M-AUDIO Wizoo Latigo User Manual [ru]

English

Welcome to Latigo

The overwhelming success of our ﬁrst virtual musician - the Virtual Guitarist – proved that there’s a huge demand for intelligent music tools that put you in the producers’ rather than the musicians’ chair; tools that produce professional, authentic tracks based on real performances from skilled musicians. Why waste a lot of time trying to imitate a Darbuka player with a MIDI track and some multi-samples? Why not just hire the best guys for the job?

Thanks to the proprietary FlexGroove engine Wizoo’s Virtual percussionists deliver nothing less than real performances recorded by real musicians, with you in full control. Everything from the groove, the arrangement, the timing and the tempo to the mix is in your hands, ready to make your song special.

The grooves of “Latigo” were performed by Suat Borazan and Mohamed Zaki, two of the best Middle-Eastern percussion players in the world and deﬁnitely big stars in their countries. Whether you’re into Middle-Eastern music or just want to add the ﬂavor to your tracks – these guys deliver with cultural credibility and musical performances like nothing that was affordable for any of us – in the pre-Latigo era that is.

Best regards,

System Requirements & Installation

System Requirements

< Minimum System Requirements PC

• Pentium® III 500 MHz or AMD7. (Pentium 4 / Athlon 1 GHz or faster recommended).

• 256 MB RAM.

• 2 GB free hard disk space.

• Windows® XP.

• VST 2.0 compatible host software.

• MIDI Interface.

• DVD-ROM drive for installation.

• Internet connection for software certiﬁcation.

< Minimum System Requirements Mac

• Power Macintosh® G3 500 MHz. (G4 or faster recommended)

• 256 MB RAM.

• 1 GB free hard disk space.

• Mac® OS X Version 10.3.2 or higher.

• VST 2.0, AU or RTAS compatible host software.

• MIDI Interface.

• DVD-ROM drive for installation.

• Internet connection for software activation. (The actual performance of virtual instruments depends on the performance of the computer you use.)

English

Latigo • User Guide

Installing Latigo PC

< To install Latigo on a PC:

1. Power up your computer and launch Windows XP.

2. Insert the Latigo DVD into the computer’s DVD drive.

3. The installer should start automatically, simply follow the instructions on the screen.

If the installer does not start automatically, open the Explorer or the Desktop window and double-click the Latigo DVD icon.

Uninstalling Latigo PC

< To uninstall Latigo on a PC:

1. Open the Control Panel of your windows system.

2. Double Click ‘Add or Remove Programs’.

3. Select ‘Latigo’ from the list.

4. Click ‘Remove’ and follow the instructions.

Installing Latigo Mac

< To install Latigo on a Macintosh:

1. Power up your computer launching Mac OS X.

2. Insert the Latigo DVD into the computer’s DVD drive. If the installer does not start automatically doubleclick the Latigo DVD icon.

3. Double-click the Installer icon and follow the instructions on the screen.

4. If your host platform supports Audio Unit or RTAS formats, then run the appropriate additional installer.

Uninstalling Latigo Mac

< To uninstall Latigo on a Macintosh:

1. Delete the Latigo Data folder /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Wizoo/Latigo Data/

If you have installed the Latigo content somewhere else on your Macintosh and are not sure where, use the OSX Find feature ([Command][F]) and search for ‘Latigo Data’

and

2. delete whichever Plug-ins you have installed:

• VST/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Wizoo/Latigo.vst

• Audio Unit/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/Latigo.component

• RTAS/Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plug-Ins/Latigo.rtas

Product Certiﬁcation

Product Certiﬁcation is a fast and easy process that certiﬁes your purchased Wizoo product for unlimited legal use on your system. All Wizoo products – demo and full versions – require a certiﬁcation.

The certiﬁcation process is integrated into your Wizoo product and can be executed using a standard web browser and email client – there is no need to install additional applications or hardware.

To certify your Wizoo product, proceed as follows:

1. Open your Wizoo plug-in in your host application (sequencer).

2. Click the “Setup” button on the user interface.

3. Enter the Product Certiﬁcation Code provided on the card inside the Latigo box into he ﬁeld labelled “Product Certiﬁcation”.

Now you have two options. If your music computer is connected to the internet, proceed with “On-line Certiﬁcation”, if not refer to the “Off-line Certiﬁcation” instructions below.

English

On-line Certiﬁcation

1. Make sure you have established an internet connection.

2. Click the button “Certify Online”

3. The plug-in retrieves the Wizoo Certiﬁcation form from the server and opens it in your web browser.

4. Enter the required information into all ﬁelds if possible, at least ﬁll out the ones marked with an asterisk (*). The #“Product Certiﬁcate”# ﬁeld will automatically get ﬁlled out by the certiﬁcation server.

5. Click the #“Submit”# button to send your certiﬁcation request. Your certiﬁcate will be emailed to the address you provided.

6. Receive your email and double-click the ﬁle attached to it. Your Wizoo product will be certiﬁed and enabled for permanent use. As a conﬁrmation, the “Product Certiﬁcation” ﬁeld in the Setup page will read “Product certiﬁed ...”.

If your email gets received on a computer other than your music workstation, then please transfer the attached ﬁle to your music computer and double-click it there to complete the certiﬁcation process.

Off-line Certiﬁcation

If your music computer is not connected to the Internet, you can carry out certiﬁcation on any other computer with an internet connection – e.g. your ofﬁce or home computer.

1. Click the button “Certify Off-line”.

2. Check your desktop folder for a html ﬁle named after the product. Transfer this ﬁle to your internetconnected computer.

3. On your internet computer, establish a connection and double-click the html ﬁle. It will be opened in your web browser and take you to the Certiﬁcation form on the Wizoo server.

4. Fill out all ﬁelds if possible, the ﬁelds marked with an asterisk are obligatory. The #“Product Certiﬁcate”# ﬁeld will be ﬁlled out automatically.

5. Click the “Submit” button to complete your certiﬁcation request. Your certiﬁcate will be emailed to the address you provided.

6. Open your email and transfer the attached ﬁle to the computer where the Wizoo product is installed.

7. Here, double-click the ﬁle to complete certiﬁcation. As a conﬁrmation, the “Product Certiﬁcation” ﬁeld in the Setup page will read “Product certiﬁed ...”.

Demo Licences

Included on your product installer DVD you will ﬁnd other demo versions of our products. A demo version allows you to test the full product over a period of 30 days.

To activate a Wizoo demo version simply follow the procedure described above but do not enter any Certiﬁcation code in the Product Certiﬁcation dialog.

English

General Overview

Latigo is a very easy to use yet sophisticated virtual percussion instrument that plays real Arabic and Middle Eastern multi-track percussion recordings at any tempo, and gives you the freedom to edit numerous aspects of every instrument’s performance and sound.

Let’s take a quick tour of Latigo and check out the most important general features.

What Is A Style

A Style is a full authentic percussion arrangement, complete with up to fourteen individual Tracks, up to sixtyone Patterns (or arrangements), ﬁlls, mixer settings and a lot of other important information. When you save or load a Style you are basically saving or loading every parameter in Latigo.

Latigo • User Guide

< Previewing Styles

Before loading a Style you might like to hear what it sounds like. A short example of every Style (played at it’s original tempo) can be heard by simply choosing one in the Styles Selector and clicking Listen.

If you would like to hear a preview every time you click a Style in the Styles Selector then click Auto.

Listen is disabled when Latigo is playing.

< Style Info

When you click a Style in the Styles Selector, information such as tempo and time signature is displayed in the info display in the top center of Latigo. You can sort Styles by tempo and time signature by using the Sort List option below the Styles Selector.

< Loading Styles

There are four easy ways to load a Style:

1. By double clicking in the Styles Selector menu on the left of Latigo.

The Styles Selector.

2. Using Drag and Drop: Click the Style you want from the Styles Selector with your left mouse button, drag it anywhere to the right of the Styles Selector, and release your mouse button.

When using Drag and Drop a ‘+’ symbol is displayed next to your mouse pointer.

3. Highlighting a Style in the Styles Selector and clicking Load.

4. Using the usual Load Instrument menu provided by your host application.

The last option will probably be the slowest since you will have to navigate to the folder containing the Styles.

English

< Playing Styles

Now that you’ve loaded a Style, just play a note on your MIDI keyboard (try C2) and Latigo will start to play at the tempo of your host application, even if it is currently stopped. Try playing another note (C#2 for example), Latigo will change to another variation of the rhythm.

If you want Latigo to stop, play C6 on your MIDI keyboard.

< Saving Styles

If you are using Latigo in a sequencer project you don’t need to save the Style you have been working on; all settings in Latigo are saved with your song. If you’ve customized or created your own Styles and want to save them, there are two ways:

1. Click the Save button (bottom left) and you’ll be presented with a familiar Save dialog

2. choose Save Instrument from the usual Save/Load menu provided by your host application.

When you save a Style in Latigo it will automatically be included in the Styles Selector listing.

The Color Keyboard

The funky looking kyboard at the bottom of Latigo is not just a ﬁne example of modern interface design, you can also play it by clicking your mouse on any key. The ﬁrst key at the left of the Color Keyboard is MIDI note C1 (36).

English

The Color Keyboard.

Our GUI programmer chose his favorite food colors for the keyboard display, not only are they mouth watering but they also provide a lot of useful information about what Latigo will do when you play a MIDI key or click the Color Keyboard.

• Blue: The blue keys show normal rhythm grooves. The light blue color is for lighter grooves (with less

instruments), the dark blue for fuller grooves.

The color shading can be changed by you to help you ﬁnd the rhythms you want more quickly, particularly useful in a live situation (see Color Coding in the Performing With Latigo chapter of this manual).

• Green: Green keys are for ﬁlls. Light green is for light ﬁlls or solos and dark green for fuller ﬁlls.

• Yellow: The yellow keys are Mute Keys. When played they will mute or unmute Tracks for easy arranging “on the ﬂy”. For more info check out the Performing With Latigo chapter of this manual.

•

Red: The red keys are the Stop and End keys for Latigo. Whenever you press a blue or green key Latigo will play, so there is no need for a start key. The ﬁrst of the red keys will play a rhythm ending and the second will stop Latigo instantly.

All color keys can be assigned to any MIDI note (see the chapter The Edit Page.

Latigo • User Guide

Latch

The small blue square to the left of the Color Keyboard is the Latch Mode Selector.

When Latch mode is active Latigo plays continuously from the moment you play the ﬁrst key until it receives a Stop or End. When Latch mode is off Latigo will only play while you are holding a key down.

What Is A Track

A Track is the performance of a single percussionist, complete with all of the variations, ﬁlls and solos he has played for a Style. All Tracks in Latigo can be loaded independently, added to an already loaded Style, or replace any loaded Track.

To see the Tracks available in a Style just click the small ‘+’ arrow to the left of the Style name in the Styles Selector.

< Track Tabs

All Tracks loaded into Latigo (up to fourteen) are displayed using Track Tabs.

The Track Tabs.

Track Tabs are shown on all pages of Latigo and display each Track’s name, a level meter and the Track’s Solo and Mute status.

Every Track can be independently edited in a multitude of ways. To select a Track for editing, just click it’s tab; all other Track Tabs become unselected (gray).

Your computer’s [arrow left] and [arrow right] keys select Tracks to the left and right. The [Home] and [End] keys take you to the ﬁrst and last Track Tabs.

< Scrolling Track Tabs

Latigo displays up to eight Track Tabs at a time but a Style may have as many as fourteen Tracks. There are two ways to see Tracks not currently displayed:

• Place your mouse pointer above any Track Tab and use your mouse wheel.

• Click the scroll arrows at the right of the Track Tabs.

The Track scroll arrows.

English

< The Instrument Symbols

Below the Track Tabs is a dark rectangular area containing a colored symbol for the percussion instrument played by a Track. This area also contains a few functions that are worth mentioning.

The Instrument Symbols area.

• Track Volumes: Although most of your mixing will happen on Latigo’s Mix Page we’ve hidden a handy little feature that no-one except you guys who read manuals will know about. Using your mouse wheel in the instrument symbol area allows you to control Track volumes on the Play Page. Give it a try, it’s pretty useful.

Hold [Shift] for ﬁne adjustment.

• Track Info: Right clicking (Mac: [Ctrl]-Click) in the instrument symbol area will open an information box with a picture and description of the instrument played on that track. This information is always displayed in English but is also available in other languages in “The Instruments” chapter of this manual.

English

• Track Mute Status: When a track is muted the instrument symbol changes from colored to grey. This way you always have an overview of all muted instruments.

< Adding Tracks

When you load or add a Track to a Style, you are adding all of the properties it formerly had, including information about what is played by which MIDI keys and sound edit settings.

To add a Track either:

• Double click it in the Styles Selector menu

• drag and drop the Track anywhere to the right of the Styles Selector (except onto an existing Track Tab) and release your mouse button

• select the Track in the Styles Selector and click Load.

< Replacing Tracks

To replace a Track simply drag and drop the new Track onto the tab of the Track you wish to replace. This works for Tracks listed in the Styles Selector as well as for Track Tabs.

< Copying Tracks

To make a copy of a Track click and drag the Track Tab to an empty place in the Track Tabs display.

Latigo • User Guide

< Moving Tracks

To move a Track to a different Tab position hold [Shift] and drag and drop the Tab.

< Deleting Tracks

To delete or remove an already loaded Track click it’s Track Tab, drag it above or below the Tabs strip and release your mouse button.

Sorting Styles In The Styles Selector

To help you ﬁnd the Style you need quickly and easily Latigo has three sorting modes.

• Name: With this option selected Styles are displayed in alphabetical order.

• Latigo Region: All of the percussion grooves in Latigo come from particular geographical regions. When you choose Sort List By Region you can view Styles according to their area of origin.

• Latigo Type: Choosing Sort List By Type, displays Styles according to their cultural origin.

• Tempo: Although Latigo plays Styles at any tempo, sometimes you might like to choose a Style that was recorded at something close to your song tempo, or play a Style at it’s traditional tempo. The Tempo option collects all Styles of a similar original tempo and groups them into folders by bpm (beats per minute).

• Time Signature: When this option is selected all Styles are sorted and displayed in their recorded traditional time signatures.

Changing Latigo’s Master Volume

All of the percussion Tracks in Latigo have been mixed and Latigo’s output level optimized for all Styles, but you still may ﬁnd it occasionally useful to turn the whole percussion instrument up or down in volume. Just use the Output knob in the lower right hand corner.

XXL Mode

All of the percussion performances in Latigo have been recorded and processed in extremely high audio quality, This also means large ﬁle sizes and this is XXL Mode.

To save you loading time and RAM we’ve provided a very efﬁcient professional quality Normal playback mode (which uses a “lossless” form of data compression) and a full quality XXL mode. The difference between these modes is virtually inaudible. Latigo defaults to playing in Normal mode but if loading time and RAM are no issue for you just click the XXL On feature.

If you would like Latigo to operate always in XXL mode, then choose XXL On and click the Save As Defaults feature on the Setup Page.

English

The Play Page

The ﬁrst page you’ll see when you start Latigo is the Play Page. On this page you will ﬁnd most of the general controls for the whole percussion instrument, the types of controls that affect all or most Tracks being played in a Style. Let’s take a deeper look at what’s possible and what might be useful when making music with Latigo.

Speed

The Speed control allows you to run Latigo at normal, half or double your song tempo. This can be very useful in some situations:

Maybe you’re working on a slow groove masterpiece that’s 80 beats per minute but running your host application at 160, you’ve been working for months and you realize that the last thing you need is some Congas in the middle eight, you load a Style in anticipation and your lovely delicate middle eight is now full of

drummers on Guarana, the cat gives birth, light bulbs explode..... Never fear, we at Wizoo value our cats and

our light bulbs, with a casual ﬂick of the Speed switch to Half the world will become normal again and hey the Latigos sound pretty good in there too.

Speed control can also be quite a useful creative tool, allowing you the ﬂexibility to play a nice syncopated 80 BPM groove over a 160 bpm Drum’n’Bass track or an interesting half time groove over a 110 bpm pop song. It’s up to you, Latigo has no tempo limits.

Variance

Variance is a sophisticated feature with a very simple control. What it does is replace percussion hits within each Track with other percussion hits that sound similar from within the Style, in effect adding variation to each Track. A setting of Max replaces a lot of hits with similar hits and the Off setting plays the groove exactly as the original percussionists played it.

Timing

The Timing control might also be called humanize or even quantize. Setting Timing to the center value of ﬁfty percent plays the percussion grooves with all the natural anticipations and feel of the real players, increasing the value towards Tight quantizes the timing to strict machine like precision, and decreasing towards Loose exaggerates the natural live timing.

English

Quantize

Quantize sets a maximum musical timing resolution. Any percussion hits that fall outside of this timing grid are removed. For example you may like a particular Style but there are a lot of 32nd and 64th note rolls and ﬁlls and what you’d really like is for the groove to be simpler. Try setting Quantize to a value of 1/16th, all of the busy ﬁlls are removed and only the notes that fall close to a 16th note in the bar remain, in effect simplifying the groove. Of course you can simplify Styles quite a lot, right down to a1/4 note value.

Experimenting with combinations of the Tempo and Quantize features can lead to interesting and useful rhythmic variations.

Swing

Swing is a feature most are familiar with. This control pushes the timing of all Tracks in a Style from their original position in a groove towards a triplet timing. In some cases a Style is already naturally playing a triplet feel in which case the Swing control pushes the triplet beats to an even later position in the bar.

Latigo • User Guide

Muting Track Types

The Tracks activation section is a handy time saving feature and useful in many situations. All Tracks have been grouped together by type, the Bass, Mid and High buttons allow you to quickly activate or deactivate families of Tracks. This can be useful when previewing Styles or Patterns, when mixing, or maybe you only want to use particular percussion instruments in your composition.

Using the Tracks activation section will deﬁnitely save you time.

Group Tracks Assigned

Misc Claves, Cuica, Samba Whistle.

High Cabasa, Caxixi, Maracas, Reco Reco, Guiro, Ganza, Shaker, Shekere, Crash.

Metal Agogos, Cowbell, Timbales, Triangle.

Skin Bombo, Bongos, Congas, Quinta, Djembe, Pandeiros, Repenique, Surdo, Tambura, Guataca.

Drum Kick, Snare, Toms, Hi-Hat.

Complexity

Despite it’s name, Complexity is easy to use and might even be called “simplicity”. What it does is remove the least important percussion hits played by each Track in the Style. A setting of Mid removes some hits and the Low setting removes all but the most essential hits in the groove.

Master Ambience

Ambience is a very high quality surround compatible reverb. Each percussion Track in a Style has it’s own Ambience send amount, set in the Track Mix on the Mix Page (See the Track Mix section of this manual).

All Styles have a light natural Ambience setting already.

< Ambience In Stereo

When Latigo is used in Stereo mode (set in the Main Outputs section of the Setup Page) the dry percussion mix is sent to stereo output 1 and the Ambience signal is sent to stereo output 2 in your host application so you can easily mix .

Support for additional outputs in AudioUnit and RTAS hosts currently depends on the version of the host application being used. To ensure maximum compatibility, the initial version of Latigo only provides a stereo output in AudioUnit or RTAS hosts, and as a result the Front/Rear and Output controls on the Mix page will not function. As soon as AudioUnit and RTAS host updates are available, this functionality will be implemented in Latigo and an update will be released on the Wizoo website.

< Ambience In Surround

In Surround mode (Main Outputs section of the Setup Page) the dry percussion mix and Ambience outputs are combined. Front left and right (wet and dry) go to the ﬁrst stereo output, and rear left and right (wet and dry) go to the second stereo output.

English

Because the Master Ambience is a true surround reverb you will notice that when you move Tracks within the surround panorama, the sound character of the Ambience will change just like in a natural room. For example, if you pan a Track to the left rear corner, the Ambience level and early reﬂections of the Ambience will be more pronounced for that Track in the left rear corner.

All Styles already have a light Ambience but there’s nothing to stop you from adjusting the Ambience to whatever you like. Just select an Ambience type from the drop down list, set the Ambience output level using the Mix control and adjust the length of your Ambience with the Time parameter.

< Ambience Controls

Ambience has three simple and effective parameters.

• Choose the Ambience character from the drop down menu at the bottom of the Ambience feature.

• Set a balance between Ambience and direct signal with the Mix knob.

• Set an Ambience length with the Time parameter.

Master Equalizer

The Master Equalizer is a two band EQ, useful for sweetening your overall mix. As with the Master Dynamics and Ambience, the Master Equalizer is a four channel surround compatible effect.

The Master Equalizer is also applied to the Ambience signal.

Master Dynamics

The Master Dynamics is a high quality compressor that can be applied to control the dynamic range of the stereo and surround channels. To use the Master Dynamics just select one of the three presets from the drop down menu and use the Density control to set the compression amount you would like.

• Fast: The Fast preset maximizes the volume of Tracks while suppressing their attacks.

• Tight: Tight controls the dynamic range of the attack and main body of the percussion instruments in the track equally.

• Slow: Slow accentuates instrument attacks while minimizing un-natural sounding compression artefacts.

English

< Stereo And Surround

In stereo mode the dry percussion mix output and the Ambience stereo output are linked, meaning that when the compressor is reacting to a loud signal in the dry output (for example) the compression character is also reﬂected in the Ambience output.

In surround mode the Dynamics affect all four channels simultaneously, meaning that if the compression reacts to a loud Track in the rear right channel then all other surround channels are also affected.

Latigo • User Guide

+ 23 hidden pages