Trilian is a powerful bass instrument that takes well-known elements of synthesis and sampling a step further to provide inspiration for any level of musician, producer, composer, or sound designer.
It’s important to learn the structure of Trilian to truly unleash the vast amount of available sound-creation possibilities. The better you understand its features, layout, and potential, the more your own unique musical voice will shine through!
Trilian has earned its place as the go-to bass instrument for musicians, producers,and composers. We hope you enjoy using Trilian to its fullest potential!
Trilian is organized in a way that builds intuitively on familiar concepts.
The Soundsource is where Trilian’s sound originates and it affects all other aspects that follow in the signal path. A single Soundsource in Trilian can provide a surprising amount of sonic power, though its full strength is attained when standard synthesis components are creatively combined with those exclusive to the STEAM Engine®.
In Trilian, a Soundsource exists in a Layer, which also includes its own filters, envelopes, effects, etc. You can combine the two Layers to create a Patch, opening up a wide array of possibilities for creating new sounds. While working with a single Patch is a common way to use Trilian, its capabilities do not end there.
Patches can be loaded into any of Trilian’s eight Parts, with each Part essentially operating as an individual instrument. Having eight Parts means a single instance of Trilian can play up to eight Patches at the same time. If you assemble a collection of Patches you like, you can save them all at once into a Multi.
The Multi is at the top of Trilian’s hierarchy and can be thought of as the total state of the instrument. Using Multi’s to load and have different types of sounds at your fingertips (such as an acoustic bass, a slapped electric, and a deep synth bass), gives you the ability to cover a huge amount of musical ground, and can be especially applicable to live use, allowing you to switch basses quickly.
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