#34
Our trusty CM Plugin Suite fave, ZebraCM, is never afraid to show its versatile stripes, but this month, it displays more than a hint of funk…
> There was a time when we had to place great reliance on acoustic and simplistic synthetic instruments, to create the sounds we wanted to hear in the production realm. One instrument which was always difficult to replicate synthetically is the piano.
It’s easy to forget this, given the vastness of many of the excellent sample libraries that we have today, hence history is littered with a number of instruments that tried to emulate a piano’s credentials, but with electronics. Many artists, looking to replicate the jazz and funk sound of yesteryear, continue to explore some of this vintage equipment, however our ZebraCM is a versatile beast, and more than capable of managing a passing facsimile to some of these instruments.
Early electric pianos, from companies like Roland, relied on synthetically-recreated piano sounds. More successful were keyboards that were electromechanical in operation. The Fender Rhodes is a classic example, but it doesn’t really sound like an acoustic piano. Enter Hohner, who produced a couple of interesting and lesser known instruments. The Pianet and Clavinet were both electromechanical instruments which had a unique sound all of their own. They could certainly be described as pianistic, but with a tone which could be amplified, inviting performers to add different effects, such as wah-pedals and phasers.
By now, we hope you’ve downloaded ZebraCM from the CM Plugin Suite, so let’s make a patch that deconstructs this sound.
> Step by step
1
> Let’s begin by initialising a patch on the ZebraCM. Open up your DAW and load up the plugin. Once the plugin window is open, move to the central display at the top of the window, click to reveal the drop-down menu, and select ‘init’ from the bottom. This will initialise the patch.
2
> This patch is going to be a relatively loud one, so now would be a great time to reduce your master volume to a level of 50. Just as a reminder, every time you tweak a pot or setting on the plugin, you will see an accurate value/numeric in the upper display.
3
> We’ll start creating our sound by visiting Osc1; we want to use a reedy-sounding waveform, so change the Osc1 waveform to a value of 9.80. This will also be the dominant sound source i
