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A key feature of the DLS Level 2 standard is the ability to base instrument timbres on different or multiple waves, depending on the pitch and velocity of the note.
The waves associated with an instrument are organized in layers. Within each layer, the pitch range is divided into regions of one or more notes. The pitch range can also include blank, unused areas. Each region is associated with a wave. This arrangement is shown in the Instrument Graphical Interface of DLS Designer.
When a note plays, it is synthesized from waves belonging to regions in one or more layers. A region's wave is used if the Region Settings meet the following criteria:
Musical instruments that have different characteristics in different registers, such as a piano or clarinet, should have regions. For example, each octave in a violin sound can be a region based on a recording of the instrument playing a note at the lowest pitch in the octave. Within each octave, higher pitches are synthesized by increasing the pitch of the wave sample.
In theory, you could take a sample from every one of 128 notes on an acoustic instrument and place them into regions that correspond exactly with the pitch at which the sample was taken. However, this might be impractical because of the amount of system resources required to store and play the instrument.
Regions in layers can overlap. For example, an instrument might have 10 regions in one layer and five larger regions in a second layer. If overlapping regions are set to play at a given pitch and velocity, they are combined to form a richer timbre for the note.
Not every pitch has to be included in a region in every layer. In fact, an instrument could have a single layer consisting of a single region with a range of just one pitch. At other pitches, the instrument would be silent.
DLS Level 1 synthesizers do not support layers, and take regions only from the lowest layer displayed in the DLS Designer Window.
DLS Level 2 includes the two articulation types that are not included in DLS Level 1. If you create a region in the bottom layer, and use instrument articulations for DLS Level 2, the two additional articulation types are ignored when the instrument is played using a DLS1 synthesizer. See Articulation Settings.