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6. Tailoring Arturia Clavinet V’s tone

1 From acid rock to furious funk, the Clavinet D6 cut through many a classic tune. Lean and mean, it was an instrument for the modern performer – circa 1972 – who didn’t want to commit to new-fangled synths. Still, much could be gained from its tight, truncated tones. Fire up the Clavinet V. The default patch is fine for a start.

4 Under the hood, we see controls for shaping the modelled electromagnetic components that produce the Clav’s twangy timbre. Like a piano, a Clavinet makes its sound with hammered strings, vibrations of which are captured by two pickups. The ‘twang’ is adjusted by tweaking the String Resonance. Let’s turn it down.

2 The rocker switches on the left of the keyboard offer great timbral flexibility. At least one of the first four should be in the down position, or the Clav will make no sound. Clicking the Brilliant rocker out of the action impacts our preset’s tone a lot. The C/D and A/B switches let us simulate different combos of the Clavinet’s pickups.

5 Some variations made by these parameters are subtle, but add realism overall. For instance, a real Clavinet’s hammers make a mechanical sound after a note is released: the Key Release Noise adjusts this noise’s volume. Similarly, the Release Time simulates the time it takes the Clav’s dampers to stop the strings vibrating.

3 The final control in the default panel view is a Mute slider. Pushing this one up mutes the sound – nice when you’re looking to mellow things out. Try it, then bring it back down. This being Arturia, there are plenty of sound-shaping features not found on the original. Access them by clicking the double arrows (top right).

6 In addition to tweaking the string’s characteristics, we can adjust the hardness of the hammers that excite them, along with how much mechanical noise from the hammers is mixed in with the output. Here, we’ve decreased the former, while increasing the latter. The result is reminiscent of an electric piano.