# Resources for learning Falcon



## Br0Haha (Oct 24, 2021)

*The following list is non-exhaustive *(though it could lead to exhaustion, due to sleep deprivation). 
Video Speed Controller is a useful extension for Chrome or Firefox; it makes it easy to arbitrarily speed up or slow down video streams.

UVI Falcon 2 Explained
There's an earlier Falcon tutorial as well, also by Eli. Haven't checked it out.
_BTW - Groove 3 is a great resource. Keep an eye out for possible Black Friday sales on annual subscriptions_
The Falcon manual has three useful tutorials. Search for _*'Learning Falcon'*_
UVI Falcon: The Video Manual
Includes a brief scripting overview. The site allows 5 free previews.
UVI's Falcon Tutorials on Youtube
Simon Stockhausen's tutorials on Youtube


----------



## muziksculp (Oct 28, 2021)

Also, MacPro Video Falcon 2, The Video Manual :

https://www.macprovideo.com/course/uvi-falcon-the-video-manual?afid=16kw2PH4NR


----------



## cedricm (Oct 28, 2021)

The UVI tutorials are created by Dan Worrall: they may be old but are fantastic, if dense.
See also:
Falcontinuum


----------



## libreg (Nov 1, 2021)

There's a detailed and clear Falcon tutorial by a Youtuber called aikelab. It shows how to create a sampled instrument and then build the interface with Lua scripting. The link is here:


----------



## Br0Haha (Nov 1, 2021)

Marula Music - Falcon
Venus Theory Falcon


liquidlino said:


> Marula music and Venus Theory have several falcon videos worth watching too on YouTube. Packed full of tips and tricks.


----------



## Br0Haha (Nov 1, 2021)

Here's another cool Falcon video. Not a tutorial, per se, but there's a lot of useful information here:
UVI Falcon And Friends, Benn Jordan

Benn has a fascinating channel and touches on a lot of other cool tangential, related, and all sorts of other interesting videos: 40-minute video on Pianteq, How To Levitate Stuff With Sound etc.


----------



## Br0Haha (Nov 1, 2021)

Quanta has some good Falcon tutorials.


----------



## Pier (Nov 11, 2021)

Das Glitch also has a couple of Falcon videos.


----------



## easyrider (Nov 11, 2021)

Falconry Award Course - preparing you for the Raptor Award qualification


Our exciting Beginning Falconry Award course spans four days covering bird of prey management and husbandry has the option of an assessment to achieve the National Raptor Award.




www.hawk-conservancy.org


----------



## SteffenPL (Nov 17, 2021)

I think the cwmodular tutorial wasn't mentioned yet:





UVI Falcon


UVI Falcon indepth guide




www.cwmodular.org





These notes are in some aspects more detailed than the manual, for example, they contain many pictures of waveforms for the various oscillators with different settings (PWM/PWM2+ etc):





Synth Oscillators


S|C Modular site with hundreds of modules for the S|C Scope platform.




www.cwmodular.org


----------



## R. Naroth (Nov 17, 2021)

libreg said:


> There's a detailed and clear Falcon tutorial by a Youtuber called aikelab. It shows how to create a sampled instrument and then build the interface with Lua scripting. The link is here:



Thanks, this answers so many questions I had about custom sample instruments. This is really where Falcon shines.


----------



## Br0Haha (Nov 20, 2021)

SteffenPL said:


> I think the cwmodular tutorial wasn't mentioned yet:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's a great resource. Thanks!


----------



## estevancarlos (Feb 10, 2022)

I created a tutorial on the UI design aspect








GitHub - estevancarlos/uvi-falcon-scripts


Contribute to estevancarlos/uvi-falcon-scripts development by creating an account on GitHub.




github.com


----------



## gnapier (Apr 17, 2022)

libreg said:


> There's a detailed and clear Falcon tutorial by a Youtuber called aikelab. It shows how to create a sampled instrument and then build the interface with Lua scripting. The link is here:



This is a brilliant video. Thanks for posting the link.


----------



## Br0Haha (Apr 22, 2022)

cedricm said:


> The UVI tutorials are created by Dan Worrall: they may be old but are fantastic, if dense.
> See also:
> Falcontinuum


Here's a link to Dan Worrall's Falcon videos playlist, on his own Youtube channel:
UVI Falcon


----------



## tressie5 (Apr 25, 2022)

Having used Falcon for a few months now, I can see why some people keep a good distance away from it. It's fairly daunting, sitting somewhere between a regular synth/sampler and modular system. I've been itching to dive into hardware modular for some time now, but since I'm as poor as a church mouse, I'll have to settle for SoloRack, Hyperion, and others of that ilk.


----------



## cedricm (Apr 25, 2022)

Falcon's extensive learning curve is the price to pay for its extraordinary flexibility and extended capabilities: most other synths are all very similar with 2, sometimes more oscillators.

Also, a big screen is highly recommended to resize its windows, especially vertically.

I'm beginning to get confident after spending time recreating presets from other synths into Falcon.


----------



## Bee_Abney (Apr 26, 2022)

Weirdly, for a simple soul with little synth experience, I find that Falcon is one of the easiest synths I have ever learned to use. Of course, I'm using it in a way that is much more basic than the advanced programming that others are doing; but the simplicity of picking this oscillator, that filter, those effects, is delightful.

Trying to get envelopes to work where I want them is not delightful, however! If Pigments sounded as good to me as Falcon does, I might use that more.

A lot of the speed with Falcon for me comes from its great range and quality of effects. As I often start with a sample, with other samplers I have to do more processing in advance of importing the sample. With Falcon, I can do much of that processing internally as I'm shaping the patch. But those effects are very useful when applied to a synthetic oscillator too.


----------



## cedricm (Apr 26, 2022)

Bee_Abney said:


> Weirdly, for a simple soul with little synth experience, I find that Falcon is one of the easiest synths I have ever learned to use. Of course, I'm using it in a way that is much more basic than the advanced programming that others are doing; but the simplicity of picking this oscillator, that filter, those effects, is delightful.
> 
> Trying to get envelopes to work where I want them is not delightful, however! If Pigments sounded as good to me as Falcon does, I might use that more.
> 
> A lot of the speed with Falcon for me comes from its great range and quality of effects. As I often start with a sample, with other samplers I have to do more processing in advance of importing the sample. With Falcon, I can do much of that processing internally as I'm shaping the patch. But those effects are very useful when applied to a synthetic oscillator too.


Bee,

I don't know if this helps, but I complained to UVI about the Analog ADSR, which is used as the default Amp envelope for about half of the synth-type oscillators, because attack can't go under 100 us, and because its release is much longer than the value you type.

Their answer makes sense. The aim is to mimic an analogic envelope, so no 0 ms attack, and the release scale is based on the RC convention.

TLDR: when I need a very short attack or a precise release, I switch the Analog ADSR for the Digital AHDSR.


----------



## Bee_Abney (Apr 26, 2022)

cedricm said:


> Bee,
> 
> I don't know if this helps, but I complained to UVI about the Analog ADSR, which is used as the default Amp envelope, because attack can't go under 100 us, and because its release is much longer than the value you type.
> 
> ...



That's actually extremely helpful, thankyou. UVI are good at knowing what they doing, even if it isn't always easy to work out what that is!


----------



## Br0Haha (Apr 26, 2022)

tressie5 said:


> Having used Falcon for a few months now, I can see why some people keep a good distance away from it. It's fairly daunting, sitting somewhere between a regular synth/sampler and modular system. I've been itching to dive into hardware modular for some time now, but since I'm as poor as a church mouse, I'll have to settle for SoloRack, Hyperion, and others of that ilk.


Falcon's definitely deep, and wide. I've still got so much to learn... but the 'ah ha' moments and the awesomeness of so many of the soundbanks keeps it at the very top of my favorites list. *Triple Spiral* has a couple of nice offering for Falcons. New Loop's *Alive* is also worth checking out. There's much to be learned by dissecting various Falcon presets/programs and parts... learning from the approaches others have taken.

There's much to be said for modular. *Cherry Audio* has some great modular offerings, at affordable prices, on sale, etc. Dreamsynth is definitely cool.

Speaking of modular, the latest SoundOnSound magazine, (May 2022), has a profile on the artist known as Scanner. Though his modular platform is Eurorack, and hardware tends to be inherently more expensive than software, the cost of a *SoundOnSound digital subscription* is super-affordable, even on a 'church mouse' budget: It's free. Excellent magazine. Always a good read.


----------



## cedricm (Apr 26, 2022)

I got Voltage Modular a year or two ago, but I haven't fallen under the spell of modular synths yet.


----------



## Br0Haha (Apr 26, 2022)

cedricm said:


> I got Voltage Modular a year or two ago, but I haven't fallen under the spell of modular synths yet.


I enjoy modular synths that already have a lot of presets in place, such as Arturia's Modular V3. Arturia's soft synths feature a lot of cool recreations of synth-based sounds from various classic albums. Nice starting points... fast gratification, etc. Of course, I'm spoiled, by working with Falcon.

I suppose one can learn a lot about sound design by developing the discipline of developing modular presets from scratch. On the other hand, doing so reminds me of building a car from a Heathkit, on some level.

I bought Voltage Modular during a PA_ext sale, assuming that using it to work through Venus Theory's VM tutorial would be worth the price of admission. A great 'rainy day' plan... Unfortunately, rainy days are far too few and far between, in California, of late.


----------



## liquidlino (Apr 26, 2022)

cedricm said:


> I got Voltage Modular a year or two ago, but I haven't fallen under the spell of modular synths yet.


VM sounds great and is fun to use, especially with the PSP modules pack. However, it is definitely time-intensive. I haven't taken a break from learning mixing, composition and music theory for a few months, but one day I'll get back to playing with sound design I'm sure. VM sounds more "authentic analog" than Falcon (I have both). But Falcon is easier and faster. Different strokes. But at the moment I'm preset browsing in Pigments and Falcon (11k presets in vintage vault 3 alone!)


----------



## cedricm (Apr 26, 2022)

liquidlino said:


> VM sounds great and is fun to use, especially with the PSP modules pack. However, it is definitely time-intensive. I haven't taken a break from learning mixing, composition and music theory for a few months, but one day I'll get back to playing with sound design I'm sure. VM sounds more "authentic analog" than Falcon (I have both). But Falcon is easier and faster. Different strokes. But at the moment I'm preset browsing in Pigments and Falcon (11k presets in vintage vault 3 alone!)


I don't know about that. Dune 3 is heralded as a great sounding synth. I reproduced Dune 3 presets in Falcon and to my ears, they sound the same.
But yes, some sounds are easier to recreate in other synths than in Falcon, such as the grittiness of Diva's Moog-like filter. At least until I found the right way to emulate them.


----------



## liquidlino (Apr 27, 2022)

cedricm said:


> I don't know about that. Dune 3 is heralded as a great sounding synth. I reproduced Dune 3 presets in Falcon and to my ears, they sound the same.
> But yes, some sounds are easier to recreate in other synths than in Falcon, such as the grittiness of Diva's Moog-like filter. At least until I found the right way to emulate them.


Agree - I've recreated Spire, Dune3, Serum, Vital presets in Falcon and they all sound pretty much the same. However, none of those I would say are actually "analog" synths in the same way as VM... there's something about how saturated and muffly VM sounds in comparison, it doesn't have that digital crispness. But it's all very minor and lost in a mix anyway to my hearing (maybe I'm not attuned yet to the subtleties of physical vs hardware, but even pros like HZ use soft synths more than real synths).


----------



## Bee_Abney (Apr 27, 2022)

Falcon isn't the instrument I'd pick to play analog synth samples, let alone to use its analog oscillators, if I wanted to recreate an analog hardware sound. I find it can help to get it to blend in some contexts if you add a separate saturation plugin. But I like the way Falcon sounds as it is, or with external saturation. It has a sense of power to it, like Kevin Conroy's Batman voice.

Admittedly, I don't attach much value to my opinions about what sounds analog and what doesn't.

Quick side topic. If one had to be described as digital and the other as analog, which way round would you describe Batman and Superman? There is a correct answer.*


*There is no correct answer.


----------



## cedricm (Apr 27, 2022)

The analog vs digital debate is mostly based on non-audio components of our perception, which may affect our listening, since, after all, we have a brain and we have feelings.

From a purely audio perspective, the Shannon Sampling Theorem proves an analog signal can be perfectly translated in digital numbers as long as the sampling rate is at least twice the highest frequency component of the signal to be sampled, aka 44.1 kHz for the vast majority of humans (and in fact less, since high frequency hearing deteriorates quickly with age).

But yes, it's much quicker to get to certain sounds with one synth than with another one. If time and budget were infinite, the most productive process could be to own all available virtual synths


----------



## Bee_Abney (Apr 27, 2022)

cedricm said:


> the most productive process [is most definitely] to own all available virtual synths


I'm on it.


----------



## Br0Haha (Apr 28, 2022)

liquidlino said:


> Agree - I've recreated Spire, Dune3, Serum, Vital presets in Falcon and they all sound pretty much the same. However, none of those I would say are actually "analog" synths in the same way as VM... there's something about how saturated and muffly VM sounds in comparison, it doesn't have that digital crispness. But it's all very minor and lost in a mix anyway to my hearing (maybe I'm not attuned yet to the subtleties of physical vs hardware, but even pros like HZ use soft synths more than real synths).


HZ?


----------



## Bee_Abney (Apr 28, 2022)

Br0Haha said:


> HZ?



Hans Zimmer. U-he developed the Dark Zebra soundset and synth variant with him for Dark Knight.

A lot of people now use Dark Zebra, also known as ZebraHZ, instead of the standard version of Zebra2.

He's used it a lot since then, apparently.


----------



## liquidlino (Apr 28, 2022)

Br0Haha said:


> HZ?


The right honorable Mr Zimmer.


----------



## Br0Haha (Apr 29, 2022)

Bee_Abney said:


> Hans Zimmer. U-he developed the Dark Zebra soundset and synth variant with him for Dark Knight.
> 
> A lot of people now use Dark Zebra, also known as ZebraHZ, instead of the standard version of Zebra2.
> 
> He's used it a lot since then, apparently.


Mais oui! Seems quite cool. Checking that out... I'm starting to get a better sense of what is meant when certain libraries are described as cinematic, useful for scoring, etc.


----------



## Bee_Abney (Apr 29, 2022)

Br0Haha said:


> Mais oui! Seems quite cool. Checking that out... I'm starting to get a better sense of what is meant when certain libraries are described as cinematic, useful for scoring, etc.



Zebra works extremely well with orchestral instruments. Something in it's texture. And it can do a lot of different sounds.


----------



## Sampleconstruct (Jun 21, 2022)

There is always our website falcontinuum.com with plenty of articles and tips on sound design in Falcon.


----------



## oeholmen (Oct 27, 2022)

Sampleconstruct said:


> There is always our website falcontinuum.com with plenty of articles and tips on sound design in Falcon.


Learned a lot from that site!


----------



## Bee_Abney (Oct 27, 2022)

oeholmen said:


> Learned a lot from that site!


Yes, thanks, I need to look there more often!


----------



## Br0Haha (Dec 5, 2022)

Liquidlino created a post which includes his first tutorial Falcon. It's really good: *Liquidlino UVI Falcon Tutorial 1 - The Basics*


----------

