Breath

Breath is a per-note humanizer. It adds the small, correlated movements that a human player puts into a sustained note: a slow drift in pitch and tone, a swell in volume, a gentle vibrato, and a short bend into tune at the start of the note.

All of it is driven by one shared effort signal per note, so the movements stay correlated. Pitch, filter and volume rise and fall together rather than drifting independently.

Breath is off by default. Existing presets are unchanged until you raise one of the depth controls.

Controls

The Breath section has eight controls. Four are depth controls that switch parts of the feature on. The other four shape the result.

Breath Depth. The master amount for the shared breath signal. At its lowest the breath signal does nothing. As you raise it, the note drifts slightly sharp, the filter opens a little, and the volume swells, all together. This is the main control.

Breath Rate. How quickly the breath signal wanders. Lower settings give a slow, broad swell suited to pads. Higher settings give a more restless motion.

Breath Noise. How uneven the breath contour is. Turned down, the breath is a smooth rise. Turned up, it adds an irregular shimmer, so no two notes move in quite the same way.

Vibrato Depth. The depth of the dedicated vibrato. Turned down there is no vibrato. The vibrato fades in over the first moments of the note rather than starting abruptly.

Vibrato Rate. The base speed of the vibrato. The actual speed rises a little as the breath signal rises, so the vibrato quickens when the note leans in.

Amp>Pitch. Couples loudness to pitch. Voices and acoustic instruments go slightly sharp when louder, and this control adds that. A few cents is enough.

Attack Bend. A short pitch bend at the start of the note that settles into tune. Turned one way the note starts flat and rises into pitch, the common behaviour of a plucked string or a sung note. Turned the other way it starts sharp. At the centre there is no bend.

Attack Bend Time. How long the attack bend takes to settle.

Notes

Breath Depth, Vibrato Depth, Amp>Pitch and Attack Bend each work independently. You can use the attack bend on a short pluck without any of the slower breath movement, or use the breath swell on a pad without vibrato.

For a legato or slurred note the attack bend is skipped and the vibrato stays continuous, so a tied phrase does not re-bend on every note.

Presets using Breath

Breath is set up in several factory presets: the pads (Warm Pad, Warm Horizon, Sunrise Chord, Ethereal Texture, Ethereal Shimmer), the leads (Bright Lead, Bloom Lead, Euro Saw Lead, Pulsar Lead, Detuned Saw Pluck Lead, Screaming Lead), Synth Guitar, FM Keys, and First Light. Load one and open the Breath section to see typical settings.