Where the sound controls live
Choose a part on the shelf, then open Sounds (tab 03). Everything you change applies to that part wherever it plays in the song, in every pattern.
SYNTH TYPE chooses the kind of synthesizer. NES, the default, is modelled on the sound chip of an old games console: Lead and Harmony are pulse waves, Bass is a triangle wave. The expanded studio adds seven more types, covered further down.
TipTurn Tutorial on in the masthead and rest the pointer on any knob for a one-line reminder of what it does.
Presets
The PRESET row loads a finished sound in one click, and is the quickest way to hear what the knobs can do. For the pulse parts: SOFT PAD, HOLLOW KEYS, RUBBER LEAD, DEFAULT, FAT LEAD, THIN, PLUCK, WOBBLE and CHIP ARP. For the bass: MALLET, AIRY LEAD, GLIDE BASS, DEFAULT, SUB BASS, SOFT and DEEP. Pick the nearest one, then adjust.
Oscillators and waveforms
An oscillator is the part of a synth that makes the raw tone: a wave that repeats hundreds or thousands of times a second. How fast it repeats is the pitch you hear. The shape of the wave is the tone, or timbre, and it is why a flute and a trumpet playing the same note sound different.
Any wave other than a pure sine carries overtones: fainter, higher pitches stacked on top of the note. More overtones sound brighter and buzzier; fewer sound softer.
- Sine
- A pure tone with no overtones. Smooth, round, almost a whistle.
- Triangle
- Only a few, quiet overtones. Soft and flute-like, which is why the Bass part, a triangle wave, sounds round rather than buzzy.
- Square and pulse
- Hollow and bright: the sound of Lead and Harmony. A square wave spends half of each cycle up and half down.
- Sawtooth
- Every overtone there is. Buzzy and full, the classic synth brass and string sound.
Pulse width (DUTY)
A pulse wave does not have to spend half its time up. DUTY sets how much of each cycle is up, from 0.05 to 0.95. At 0.5 it is a square wave: hollow and woody. Narrow widths such as 0.25 and 0.125 sound thinner and more nasal, the unmistakable sound of old game music. Widths either side of 0.5 by the same amount sound the same, so 0.25 and 0.75 match. The Bass part has no DUTY knob because a triangle wave has no pulse width.
The envelope
A real instrument’s note has a shape over time: a piano note strikes and dies away, a violin note swells and holds. The envelope gives a synth note that shape by changing its volume in four stages, usually called ADSR.
- Pluck or mallet: ATK as short as it goes, DEC around 0.1, SUS 0, REL short.
- Organ: short ATK, SUS 1, short REL. Notes start and stop exactly as written.
- Pad: ATK 0.2 to 0.5, SUS high, REL long. Slow, soft swells.
- ATK (attack)
- How long the note takes to reach full volume. Short is a hit; long fades the note in.
- DEC (decay)
- How long it then takes to fall to the sustain level. Short decays make plucks.
- SUS (sustain)
- The level the note holds at while it continues. It is a level from 0 to 1, not a time. At 0 every note dies away however long you write it.
- REL (release)
- How long the sound takes to fade after the written note ends. Long releases ring on and blur fast notes together.
Filters
A filter removes part of a sound’s range of frequencies, from the low rumble to the high fizz. Because the overtones that make a sound bright are its high frequencies, filters are the main way to make a sound darker, thinner or more alive.
- Low-pass
- Lets the lows through and removes everything above the cutoff. Lower cutoff, darker and more muffled sound.
- High-pass
- The opposite: removes everything below the cutoff. Use it to thin out a part and keep the low end for the bass and kick.
- Cutoff
- The frequency, in hertz, where the filter starts to work.
- Resonance
- A boost right at the cutoff. A little adds character; a lot gives a ringing, vocal peak, the squelch of acid bass. Some controls call it Q.
- Envelope amount
- Opens the filter at the start of each note and lets it close again, so each note goes from bright to dark: the wow in a synth bass.
Where the studio’s filters are
- 303 BASS, in its FILTER group: CUTOFF, RESO (resonance), ENV MOD (envelope amount) and ENV DEC (how fast the filter closes again).
- WAVEFOLD, in its FILTER group: CUTOFF and Q (resonance), after the folder.
- Every part in the Mix tool: HPF (high-pass) and LPF (low-pass). This is the way to filter the NES sounds, which have no filter of their own. Chapter 10 covers it.
- Drum voices: Noise filter on chip-noise drums, and filter controls under Shape the sound on synth drums.
- FILTER SWEEP, a master effect in the expanded studio, moves a filter up and down on its own.
LFOs: movement over time
An LFO, or low-frequency oscillator, is an oscillator too slow to hear as a note, usually under 20 cycles a second. Instead of making sound, it moves a setting up and down, over and over. It has two settings: rate (how fast, in hertz, which means cycles per second) and depth (how far).
What an LFO sounds like depends on what it moves. The studio does not have a single LFO box: instead, each of these controls is an LFO pointed at one thing.
- VIBRATO
- An LFO on pitch. DEPTH is how far the pitch wobbles, in cents (100 cents is a semitone); SPEED is how fast.
- TREMOLO
- An LFO on volume. RATE and DEPTH make the note pulse or shimmer.
- PWM
- An LFO on pulse width. It sweeps DUTY back and forth for a thick, chorus-like shimmer on the pulse parts.
- VIB R and VIB D
- Vibrato on the Karplus string.
- FILTER SWEEP
- An LFO on a filter’s cutoff, on the master bus.
TipRates of 0.5 to 2 Hz feel like breathing; 5 to 7 Hz is a singer’s vibrato; much faster turns choppy or metallic.
Tremolo and PWM are saved
The TREMOLO and PWM knobs are saved with each part, like the envelope, and they are in an exported WAV. They set one steady amount for the whole song. To make tremolo or pulse-width movement change as the song plays, draw it as automation: the TREM.R, TREM.D, PWM.R and PWM.D lanes in the Movement tool (chapter 9).
Glide
PORT (portamento), in the GLIDE group, slides the pitch from one note into the next instead of jumping. A little makes a lead sound sung; a lot makes it swoop. It works best when the notes touch or overlap.
The expanded synth types
Press Explore FM, acid bass, sampler & more in Sounds, or Add expanded sounds on the shelf, to turn on the expanded studio. SYNTH TYPE then offers seven more synthesizers for any part, and three more parts appear on the shelf.
- FM SYNTH
- Frequency modulation: a second oscillator wobbles the first one’s pitch so fast that it changes the tone instead. RATIO sets the second one’s pitch relative to the note (whole numbers sound musical, fractions metallic), MOD IDX how much it modulates (more is brighter) and FDBK adds grit. Bells, electric pianos and punchy basses.
- 303 BASS
- A resonant low-pass filter bass, with SLIDE between notes and accents. Low CUTOFF and high RESO give the classic acid squelch.
- KARPLUS
- A physical model of a plucked string. DECAY is how long it rings, DAMP darkens it, BODY adds the instrument’s resonance and PICK is where the string is plucked. Guitars, harps and koto.
- WAVEFOLD
- Folds the wave back on itself as it is driven harder, adding bright overtones. FOLD is how much, SYM makes the folding lopsided, then a FILTER tames it.
- PHASE DIST
- Phase distortion, in the style of Casio’s CZ synths: it bends the timing of the wave to reshape it. SHAPE T picks what it becomes (saw, square, pulse, double sine or resonance) and SHAPE how far.
- SAMPLER and GRANULAR
- Play your own recordings as an instrument. Chapter 6 covers them.
Try the sound
At the bottom of Sounds is a keyboard, LISTEN WHILE YOU SHAPE IT. Tap a key to hear the part’s sound as you change it; nothing is written to your song. The − and + buttons either side of the octave move it down or up, Length sets how long each key sounds (Short, Medium or Long) and Touch how hard (Soft, Natural or Firm). While the keyboard has focus, the computer keys A W S E D F T G Y H U J K play it too.