The Quantum Leap Silk User Interface

“Silk” comes with a comprehensive yet easy to use graphical interface with plenty of controls to help you customise your sounds. Here is an overview of some of the main controls available:

Performance

There are four buttons grouped together in the Performance section:

Portamento – the technique of a continuous slide in pitch from one note to the next note in the phrase.

the technique of a continuous slide in pitch from one note to the next note in the phrase. Repetition – Turning on this button causes repeating notes to sound slightly different, avoiding the sense of mechanical repetition.

Turning on this button causes repeating notes to sound slightly different, avoiding the sense of mechanical repetition. Legato – the style of playing notes in a phrase with no significant silence between them in order to produce a smooth and flowing melodic line.

Round Robin Reset Button

A round robin articulation is one in which several different samples are recorded with all parameters, such as volume, speed of attack, and so on, being essentially constant. The PLAY Engine then knows to alternate between the two or more samples during playback. You can use this button to reset all round robin instruments on demand.

Microtuning Controls

The instruments in Quantum Leap Silk have origins all over Asia. Silk makes it easy to incorporate the various scales from these disparate cultures in your music to provide an authentic feel.

There are two Microtuning controls. One at the left is a dropdown list of all the scales available in Silk. The other options in the list adjust the pitch of some—or all—of the 11 non-root notes to achieve the characteristic sound of the chosen scale.

The control at the right is another drop-down list of the 12 note names. This choice tells the PLAY engine which note is the lowest note in the scale, called the “root”. All intervals for the other scale notes are relative to this fixed pitch.

Stereo Spread Controls

This knob, with its three buttons, gives the user the option of using exclusively the left stereo signal or right when “Stereo” is selected from the Channel Source drop-down. For any other setting, this control has no effect. The knob lets the user determine the spread of the signals, how far apart the ear perceives the stereo channels to be.

A value of 0% brings the two channels together at the center (unless the Pan knob positions the output differently), and is the equivalent of turning off the controls with the button below the knob. A value of 100% call for the maximum spread available.

Filter Controls

The Filter controls take the sound of the instrument, and modify it by filtering out some of the sound above a certain frequency. This type of effect is commonly called a Low Pass Filter.

The Frequency knob – determines where the sound starts to be filtered out.

– determines where the sound starts to be filtered out. The Resonance knob – specifies how much the filter “rings” at the dialed frequency. The higher the resonance knob is set, the more focused this ringing becomes.

The graph gives you visual cues about the frequency distribution you are creating with the settings you select.

ADT Controls

Artificial Double Tracking is a technique, invented at Abbey Road when the Beatles were recording there that approximates the effect of double tracking (recording two nearly identical takes of a vocalist or instrument on the same part and laying one on top of the other) without actually taking the time to record two takes.

The Delay knob – specifies in milliseconds, the delay between the original signal and the secondary signal.

specifies in milliseconds, the delay between the original signal and the secondary signal. The Depth knob – specifies the amount by which that delay is modulated.

specifies the amount by which that delay is modulated. The Speed knob – varies the speed at which that delay is modulated.

varies the speed at which that delay is modulated. The Level knob – specifies the relative loudness of the secondary signal.

specifies the relative loudness of the secondary signal. The On/Off button – allows you to kill the ADT effect instantly and then reinstate it with the same settings, as needed.

Reverb Controls

The PLAY Advance Sample Engine uses a type of reverb known as “convolution reverb” in which a short sound called an “impulse” was generated in a real space, such as a Hollywood recording studio or cathedral.

That “impulse response” was digitized and PLAY knows how to convolve this “IR” with the samples at playback time to approximate the sound of playing the specified notes in the specified performance space.

The Graphical Representation of the Envelope

The total width of the graph represents the total length of all phases of the envelope. Therefore, when you change something in one part of the graph, for example, the decay, you may see the slopes of other components, the attack and the release, change as well because those phases become a larger or smaller percent of the whole; this is as expected.

Read more about these controls in the User Manual HERE.