I don't know how many of you guys are producers and for that matter, what percentage of producers use FL Studio so this post might not be for everyone but if you are using FL Studio, you'll wanna read this.
What is HARMOR?
Harmor is a very powerful VST instrument within FL Studio. It is an additive / subtractive synthesizer, image synthesizer as well as audio resynthesizer. Whew! Don't be alarmed! We will not get into technical details or start going through everything Harmor has to offer... I will only help you use Harmor as a DRUM MACHINE with 32 samples.
Why?
Because the audio resynthesizer is amazingly powerful. I use it as my main sampler right now because I love how easy it is to manipulate the sound and see where it takes me. The problem is that running Harmor for all of your samples is quite inefficient. The solution is having 32 samples, in the same instance of Harmor, triggering them on separate notes.
Export the sounds 1 Wave file! As I spaced them, I need to export 8 FULL BARS. If I had used longer samples, I might have needed to space them out farther apart and use 32 bars maybe, in which case I would have selected the FULL 32 bars. If you don't do this, FL Studio might cut the audio short, if the last sample ends too soon.
Step 2: Making it STEREO!
Right now, if you drag and drop a sample onto it it will read ONLY the sample's MID channel, in part A.
To add the SIDE channel, you will need to select part B and drag the sample here again. Make sure you TURN ON part B and LINK part A to part B.
I loaded up the .wav with the 32 sounds I made earlier on both A and B channels.
Step 4: DONE! (save your preset if you plan on using it later)
Now you can use the piano roll to play through all those samples! Remember that your samples start from C5 and end with G7. They are one after the other in the wave file so don't forget to end the MIDI note before the next sample starts playing! (i.e. if you leave the note playing, the next samples in the wave file will start playing)
You can right click the "speed" knob and quickmap it to the X parameter, in part A as well as part B. This will allow you to play your samples at different speeds by changing the X parameter of the MIDI notes. Remember that the default X value for new notes is 0 so you will have to make sure it's the value you want if you just hear noise or nothing at all!
What is it good for?
I personally like using the built-in Harmor effects, especially the distortion. It is also amazing for experimenting with any sound. Load up a vocal sample and you basically have it chopped into 32 parts within Harmor.
Wow dude ! Really awesome seeing a fellow music producer here on steemit, especially someone who knows what they are talking about ! I actually learned something from this so I'm happy , though I don't use HARMOR that often, this is defiantly going to be helpful when it comes to using samples as a main sound, really useful info ! followed !
this is a great post and great information and learning about FL studio , I use it too , I do mix and mastering and producing songs in it , I didn't used harmor as a drum machine and it's great to learn it from you. good job. wish you luck.
Like others said: nice to see more producers out here, you've included some things in you're blog I didn't yet knew. :) Must say I don't use Harmor much, but definately going to check it out more after reading this.
Harmor is the flagship VST synth for Image-line, the same people who brought us FL studio DAW. For this review, I had the chance to play with the synth and learn a whole lot about sound design in the process. Early on one thing became very clear, Harmor is a beast with an immense amount of sound design capabilities. Resulting in its powerful soundscapes.
Harmor is an additive synth, meaning that the sounds are built up from a sum of sine waves. The default setting is a saw wave, which consists of every harmonic frequency smashed together. Harmor produces every harmonic individually, up to 516 instances of them per part (A/B), which are visualized on the right panel in the visualizer.
The ADV tab lets you determine the order of both the additive/subtractive modules and the FX modules. Some of the other features are involved in the amount of CPU you permit Harmor to use to produce its sounds, you can lower the image resynthesis quality and lower the live playback quality without affecting the rendered audio output.
This is where the harmonics are initially synthesized, the following modules will influence how this one creates which Harmonics, when and how to produce their frequencies. The sound produced in the image section will also pass through the following modules and will be discussed after.
You can either have them function in parallel or in series. It has a logical envelope knob and frequency cut-off knob. Since any parameter can be customized in the line editor you can easily create your own custom shapes.
Keyboard tracking: When enabled the cut-off will follow your keyboard notes and it makes sure that there are an equal amount of harmonics for each tone. Going above 100% will add or decrease (inverse) the amount of harmonics, another tool to add flavour to your sounds.
In traditional subtractive filters, resonance is the product of the set cut-off. In Harmor it is actually an additional filter, following the cut-off frequency of the main filter to emulate the traditional effect. Again this can be customized by a variety of knobs.
And once again, you can customise these effects for the individual harmonics in the line editor of the harmonic unison pitch, giving you ultimate control. This means that you can detune the high end of your sound without detuning the low end.
But why stop there, lets dive even deeper into these individual modulations. In Harmor you can use the line editor to have each harmonic in the unisons be uniquely affected by most modulators, such as the filter resonance with, or any other editable effect.
The spectrum view unfortunately only shows one voice (the compilation of all the harmonics of that particular one), instead of the combination of all possible nine variations, this is probably due to the insane complexity that these nine combined would represent.
Once again you can make a custom shape, which will determine the shape of the applied filter of the phaser. So now you can make phasing comb filters, neat! Putting it on Freq mode will make it sound even more alien.
And of course you can create a custom blur mask, to create different attack and release times for different frequencies. With blur enabled you can use the pluck shape to determine the amount of the blur effect over the frequency range. This can also be used to make some reverb-like effects.
And now some of the weirder modules, prism. It will spread the harmonics around based on the set values. The great thing is the customizable wave editor, where you can go crazy with the effect. The prism will shift the harmonics accordingly to the set graph.
Since you play the image like a set of harmonic, the sound can be edited the same way. You can also insert actual pictures and play them, which might sound like something cool, or you can embed your logo into sound, which looks cooler than it sounds with my logo.
The effects actually process the audio coming out of Harmor instead of the synthesized audio, making these the only actual subtractive modules. All the basic FX are there: distortion, chorus, delay, reverb, and compression.
Harmor is perfect for sound designers to create any soundscape they can imagine since nearly everything is customizable. The amazing stock presets, and their diversity will convince you of the synths strong sounding capabilities.
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