Pipa

Expressive Vocal Synthesizer

Welcome!
This is the user manual for Pipa, a vocal synthesizer available for iPad (AUv3) and Mac & Windows
(AU/VST3/AAX). It has been designed and developed by Klevgrand, a small studio in Stockholm,
Sweden. This instrument is a crossover between a wavetable synthesizer and a granulating sample
player specialized in generating vocal sounds. Pipa simulates the sound of human voices in a new
way; instead of using ordinary samples or processing oscillators with formant lters, Pipa uses a
large database of wavetables extracted from real vocal samples. The bene t of this technique is
that it’s possible to seamlessly morph between those wavetables with proper phase alignment.
This technique enables Pipa to continuously make transitions between pitch, formants and
dynamics which is very useful in musical contexts.

Get the iOS version at the App Store

Get the AU / VST / AAX version at klevgrand.se

LICENSING (DESKTOP ONLY)

Until unlocked, the plug-in will output 1 second of silence now and then. To unlock the full version,
click the Demo label (bottom left corner) and type/paste your license key.

Note that Pipa consumes quite some CPU - especially on processors with smaller
L2 cache. We recommend that you download the demo and make sure your
system handles the plug-in before purchasing.

klevgrand.se PIPA – DOCS (1/6) © 2020 Klevgränd Produkter AB

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User interface
The main view is divided into 7 different parts:

A. Voice (What voice to be used and how it should sound)

B. LFO/Envelope (How the voice should be altered over time)
C. Reverb, Room & Output
D. Presets
E. Header (Title and setup)

5 11
A. Voice 1
This part of the user interface
handles the setup and sound
of the voice rendering. 6 7
8 9 10 12
1. Voice Type
2 3
Click to choose between
male, female and mixed (male and female depending on pitch).

2. Fluctuation
This parameter controls the internal wavetable players morph speed. A high value makes it
possible to make a quicker change of vowels and dynamics. This can also add some artifacts
when vowels and dynamics are changing. A low value makes the transformations sound a bit more
robotic, but also minimizes these artifacts.

3. Randomness
Adds small random values to pitch and envelope on each note-on event and both voices, if Pipa is
set to two voices. Very useful when using two voices to make it sound as if it is a dub.

4. Number of Voices
Choose between one single voice or two (doubling the note(s) played).

5. Vowel
Sets the initial vowel value. The vowels ranges from a soft O to an open A.

klevgrand.se PIPA – DOCS (2/6) © 2020 Klevgränd Produkter AB

6. Dynamics
Sets the initial dynamic value. A low value is a soft note (pianissimo), and a high value a strong
(forte).

7. Vowel & Dynamics mods

These popups modulate the vowel and dynamics parameters by external input (Ctrl1 and Ctrl2 can
be mapped to any MIDI control change, channel after touch or key tracking). A positive value adds
the modulation value to the parameter, and a negative value subtracts the value.

8. Body
Increase or decrease the fundamental frequency.

9. Nose
Increases or decreases the area around 3kHz of the audio signal.

10.Air
Adds some subtle high frequency noise to the signal to simulate air ow

11.Pan mode / Spatial Width

There are three different ways of spatializing the voices. Click the drop down to choose one of
them. The Spatial Width parameter determines the nal width. The positioning of each voice
happens at note-on, so this parameter won’t pan any ongoing sounds if automated.

Random Pan Pans the voice randomly.

Panorama Pans according to frequency (from left to right)

Dubbing Pan Spreads the voices – one to the left and one to the right.
Only works when number of voices is set to two.

B. LFO / Envelope
7
This section is based on
four tabs: GAIN, PITCH,
6
DYNAMICS, VOWEL. Click
one of these tabs to select
what what LFO and
envelope to control.

1. LFO Range 5
1 2 3 4
Sets the amplitude of the LFO output. This determines by how much
the LFO will affect the selected parameter (gain, pitch, dynamic or vowel).

2. LFO Rate
Sets the frequency of the LFO output.

3. Ctrl1 mod
Sets how much Ctrl1 should affect the LFO range.

klevgrand.se PIPA – DOCS (3/6) © 2020 Klevgränd Produkter AB

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4. Wave selector
Click to reveal a popup of different waveforms that the LFO should output.

5. Envelope (ADSR/AR/WEIGHT)
Interact with the envelope by clicking and dragging. Each envelope has Attack Time, Attack Curve
and Release Curve. Note that the Release Time is shared between all tabs, and the gain envelope
also has a decay and sustain level (those are not available for PITCH, DYNAMICS and VOWEL).

All tabs except gain have a weight parameter. This parameter sets how much of the selected
parameter (pitch, dynamics or vowel) should be affected, both in positive and negative directions.
Dynamics and Vowel weight offers full range, and the pitch weight goes from -2 octaves to +2
octaves.

6. Envelope Attack Mod (vel)

Sets how much the attack time should be affected by velocity. A positive value shortens the attack
time at higher velocities, and a negative value shortens the attack time at lower velocity values.

7. Envelope Release mod (vel)

Sets how much the release time should be affected by velocity. A positive value shortens the
release time at higher velocities, and a negative value shortens the release time at lower velocity
values. Please note that this parameter affects all the envelopes.

C. Reverb, Room & Output

1 5
1. Reverb type selector
There are 6 different reverb algorithms to choose from. 2 6

2. Reverb Level
Sets the gain level of the wet signal. 3

3. Reverb Width 4 7 8
Sets the stereo width.

4. Reverb Size
Sets the size of the simulated space (and decay time).

5. Room type selector

There are 5 different rooms to choose from.

6. Room Level
Sets the gain level of the wet signal.

7. Output Level
Sets the output gain level.

8. Output Mod
This popup modulates the gain level by external input (Ctrl1 and Ctrl2 can be mapped to any MIDI
control change, channel after touch or key tracking). A positive value adds the modulation value to
the parameter, and a negative value subtracts the value. Note that the gain modulation occurs
before both the room and reverb modules in opposite to the output level parameter.

klevgrand.se PIPA – DOCS (4/6) © 2020 Klevgränd Produkter AB

D. Presets
Click on the preset name to reveal a list of factory presets, or on the left/right arrows to step
through the list. The factory presets are divided into 6 categories and contains a wide selection of
patches that works great as is, but also as a starting point for further tweaking.

General A set of natural sounding sounds in different avours and variations.

These patches are softer and meant to sound organic and musical, but not
Pads
necessarily human.
Different transitions between formants and dynamics that renders a couple of
Vocal effects
pronunciations.
All these patches are in legato mode and meant to be used as melody/lead
Leads
sounds.

Experimental The more edgier and unexpected set of patches.

Basics Static vowels. Good to have as a starting point when creating new patches.

1 2 3
E. Header
SETUP
This popup sets how external input should be
handled and processed within the plugin. 4 5

CTRL 1 / CTRL 2
These two modulators can be used to affect 6

various parameters like vowel, dynamics, gain, 7 8

pitch and LFO range.

1. Source
Click to select what Ctrl1 / Ctrl2 should be mapped to.

2. Learn
All MIDI CC’s are not available in the Source list. If you’d like to use some other MIDI CC, this
function can be handy. Click to start learning mode and then send a MIDI CC to the plugin (the
Learn button will change back to normal state as soon as a MIDI CC event is received, and the
Source will update).

3. Attack
Sets the smoothness of changes when new values are sent.

4. Pitch Bend Range

Number of semitones. From 1 to 24.

5. Pitch Bend Attack

Sets the smoothness of changes when new values are sent.

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 6. Legato Switch
If set to ON (green) Pipa will be in legato mode, only playing one note at a time.

7. Legato Pitch Glide Time

Time for the pitch to alter to the next tone (assuming it was played when another note was down).

8. Legato Velocity Glide Time

Time for the velocity value to alter when a new note-on is sent (assuming it was played when
another note was down).

Signal Flow
Vowel parameter Dynamics parameter Pitch (MIDI note on)

Weight ENV Weight ENV Weight ENV ENV (gain)

Ctrl1 LFO Ctrl1 LFO Ctrl1 LFO LFO Ctrl1

MODS MODS MODS MODS

Ctrl1 Ctrl1 Ctrl1 Ctrl1
Ctrl2 Ctrl2 Ctrl2 Ctrl2
Velocity Velocity Velocity Velocity

FILTERS
Body
Synthesizer AMP
Nose
Air

Male
Female Wavetable database Room
Mixed

Output gain Reverb

Speci cations / System requirements

Mac Windows iOS
64 bit AU/VST3/AAX plug-in 64 bit VST3/AAX plug-in AUv3 plug-in
macOS 10.9+ Windows 7+ iPad Air 2 or better
OpenGL SP1 or higher iOS 9.1+

klevgrand.se PIPA – DOCS (6/6) © 2020 Klevgränd Produkter AB

VST and VST3 are trademarks of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. AAX is a trademark of Avid Technology, Inc. AU and Audio Units are trademarks of Apple Inc.
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