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1. Ch A 1 Memory 0 64 MB SASHA SOUNDLAB MTTES ii iii Liao ee Lilija gi ERB RTR 7 a oe a a a 7 7 7 7 7 7 CS C 5 D5 FS F 5 G5 EFFECTS i A T EFFECTS THE MULTI FX TAB The Multi Effects gives you some additional controls to put your own stamp on the loops in the library Some of them you re already familiar with Convolution Reverb See Bass Section This knob controls the amount but you can adjust the actual convolution parameters on the Sculpt tab Dirt See Bass Section Saturate Bass Section Stereo See Drum Machine Flanger This effect is based on delaying two copies of the input signal and changing the delay times giving you a whooshing effect You ll also see duplicate Beatmasher controls from Tab 1 Main This is just for convenience so you can see all the effects on the same page All the effects on this page are performance effects and are triggered by hotkeys as follows C5 Beatmash C 5 Triplet D5 Glitch D 5 Dirt E5 Flanger F5 Saturate F 5 Reverb G5 Delay 26 To experiment with the performance FX simply play back a loop using latch on Tab 1 and press one key after another to hear the loop morph through different effects Note these keys are also latched so the effect will remain on until you press the key again As with the Beatmasher any effect that has an on off switch must actually be engaged on the pertinent page in order to he2. GLOBAL CONTROLS Swing Knob One of the problems with drum machines is that sometimes the exact timing can be too rigid and lack soul The swing control adds a human feel to the groove by adding a dotted 16th note shuffle effect This is best understood by trying it out 18 is DRUMS AND PERCUSSION KITS Latch Button As discussed earlier Latch keeps the drum machine playing without you having to hold down a key It will even play while switching between patterns To stop playback simply press the same key twice press a key outside of the pattern range or disengage the Latch button Quantize Button This is useful in a live performance situation or when auditioning patterns intended to be played in succession When Quantize is active it will remember pattern change key commands but wait until the end of the bar before actually changing the pattern This keeps everything flowing on measure and beat Velocity Grid As mentioned earlier each step on the grid can be programmed to play notes from the currently selected percussion button by clicking and dragging upwards with the mouse The taller the steps the louder the sound will playback 10 Percussion Selection Slots Selecting any one of the slots shows you the sequence programmed for that element Notice that as you select different drum sounds to edit the Tone Tune Reverb and Delay send knobs underneath the grid also update That s because you can have individual sett
3. Oizo Jimi Tenor The Prodigy OMD Freddy Fresh Luke Vibert EinstuerzendeNeubauten Add N to X Daft Punk Coldcut Die Krupps Skinny Puppy Electronic Dream Planet Jimmy Edgar Front 242 Front Line Assembly The Legendary Pink Dots KMFDM Severed Heads Royksopp The Faint The Shamen Jean Michel Jarre and Portishead ARP 2600 The ARP 2600 is without a doubt one of the finest analog synthesizers ever made It s been used by artists for over 20 years in all forms of music The 2600 is a semi modular monophonic patch cable synthesizer that competed directly against the first professional Modular Moog synths during the early 70 s Unlike other modular systems of the time which required you to pick and choose modules that you or the manufacturer had to mount inside a case and wire together the 2600 offered a fixed selection of basic synth modules internally pre wired and ready to go Most of these connections can be re wired with patch cords and clearly labeled patch points This made the 2600 more user friendly and portable The 2600 is a 3 VCO analog beast capable of creating some incredible sounds thanks to exclusive ARP technologies Truly a model of analog synthesis the 2600 has plenty of switches and sliders for tweaking sounds It gives users the freedom to route the sounds that originate from its oscillators anywhere they want It even has a built in spring reverb amp and stereo speakers The very first model 2600 wa
4. attack It holds for a brief moment and then fades to a low sustain point where it stays on indefinitely until you take your finger off the keyboard 12 If you now change the Sustain to 2 o clock you ll still here the short decay phase which gives a short burst followed by a sustained note If you turn the Decay all the way left again you just hear the sustained note It s worth getting familiar with how decay and sustain interplay as they allow you to tailor sounds in your mix When you add a small amount of decay to a sound it generally adds punch which you ll find makes it more noticeable and allows it cut through the mix to a greater degree than a slowly sustained sound Try it and see Let s add the last piece of the puzzle and turn the Release to three o clock Play the sound again and notice that when you let go of the key you hear a nice smooth fade out You guessed it this is the release phase Now that you know how powerful envelopes can be it s worth experimenting on a variety of synths and patches Once you know how to use envelopes you can easily turn leads into basses make stabs out of pads and more Envelopes also become very useful when applied to other areas like filter cutoff but that s a topic for another time AHD ENVELOPES One last word on envelopes in the bass section you ll come across the AHD envelope These are simplified envelopes and are particularly useful for basses The H stands for Hold whi
5. Hi Pass Band Pass and Low Pass with the Low Pass Filter selected in Red If you re new to using filters samplers and synthesizers take a look at the tutorials we have on AudioRaiders com Each filter type has two additional rotary controls Cutoff and Resonance CUTOFF RESONANCE I The diagram above shows the Low pass Filter selected with the Cutoff set at just over 50 A fun analogy of filters is to compare them to the doorman at your local club If a customer is old enough they re allowed to get past him if not they get rejected A filter works in the same way The Cutoff knob let s you decide which frequencies get past the filter The Resonance knob lets you shape that sound a little further Let s look at a Hi Pass HP Filter first Open the Preset Arcadia Bass from the available list and play a few notes Now select the HP filter from the menu while playing a bass sound on your keyboard You won t be able to hear the effect yet because the Cutoff is at zero and the filter is inactive To engage the filter you need to press the Filter On Off switch which is right underneath the Cutoff and Resonance controls FILTER As with many adjustable parameters in the library it s highlighted in the instruments color when on or active Now move the Cutoff to the right and play the sound again Notice how some of the lower frequencies of the bass are rejected filtered and the sound thins out The Hi Pass f
6. SUSTAIN FILTER ENVELOPE SYNTH PAD LEADS This section includes many beautifully sampled analogue patches programmed on the rare Jupiter 8 vintage synth see the resources section at the end of this manual for more details If you take a look at the available tabs you ll instantly recognize most of the controls o Tone See Bass O Filter See Bass o Amp Envelope See Bass o Fat Button See Bass o Warm Button See Bass o Convolution Reverb see Bass o Delay Effect Module See Bass o Stereo See Loops o Flanger See Loops The additional controls are Gate Knob Tab1 The Gate uses internal modulation to cut off the amplitude of the instrument at a regular pulsing speed as set by the knob 28 TTT TT SYNTHS SYNTH STABS AND CHORDS The second section of Synths is made up of Stab and Chord instruments There s a nice selection of pre programmed synth chunks to pepper your mix as well as some chord sweeps and percussive stabs Take a guick look at the instrument The controls should be familiar by now but feel free to revisit the earlier sections of this manual if you re not clear on how to use a feature Stabs and Chords 1 VEL m Tune Output st 1 Voices OF Max 32 0 00 f Midi Ch A 1 Memory 15 48 MB P IS TS CISYNTH CHORD FAT g I CONVOLUTION WARM DRI FT Ei CHORUS FREQ CUT OFF AMOUNT FEEDBACK l ss 2 a 2 7 J 7 7 29 FX Finally we w
7. a feel for how this instrument sounds before we change the Amp envelope Ok now turn the Attack knob to about one o clock and play it again Notice how the sound fades in after that adjustment That s called the attack phase By adjusting the control we ve created a slow attack Next turn the Attack Sustain and Release controls to zero leaving only the Decay control at 12 o clock Play the sound again and you hear a short burst which is abruptly cut off What you re hearing is an instant attack with a short decay phase Try turning the decay knob to three o clock now and you ll hear the same sound held a little more before decaying out So as you can see from the order of controls Attack is the fade in and decay determines how long the sound plays for before it hits the decay phase when it smoothly fades out Now you may be wondering what the Sustain and Release controls are for You ve seen how the Decay setting adjusts how long the sound is held before fading out The Sustain value determines how far the sound will fade out after hitting the Decay stage it can drop in volume only subtly or it can fade all the way down to nothingness Let s go back and change the Decay to 2 o clock and the Sustain slightly lower at 11 o clock and keep the Release all the way to the left which is zero Play the keyboard again and make sure you keep your finger held on the key What you hear now is the sound playing instantly no
8. ar a result for example the G5 key won t trigger a delay if the delay is turned off on the Sculpt tab We re sure you ll have a lot of fun filtering mashing glitching and effecting the loops and making them sound completely your own But before we leave the loop section there are a couple more things to tell you about MORPH LOOPS Morph Loops are one of the coolest parts of the library A typical Morph Loop instrument can comprise between 3 and 14 loops placed consecutively on the keyboard Morph loops are different variations or progressions and they re intended to be played together to create evolving sequences It s easier to try out the Morph Loops than for us to explain them so dig in Note When auditioning Morph loops it can be cool to play them back latch button engaged So as you press a key the loop will play until you either press the same key again to turn it off or press an adjacent key to trigger a different loop Also don t forget to play with the Multi FX Hotkeys as you re moving through the Morph Loops 27 TTT TT SYNTHS SYNTHS Moving on let s look at the synth section It s divided in two parts to make it easier to find the sound you re looking for Jupiter 5th Dist lead 4 gt e Tune AR Output st 1 P Yoices O Max 32 Purge 0 00 3 Midi Ch A 1 Memory 2 40 MB aji SS TRS NEGAPADS amp LEADS ATTACK DECAY SUSTAIN 7 7 AMP ENVELOPE DECAY
9. bre of the sound No need for further explanation here Just twist the control and hear what it does Then dial in a setting that works for you ADD INVOLVER AND INVOL2VER ALBUM KITS These separate kits feature sounds contained in the All Kits but are grouped together by the Sasha album they appeared on This is a nice touch if you re trying to recreate a feel from one of those albums In addition to the All kits and Album Kits there are two other types of drum instruments options available 16 is DRUMS AND PERCUSSION KITS DRUM MACHINE Big Room Kit o Tune 0 00 gt Output st 1 Voices 0 Max 32 Midi Ch A 1 Memory 0 89 MB SASH ELAD RUM MACHINE i coe SNARE CL HAT OP HAT PERC 1 PERC 2 TOM 1 TOM 2 FX 1 FX 2 SWING TOI TUNE REVERB DELAY CLEAR KICK PATTERN 1 We ve put together a wide variety of Kits for you in the Sasha Soundlab Drum Machine SSDM including Big Room Kit o Der Bunker Kit o Classic Techno Kit o Classic Electro Kit o And many more The Drum Machine has two tabs that allow you to arrange your own grooves and process them in many different ways Main Tab 1 Main is a module is based on classic step seguencers such as the Roland TR series While this technology has been around for a while this basic machine is a lot of fun to use There are many good reasons why countless electronic dance music grooves have been made using step sequencers they re q
10. ch controls the time the sound is held before entering the Decay phase An important point to note Because Sasha Soundlab uses samples of a fixed length in some cases you won t be able to extend the hold time decay sustain or release past the original length of the sample We apologize if this causes any confusion If you d like to use the library to practice getting to know envelopes we recommend the synth section as good source material 13 Finally let s go back to a Bass patch and take a look at the remaining delay controls DELAY EFFECT AMOUNT FEEDBACK TIME I l In synths and samplers delay is just another word for echo It s a classic effect and there are a number of controls we can tap into to create a variety of cool repetitive sound effects Don t forget to turn the Delay on by clicking on the line below the unit It becomes highlighted in the instruments color when active Amount This is the general amount of echo applied to the signal It s a classic wet dry knob found throughout many of the instruments Feedback After a sound has been delayed use this knob to control the amount of the signal that s fed back into the delay Large settings create a pattern of echoes that never die out Time All delays in the Soundlab are synced to play at the master tempo of Kontakt or the host tempo of your sequencer host Adjust the Time knob to change the frequency of the delays If you like the sounds i
11. d keys trigger sounds or perform other functions that we ll discuss in detail later BASS It s been said that if you get the bass and drums right everything else will follow Sasha has always used bass as a solid foundation element in his tracks so we wanted to deliver a proper collection of warm fat punchy bass from his collection of rare analogue synths We ve included 20 instruments that will work for any number of styles and genres You ll also find some wild out of the ordinary instruments in the Alien Bass variations library Plus be sure to check the Bass Loops for some chunky instant grooves All the bass controls are easily tweakable and fit on one tab Let s take a look at the available parameters z Alien Bass 1 e si 4 Output st 1 Y fy Voices 0 Mar 32 0 00 i 3 Midi Ch A 1 amp Memory 324 89 kB i NU EBASS CHORUS EI CONVOLUTION l 4 E i 5 4 WARM SUSTAIN RELEASE l I 4 A 4 2 4 4 7 7 CUTOFF RESONANCE AMOUNT FEEDBACK FILTER We re going to first take a look at the filter section which you ll find on the lower row of controls Filters are signal processors that modify the frequency of audio passing through them In the case of Sasha Soundlab we ve provided three classic types to choose from Hi Pass Low Pass and Band Pass you can change between selections by selecting one of the filter types below The diagram above shows the 3 filter options
12. e saturation to emulate vintage tape machines Rude Adds either tube or transistor style distortion depending on the instrument You can select more than one of these at once Try a few combinations to get a feel for what they do These controls are good starting points when you want to add more personality to an instrument Note that you can control the amount of detuning that happens when the Fat button is engaged by adjusting the Detune knob The Knob is off at the 12 o clock position and smaller amounts will provide a fattening of the sound while larger amounts will give a phasing type sound By the way to return a control to the 12 o clock position or its default Ctrl click PC Apple click Mac on the knob 10 CONVOLUTION REVERB SECTION CONVOLUTION Reverb simulates the natural effect that happens when you play a sound in an acoustic environment Think of the differences in sound characteristics of a large church or a small bathroom Reverb is used to add spaciousness to an instrument Without getting into too Many technical details Convolution is a high guality reverb that uses actual recordings to re create how a physical space affects the sounds of instruments played there The choices we offer are from the amazing Kontakt Convolution Library Cathedral The largest reverb space Try huge amounts for special effects Hall Medium size reverb space and probably the most useful Music Studio Nice insulated room sou
13. ibrary you will find sections for the following BASS DRUM AND PERCUSSION FX LOOPS SYNTHS And Sub Folders DRUM AND PERCUSSION Album Kits All Kits Drum Machine Kits Glitch Machine Kits LOOPS Assorted Loops Bass Loops Drum Loops FX Loops Melodic Loops Morphing Loops Perc Loops Rhythmic Bed Loops SYNTHS Instruments Stabs and Chords These categories are all fairly self explanatory but we ll go through each one and talk about the controls available Because we re here to help educate and empower the music community we re going to be covering some absolute basics along the way Feel free to skip ahead when necessary IL LIBRARY AND STRUCTURE INSTRUMENT TYPES IN DETAIL If you re not familiar with Kontakt you might not notice that there are often multiple tabs along the bottom of each loaded instrument Take a look at a few of the tabs on a variety of instruments and you ll find many common parameters and controls Most instruments have two tabs Main and Sculpt but the Loop instruments also have a third tab called Multi FX Keyboard Display Mm WI Browse Master Info Keyb A If the keyboard display is not already visible at the bottom of Kontakt you ll want to engage it Click the keyboard icon at the top of the Kontakt interface it s right in the middle You ll notice that not every key has a sound attached to it only those highlighted in blue and yellow Colore
14. ilter is doing its job and only allowing the higher frequencies to pass through it The more you turn the Cutoff knob to the left the more the filter removes the lower frequencies Now turn the Resonance Control to the right a bit You ll probably find that a small amount creates a pleasant tone and large amounts can sound drastic or even piercing What resonance does is boost the freguencies around the cutoff point It s used to shape the sound further You should experiment with different filter cutoff and resonance settings on all types of sounds and you ll soon become familiar with their results Low Pass LP Filters work in exactly the opposite way They restrict the high freguencies and allow only the lower ones to pass through The Cutoff control also works the opposite way When turned fully to the right the LP filter is inactive Try selecting a LP filter and turning the knob counter clockwise and you ll immediately get the idea A Band Pass filter lets only a specific band of frequencies pass through You can determine which ones it affects with you guessed it the Cutoff knob Ok that s enough on filters for now let s move on to some additional sound shaping parameters CHARACTER CONTROL SECTION There are three controls in this section You ll see the first two buttons featured a lot throughout the library with Rude being specifically used for Bass Fat Creates a detuned thicker sound Warm Adds analogue styl
15. ings for each drum element For example you could have a delay on the hi hat but reverb on just the snare Put differently the above controls are not set globally Rather they are unique settings based on which Percussion slot is currently selected Highlighted Tone See Drums Page 13 Tune Adjusts the pitch in semitones between 12 and 12 Delay Send Controls how much of the sound is sent to the delay unit While the Delay parameters themselves such as Feedback and Time are global for the instrument the amount of Delay for each individual drum sound can be controlled with this knob Reverb Send Same as above but for Reverb Notice that the keys between C1 and Al are highlighted in yellow They let you change between the 10 available patterns By default we ve created two or three patterns for each kit to give you a Starting point when building your own rhythms The rest of the eight remaining patterns are blank Feel free to erase what we ve provided or build from them to make your own grooves To save your work either re save the Kit with a unique filename or simply save your session inside a DAW 19 is DRUMS AND PERCUSSION KITS 4 z Der Bunker Kit 4 e Tune Hh a v In Voices O Max 32 Purge 0 00 6 Midi Ch A 1 v I Memory 0 60 MB i 7 LLS TED RUM MACHINE AMOUNT CONVOLUTION AMOUNT FEEDBACK On Tab 2 Sculpt of the drum machine you ll find controls for Convolution Reverb Delay and D
16. irt The specifics of these controls are covered in the Bass Instrument Section The Stereo knob creates a widening of the stereo field and can add spaciousness to the drum mix A note of caution don t overdo this effect if you re playing back on mono club systems as when sounds are pushed too far out they become mono incompatible ADDING YOUR OWN SOUNDS TO THE DRUM MACHINE At some point you ll probably want to add your own sounds to the drum machine It s quite easy to do but you ll need the full version of Kontakt If you re not familiar with using the mapping editor in Kontakt we suggest you refer to the manual for instructions For a video tutorial on adding your own sounds to the drum machine visit www AudioRaiders com 20 is DRUMS AND PERCUSSION KITS GLITCH MACHINE Glitch Machine Kit 3 Tune AR ee z amp Voices 0 Max 32 Purge 0 00 6 Midi Ch A 1 r 1 Memor 3 958 ME SN SE AGLICH MACHINE GRID SIZE RANDOMIZE RANDOMIZE VELOCITY IGNORE VELOCITY Inside the Sasha Soundlab Drums and Percussion folder you ll find four different Glitch Kits These are a lot of fun and easy to use so we re sure they ll show up in many of your productions The Glitch Machine creates crazy percussive style grooves at random Sounds like a mess waiting to happen right Wrong The Glitch Machine intelligently gives you extremely playable results 90 of the time If you don t like what you hear simply hit the Randomize bu
17. l happen at random places on the loop you can influence how likely they are to occur with their probability or weight settings For example when the Remix Button is set to on and all the knobs are turned counter clockwise you will not hear any effect Turn a knob a little and you ll increase the likelihood that the effect will happen Turn the knob all the way clockwise and the effect will be most of the time In a performance situation or when you want to record the effect happening at specific sections in your track you can use the following hot keys C5 Beatmash C 5 Triplet D5 Glitch These keys are all highlighted in yellow There are other hotkeys that trigger effects in the adjacent keys but we ll come to that in the next section When you press one of these hotkeys you re essentially adjusting the weight to 100 This triggers the effect continuously until you release the key Note that the Effects button must be engaged to hear a result even when using the hotkeys If you find the Beatmasher or Glitch effects a little too random sounding here are a few tips to help you get subtle results Experiment with the Style Selector knob Each of the three settings will vary the intensity from Frantic to Normal to Gentle With the normal setting engaged and low probability settings on one effect at a time you ll find that the randomness is quite tame You might also find you prefer some types of material better that others D
18. n the bass collection it s most likely that you re drawn to the fact they ve been sourced from vintage analog synthesizers For convenience you cannot beat virtual instruments But there is something to be said about the warmth and depth of using well recorded and compressed analogue waveforms in your tracks Look out for a new vintage analogue sampled instrument we ll be releasing later this year 14 is DRUMS AND PERCUSSION KITS DRUM AND PERCUSSION KITS Let s look at another foundational element Drums and Percussion There are two different types of drum kits included in the Soundlab with many varieties in each Let s look at the most basic first In the first folder you ll find All Kits These are simply collections of similar type percussion elements grouped together For example Kick Drums Check out a few kits to get familiar with what s included These are the same drums that Sasha has used to drive the crowds wild on thousands of dance floors They re pre cut compressed organized and ready to rock in your productions One thing to note is that on certain kits like the All Perc Kit you ll also see an alternate version For example the All Perc Kit Vel This kit contains exactly the same sounds but it has some effects applied The amount of the effect depends on how hard you press a key These velocity sensitive kits are great to use when you want to add variety to a drum sound that s playing repeatedly Try
19. nd for adding subtle effects Percussion Medium sized reverb space based on a classic hardware unit Plate Simulates a plate reverb which is created mechanically using a large sheet of metal Amount Lets you control how much reverb you add to the instrument OTHER CONTROLS To the right of the Convolution section you ll find CHORUS DIRT 1 4 Chorus Thickens the instruments output by doubling it and detuning each copy Dirt Takes you into the world of bitcrushing lowering the sample rate of the instrument creating a rougher low fi effect 11 AMP ENVELOPE Envelopes are another very important sound shaping control you ll find on many synths and plug ins Envelopes can control many things but in this case we re talking about an amplitude envelope If you re not already familiar with envelopes you soon will be Along with filters they re the most common parameters in shaping sounds on synths and samplers When we talk about instrument amplitude we re referring to its volume An envelope lets you shape how the volume changes over time There are many types of envelopes but right now we re going to look at the common ADSR Attack Decay Sustain Release envelope To demonstrate this envelope let s leave the Bass folder on the browser for a moment navigate to the Synth folder and open up the instrument called Jupiter Detuned Lead Now play one of the highlighted notes on your keyboard to get
20. neh SASHA SOUNDLAB OWNER S MANUAL 1m ONVFI Re ee ee ae ee ee een TTT INTRODUCTION SASHA SOUNDLAB Manual written by Kevin Bazell Welcome to Sasha Sound Lab from AUDIORAIDERS If you re reading this chances are that you ve actually bought our product and we d like to offer heartfelt thanks This instrument spent many years in development Our team worked around the clock to program script and design the product you now own People like you allow us to keep producing interesting and innovative products which we hope will make creating music more fun and help take your productions to the next level Thanks from all of us at AUDIORAIDERS WHO ARE AUDIORAIDERS Our mission is to break down barriers and get you access to the sounds studios and secrets of artists who inspire you AudioRadiers was founded by a team of DJs and producers who ve performed all over the world released tracks on influential labels and shared the stage with the biggest acts in dance music When we re not on the road we re in the studio working on tracks and remixes And like anyone we constantly struggle to find the right sounds textures and loops While we ve never been fond of bragging or name dropping our experience has given us unique access to some legendary artists We thought we d see if a few of them would be interested in sharing their sounds and techniques with us The response has been fantastic We ve starting off right by c
21. ntakt update directly from the Native Instruments website If you need help with the Service Center application please refer to your NI product documentation INSTALLING AND AUTHORIZING YOUR LIBRARY Sasha Soundlab doesn t need an installer You can put the folder you downloaded from us anywhere you like on your machine or external drive Bear in mind you ll need 1 7 GB of available space Next open Kontakt and navigate to the Libraries tab within the Kontakt browser If you don t see the Kontakt browser click on the Folder icon labeled Browse at the top of the Kontakt interface to expose the Browser Just underneath the Libraries tab you ll see a section called Add Library Click that and direct Kontakt to the folder where you ve put the Sasha Soundlab library Click to add the library and follow the instructions to authorize the product through the NI Service Center Great Now you re authorized and ready to start having some fun Click the Instruments tab in your authorized Sasha Soundlab library and you ll see several folders of instruments We expect you ll want to stop reading now and play around Check back when you re ready to learn more about the structure of Sasha Soundlab and how to use all the instruments include 1 LT LIBRARY AND STRUCTURE LIBRARY AND STRUCTURE Welcome back Hope you ve enjoyed what you ve heard so far Let s talk a little bit about the file structure of the instruments Inside the l
22. og two oscillator monophonic lead and bass synth with both hard wired and patchable connections Any hard wired configuration can be overridden using patch cords This type design is similar to the ARP 2600 of the late 70 s In addition to two analog oscillators the MS 20 featured two resonant VCF filters two VCAs sample and hold a noise generator an assignable mod wheel and lots of knobs The VCF filter section is capable of high pass low pass notch and band reject This is definitely unique and different than the basic low pass style filter External sound sources can be routed through the filter section as well In fact William rbit uses the filter in his MS 20 relentlessly to filter and tweak his samples beats delay returns and vocals There s also a Pitch CV converter for triggering sounds from external sources Aphex Twin makes quite a bit of use of this feeding the input stage of his MS 20 with drum sounds and other untrackable audio This causes the synth to make a wide variety of crunch squawp screech noises by mistracking the filters The MS 20 is great for just about any type of analog synth sound you could want Fat round bass percussive bass noise effects squiggly bubbly sounds or sinuous worm 32 T a den RESOURCES leads are all waiting to be unleashed from inside this classic beast It is used by William rbit Aphex Twin Hardfloor Air SkyLab Stereolab Vince Clarke Astral Projection Biosphere Apollo 440 Mr
23. ollaborating with Sasha on our first product Our team will lock themselves in an artist s studio for weeks sorting through hours of audio files and hand picking the best ones Sometimes our artists get so inspired by what we re doing they ll want to make special new sounds for us to use We take everything back to our development team in Los Angeles who spend many long nights making sure the samples are properly sliced and balanced Then they use the power of the Native Instruments Kontakt engine to incorporate each sound into a customizable software instrument Finally we package it all in our Soundlab series We re really proud of what we re created and are sure the Soundlab Series will give you the edge your looking for We can t wait to hear all the amazing songs you make with Sasha Soundlab TTT LT INTRODUCTION WHY SASHA In our opinion there aren t many DJ s like Sasha We were lucky enough to discover his music at Hacienda in Manchester way back in 1991 Since then we ve heard his sound shift and evolve over the years No matter what style of music he s playing one thing is for sure it s consistently innovative Sasha s productions have a different feel from the current sounds mashing up the clubs Although he s worked with many engineers over the years his signature sound remains indelibly stamped on each release Sasha Soundlab is designed to take you behind the scenes of Sasha s studio Most electronic prod
24. ou stumble upon a groove you would like to use later either save the instrument or save the session in your host sequencer LOOPS Sasha Soundlab features a massive collection of drum bass percussion FX loops and musical phrases When used properly loops can save you time while expanding your creativity Because this section is the heart of the library we spent a lot of time designing a powerful interface that can breath life into pre recorded material while still maintaining ease of use The sound library features over a hundred loop based instruments But don t worry they all work in exactly the same way Once you learn how to use the interface you ll have a lot of new sounds and variations at your fingertips The loop player also has heavy randomization and user triggered effects assigned to hot keys This means that you can play loops that constantly shift and glitch so they never sound the same way twice It s also very easy to create your own sonic stamp on the program material with the user effects too Let s take a closer look at the interface Tab 1 Main Press one of the highlighted blue keys on the keyboard to engage the instrument and you ll notice right away the large Waveform display which represents the loop the instrument is based on Notice the audio has been pre cut into segments or slices When you play a key highlighted in blue on your midi keyboard you ll see the playhead moving across the wa
25. our interfaces very easy to learn and use TTT INTRODUCTION WHAT THIS MANUAL COVERS As we re sure you ve already gathered Sasha Soundlab is a Kontakt instrument and can be loaded into either the full version of Kontakt 4 or above as well as the free Kontakt Player available from the Native Instruments website The good people at Native Instruments have provided a lot of documentation that comes with both products Choose the drop down Help menu inside Kontakt or Kontakt Player to see the list of manuals available to you Kontakt is an extremely deep program and it s well worth the effort to read all the other manuals provided We recommend you take a look at the Getting Started manual if you re not already familiar with Kontakt That will cover everything you need to know about opening Kontakt in stand alone mode using it inside your host application setting up a midi keyboard connecting your audio interface and more The Sasha Soundlab manual is designed as a tutorial on the product and a general introduction to synth and sampler parameters for the newer user From here on we ll presume you ve fully connected both audio and midi and have Kontakt open Ar aaa a i ee ee a GETTING STARTED GETTING STARTED Please make sure you have the latest version of Kontakt installed before going any further You can do this by opening the NI Service Center and choosing the Update tab You can also manually download the latest Ko
26. r 6 is no exception It s known for being a very reliable programmable polyphonic analog monster of a synthesizer You can hear it in tracks by Orbital Moby Uberzone Devo BT The Prodigy Vangelis The Chemical Brothers The Crystal Method ZZ Top Duran Duran Moog Cookbook and Blur The distinctive sound is due in part to classic analog Roland technology in the filters and modulation capabilities as well as a thick cluster of 12 analog oscillators at two per voice Easy and intuitive programming via front panel sliders knobs and buttons make the sounds easy to tweak The Jupiter 6 is a scaled down version of the Jupiter 8 in terms of programming and polyphony However the Jupiter 6 has some major improvements including added MIDI control and better tuning stability Synthcom Systems Inc offers the Europa firmware upgrade for the Jupiter 6 which gives it an up to date and comprehensive MIDI implementation All parameters are controllable via continuous controller or SysEx Europa also features an extensive arpeggiator which will sync to the MIDI clock with programmable divisors and rhythms It offers over 50 more playback variations than the JP 6 s original four choices A Europacized Jupiter 6 is a thoroughly modern synth with a classic sound KORG MS20 The MS 20 was one of Korg s first major successful portable analog monosynths Today it is still a great little machine The MS 20 is the big brother to the MS 10 It s an anal
27. rap up the library with the FX section It s said that a track without FX is like a meal without salt FX help you transition from one section of your song to another They add interest to intros and outros plus keep things fresh and moving throughout your track One problem you ve probably already found in other FX collections is a lack of variation and new ideas After all there s a limit to the amount of swooshes zaps and bubbles any producer needs in the arsenal So we decided to focus on including a collection of exotic and strange types of effects Many of these effects were built on analogue synths including the ultra rare Arp 2600 Blue Marvin Edition They were then compressed and run through a variety of guitar pedals circuit bent tools and other sonic toys As you ll soon discover the results are astounding You should already be familiar with all the controls from instruments we ve already discussed if not take a look at some of the earlier chapters R z Circuit Bent 2 4 5 e Us Output st 1 Ir Yoices 0 Max 32 Purge 7 0 00 6 Midi Ch A 1 Memory 3 05 MB IM Np SASHA SOUNDLAB it CONVOLUTION Ei WARM Ei DECAY SUSTAIN RELEASE AMOUNT FEEDBACK I l 1 71 27 r 7 AMP ENVELOPE That s it congratulations you ve finished the manual and consider that you re in the top 10 of users and can now be known as a Power User If you drink grab one you dese
28. rum loops are a good place to start when learning the controls Try using a loop on a breakdown of your track Perhaps use the Masher to change up the rhythm a bit so it s less static Just before the main beat comes back in use a hotkey to trigger the glitch effect Then release it quickly and watch the dance floor ignite Another idea Let s say you ve selected a killer loop to be the driving backbone of yourtrack but its feels a bit repetitive after a few minutes If you had a human drummer he d keep the groove interesting by dropping in fills periodically at the end of the bar The Beatmasher s randomness won t work well in this case because you can t force it to happen only at the end of a bar So to recreate the vibe of a drummer simply record a long passage a minute or more of a loop in solo mode with some random settings dialed in After you ve got the recording go back and chop out a few fill sections you like and drop back them into the track at the end of the bars Tab 2 Sculpt Features the standard sound shaping parameters found on a lot of the instruments Take a look at the earlier chapters for more info on the controls Now if all the previous mashing effects aren t enough control for you let s have a look at the Third tab for loops called Multi FX You ll find it in the bottom left hand corner of the Instrument interface 25 Air Break 2 Output st 1 In Yoices OQ Max 32 6 Midi
29. rve it 30 mA WHAT S NEXT WHAT S NEXT Be on the lookout for more products and tools from AudioRaiders All the latest news plus tutorials gear reviews and much more are available at our website www audioraiders com On the website we ve also included a list of our favorite manufacturers developers and sites that interest us for suggested further reading ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND THANKS AudioRaiders would like to give many thanks to Sasha Adam at Redlight Management Neil Evans and Mike Miller at 530DB Charlie May and Barry Jamieson We d also like to thank our excellent team of beta testers and Ryeland Allison for his invaluable QC assistance Lindsay Barchan for the amazing pictures on our site Neil Feineman for the knowledge and ourmaninthefield for visual assistance extrondinaire Throw in some design work from Azyrus Max and clean webcoding from Winfoteg and you ve got yourself a crew The AudioRaiders Team is comprised of Kevin Bazell Netherfabrik Maus and Quentin Zuber Special thanks to Lilian Machiaverni Damian Murphy amp Michael Hart 31 E Sranan RESOURCES RESOURCES Here s some info on the analogue synthesizers used in this library Much thanks to our friends at www vintagesynthexplorer com for helping us get all the details right on these legendary machines ROLAND JUPITER 6 The Jupiter Series of analog synths have an amazing sound that was unlike any other machine built at the time The Jupite
30. s produced in early 1971 and is known as The Blue Marvin It has mistakenly been called the Blue Meanie According to Alan R Pearlman the Blue Marvin is named after Marvin Cohen head of engineering at ARP at the time This version came in a bright blue aluminum case and a funky wooden enclosure It used an entirely micro chip based voice path The chips they used wound up being highly unreliable but sounded great Only around 25 of these were made and they were mostly built in a garage ROLAND JD800 The JD 800 is Roland s answer to half a decade of hard to program synthesizers Covered in sliders that act as dedicated editors just like a classic analog synth the JD 800 is extremely programmable It is also an interesting and great sounding digital synth with incredible flexibility and control Internal ROM based waveforms are combined to build sounds These patches are based on Roland s D 50 but updated for the nineties with multimode filters uncommon but welcome at the time It s used by William Orbit Emerson Lake amp Palmer 808 State Ken Ishii Astral Projection Rabbit in the Moon Depeche Mode Underworld Tangerine Dream LTJ Bukem Apollo 440 Jean Michel Jarre ATB Vangelis Pet Shop Boys Faithless Luke Vibert Mouse on Mars Laurent Garnier MC Hammer Bushflange Genesis and Eat Static 33
31. them out and you ll see what we mean Just bear in mind that you won t hear the effect if you are drawing hits in with the pencil tool in your DAW at the same velocity level each time For club music we generally only recommend using the pencil tool in your sequencer to draw in kick drums because an even velocity kick keeps the energy level consistent All other drums will benefit from small variations in timing and velocity You can always draw these variations with the pencil tool but it s often easier to just hit record and capture your own playing first before making adjustments to clean things up AUDITIONING KITS QUICK TIP When you re working on a track for a while you might decide to experiment with alternate drums For example the snare you ve chosen just doesn t fit the rest of the track Imagine you re playing the snare pattern on D2 and you d like to try out the different sounds Just adjust the transpose region parameter in your sequencer DAW on the kit to listen to different options 15 All Glitch Perc 1 fl Output st 1 In Yoices 0 Max 32 i Midi Ch A 1 Memory 1 86 MB J SUIT AD RUMS CONVOLUTION AMOUNT FEEDBACK J l DRUM KIT CONTROLS The controls on the basic kits all feature parameters we ve already covered in the Bass Instrument Section with the addition of Tone TONE This is a control you ll be using a lot throughout the library It s a quick way to change the tim
32. tton again You can create a massive number of unique grooves in minutes 21 is DRUMS AND PERCUSSION KITS Between the four included glitch kits there are 512 unigue fat analogue samples which have been processed through all kinds of crazy outboard gear The single sounds alone are a gold mine But when you use them inside the glitch machine you get incredible instant grooves Imagine how many combinations of eight beat grooves you can create with 512 samples Here s how you use it First use the Grid Size knob on the right of the Velocity Grid to choose how long of a percussion groove you want to create For a useable club style groove you may want to Start with 8 or 16 beat grid length Next hit the Randomize button to create a fresh pattern If you like what you hear but would like to create some alternate versions try the Randomize Velocity button If you prefer a solid loop with all hits the same strength press the Ignore Velocity button The remaining controls along the top are o Tone Knob See Drums o Rate Knob This changes the beat divisions of the pattern from whole notes to 32nds of a beat o Swing Adds the human element we mentioned earlier On Tab 2 Sculpt You ll find additional sound shaping parameters which are identical to the ones featured on the Sculpt tab of the drum machine page 17 if you want a refresher The Glitch Machine generates a new random pattern each time you load it So if y
33. uctions are full of multilayered and mixed elements so it s very hard to pick apart what s going on Throughout this Soundlab you ll be able to hear the individual elements that make up a Sasha production We hope that you ll be able to draw inspiration and learn how you can create these types of sounds yourself WHAT IS SASHA SOUNDLAB AND WHO IS IT FOR We call this collection of sampler instruments a Soundlab because it contains all the elements you need to make a complete music production It s much more than a traditional sample library As you will soon see the sounds are extremely playable and will inspire you to make music right away The Soundlab can be used by DJs looking to add some fresh sounds and grooves over their mixes see the tutorials on our website www AudioRaiders com and also by music producers that want to add the kind of sounds that usually only come from big studios loaded with expensive gear We expect you ll record your musical creations inside a sequencer such as Ableton Live Logic etc But in a sense the Soundlab can also be used as a complete stand alone studio With over 2GB uncompressed material of unique Sasha produced content it provides you with a drum machine and kits a glitch machine multi effects chains plus beat mashing and loop remixing features that aren t possible on most hardware devices If any of that sounds overwhelming don t panic We also spent a great deal of time making
34. uick easy and intuitive Our step sequencer also has a graphic display and pre built kits for maximum efficiency 17 is DRUMS AND PERCUSSION KITS Open one of the drum machine kits navigate to the top right of the grid and press the Latch button Now press key C1 to hear the drum groove Let go of the key and the groove still plays That s because the seguence is latched or held Im 1 LL Im KICK SNARE CL HAT OP HAT The drum machine has a maximum of 10 different drum sounds and FX loaded into 10 Slots Underneath you see that the FX slot has been selected as it s highlighted These sounds are then arranged over a two bar loop on a Velocity Grid In this case as the kick has been selected you see the sequence of kicks arranged over the 4 bar or 16 beat grid Im 1 1 KICK SNARE CL HAT OP HAT To see the sequence for a different drum sound simply click on the slot underneath the velocity grid The display will update to show which beats are played The height of the bars in the grid represents the volume the beats are played back Use your mouse to draw in extra beats or change the velocities If you d like clear all the hits use the clear button underneath the grid on the left hand side CLEAR KICK PATTERN 1 Pattern Display This shows you which pattern is currently being played You can store up to 10 patterns and access them by playing the yellow highlighted keys on the Kontakt keyboard display C1 Al
35. veform This indicates the area of the loop being played back Underneath the waveform is a selection of knobs some of which we ve seen before in earlier instruments 23 e z P Acid Rain 4 v on fl Output st 1 In Voices O Mas 32 Purge 0 00 i Midi Ch A 1 Memory 0 63 MB M SASHA SOUNDLAB ITS RESONANCE STYLE BEATMASH TIRET GOTOH Gr WE E ee 7 7 7 7 NORMAL o Tone Knob See Drums o Latch Button See Drum Machine O Filter Section See Bass There are also four additional knobs which control the sample slice randomizer or Beatmasher The Beatmasher has three main functions Beatmash Triplet and Glitch which can be triggered with effect hotkeys or dialed in by probability more on this later There s also a Style Selector which has three settings Mild Normal and Frantic This varies the intensity of the effects You won t hear the effects unless the on off button underneath is on highlighted Beatmash This effect makes the playhead jump to random slices on the waveform essentially remixing the loop and creating a new pattern Triplet This effect also directs the playhead to jump to random slices and then splits them into three parts before jumping onto the next slice This is the most intense of the effects Glitch Makes the playhead jump around but then stutters the slices at random creating the classic glitch IDM effect 24 While these effects wil
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