MOTM

I'm getting a lot of questions on how I connected a breath controller and 
what modules I used in the patches.  So let me explain.  Note, the motmbrass 
demo sounds lousy through my computer speakers (both sets), it sounds much 
better and larger through good headphones.

To use a breath controller I needed to use the only device I have that has a 
breath controller input and that's my Yamaha VL-70m.  I'm using the Yamaha 
BC-3 breath controller btw.  If you have something else that has a breath 
controller input like the Kurzweil Expressionist or Roland A-90 midi 
controller than you could probably use one of those instead.  I run the midi 
from my keyboard through the VL-70m and then from there into a Kenton midi-cv 
box.  The VL-70 adds breath control messages to the midi stream.  I only need 
to use two CV outs on the Kenton, one for pitch played from a keyboard and 
one for breath control (aux #1).  No gate output is needed.  I ran the breath 
control cv (aux #1) from the Kenton into an MOTM VCA to control loudness and 
also into some filters to control brightness/timbre.  On the trumpet patch I 
also patched it into the MOTM oscillator CV's so the harder I blow the pitch 
increases slighty.  Blow too softly and the trumpet sounds out of tune, but 
blowing fast and hard gives a more punchy trumpet sound.  After I did those 
MP3's I also tried patching breath control into PWM to get more timbral 
animation and that also works well.

Since the trumpet sample is just the motm-brass patch but scaled back and 
modified I'll just explain the brass patch.  It uses 4 oscillators tuned 
almost to unison (the trumpet only uses 2).  3 are sawtooths and one is pulse 
with a slow LFO modulating pulsewidth.  2 oscillators go into one 440 LPF and 
2 go into another 440 LPF (they run in parallel).  Using two 440's may not be 
too important but it allows for more complex breath control of timbre by 
allowing different breath control intensity and timbre for different parts of 
the sound (you'll note that in the brass MP3 I can go from full mellow 
sounding french horn to piercing trumpet just using breath).  From there they 
go into an MOTM 410 Triple resonance filter.  I use that like a fixed filter 
bank or parametric EQ to get a more realistic brass sound by tuning the three 
filters and using the mix knob to add that to the sound.  From there it goes 
through a 420 LPF under breath control.  This allows final tone shaping and 
at times a greather than 24db rolloff because it's in series with the other 
filters.  Then from there the sound goes through a VCA under breath control 
and that's it.  I also went through an MXR Stereo Chorus to turn a mono sound 
into a stereo one, and then through the crappy reverb built into my Yamaha 
mixer.

One thing I also did was run the Kenton breath control cv through an MOTM lag 
processor before using it.  The reason is that the breath control data is 
surprisingly rough especially when blowing into the BC-3 at low levels, and 
it was causing strange gurgling sounds some of which are still present in my 
MP3's but get kind of covered up by the time the sound is mixed in with other 
sounds (strings in my case).  The Kenton was set up to use values 0 to +63 so 
that's not a lot of resolution.

-Elhardt