# A great tip for cross fading two patches on the same channel in kontact



## macavalon (Apr 18, 2021)

I've recently been interested in realitone sunset strings... which allows you cross fade two string layers in one patch.. to give a pretty cool effect... and also really simple articulation swap/blending

But then I spotted a great tip/technique by Marc Jovani.

Basically you load two patches say a legato and sustain (but could be anything) on same midi channel.
Then using the kontact amplifier module, add a modulator linked to a fader for 1st patch... and do the same for the 2nd patch, but invert it on the 2nd.
And voila...

probably best to watch his video to get the full setup... but this is pretty sweet


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## Markrs (Apr 18, 2021)

Very nice tip. I have done the same thing in Reaper and also in Unify. You can also modulate between 2 or more layers in Unify. So if you have a sound/articulation made of several libraries you can still modulate that to another sound/articulation.

Using either musikraken on iOS/android feeding into the computer or using a leap motion with midipaw I can do quite a few transitions such as cross-fading between sul pont / detached / sul tasto and also on each with flautando, vibrato on detache (I was testing with BBCSO and none of the other articulations have vibrato), whilst also controlling mod and expression separately, all just using one hand and a few motions. 

I have no idea if this causes phasing as they crossfeed as I have only tested doing this for fun, rather than for a project. You can also do this without crossfeed and have it just switch to the next articulation, but I prefer crossfeeding.


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## macavalon (Apr 19, 2021)

Markrs said:


> Very nice tip. I have done the same thing in Reaper and also in Unify. You can also modulate between 2 or more layers in Unify. So if you have a sound/articulation made of several libraries you can still modulate that to another sound/articulation.
> 
> Using either musikraken on iOS/android feeding into the computer or using a leap motion with midipaw I can do quite a few transitions such as cross-fading between sul pont / detached / sul tasto and also on each with flautando, vibrato on detache (I was testing with BBCSO and none of the other articulations have vibrato), whilst also controlling mod and expression separately, all just using one hand and a few motions.
> 
> I have no idea if this causes phasing as they crossfeed as I have only tested doing this for fun, rather than for a project. You can also do this without crossfeed and have it just switch to the next articulation, but I prefer crossfeeding.


Thanks Mark I didn't know about Unify !


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## Reid Rosefelt (Apr 19, 2021)

Markrs said:


> Very nice tip. I have done the same thing in Reaper and also in Unify. You can also modulate between 2 or more layers in Unify. So if you have a sound/articulation made of several libraries you can still modulate that to another sound/articulation.
> 
> Using either musikraken on iOS/android feeding into the computer or using a leap motion with midipaw I can do quite a few transitions such as cross-fading between sul pont / detached / sul tasto and also on each with flautando, vibrato on detache (I was testing with BBCSO and none of the other articulations have vibrato), whilst also controlling mod and expression separately, all just using one hand and a few motions.
> 
> I have no idea if this causes phasing as they crossfeed as I have only tested doing this for fun, rather than for a project. You can also do this without crossfeed and have it just switch to the next articulation, but I prefer crossfeeding.


Mark, how do you do that in Unify?


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## KarlHeinz (Apr 19, 2021)

TigerTheFrog said:


> Mark, how do you do that in Unify?


Would be interested in that answer too  . Had thought about it since there was a question about "morph" between patches on kvr and I thought it should be possible in Unify but I have no idea how


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## olvra (Apr 19, 2021)

Not that _great a _tip considering it's limited (not possible on locked patches) and slower than the Automation tab.

View attachment kontakt-2_patch_xfade.mp4


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## Markrs (Apr 19, 2021)

olvra said:


> Not that _great a _tip considering it's limited (not possible on locked patches) and slower than the Automation tab.
> 
> View attachment kontakt-2_patch_xfade.mp4


The patch was balanced in the video so he didn't want to affect that, so looked to automate the amp area inside the articulations


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## Markrs (Apr 19, 2021)

macavalon said:


> Thanks Mark I didn't know about Unify !


Unify is a fantastic product, easily worth the cost.



KarlHeinz said:


> Would be interested in that answer too  . Had thought about it since there was a question about "morph" between patches on kvr and I thought it should be possible in Unify but I have no idea how





TigerTheFrog said:


> Mark, how do you do that in Unify?


It is very easy, I will see what I can do to demo it. I also have a feature request in with Shane (@getdunne) so that you can switch layer by CC and keyswitches in the future. This means you can fully layer and balance your articulations and then call them with an articulation manager.


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## jbuhler (Apr 19, 2021)

Markrs said:


> It is very easy, I will see what I can do to demo it. I also have a feature request in with Shane (@getdunne) so that you can switch layer by CC and keyswitches in the future. This means you can fully layer and balance your articulations and then call them with an articulation manager.


I haven't done this in Unify in a while, but I recall doing two libraries was fairly trivial (you just connect volume for each instrument to a controller and invert one of the libraries), but more than two is harder since you have to make more decisions about crossfading and its hard to do precision editing of the curves. I've been hoping for XY pads in Unify and put in a request for them, just to do this kind of morphing more easily.


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## Markrs (Apr 19, 2021)

jbuhler said:


> I haven't done this in Unify in a while, but I recall doing two libraries was fairly trivial (you just connect volume for each instrument to a controller and invert one of the libraries), but more than two is harder since you have to make more decisions about crossfading and its hard to do precision editing of the curves. I've been hoping for XY pads in Unify and put in a request for them, just to do this kind of morphing more easily.


Yep, do more than 2 is trickier. On the leap motion I had a hand twist assigned to sul pont, moving into detached, then into sul tasto and then back again. If you turned you hand up the detache went into vibrato and if it went down it went to flautando. The last bit couldn't get to work consistently as it needed to cross-fade into flautando but that often clashed with the previous cross-fades.


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## Markrs (Apr 19, 2021)

jbuhler said:


> I haven't done this in Unify in a while, but I recall doing two libraries was fairly trivial (you just connect volume for each instrument to a controller and invert one of the libraries), but more than two is harder since you have to make more decisions about crossfading and its hard to do precision editing of the curves. I've been hoping for XY pads in Unify and put in a request for them, just to do this kind of morphing more easily.


An iOS/android app I use called musikraken has added a XY pad, but you can send quite a bit more than that. Just need to try and hook it up to some CC parameters.


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## jbuhler (Apr 19, 2021)

Markrs said:


> An iOS/android app I use called musikraken has added a XY pad, but you can send quite a bit more than that. Just need to try and hook it up to some CC parameters.


I have musikraken, though I haven't had time to explore it very thoroughly yet.


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## Markrs (Apr 19, 2021)

jbuhler said:


> I have musikraken, though I haven't had time to explore it very thoroughly yet.


At the moment I mainly use it within iOS, but for the money it is a fantastic app. Worth having a play with


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## Markrs (Apr 19, 2021)

Markrs said:


> Yep, do more than 2 is trickier. On the leap motion I had a hand twist assigned to sul pont, moving into detached, then into sul tasto and then back again. If you turned you hand up the detache went into vibrato and if it went down it went to flautando. The last bit couldn't get to work consistently as it needed to cross-fade into flautando but that often clashed with the previous cross-fades.


I should say I did this as an experiment to try to recreate the flexibility of physically modeled instruments. I don't know how often you would want to be able to crossfeed between these type of articulations rather than just switching to them using expression maps.

If anyone does this volume balancing can be tricky to when crossfeed as the volume wants to naturally drop between the 2 articulations, so you have to play with the volume curves to get it right.


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