Steinberg Materials Metal and Ice App Instruction Manual

Steinberg Materials Metal and Ice App

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Magnetic 96. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced , or otherwise transmitted or recorded , for any purpose, without prior written permission by Magnetic 96.
All product and company names are TM or® trademarks of their respective owners.
© Magnetic 96. All rights reserved.
Materials – Metal & Ice 1.0

Introduction

Welcome to Materials – Metal & Ice

Thanks a lot for your interest in the first release of our Materials series – Metal & Ice. In this instrument series it’s all about “Materials”, being captured with several sound design methods to deliver playable instruments with a sonic aesthetic of specific Materials, like Metal & Ic

Library Info

The library consists of 146 “Materials”, which are on the one side multi samples of real instruments like an orchestral brass ensemble, vibraphone, rare synthesizers or sound effects and field recordings. The size of the multi-sampled content is over 6.5 GB in total. On the other side you will find many synth Materials that make use of Halion’s granular and wavetable synth engines. All Materials were designed with two mindsets: covering the sound aesthetics of Metal & Ice and being able to sound unique, useful and inspiring in a layered context.
Materials – Metal & Ice comes with over 150 program presets, which are master presets comprised of multi-layered Material combinations with carefully adjusted parameters and added effects within the instrument. So there are a lot of ready-to-play sounds to be explored.

Please make sure to always use the latest version of HALion or HALion Sonic SE.

Markup Info

All bold wording in this manual refers to menus, names and functions appearing in the user interface.

The Instrument

Basic Navigation

After loading a program preset, you will find yourself on the main page with the big frozen metal ball. In case you just want to play the instrument without deeper editing, you only need to know this page and maybe the Materials browsing page (next paragraph).

For the basic understanding of the instrument it helps to be aware of the 4 horizontally arranged slots below the big frozen metal ball. Each slot can be filled with one Material.
In case you want to dive deeper and edit sounds, click on one of the loaded Materials’ names in the lower area and you will arrive in the edit page area with a few sub pages. For all details, please visit chapter 2.3 Materials Edit.

Exchanging a Material

Load a program preset and make sure you are on the main page with the big frozen metal ball.
Now click the little magnifying glass that appears when your mouse cursor hovers over a Material name of one of the loaded Materials’ slots in the lower area. This action opens the browser page and allows you to exchange the Material of the selected slot. Just click on the icon of any Material and it will be loaded, which takes up to 3 seconds. For a better overview you can filter the Materials list by Instruments, Synths, SFX or just select All by clicking on the filter buttons in the top line of the browser page.

The icons in the upper right area with numbers 1 to 4 show the Material slot you are about to load with a new Material from the browser list. Simply click on the next icon to load Materials to other slots.
Exchanging a Material within a program preset, changes the source content of the selected Material slot, while keeping all the previously set of parameters. This means that envelope and filter settings as well as the motion parameters and effect settings will hold the value of the previously selected program preset, which may blur the sound of the newly selected Material. To start the sound design from scratch, please use the “lnit” layer preset instead of an already mangled program preset.

Materials Edit

Load a preset and make sure you are on the main page with the big frozen metal ball. Now click one of the Materials’ names in one of the loaded Materials’ slots in the lower area. You will arrive in the edit pages area with a few sub pages. Those sub pages can be switched by clicking on the icons in the lower area. There are either 4 or 5 edit pages, depending on the type of Material loaded into the slot. For example when loading a wavetable preset, you will also see the Synth Edit icon appearing on the right next to the Control icon.

Don’t miss the four icons in the upper right area with numbers 1 to 4. Here you can switch between all Materials or close the edit page when clicking the X. Make sure to understand that all changes on any edit page are only relevant for the selected Material via those icons, a very important detail for editing.

A shortcut for accessing the browser directly from the edit page area is found in the header next to the Material’s name. Just click on the magnifying glass. For returning to the edit pages from the browser, a mixer icon is found at the same location, while being on the browser page.

Control Page
This edit page you will find for all Materials. Here you can define the Polyphony or switch a Material to Mono playback. All other common controls should be familiar to you and self explaining.

Many Materials offer two layers, Layer A and Layer B and you can control their individual volume via the faders below the envelope faders. This means that when using all four.

Materials slots, you can use up to 8 layers in total. Such layers for one Material are sonic variations of those sounds, like close and far microphone positions for several acoustic instruments or two layers of a field recording in case of the sound fx.
Maybe a few words about the three send effects on the right. Imagine you have a mixing desk for each Materials’ preset with three master send effects. With the three send effect faders you can send each Material to those effects individually. For more details about those Master Effects, visit 2.5.1 Send FX.

Synth Edit Page
This edit page you will only find for all wavetable and granular based Materials. Above the controls you see either the naming Granular or Wavetable, to be aware of the type of Material.
Wavetable Synth Edit
On this edit page you can define a curated selection of wavetable parameters. Let’s take a look from top left to bottom right.

Voices defines the amount of multi voices being used to fatten up the wavetable source.
Only for values above 1.0 the parameters below Voices and Spread are displayed.
Detune controls the amount of detuning of the multi voices and Pan controls the panorama spread of those multi voices.
Position controls the wavetable position and Speed the playback speed of wavetable scanning.
Spread allows position spreading for the case that the Voices parameter is set to values above 1.0.
Formant can be switched on and off and controls formant shifting of the wavetable, which can significantly change the wavetable sound.
On the right side of this page you see a wavetable display, moving waves when playing midi notes and thereby giving a representation of the actual waveform.
Granular Synth Edit
On this edit page you can define a curated selection of granular parameters. Let’s take a look from top left to bottom right.

Voices defines the amount of granular voices being used to fatten up the granular source.
Vintage mode can be switched on and off and activates several vintage sample playback settings, like 12 bit and 26 kHz sample rate.
Below that button you see the waveform display, helping you to understand the sonic results of changing several parameters on this page.
Position controls the granular playback start position, while Speed controls the playback speed.
Duration defines the grain duration, while Length allows you to adjust the length of the grains.

All three Random parameters on the right define the amount of randomization of those parameters, allowing you to create weird and unique sonic results, far away from the basic granular sample.

Filter Page

This edit page you will find for all Materials. Here you can adjust all relevant filter parameters including distortion types and filter envelope. The Distortion area can be used to add “Schmutz” to a Material, while the Amount of Distortion can be modulated, see 2.3.5 Motion Page and 2.4 Macro Modulation. All other controls should be familiar to you and self explaining.

FX Page
This edit page you will find for all Materials. Here you can add four slots of insert effects to each Material. On the right side there is a Channel EQ for each Material.

To load an effect, simply click on a None field on the left and choose an effect from the list. Or you click on the name of a selected effect and replace it with another effect.

You can now adjust the effect parameters in the middle area. Please note that the available parameters for each effect depend on the chosen effect type.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the Flanger effect gives you a number of presets, which can be selected via the Preset drop-down menu in the middle area and offers the parameters Rate (free or sync), Depth and the overall Mix of this effect.

Motion Page
This edit page you will find for all Materials and here a lot of Motion can happen! Three modulation sources are available at the same time: LFO, Step and Arp.
LFO
Choose LFO first to learn about those motion possibilities. After switching on this modulation source, the LFO Rate can be adjusted on the left side. When using Sync, two self explaining Sync Modes are available plus a Retrigger on/off switch.

In this middle area you can choose the LFO Waveform and in case the Retrigger switch on the left is activated, you can adjust two Phase parameters here as well.

Above the Waveform display there is a little but important Mod wheel switch. When switched off, the modulation is running all the time. When switched on, your modulation wheel (midi CC#1) controls the intensity of the modulation.
In the right area you can define two destinations for your LFO modulation and their intensity, called Strength. Below the names Destination 1 and Destination 2 there is a drop-down menu to choose the destination. Please make sure not to use a wavetable modulation like WT Speed if the source is not a wavetable Material for example.
Step Sequencer
Now click on Step, this is a flexible step sequencer as a second modulation source. After switching on this modulation source, start with choosing a Preset on the left. We created almost 40 presets that make full use of the modulation possibilities. Below the preset area, you will find the Speed and Sync controls, very similar to the LFO modulation.

In the middle area you will see the big step sequencer window, that allows drawing own waveforms or better said adjusting values for each step. Below this window, you can define the amount of Steps and activate Soft Edges, a feature to soften the corners of each step, which results in rather smooth modulations. The arrows right of those controls allow moving the whole step sequence by one step left and right or reversing the whole sequence.
Above the Step Sequencer display there is the little but important Modwheel switch again. When switched off, the modulation is running all the time. When switched on, your modulation wheel (midi CC#1) controls the intensity of the modulation.
The right area is the same for all three modulation sources (see 2.3.5.1 LFO). You can define two destinations for your modulation and their intensity,

Arpeggiator

Now click on Arp, this is a flexible arpeggiator as a third modulation source with focus on midi notes. After switching on this modulation source, start with choosing a Preset on the left. We created about 60 presets in 4 categories, that make full use of the arpeggiator possibilities.

Below the preset area, you will find typical Mode options and self explaining Trigger and Restart Modes. Right of those controls, there are controls for Speed, Gate, Swing and Octave. Just run an arpeggio and try all those controls to shape the sequences to your needs.

Macro Modulation

On the main page with the big frozen metal ball you also have access to the so-called macro-modulation, which can control several parameters via modwheel or a self-running LFO. Click on the up arrow in the right lower corner of the main page first of all.

Now you see the control area for all Material slots. We selected four parameters to control for each slot individually: Volume, Pan, Cutoff and {filter) Distortion. All horizontal faders define the modulation range of those parameters. The four vertikal faders next to the big frozen metal ball control the overall intensity of each parameter. Let’s take a closer look.

The left and right round edges of the faders can be moved and define the modulation range.
The left one is the “zero position”, when the modwheel is all the way down. The right one is the “maximum position” when the modwheel is all the way up.

Imagine you want to control the Panorama of two Materials contra rotating. The little invert icon above each fader allows to invert a modulation, for Pan this means from right to left instead of from left to right.
Imagine you want to control Volume for slot 1 and 2, but not for slot 3 and 4. For this case only “open” the horizontal Volume faders for slot 1 and 2 like on the screen shot on the page above. As next step make sure the vertical master Volume fader is all the way up. Now turn your modwheel and see the little fader at the left border of the main page moving. With this movement you control Volume (plus maybe Pan, Cutoff and Distortion) in the defined ranges .

Hover your mouse cursor over the fader now and press on Auto. The movement is controlled by an LFO now automatically and you can define the LFO’s speed with the fader .

Master Effects

On the main page with the big frozen metal ball you can see an icon with the naming Master in the corner on the right on top. Clicking here will open the master effect area with three send effects and a chain of mastering insert effects. Switch from Send FX to Post FX with the central icons in the lower area.

Send FX
You can add another sonic dimension to the Materials with those 3 insert effects and adjust the levels for each Material individually. Click on the central Send FX icon in the lower area to get to the send effect page first of all.

You see three effects from left to right with just a few curated controls each, to simplify the editing.
Reverb is a high quality effect to add space, size and air to your Materials. Choose a Type as the first step and adjust the parameters below to your sonic needs.
Delay offers several delay types. Choose a Mode as the first step and adjust the parameters below to your sonic needs.
Transform is a convolution reverb, but not equipped with standard reverbs, but we recorded and designed several impulse responses with the sonic Metal & Ice theme in mind. Just choose a Type which will load one of 50 impulse responses and adjust the parameters below to your sonic needs.
In the Transform effect area you will also find an EQ to tone down disturbing frequencies, that might be caused by the combination of Material source and Transform effect. Switch views with the Control and EQ buttons.

Now let’s adjust the effect sends for each Material. To do this, click on the Sends field, located above the Send FX and Post FX icons.

You should now see this view above, here you can adjust the effect levels for each Material individually. To go back to the send effect settings, click on the Sends field again, which is now located below the Delay naming in the central top are

Post FX
You can kind of polish and master the Materials with those four effects. Click on the central Post FX icon in the lower area to get to the send effect page first of all.

Activate the Equalizer with the button left of the name to see the controls like in the screenshot above. You can activate the remaining three effects the same way. For the following master effects we selected just a few controls each and designed some presets and modes under the hood, to simplify the editing.
For the Compressor we designed three mastering presets which you can select by clicking on the name below Mode. The intensity of the compressor doing his work can be set with the Strength control.
The Saturator offers 2 styles that you can select by clicking on the names below Style. The intensity of the Saturator doing his work can be set with the Strength control. The Optimizer offers less controls than the other mastering effects. Softclip activates the behaviour which the name pictures. Gain increases the signal level being sent to the Optimizer effect.

Credits

Concept & Production: Magnetic 96
Sound Content: Tobias Menguser, Stephan Lembke, Heiko Lohmann
Lua Scripting: Matthias Klag, Florian Oellerer, Robin Mussmann
Graphics : lngo Hermes, Michael Ruf, Sebastian Wolter
QA & Library Assistance: Frank Seidel, Matthias Klag
Marketing: Florian Haack, Julius Farahwaran

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