to notice that note thresholds is always one element shorter than velocity thresholds and sample groups. 

It is described earlier in the thread in details, but TLDR it works the following way -

from noteThresholds orba understands which sampleGroup will be used, and then chooses sample from the group using corresponding velocityGroup. 

If you are confused with a fence of [][][]  stuff and wonder what else can be written inside - download  Subskybox's   Pandrum preset (I do not see it in this thread, so I am attaching it here). This preset is a very useful example to understand how notethresholds/velocitythresholds/samplegroups work together. At least that's how I learned it. From the  Pandrum.

>> There were a couple of errors in my Dulcihack preset posted earlier

Which editor are you using?  You have error in this version as well, sorry)

If you are not using editor with syntax highlight, I would highly recommend start using VSCode or Notepad++, so you would be able to spot issues like that visually much easier.

Also it is a good habit to check XML in online validator, like https://codebeautify.org/xmlvalidator  ( there are a lot of onlinr beautifiers/validators out there that you can like more)  It could tell you if your XML is wrong from the syntax perspective. 

P.S.

VScode  has free extension that can detect malformed xml while editing file.

I had not tried it before, (while I should)  but right now installed it and it was able to detect and show malformed part of your xml, so you might give it a try:

@Subskybox

>> thinking that we should combine all of the posted Presets 

It is a long shot, but orba storage space is quite small. Repository/store could be a better solution in the future,  with ability to choose what to install. :D  Just dreaming though.

@DavidBenton

Couple of additional things:

1) there is a dot instead of comma

2) Actually, 79  even should not be here. It is not obvious, I would even say it is the opposite to obvious, but in noteThresholds  always has one element less than  amount of sample groups.  Orba silently assumes note range to 127 for the last sample group.  

If you end notethresholds with 78,  there will be an "invisible" additional range from 79 to 127 . ( You do not write 79, as everything after 78 will use the same sample group anyway for all the high notes)

Think of it like there is  always an invisible 127 in the end of noteThresholds:

-------------------

Let me write a simple example to illustrate:

With samplegroups   [0][1][2][3]

You have noteThresholds like this -  50,60,70

it will mean, that :  

sample 0 is used for (0-50)

sample 1 is used for (51-60)

sample 2 is used for (61-70)

and sample 3 is used for (71-127)  -  and there should be not record in notethresholds  for this range, it is assumed  silently.

@Ignis32 - Yeah, I'm afraid I'm an aged dinosaur who's so used to going to notepad that I tend to ignore anything else. I have notepad++, and you're right, I should use it! As well as the other things. (Proof reading is a weakness for me.)

I have started creating a set of all the Orba2 presets, partly for myself, but certainly for others as well. At the moment I'm grouping it by the authors. It would be useful to have some concensus about this, and also views on our experiments. I have a couple that work OK, but are not what I was aiming for and I consider them incomplete or work in progress - but possibly others might like them, or find them useful. Some feedback on these things might be useful. I don't mind getting it together but I don't want to include things that people feel are not fit for distribution for whatever reason.

Since I don't have an Orba 1 I'm not inclined to do similarly for those.

oh. by sampleGroup  i've meant sampleMaps here.

goddamn uneditable posts.

Yes, the noteThreshold thing I got sorted now. The sampleGroups I should be able to sort out OK it's mostly a problem of concentration! I just about understand it now. 

Two synth based chord presets here:

Hazelwood - an attempt to create a preset that works like an Appalachian (mountain) Dulcimer with two melody strings in unison and two drone strings. Traditionally used for accompanying songs and tunes. Each key will sound the drones at the same pitch but you can get a melody as well!

MonksFifths - a rather monastic sort of sound with parallel fifths all the way.

(Both of these use flattened 7ths in the major - because I think it suits them better.)

Those are great sounds/chords! Nice work.

I've been working on a few altered Factory Presets that have snapping semitones. Not quite 100% happy with them but they have potential.

First is Vibrato Bass 2. It is the same as Vibrato Bass but I messed with the Bezier curves and Seeker ranges so that it will snap up or down a semitone when using vibrato. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pSW1O1z9U9g

The second is Orba2 Bass 2. It is the same as Orba2 Bass but it will snap up a semitone when you tilt past half-way. 

These techniques can be fun to play but they cannot be recorded as performed :(