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Hi, Ujiie here again,
This is the last in our series
of in-depth videos about the GAIA.
Last time, we saw how the
Oscillator, Filter, Amplifier and LFO
together make up one 'Tone' on the GAIA.
I'd like to go over it again in detail, but quickly.
The Oscillator uses a selectable waveform
to produce a pitched sound,
which gets processed by the Filter,
making the sound bright or dark,
depending on the Cutoff + Resonance settings,
Last, the Amplifier controls the volume.
Each of these has its own ADSR,
Attack time, Decay time, Sustain level, Release time,
controlled by these sliders here.
These make changes to the sound.
They're also called Envelope Generators,
and they change the sound over time.
For example, in the Oscillator section,
you can use the Envelope Generator (EG)
and make the pitch rise and fall,
for a sound like this...
An EG on the Filter will change
the timbre over time.
And on the Amplifier, an EG
will change the volume over time.
You can use the LFO to add
low frequency modulation,
which applies a kind of vibrato to the sound.
The LFO has different waveforms you can use,
such as sine, square, sawtooth and so on.
Lots of choices available.
Lots of possibilites.
And that is just for ONE layer; one 'Tone';
one snapshot of the panel as it's set.
But, the GAIA has a secret...
And it's a big one.
In actuality, there are three 'Tones'
Can you see here?
There are three!
Well, so what? What's the big deal?
That is the focus of this final video
in our series about the GAIA.
First off, Tone 1 is on, and selected,
and if we play the keyboard...
it sounds like this.
Let's make it a bit darker.
Ok, let's aim for a strings type sound.
Raise the Attack a little bit.
And also the Release time.
Yeah that sounds ok.
Right.
So, with the Oscillator, Filter, Amplifier + LFO
set as they are,
this is the sound you end up with.
Ok. I think I want to set
Tone 2 to the exact same settings
as used for Tone 1.
Exactly the same.
Ok so first, turn Tone 2 on, and then...
what a pain to set all the knobs, sliders
and buttons all over again, eh?
They've made it easy for us!
Here's the Tone Copy button!
Tone Copy! So press the button,
lights start flashing...
select the source to copy from,
which should be Tone 1 for now,
then next you select the destination,
where you want to copy to,
let's choose Tone 2.
Finished. See? 1 and 2 are lit up now.
Now the same sound is being made
by both Tone 1 and Tone 2.
Can you hear how it's layered now?
Ok?
Let me show you a good technique
to use at this point in editing.
Ok, right now Tone 2 is selected,
it's lit up here, so the panel
reflects the settings of Tone 2 only.
So our changes will not affect Tone 1.
Let's change part of the Oscillator,
specifically, let's play with the Detune ***.
What'll happen?
Aha!
Can you hear it? The sound became
fuller all of a sudden, right?
Wonderful!
But wait, there's more!
Another secret technique...
Right now Tone 1 and Tone 2 are layered.
I'm going to change the panning
so the Tones are at opposite sides.
Ok so let's put Tone 1 at the far right.
The way to go about this, look here
at the Shift button, press it,
turn the Detune ***,
and that changes the panning.
Tone 1 is now panned hard right.
Now let's do Tone 2.
Pan Tone 2 hard left.
And now...
that sounds much fuller than before, no?
We haven't touched Tone 3 yet!
Well then, let's use the copy function again,
and copy Tone 2 to Tone 3.
Let's see...
It's even fatter now.
But let's select Tone 3,
and raise it an octave.
Let's pan it dead center.
This is the merit of being able to layer 3 Tones!
You get fat, spacious sounds!
This is great!
Three Tones layered on top of each other.
Of course, each one is independent still,
for this sound, all copies though,
but if you make 3 different Tones,
you end up with a unique sound,
because of how they interact when layered.
That is a really big strongpoint
of the GAIA, SH-01.
But there's more!
We haven't touched the Effects section yet!
Here it is right here.
So we still have some work to do.
For example...
Uhhh, let's add some Reverb.
Ok, how about some Delay too?
Ok? How about some Flanger?
That's a big change, eh?
That really added motion to the sound.
Well? By using Effects, you can really
add another dimension, or flavor,
to your sounds.
So, I think it should be clear,
and I hope you understand
the merit of having 3 Tones.
But there's still more!
There's another secret technique...
Uhh, let's see here...
Ok that was Tone 1.
Tone 2 sounds like this...
Only a slight difference...
Let's turn them both on.
Ok. Here in the Oscillator section,
in the top right corner,
there is a Modulation section.
Modulation. Can you zoom in here?
(gives Japanese word for Modulation)
We can take one of the Tones,
let's use Tone 1 for now,
and put an Envelope Generator on it,
Ok, now the pitch of Tone 1
starts high, but falls, as you can hear.
The Envelope Generator (EG)
has Attack set to zero,
only the Decay has been raised,
all the way actually, so the pitch
starts all the way up but gradually falls.
Let's set the Modulation to Sync
and see what happens.
Ah, this forces the Tone 1 Oscillator
to sync to the Tone 2 Oscillator.
In other words,
the Tone we edited before, this one...
with the falling pitch going on there,
when set to Sync, like this,
ends up sounding like this.
Ok?
What's happening here is the one Tone,
which has a falling pitch,
is being forced to follow a constant pitch,
which ends up causing a change
in harmonics instead.
It's a dramatic change isn't it?
If you change the Pitch on that Tone...
It makes this sound.
The Pitch Bender on the GAIA
doubles as a Modulation Wheel,
if you push it back like so,
Let's add some Delay to this.
That's really good.
There's still more!
For live performance,
the D-beam is priceless.
You can use it to change the Pitch,
or Volume...
...this kind of stuff.
You can also control Effects with it.
It's changing what the Flanger is doing.
Ah, no, my bad! It's changing the Delay!
Ok?
There's another interesting thing we can do.
If you press it again, Pitch starts flashing,
and you can do this!
Orchestra hit!
Do the same to Volume, and...
You get a kick drum.
This is really fun!
So as you can see,
there are lots of hidden features!
Many different things are possible with this.
But there's still more!
I keep saying that eh?
There's an External Input control up here.
What can we do with it?
This is really cool.
I've hooked up an iPhone
to the External Input, and
if I press play...
we can hear music from the iPhone.
Ok we got the rhythm section going now.
And vocals too...
Let's play with the Center Cancel function.
What does it do?
It removes the sound from
the center of the stereo signal,
and in a few different ways.
The vocals have been removed!
That's not all it can do though.
Now the drums have been removed.
You just press away...
Here's the tempo (snap snap snap).
I want to play along using this arpeggio.
But the tempo doesn't match.
This is where Tap Tempo comes in.
We can use Tap Tempo and match them.
Just tap along in time...
Just one way to have fun with it.
So, it's possible to sync tempos
with whatever source you plug in,
so you can play along in time,
by using Tap Tempo.
Center Cancel lets you mute parts out
like vocals, drums, etc.
And you can play along, using
sounds you made on the GAIA.
Well, we've taken a fairly exhaustive look
at the GAIA over these 5 videos,
We've seen how it has all the
workings of a traditional analog synth,
but goes further, using layers made of
up to 3 individual Tones,
which is like having 3 independent synths actually,
layered on top of each other.
Not only that, but it also
has Effects, which are really good,
and the D-beam as well.
And External Input too,
so you can feed music or what not
through the GAIA and do different things.
AND!!! Yes, more!
There's a USB port on the back,
so when you connect to a PC via USB,
you can use the GAIA
as an audio-MIDI interface too.
Roland really has all the bases covered with the GAIA.
And, it's reasonably priced.
For someone just getting into
synthesis or synthesizers,
this is one truly awesome machine!
And for people into sampling or other things,
maybe curious about the analog synth sound,
and want to see what synths are all about,
without spending a fortune to do so,
this is a great one to start out with.
It's perfectly suited for live performance,
it runs on batteries,
it's really light.
You could call it revolutionary even!
The Roland GAIA SH-01!
Translation/captions by:
SWCreativeJapan