Steinberg Hypersonic User Manual

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Quickstart
Getting started with Hypersonic 2 is simple – this isn’t an instrument 
that takes years of study before you can start playing. If you’re impatient, 
click around and you’ll likely figure out most of it. If you need some sup-
port taking the first steps with Hypersonic 2 read the following tutorial.
Hypersonic 2 must be loaded, receiving MIDI, and outputting audio prior 
to starting the tutorial.
Loading your first patch
Suppose you get a brilliant idea for a song based on an electric piano 
figure – and you need a perfect electric piano sound, right now. No 
problem:
1.Click on part 1 (corresponding to MIDI channel 1) so it becomes 
highlighted.
2.Click the Load button right next to the display area.
Alternatively, you can simply double-click an empty part slot. The Display area will auto-
matically switch to display the Load page.
3.Click into the text entry field (top row), type “electric piano,” and hit 
[Return]. Hypersonic 2 will find all electric piano patches.
4.Select “Vintage Electric Piano” by double-clicking it. This loads it into 
the part you selected in Step 1.
If you have Hypersonic 2 running in a host with MIDI record function, 
why don’t you record a couple of bars right now.
You may alternatively check the bank/patch selector of your host’s MIDI 
track. If it complies fully to the VST 2.0 standard, you can browse and se-
lect your Hypersonic 2 patches directly from within the track.  
						

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Linking parts
In the next step you probably want to underlay the electric piano with 
a wide, soft pad. Easy:
1.Click the arrow to the left of the patch name in part 2.
Now part 2 corresponds to the MIDI channel of part 1.
2.Select part 2 – otherwise the electric piano would get replaced by 
your new selection.
Every part corresponds to the particular MIDI channel – part 2 to MIDI 
channel 2 – unless you link it to the previous part.
3.This time, we’ll select a patch directly from the browser: Scroll the list 
in the display area so you can see the “Soft Pads” bank.
4.To open it, double-click on the arrow.
5.Double-click a couple of pads until you find one you like.
Now when you play the electric piano part, the pad doubles it.  
						

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Tweaking a sound
Let’s say you want less key-off noise, yet more phasing, in the electric 
piano, and you want the pad to fade in and out more slowly. Welcome 
to Hyperknobs!
1.Highlight part 1 (electric piano). The Hyperknob labels match the con-
trols you’d expect on an electric piano.
2.For less electric piano key-off noise, drag-click knob 1 (Note Off 
Level) a bit to the left.
3.For more phasing, turn up knob 5 (Phaser) a bit.
4.To change the pad’s fade time, highlight part 2. Now the Hyperknobs 
turn into pad controls.
5.Turn up knobs 5 and 6 (Attack, Release) as desired.
Click the Edit button to open the Edit page and take a look. There are 
more parameters, but we’ll come to these later.
Checking polyphony
You can use the Level strip for metering. Turn the light blue bars into 
displays for audio level, polyphony, or velocity:
1.Click the meter strip’s “Level” label.
2.It changes to “Polyphony”.
3.The meters turn into meters for polyphony. Play some chords and 
check the polyphony of both piano and pad.
Note that the polyphony meter in part 2 (pad) increases after playing a 
couple of chords. This is due to the pad’s long release time, where 
notes continue to decay after new notes are sounded.  
						

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Create a key split/crossfade
Now let’s assign the pad chords to the lower key range, and solo with 
the electric piano on the upper range.
1.Select the MIDI page.
2.Set the left key range limit for part 1 to C3 by hold-dragging the 
mouse over the value.
3.Set the right key range limit for part 2 to B2. 
4.Click on the hyphen between the two note limits of a part and choose 
crossfade range +6 for both parts from the pop-up menu. This cross-
fades notes around the split point rather than creating a hard split.
5.Transpose part 2 up by one octave by setting the Semi parameter to 
+12.
For a velocity switch, reset the key ranges to their original values and 
use the Vel Range parameters accordingly.  
						

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Adding a drumloop
Hypersonic 2’s drumloops can also serve as drum kits because they’re 
“sliced” at the various hits, and the slices are mapped across the key-
board.
1.Select part 3, use the search function to find the patch “Tite Room 
Funk”, and load it.
2.Play the note C4. The loop plays in sync with your song. If you like, 
record a bar or two as a backing groove.
Note that if you play a key between F2 and G#8, the loop changes its 
pitch but the tempo remains constant.
3.Now play chromatically from C1 up to D2 and beyond. Get the idea?
When Hypersonic 2 auto-plays the loop, it internally plays this range at the tempo of 
the host software.
4.Choose any other loop and play C4. Change your host’s tempo; the 
drumloops always sync to the host tempo.
5.Get creative with the Hyperknobs and tweak the loops.
You should now be able to try your own first steps with Hypersonic 2. If 
this isn’t enough for you and you want to become a “power user”, take a 
closer look at the following, detailed sections in this manual. 
						

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User interface
Read the following and click around the user interface to get used to 
the most common controls in Hypersonic 2.
Changing values
Knobs and sliders
There are three types of controllers in Hypersonic 2: six virtual hard-
ware knobs (Hyperknobs) on the main interface, LCD knobs and slid-
ers in the display area. To set them:
•Clicking on a knob position sets the value to that position. To turn a knob, 
click and drag the mouse vertically or horizontally. This also applies for sliders.
•Sliders can be bidirectional, the default setting is the middle position. From 
there you can drag bipolar sliders to positive (right) or negative (left) values.
Knob behavior may vary according to preference settings in your host.
Alphanumeric values
Alphanumeric values (such as values, note numbers) appear in the 
display area only. To edit them:
•To decrease a value by one discrete step, click the value. To increase 
by one discrete step right-click(Win)/[Ctrl]-click (Mac) the value. Hold 
[Shift] when clicking or right-clicking for larger intervals (e.g. octaves, 
increments of 10).
•Click and drag up and down for bigger changes. Hold [Shift] for fine-
tuning.
•[Ctrl]-click (Win)/[Command]-click (Mac) to set knobs to default values.   
						

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Selectable values
Sometimes a parameter has a selection of options rather than alpha-
numerical values. In this case: 
•Click on the value field to open a pop-up menu, and select a value.
Use of modifier keys when changing values
•[Shift]-click generally enables fine-tuning mode (slows down value changes).
•A click with the [Ctrl] (Win)/[Command] (Mac) key pressed resets the knob to 
its default value.
•[Alt]-click changes knob’s behavior from circular to linear.
Assigning MIDI Controllers
You can assign many of the features of Hypersonic 2 to MIDI control-
lers for automation or real-time control via, for example, the knobs of 
your MIDI keyboard. There are two ways to do this:
1.Right-click the parameter, then click “CC” and choose a controller 
number from the drop-down list.
2.Right-click the parameter, select Learn and move the desired knob or 
controller on your MIDI keyboard or sequencer host. Hypersonic 2 will 
“learn” (set this MIDI controller to) the parameter you have chosen.
•To unload the MIDI assignment right-click the parameter and choose 
“Forget”.   
						

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Editing text
There are three areas where you will want to change text: patch names 
in the Part area, Hyperknob names and patch comments in the Hyper 
display. 
•To edit text, just double-click it and edit, or enter new text.
You can copy and paste text from any text field to another.
Using the MIDI keyboard
The keyboard in Hypersonic 2 has all the obvious functions of an on-
screen keyboard, along with a couple of “under the hood” goodies.
MIDI note display
The keyboard displays notes received on the currently highlighted 
part channel.
Playing notes
The MIDI keyboard “sends” data to the currently highlighted patch. 
Use this feature to quickly check out parts without having to re-assign 
your hardware MIDI keyboard.
•Click on a key to play the corresponding note. 
The keyboard sends higher velocity values as you click closer to the key’s lower edge.
•Right-click a key to play only the highlighted part (kind of a “solo” 
function for linked parts).   
						

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When the Edit page is open, right-clicking a key has an additional fea-
ture: the next element in the patch that responds to that key is displayed 
on the Edit page. Just above the keys of the keyboard, a red bar indi-
cates the key range of this element. This way, you can step through the 
individual elements of the patch quickly, making the editing of certain 
elements within a patch easier.
Using the wheels
•To turn a wheel, click-drag it. The pitch wheel (left) jumps back to zero 
when you release it. The mod wheel (right) doesn’t.
Viewing controller assignments
When you turn the modulation wheel, the Hyper display shows how 
modulation and aftertouch affect that particular patch.
Shifting the key range
The current key range is displayed by gray numbers on the C keys, 
representing the MIDI octave.
•Shift the key range of the MIDI keyboard by holding [Shift] and drag-
ging the keyboard left or right.
The middle C on the Hypersonic 2 keyboard is C3 (MIDI note number 60).   
						

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Hard disk activity display
The “2” in the Hypersonic 2 logo lights up to show hard disk activity 
when you load sample-based patches. (If your computer is reasonably 
fast, you’ll seldom see it flashing.)
Play PC Keyboard
You will find this feature by right-clicking (Win)/[Ctrl]-clicking (Mac) 
anywhere around the edge of Hypersonic. This feature allows you to 
play Hypersonic patches from your computer keyboard. The currently 
highlighted Hypersonic part (and any linked parts) will be played. The 
notes you play are also output via MIDI, allowing you to record them or 
to use Hypersonic as a MIDI source to play other instruments in your 
host application.
The Hypersonic on-screen keyboard now also outputs MIDI information. 
Your host application must support MIDI output from plug-ins.
•The 'C' key plays a C3 note. Keys on the same row play the adjacent white 
notes.
•The 'F' key plays a C#3 note. Keys on the same row play the available black 
notes.
•The 'R' key plays a C4 note. Keys on the same row play the adjacent white 
notes.
•The '5' key plays a C#4 note. Keys on the same row play the available black 
notes.
•The left and right arrow keys transpose the keyboard in octaves.
If you are using a computer keyboard layout for a language other than 
English or German, this may result in some interesting scales! 
Select “Play PC Keyboard” mode a second time to disable it.
All Notes Off
You will find this feature by right-clicking (Win)/[Ctrl]-clicking (Mac) 
anywhere around the edge of Hypersonic. It releases all currently 
playing Hypersonic voices, useful if you have hanging MIDI notes. This 
is often called a 'Panic' mode.