Preferences panel
On this panel, you can adjust many parameters to shape the sound of the VTines. Here is what each parameter does.
There are only two parameters that are adjusted for the whole library:
1- The pedal volume controls the volume of the sound made by the pedal when you press and depress it.
2- The Bass tines pitch drift can be corrected. On a real rhodes, the torsion of the long tines when you play them hard leads to a pitch drift which may make it sound like it's out of tune. Piano tuners usually have to choose a velocity range to have it in tune with the higher octaves. Since we are using a sample library, we decided to offer the possibility to flatten that pitch drift and make sure it's in tune all the time, no matter the velocity.
The rest of the parameters can be adjusted differently for each note. By default the selection is set to note by note, and any change on the parameters will only be applied to the most recently played note, but you can have it affect all notes, or you can select note by note to modify the parameters using a curve.
a- The repetition control is an effect that happens only on pedal down. When you repeat the same note over and over again with the pedal pressed, the notes don't just stack up, but sometimes they get morte or less cancelled. We created an accurate model of this effect and were abel to reproduce it. That control will control the amount of that effect.
b- The tine heigth is the second component used on a real rhodes to voice it. The height will completely change the tone and amount of overtone (or Bark). There is a sweetspot described in the original Rhodes documentation that is right above the pickup. This allows for the maximum of overtone without loosing too much of the fundamental frequency. This is the main control over the character of a rhodes and with this, it will sound mellower or thinner if you go to the extreme values.
c- Pickup Distance: The distance between the tine and the vibrating tine controls mostly the overall volume of the corresponding note. This, just like on a real one, will help voice the rhodes with more or less Bass and Treble at the note level. In reality, it also controls changes the angle made with the tip of the pickup so it influences the amount of bark and other parameters, but for the ease of use, we limited that knob action to just the volume.
d- The Hi Vel Tone controls how much overtone there is in the highest velocity. The Low Vel Tone controls how much overtone there is in the lowest velocity."
e- The Tone Bend controls the overtone increase with the velocity. For example, if set at the minimum, there will be little overtone for most of the velocities and then quickly increase to the maximum overtone.
f- The Dynamics button controls the volume of the lowest velocity allowing for a greater or smaller dynamic range. It is set by default to the maximum range of the real instrument.
g- Bell amount: The Bell is a known characteristic of the Rhodes pianos, you can adjust how much of it there is in each note. Increasing it will also increase the attack as the Bell plays an important part in the attack of a Rhodes. You can compensate it with the attack knob if necessary.
h- Attack amount: You can control how much attack is present in the sound. This is independant from the Bell sound, so when you increase the bell, you might want to decrease the attack at the same time to compensate the increase.
i- Release Volume: The release is the the sound captured after the note is released. That characteristic noise has been carefully adjusted to sound exactly as the one of the original instrument, but you can control its volume.
j- Tune: Each note can be tuned separately.
