What is this about ?
This is about this mod : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/PMI-PadsIt adds instrument to the speaker, to make music !
PMI stand for Preceti's Musical Instrument, that's just to make sure it would have a unique name, and Pads is kind of a misnomer, because supposedly a pad is a synthetizer activated by pressing buttons, but really the mod contains sounds that i didn't know for sure in which other instrument family they belong. They are loosely inspired by the type of synth you can find in the MIDI standard. This is why i'm making this page, to give more explanations and demonstration blueprints that are not easily placed in the mod page itself. It also contain two demo map, one with just 2.0 and this single mod, to make sure no conflict occur with other instruments and the blueprints works "as intended". And another one with additionnal instrument. The second part contain explanation on how the instrument mods are made.
Demo map :
Only PMI-Pads : (updated ! )
Synthwaves , with other instruments :
What it look like in game ?
- in-game-pads.jpg (97.84 KiB) Viewed 353 times
What does it sound like ? Hypersaw-2
Here is a video of a "simple" machine featuring the instrument "hypersaw-2" that was made to replicate the tutorial i followed when learning how to make the instrument for the mod :Here is the original video that i followed : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVm6_27UC2g
Only the first 30 second of the video are enough to hear the sound, and that there is ony 1 instrument that was replicated, not the "context".
Here is a blueprint of the machine :
In order to know which number to write in the constant combinator for the speakers to play the same notes as the youtube video, i created a cheat-sheet which is present on the demo map, it has the value and the note next to it, it look like this :
- cheat-sheet.jpg (98.55 KiB) Viewed 353 times
Apart from that the machine is based on a clock, that counts up to 480 ticks , which represent 8 seconds and the different instrument plays at a certain moment in time when the clock is at 15 , or 30 or 45 and so on, this was made following the youtube video. But for the kicks and snare and hi hat, i tried some freestyle with what was available, trying to make them occur at number that sound right, and tweaking manually until something that i thought was right to highlight the instrument.
I saw other people demonstrating the samples or instrument when it's played rather than just 1 notes after the other, so replicating, i found it hard to understand how the instrument is supposed to be used otherwise sometimes but they can be used in various ways hopefully !
What does it sound like ? Hypersaw-1
The machine is more complicated and may contain mistakes of my own, that's why the 1) comes after the 2), my bad, and the best machine is kept for the end ! It's needlessly complicated because it generate pseudo random music, and it can be configured a bit, but the most important is to understand that the samples are much longer ! 8 second each, versus 2 second each for the other hyper saw. You can't miss it in game it's indicated now (unlike in the video from previous version) , if you try to play those notes fast you won't hear anything ! it is an atmospheric pad, it's slow and etheral !Here is the blueprint :
What does it sound like ? Choirs-MiMo-Box
The other instruments in the mod are part of the same group, they are "choirs", which are synthetic voices present on the MIDI standard, usually it's "ah" . Here the samples last 2 seconds, and only 1 is the sound then it's the decay, the attack is quite fast which may differ a little with their standard use, but they can "easily" be chained to sound longer. There are 5 intruments because the voices can sing different sound, "mmm" which sounds like a humming sound and can be used as such, but also i found as if it was an "M" sang like religious song in some christian chuch like "ave maria", and then i thought it would be funny to make a machine that sing "mimo mimo", for my favourite DJ
and because in some of her set there are choirs that sound much more groovy than the "ave maria". So the other instruments are the same choirs, same duration, but different sound, the "oooh" and "iiiih" and then "ah" and "eh" were added, i tried to feature both the high and low end of the reduced range of notes for this instrument. The voices no longer sound anything human if the notes are too low or too high pitch with those, that's the reason for the reduced range of notes. It sound like this :here is the blueprint of the machine :
It may be a bit more recent than in the video, it contains a few indications in the combinator descriptions and i may make a post about it more in detail later and edit this part, but for now i wanted to add a few notes ( ahaha) about how the instruments were made.
How the instruments were made !
This part i wanted to document in case i'm doing something wrong i could receive some help, and if not maybe it can be of some help. The first video of the hypersaw-2 from youtube used as tutorial will serve as example The first part was following the tutorial video on youtube ! I don't have Ableton, but the plugin used in the video, "Serum" can be used in other software, i used FL studio.
Once the instrument is ready, or "any" VST plugin really, (check the video like me if you want more information x) ). The next part is to make it play all the notes one by one instead of the cool melody from the video. It look like this :
- FLstudio.jpg (321.65 KiB) Viewed 353 times
Then i export this file in "Audacity", it's 1 big audio file of several minutes at this point, it look like this :
- Auda-pad-1.jpg (264.25 KiB) Viewed 353 times
When zooming in it's possible to use the spectrogram which is in stereo ! and the waveform view at the same time! and seeing individual sample, how they fit on the "sample" :
- Auda-pad-2.jpg (219.69 KiB) Viewed 353 times
Then to put them into a mod, it is just a copy of how the vanilla instruments are done. It adds a new "instrument", similar to the others "instrument", and this instrument has "notes", i just added the label for the extra notes in the locale file required for them to show in the list of the speaker.
Feedback Donations
I'm not accepting donations x) it's just a joke, there is no license on the sounds, you can use them for anything, i'm grateful for the free-to-use software and those that have a trial version , the free tutorial and plugins on the internet, that's my feedback.If you want to suggest another instrument, an improvement, something i did wrong, please feel free to do so, here or in the modpage or in private message !