These are my first thoughts about using the Preset Creator:
Feel free to disagree with me, contradict me or ignore me. But please add your own hints and suggestions.
I have suggested to Artiphon that a preset with no gestures and minimal alterations to way the sample sounds are played. They seem to have noted this and suggested they might make such a preset to use. If they do, then it might be best to load it as the preset for the mode you are working on in the Orba app, and then also load it into the Preset Creator before loading your chosen preset.
Until then, I would suggest choosing the most neutral sounding preset you can find and using that in the meantime.
Your sample:
I have found that vibrato, ambient noise and nearby noise that may be in your sample recording can be a problem. Noises that would not be noticed in the context of a song appearing once or twice may not be a problem - but when it's on every note it will be very noticeable. Try to use the cleanest sounding sample you can. (If you want to make it dirty - you may be able to do that better in the Creator app, but that's up to you.)
I am not a fan of vibrato except when it is sparsely used for expression. It's up to you, of course, but I find the Orba seems somehow to make vibrato in a sample stronger and sometimes quite ugly. Find a sample without vibrato if you can and add it in gestures later where you can control it if you want it.
Pitch changes - the Orba 2 seems to have been sensitive to pitch changes in the start of a sample. Preset Creator seems to me, so far, to handle samples better, but it's worth watching out for. Singers, for example, often pitch a note off and instinctively correct it - I suspect we don't always notice it because we are used to it. It is possible you may find samples play at the wrong pitch if the sample's pitch is identified incorrectly.
And then:
Once you have loaded your sample, to try and ensure you have the sample sounding good - minimise LFO rate and neutralise all gesture mapping sliders (ie: set them to the centre position). You can play with these later if you want to, along with noise and other things.
The VCA ADSR (Attack,Delay,Sustain, and Release) can be your friend. For example I have found minimising Sustain and increasing Delay can be helpful. It works well with plucked strings and similar type sounds especially.
Another good friend is the LoPass and HighPass in the Resonant Filter section. Playing with them can reduce high or low frequencies that you feel are spoiling your sound or making it too bright and sharp or too dull and muddy.
Don't forget - you can make more than one preset using the same sample. If you accidently have a setting that you like, but wasn't quite what you were aiming for, save it anyway, you can then continue adjusting until you find your desired sound and also save that. All it needs is a different name.
A note about time:
Synthesizers using samples usually use a number of samples for each patch - some for higher pitches other for lower ones. The Orba uses just one. A crucial point about this is that a sample played at say C4 may last 4 seconds. At C5, an octave higher, it will last just 2 seconds. At C3, an octave lower it will last 8 seconds. This can result in some strange effects - especially in Chords mode where different pitches are played at the same time - they won't end at the same time. It can be fun like that, but it may not.
(Most of the presets provided by Artiphon do use multiple samples - that's why you don't get that effect on those presets.)
Just so you know!
David Benton
A thread to use for sharing anything you have learnt about using Preset Creator.
So that it can be consolidated in one place.