Artiphon

You can use the Orba as USB Audio Out (Artiphon Orba Speaker) from your computer. Therefore you can play samples from apps like Audacity and route the audio through the Orba. I've done this in the past but just now while testing this, I could only get it to work with Orba 1 but not Orba 2.. Maybe the firmware has changed?

@David Benton

Good to know I had told something of use)

@Ignis32

When you commented on my HangDrum preset having low frequencies that perhaps should have been supressed I took note but didn't worry too much about it.

 Yesterday, trying out a new preset I realised something. When I make samples I listen to them on my laptop - but the Orba speakers can reveal low frequencies that the computer speakers don't. I guess that had I tried them through larger speakers it would have been obvious. 

So, the lesson is, that if you want to make good samples for the Orba, check the spectrum of frequencies in the samples and eq them out as you suggested! 

Always things to be learnt.

@gerald rolon

I liked the samples so I put a few together for a preset with a "Peaky Blinders" soundtrack vaguely in mind (if that makes sense to you!). Hope you don't mind.

I should also have mentioned before, if you make a preset with the  Artiphon app samples go into the User folder with the name FactoryDrums_hash number. You can identify which are which by date (if you remember when you did it) or the file names inside the folder.

@gerald rolon

As a footnote to that - when making presets with the apps I prefer to save them and then side load them after a little bit of editing to put my own name and description on them and perhaps make one or two adjustments before loading them.

@gerald rolon

The Public\Documents\Artiphon folders contain the Artiphon produced content - your own will be in YourUsername\Documents\Artiphon. I would recommend backing that up occasionally, partly for convenience - it can be useful to refer back to them sometimes. 

Where are the user drum presets and corresponding sampled sounds stored on the hard drive?

I was expecting here:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Artiphon\Common\Presets\Drums

and here:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Artiphon\Common\SamplePools

but I can't find my drum presets.

Regardless, you can make you own.  See attached file for sampled drum sounds.

Enjoy,

-j

@Ignis32

Thanks for that - I stayed with the samples as I was given (that's also why they are in that tuning). I probably won't revisit these for a long while - I'm almost sick of the sound of Hangdrum sounds ringing in my head at the moment! I made a few attempts before I got to this good one.

The Orba software seems to do various things of dubious value - the Drum Kit sampling in the Connect app for example is heavy handed on cropping "silence" when a sound is fading out, it also seems to "normalise" the volumes in a set of samples, which destroys the dynamics, and anyway nothing sounds quite the same once the Orba has got it. (Still like it though!)

@David

I have a feeling that Hangdeep samples could benefit from some eq, like  high-pass filter to cut the low side - seems like built-in speaker clips on the bass and gets dirty.

Thank you for your labor, by the way. you the only source of the interesting Orba related stuff  to read recently.

@gerald rolon - ah now you're getting beyond my experience. I think you can record a "song" on the orba and play it at a different speed, but I confess I hardly ever try recording anything on the Orba. (Actually, I find it can be even harder to keep a beat when it's too slow. But keeping a beat is not my strong suite, as my friends have told me frequently and at length.)

@David Benton

What you described (with flashing lights, etc.) is exactly what I'm talking about.  See how a Pocket Operator (PO) from Teenage Engineering works.  That's exactly what they do.

A little light tells you which bar *and* which beat in that bar you're in.  The faster the tempo, the faster the light cycles through the buttons.

Orba does the same thing.  As you record, the light goes from pad to pad, showing you which beat you're in (but you have to keep track of the bar yourself).  The faster the tempo, the faster the light cycles through the pads.

I wonder if Orba allows me to select a slow tempo, record, and then speed up the tempo during play back.  The idea is to slow down the tempo so I can hit the right pad at the right time *and* keep track of which bar I'm in.  Then playback the recording at the intended speed.  I can do this with the PO.

@gerald rolon

Thanks for the kind comments, it's appreciated. Although I'm not sure I'm keen on the idea of using them in other ways (I don't actually mind you doing it though). The idea of making the HangDeep presets was to take advantage of the similarities between the layout of the Hangdrums with the Orba's - which the drum mode allows. It's something others have wanted from the Orba.

By the way, your understanding of 4x4 devices is not right - the "grid" is just a set of buttons which can trigger various notes, samples or control messages to the DAW (or software). The patterns themselves are really just virtual sets of data about when events should happen, which can be visualised by the the software on the devices screen (if it has one) or on the computer screen. Usually, I think the only way the pattern might represented on the 4x4 grid  is to show  a row of buttons flashing to indicating which beat of a bar it is on. 

(For me, the biggest consideration is whether the buttons can be customised to work in a way I would like to use, which they mostly probably don't! The product descriptions rarely seem to tell me enough of what I want to know.)

@David Benton

Thanks for the Hang Deep preset.  I like it.

Ditto for Zen Cheng.

Keep making presets.  I can sample those sounds into my PO-33 and Ableton.  So...., your preset sounds will lead a triple life in in another environment ;)

Two HangDrum presets. I think they are about as good as you'll get on the Orba 2. As good as I'm going to do, anyway.

V2 has damping when a finger is held on the pad. V1 lets the notes ring either way.

There are soft and hard hit sounds for both.

If you choose to load only one version you will still need both of the two sample folders.

The scale and pad layout is, I think, a Japanese Akebono one -  but I may not have got that correct.

I tried making a preset to emulate the Chinese Zheng or Japanese Koto type instruments. Oddly, the Koto samples already on the Orba 2 didn't work so well, so I tried some other things. Here is one of the two best (the other one uses my own samples - this one uses the classical guitar samples - go figure!)

You only need the artipreset file - the rest is already on your Orba. Play close to the centre and move to the outer to bend the notes. (A slightly circular motion works best, I find.) It's pentatonic - not  quite the right scale for these instruments but ........ You can just about play it as diatonic if you're smart and your pitch bend is set to 100%!