Unfortunately, like a Shakespearean tragic hero, its strongest trait was most likely the seed of its undoing. Being an ambitious, complex and diverse instrument – it was clear that Wizoo (and Steinberg) didn’t know how to deal with it. Even the name “XPhraze” had a non-deterministic quality that further muddied the waters. Was it a loop library? drum machine? lead synth? digital texture generator? analog emulation? sample player? In effect, it could be any of those things – and the sum total of it made it greater than those parts. It was a true workstation synthesizer, but not in the boring garden-variety sense of the word. It was bold, but its versatility made it difficult to pin down a distinct “identity”.

What was most unfortunate about XPhraze was that the original set of sounds didn’t really solidify its sonic footprint in the ears of most composers and producers. There were a few presets that showcased the instrument – but it lacked that one “aha” preset – the very first thing you heard when you loaded it up and whacked middle C on your keyboard with your index finger. When sound designers get it right, you see people light up because they know they’re hearing something different and they know what to do with it. When you played a factory preset on XPhraze, you knew in many cases that you were hearing something different, but it didn’t always translate to that aha-ness that a new instrument needs in order to capture the collective imagination of the music producing community.

Steinberg's XPhraze virtual synthesizer main window

But XPhraze did get its legs – as intrepid electronic musicians recognized the venerable legacy that it bravely carried forward, and users found ways to create new sounds and textures by spring-boarding off of the factory content and using its extensive built-in capabilities. It emerged as a fresh voice and gained a loyal following. And likewise, later sound design efforts by Wizoo showed that they were getting a grip on the expansive possibilities of the instrument. Even an independent developer, Nucleus Soundlab, got into the act and developed a sound set for XPhraze – and in my opinion is the best set that was ever produced for it. And as one of the first virtual instruments to be added to my “in the box arsenal”, XPhraze earned its place as a go-to rhythmic synth for years. In fact, I can say with confidence that if you hear a digital synth or choppy percussion texture in any of my film music cues, there’s a better than 80% chance that the sound came from this instrument.

That made what happened next all the more heart-breaking for me as a composer. As you might see in the image above – both Wizoo and Steinberg had their name on XPhaze. Wizoo was acquired by Avid, the makers of Pro Tools and arch-rival of Steinberg. This led to a period where the future support and development of XPhraze was left in doubt. During that time there was the inevitable advances in computing. And while there was a desire expressed by Michael Hartmann of reFX (the primary architect of XPhraze) to continue development and support, that all fell apart as the larger music industry changes left it in a “no-man’s land”. I still have the last “official” version of XPhraze, but it has a compatibility issue with my modern computer configuration that renders it useless to me now. Not only do I lose the factory and plethora of third-party content, my own extensive set of presets (and the ability to quickly “dial in” an idea) are no longer available to me. That’s frustrating – particularly now that I’m in the throes of producing my first album project.

Of course, I have a few items that replace part of the XPhraze purview. Primarily, Arturia’s Origin synthesizer can handle most of the digital/vector synth roles – as it not only has spectacular analog emulations and a killer step sequencer, it also has the original wavetables from the Prophet VS synthesizer as well as extensive hardware controls that allow me to direct the sound in a way that I never could with the on-screen controls on XPhraze. It’s ironic that I’ve made a return to a hardware-based studio, at least in part, to have those creative options available. There are other things that take over bits and pieces of the role that XPhraze played in my studio – such as part of Native Instrument’s Komplete 6 suite of instruments, and Steinberg’s built-in VSTis. So, in a way, this will force me into new sonic territory, and like the foray into adapting the Pod X3 Pro to my studio the end result will likely be a wider assortment of tones – and perhaps even better music.

But I’ve also decided to add Steinberg’s HALion Sonic to my studio. From all accounts this new instrument aspires to inherit the legacy of several “retired” Steinberg virtual instruments, primarily Hypersonic 1 & 2 (another product that was perhaps Steinberg’s most successful collaboration with Wizoo). But there also seems to be echoes of XPhraze as well as a few hints of Virtual Guitarist in some of their videos – though it looks like much of their pattern-building approach is based on the Yamaha Motif line of synthesizers. I like the idea of deep integration that it offers with Steinberg’s Media Bay (navigating sounds within XPhraze was always sub-optimal) as well as the gob-smacking amount of content that comes with the instrument. I’m a pretty heavy sound designer when I “go deep” into projects, and rarely trust the factory presets to do the heavy lifting in my music – though I hear good reports on the sound design that was done on the original content set for HALion Sonic. Having a large palette of sounds to start will help in building my own timbrel identity with a new instrument – but only time and experience will tell.

I’m still a bit disappointed that XPhraze is no longer available to me. I’m already off schedule and now I must take time to re-audition new and existing instruments as well as adapt gear and sounds for this project. But at the end of the day it has to be taken as an opportunity to discover new things about my studio, my project, and myself.

As my physical trainer said at one my first sessions at the gym, “Frustration is just as important as achieving a goal. It’s all motivation. Use it.”

For one, I can’t use the Pod as an computer audio device. One of the nice things about Core Audio on the Mac is the ability to aggregate audio devices as though they’re one unit – so presumably I can use the virtual inputs and outputs on the Pod X3 Pro’s USB port interchangeably with the RME Fireface 400. With no interface, the computer doesn’t know the device is there.

Secondly, the Pod X3 Pro acts as a security device for the Pod Farm 2 plugins – which would allow me to set up multiple “virtual” instances of the Pod sound on individual audio tracks in my project. But again, since the computer doesn’t know the Pod is there I can’t run any of those plugins. Serious bummer.

I really was looking forward to using the Pod Farm 2 plugins on my album, particularly the distortions, amps and cabinet emulations for drum and synth parts. I also was looking forward to having the freedom to keep separate drum and guitar effects for stacked tracks – so that I could go back and edit VST automation and take advantage of other features “inside the box”. As it stands now – I have to play in everything live – which I can certainly do, but it ties me to the sound I produce “in the moment” instead of being able to really tailor things after the fact.

Still, as I have noted before, I have a slew of other distortion plugin options, and some of them are pretty darn good. I’m still amazed at how much mileage I’m getting out of the built-in amp simulator from Steinberg. And iZotope’s Trash has been a go-to plugin for me for a certain sound, so I reflexively go to that for a lot material. Still, I want to get the most out of the Pod X3 Pro – aside from being a non-trivial investment, it’s absolutely the best-sounding modeler I’ve ever heard.

So, today I rewired the studio to use the Pod as an FX send in Nuendo. This gives me the creative freedom to use it as an effect for any kind of track – guitar, bass, vocals, drums, synth – whatever. It’s great to have the S/PDIF ins and outs – which allows me to loop it into the RME Fireface 400 using a digital connection. Now instead of playing directly into the Pod’s front-panel inputs I plug the Mobius Megatar into the RME interface, and use Nuendo to route the guitar to the effects unit. This allows me to record “clean” guitar and bass to the audio tracks and then keep the effects “virtual”, so that I can have the option of tweaking the tone before I commit the finished, fully effected track to the mix.

One of the real treats of working with plugins is the ability to freely automate parameters. If you want to kick in a delay a the end of a lead passage – you can time it “just so” in order to get the musical effect exactly right. There are a myriad other smaller things that you can do – like adjusting a compressor to take the attack out of a section where it gets in the way, but you still want the sustain in place to keep the track sounding “even”. That’s not something you can do while riding a fader – and adding another compressor to the chain can cause other unwanted side effects. While not as flexible as a plugin, the Pod X3 Pro hardware has a great deal of MIDI capability built-in – so it can respond to pedal boards and other MIDI capable gear. So, I broke out “the big guns” – my Kurzweil ExpressionMate and every foot switch, pedal and alternate controller I could find.

ExpressionMate with ribbon controller, buttons, switches and foot pedals attached

The foot pedal (center) can control expression on a synth or wah on the Pod. The small foot switch on the right is used much like a stomp box actuator.

The results so far have been particularly promising. I’m having to re-learn how to program the ExpressionMate for different scenarios. The beauty of it is that the device can be tailored to control any of my synthesizers – real or virtual – as well as add a “foot board” level of control to the Pod. So now, aside from the audio tracks that record the “clean” guitar and bass parts, I also have to create a separate MIDI track to record the control moves from the ExpressionMate as they go into the Pod – to control the stomp box models, wah, distortion, delay – whatever I’ve set the controllers to send. Again, this provides a great deal of flexibility for editing after-the-take, but also can capture those inspired moments in real-time – so it’s the best of both worlds, even in this limited context.

While this exercise has somewhat forced me into changing the way I work in the studio, I think being forced “out of my box” will lead to discovering more creative options – and not only with recording and editing guitar and bass tracks. This setup can be used to control just about anything I call up – so now it’s time to settle into some tweaking and sound design – both with the Pod and some of my other gear – and getting a handful of MIDI configurations that the ExpressionMate can call up on the fly.

My guess is that within a few days of getting really accustomed to this way of working – Line 6 will release a 64-bit audio driver for the Pod. That’s just the way these things work – and at this point I’m willing to chalk it up to a bit of involuntary creative diversion…

The latest version of the "standing room only" studio rig

Many of the listed items are hidden to a certain extent – only showing in the “Media Bay” or a context-driven menu in my main recording application – Nuendo. This way, I get a 10,000 foot view of all the things I have on-hand. Eventually I’ll start adding color and coded context to the maps, and will start grouping things as I find patterns in usage of certain sections.

This is to avoid repeating myself as the tracks develop (which is more important on tempo and style than whether a particular synthesizer is used more than once). Anyway, I really, really like the way it has turned out. It has been one of the more fruitful “open-ended” experiments that I’ve done in a while – and couldn’t have come at a better time. I had been working some really crushing hours on a project at the day-gig, and aside from going to the gym regularly, I was pretty much working, sleeping and eating. This has really brought my brain “back into the game” and I’m starting to hear music again when I wake up in the morning – always a good sign that the brain is in the right set of gears. These charts will help the translation from my brain waves to the air waves.

After some careful measurement of progress on my first album against the calendar, I realize that my schedule might be a bit too ambitious. This is not only influenced by my other obligations (i.e. a gargantuan project at the entertainment company that stands as my current day-gig) but also some changes to the project that will eventually make it a stronger release.

That said, it’s disappointing to go from feeling like there’s plenty of time for “skunk works” to only having time to produce tracks that are going final. That tends to lead to what I mentioned in a previous blog post as “smash and grab” composing, which is not something that I will do with this project. So this weekend is about sitting down with the material I’ve developed so far, and making some decisions about what to keep, what to set aside, and yes – what to toss out. There’s plenty of the last bit…

It’s such a cliché for musicians to let their album schedules drag out, and I’m going to avoid falling into that trap if it means shaving my head and moving into a mountain cave (ignoring the obvious issue of getting a powered studio up there, of course). The goal was to have this project done in 2010 – and while it’s somewhat arbitrary – I really want to stick to it. As far as facilities are concerned, I really don’t have any excuses. The real hitch is when it comes down to recruiting the occasional outside musician to contribute to the project – and whether they will have the bandwidth/inclination to contribute when I’m “ready” for them. I’ve gone through one cycle of gearing people up (with enough lead time to fit into their recording schedule) only to have to dial it back again. I can’t “cry wolf” a second time.

On the bright side (and somewhat of a pun on the title of this post) I’ve unearthed a few real gems in the studio while imposing some order on the desktop. I’ve been reacquainting myself with iZotope’s products, particularly Spectron – a delay/multi-effect plugin that does some really interesting things with slicing up a sound into spectral bands and then mangling them in really new and interesting ways. I had written a multi-page blog post about it on the TLM site, but I’m not sure if it’s still there. This deserves a bit more attention, and I’ll likely create something for it here as I roll out some samples of the tracks from the project. It’s always inspiring to find something that you’ve had for a while – and re-discover it’s capabilities that border on the magical. Spectron is not your run-of-the-mill emulation of standard hardware – it allows you to think and create in new and interesting ways. Now, if I can only find a way to fit that within the confines of my schedule, I’ll be in good shape.

iZotope Spectron

So one of the exercises I go through when prepping for a session is to review the sounds I’ve previously cataloged, and check out some new tones along the way too. Sometimes it’s to ensure that I’m not repeating myself (smashing and grabbing from my own previous work), and in other situations it’s to break down a useful sound to its seed and then take it into a new direction. Along those lines I spent some time this weekend auditioning drum and percussion loops.  I pulled some of the snappier tracks into Steinberg’s Loopmash plugin to see how that tool re-arranges the beat in the context with the other loops assembled. It can be inspiring, but it’s also easy to wander off too far and forget what you were looking for. The trick is to spend the right amount of time in prep work, but not suffer analysis paralysis – a common affliction in electronic music circles – lots of sound emerges but not much music is made.

To springboard into new sonic territory with purpose I often start with VIs like Native Instruments Kore Player. It has the ability to draw from any of NI’s other synth engines (Reaktor, Absynth, etc.) and also has some significant sound mangling potential on its own. Many times I’ll find a preset for one of the “parent” softsynths in the Kore Player browser, and then open the preset in the “full” synthesizer to break down the sound – either to use one piece of a larger preset, or completely rebuild things from the ground up.

Native Instruments Kore Player

Sometimes I’ll stumble on an idea and simply riff while the sequencer is recording, and will save the audio event on a separate track as a one-shot effect to process within the track arrangement. It’s a lot of fun – a great way to add texture while keeping things fresh (and keeping the track moving forward). Much of the work from this weekend will show up on this first project, but there’s not quite enough meat on the bone to share examples just yet. For now, I’ve got to move on to a few other sources and put together that critical mass of sound, trying to tread somewhere in that vast area between smash and grab and analysis paralysis.

The tracking will continue until morale improves.

The process of getting everything loaded up and configured forced me to take note of just how many options I have at my disposal, and the plugins that fall into the “distortion” camp really stuck out. Aside from the tube saturation and cabinet emulator that’s built in to Cubase (which are quite good, BTW) there’s also iZotope’s Trash, Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig 4, Line 6′s Pod Farm 2, Scarbee’s Vintage Keyboard FX and Virtual Guitarist 2′s FX. You could even count the hardware – a Line 6 Pod X3 Pro rack unit and Arturia Origin synthesizer (which has its own external audio inputs and very good distortion FX on-board). And to go with that, several of the plug-ins have speaker cabinet and microphone positioning models to give even more “studio control” over the sound.

I suppose it’s better than a storage closet full of amplifiers, but it’s really striking to see how distortion completely subsumes all other categories of sound shaping that I have in my (virtual and real) studio. I was joking with a friend about whether you can have “too much distortion” – and of course that all depends on the amount of distortion and whether or not it’s intentional. In this context, the answer is “no”. I’m glad to have this “embarrassment of riches” available – as it will be an important part of putting the right kind of edge on the tracks I have slated. Over the summer I’ll be rolling out little snippets from the first album project (and you’ll see some of the artwork leaking out along with it). From round and warm tube tones to the bite of a broken transistor, distortion will certainly be the order of the day.