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PRESS RELEASE

NUSofting Releases Reed Organ VSTi

August 04, 2004

Peti
(Click for a close-up)

NUSofting announced their newest softsynth, Peti, for VSTi-compatible Windows hosts. In the tradition of the company's HarpTime, Peti is designed to emulate a family of real musical instruments commonly used in folk and ethnic music. This time, NUSofting have concentrated on emulating the family of instruments that includes the harmonium and the accordion.

Peti is a VSTi which uses hybrid FM synthesis technology, and it was developed primarily to emulate the sounds of the Harmonium, a member of the Reed Organ family, which is also known as the "pump organ". The Harmonium, in its smaller form, is widely used in north Indian music, and its full, sweet sound is often used in in pop and rock music, but Peti is not limited to this instrument alone.

Peti is also capable of emulating a wide variety of reed organ variants, and can model timbres which resemble the many instruments in this family, ranging from from accordions to pipe organs, and even the melodica often used in reggae dub music.

Peti was designed to allow the user complete control over a simulated Bellows mechanism, with 11 different modes providing 'automatic' or 'manual' pumping, with appropriate modulation of the sound-generation engine's parameters.

It also features two separate 'reed bank' simulators, allowing it to create the widest possible range of reed organ timbres via its sophisticated hybrid-synthesis system. Peti's sound engine is also capable of emulating other key features of the Harmonium, including the body resonance of the instrument itself, the noise of air in the bellows and chambers, a 'musette' tremolo feature, and 'key coupling', which traditionally allows a single note to trigger two voices. Peti also provides full MIDI Learn capability for each of its controls.

A demo version is available for download.

Features:

Reed Banks 1 & 2 Controls - There are two Reed Banks modelled in Peti, with the same parameters available independently for each Bank. These Reed Banks are responsible for the basic timbre of the instrument. However Peti has been modelled such that the two Reed Banks are not identical, and swapping settings between Bank 1 and Bank 2 may change the overall sound.

The Parameters available for each Reed Bank are:

  • Brighter: Adds more high frequencies in the timbre.
  • Harmonics: Two different harmonic 'flavours' for each Reed Bank.
  • Modulation: This parameter controls the overall amount of harmonics added.

Global Controls

  • Resonance: How much physical resonance is modelled to simulate the wooden body of the Harmonium.
  • Chorus: The effect which is often called 'musette' or 'tremolo' in accordian terminology.
  • Ratio: Changes the pitch difference between the two Reed Banks.
  • Breath: Controls the amount of 'air noise'.
  • Keys: Controls the amount of keyboard noise simulated,
  • Volume: The output level of Peti.
  • Pitch: The master fine-tuning setting.
  • Velocity Sensivity: Allows you to adjust the instrument's response to MIDI velocity.
  • MaxVoices: Sets the polyphony of Peti, from 1 (mono legato) to 16.
  • Keyboard Coupler: This control emulates a mechanical 'coupler' which is found in some Harmoniums. It causes two notes to be played simultaneously by one key, with an interval which may be set to an octave, a fourth, or a fifth.
  • Scale Changer: Shifts the keyboard pitch up to 5 semitones up or down. This allows the player to change key but retain the same fingering, e.g. to play Eb major scale all on white keys.

For more information, visit their web site at http://nusofting.liqihsynth.com/.

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