Cubase: Working With Strummed Guitars

By John Walden

Cubase’s Channel Settings window provides all the options needed for you to apply basic tonal sweetening EQ to your strummed acoustic guitar parts. As described in the main text, this might include cutting some of the low end, adding a little high‑end ‘zing’, and/or managing any low‑mid mud or other problematic resonances.

We offer some tips for processing strummed guitars.

I work in a lot of different musical genres and something that appears in almost all of the mainstream ones is strummed acoustic guitar. Really, to achieve a good strummed acoustic sound, the main battle is won or lost at the recording stage: right guitar, right performance, right room, right mic and right mic technique. If you need some advice on that front, I’d suggest checking out Mike Senior’s SOS April 2010 article 'How To Record A Great Acoustic Guitar Sound' and an earlier one by Paul White (August 2001: 'Recording Acoustic Guitar Masterclass').

But if you have a good recording or even choose to program your parts using a virtual guitar instrument, you still need to get that part working well in your mix and to that end, as Mike outlined in his August 2020 SOS Podcast 'Troubleshooting Acoustic Guitar Recordings', some processing of such guitar parts is almost always required at the mix stage. Thankfully, Cubase has a lot of tools to help you on that front, and in this article I’ll explore some strategies that Cubase Elements, Artist or Pro users can try.

Trim The Fat

For almost any strummed acoustic guitar recording, a good first step is to try applying a high‑pass (low‑cut) filter. This can easily be done in the Pre section of Cubase’s Channel Settings panel or its MixConsole, using the Low Cut control. The slope of the filter means it reaches gently up from the specified turnover frequency, and if you set it around 30‑40 Hz it should take care of any unwanted bumps and rumbles that can eat up headroom and trigger dynamics processors such as compressors, without impacting negatively on the guitar sound itself. You might or might not want to roll this up higher as you get further into the mix, to carve out space for other instruments (that all depends on the mix in question) but this is generally a decent place to start — even if you can’t actually hear any difference!

A further low/low‑mid EQ move might help too, and be rather easier to hear. I’ll often try ‘cleaning out’ some frequencies in the 200‑500 Hz range. Don’t get me wrong, this sort of decision is all about context, of course. But lots of instruments have energy within this range, and if it’s left unchecked on all sources you’ll often hear a build‑up of ‘mud’. Since strummed acoustic guitars are rarely contributing much of real musical importance in this region, I usually find that cleaning them up in this region allows more prominent parts the space they need.

For such cuts, Artist/Elements users can turn to the Channel Settings EQ section — I suggest experimenting with a static cut of a few dB somewhere in this frequency range, with a Q value around 1‑2 being a good starting point in terms of bandwidth. You’ll often audition the result in solo but make sure you also listen to it in the context of the mix — depending on the style of the production, you might be surprised by just how far you can go with cuts in this area before you perceive the guitar as sounding ‘thin’. If you do choose to be fairly aggressive, though, make sure you listen to it in the parts of the mix where the guitar part is most exposed.

Frequency 2 offers Cubase Pro users the option of using dynamic EQ. This allows you to control when cuts or boosts are applied, using compressor‑like controls for each EQ band.

Cubase Pro users have a more sophisticated option for this ‘mud removal’ job: a dynamic EQ band can be applied using the Frequency 2 plug‑in. Actually, Frequency presents you with a number of potentially useful options, but the most simple is often enough: you configure Frequency 2 to apply a cut only when the guitar displays particularly high energy in the target frequency band. As shown in the Frequency 2 screenshot, you can take this further by adjusting the Start control. This way, you can apply both a static (always on) cut, in this case of 1.7dB, with some additional dynamic cut when there’s more energy in this band. The combination of the Threshold, Ratio and Gain controls determine the extent of the latter, and as you’re only cutting when it’s really needed you can, in theory at least, be left with a more natural tonal balance most of the time.

Enhancing Or Taming Top-end Zing

Having brought the lower frequencies under control, you can turn your attention to the top end. Again, you can’t EQ by numbers since what’s required here always depends on the tone of the original recording and the instrument’s role within the mix. But if you want to enhance (or tame) the ‘zing’, a good starting point is to adjust the 10‑15 kHz frequency range, and perhaps even higher.

For Elements or Artist users, in the absence of a multiband compressor, Cubase’s DeEsser plug‑in can be used to tame some frequency‑specific issues such as pick click.Elements/Artist users can configure band 4 of the Channel Settings EQ as a high shelf; I tend to use the type IV shape, but pick what sounds best to you. Set it to start somewhere around 10‑15 kHz and adjust the gain to boost/cut to taste. Again, Pro users might do something similar with Frequency 2, and investigate the additional potential of dynamic boosts or cuts. As shown in the screenshot, and like with our low‑mid cut, the Start control lets you apply a fixed boost/cut if required, and any dynamic element can be ‘superimposed’ on this static setting.

Balancing Act

While the low end and high end are the obvious places to start, there may well be other frequency ranges that could benefit from some TLC. Overprominent resonances can be caused by various things, such as the room within which the recording was made, the specific instrument being played, or the skill/consistency of the player. Whatever the cause, though, such resonances might mean some notes or note ranges tend to sound louder/quieter than others. That’s rarely desirable in a strummed chord, so how should you tackle it?

Compression can undoubtedly be part of the solution, but it can also be worth applying a little EQ first to target any specific frequency ranges that appear to be problematic. Pro and Artist users can put the SuperVision metering plug‑in to good use here — inspect the frequency curve for obvious humps and hollows. Elements users can use the frequency spectrum display in the Channel Settings window to similar effect.

Whether by ear or by eye, if you find a very specific frequency range that needs a little attention – perhaps associated with a single resonating pitch — a narrow‑band cut/boost can be applied, whether via the Channel Settings EQ (Elements/Artist) or dynamically via Frequency 2 (Pro; just cutting/boosting when the resonance is most problematic). However, care is needed if you end up with two or more cuts at similar frequencies as the possible overlap between the filters can result in some unpleasant artefacts. Frequency 2’s Linear Phase mode can help in this regard, although the processing involved does add additional latency and can’t be combined with dynamic EQ in the specific band. You should also listen out for the effect on notes in other parts of the performance — EQ a high E note and it will likely impact on the harmonics of a low E, for example (if it does, then dynamic EQ can be a useful tactic).

Pick Control

Depending on the recording and performance, pick noise may be apparent. If it’s too loud it can be a distraction but the ‘clicky’ (rapid transient) element of the pick noise (generally above 5kHz) can also contribute usefully, enhancing the percussive nature of the guitar part. While a single band of a multiband compressor (focused on the required frequency range and with fast attack/release settings) can often be put to good use here, Elements and Artist users don’t have that option in their stock plug‑in collection. Thankfully, for toning down a too‑clicky pick, the De‑esser plug‑in provides an alternative. In the screenshot example, I’ve focused on the 5‑10 kHz range and set a fast release (you can’t change the attack time). In dialling in the required frequency band, the Solo and Diff buttons are particularly useful as they let you hear exactly what the De‑Esser is taking away from the signal.

Pro users could use the Multiband Compressor but, having come this far with Frequency 2, I’d happily suggest using a dynamic band focused on the required frequency range to either boost or reduce the pick attack as needed. Here, you can control both attack and release times on the dynamic EQ, and the Listen button (when Side‑Chain is set to Internal) allows you to solo the band to hear exactly what elements of the sound you are processing.

On The Spot

Noise generated by finger movements across the fretboard often find their way into acoustic guitar recordings. In some cases, these ‘spot’ noises add a sense of realism to a performance (indeed, there are pop tracks where said squeaks often seemed to be emphasised for effect) but, usually, they’re an unwanted intrusion.

While EQ or clip‑based volume automation can be used to subdue spot noises such as finger squeaks, spectral editing via SpectraLayers (the One or Pro versions) is a very effective alternative. It allows you to adjust the gain over very tightly specified time/frequency ranges.Conventional EQ can address them to some extent but there are usually ways to achieve a better result. Elements users can try detailed level automation to duck the level of the performance by a few dB, to mask the offending noises, whereas Pro/Artist users can turn to a dynamic EQ band in Frequency 2 or attempt some spectral editing using SpectraLayers One. SL One doesn’t offer all the selection options of SL Pro, but finding finger noise, selecting the required frequency/time range, and then adjusting the gain of that selection, is fairly easy. If your performance has a lot of finger noise it’s somewhat time consuming but, short of re‑recording, this is likely to be the method that enables you to achieve the most satisfying results.

Splendid Isolation?

I’ve provided some audio examples (available on the SOS website: https://sosm.ag/cubase-0422) to accompany the suggestions made here. In the majority of the audio examples, I’ve provided just the isolated guitar part to make auditioning easy. With any EQ moves made when mixing, though, while you might use the solo function, you should always make sure you audition them in the context of the other parts in the mix too. It’s an iterative process, and in a busy arrangement you may well find that moves that sound quite radical when soloed can seem more subtle in the mix. Provided you don’t rob the guitar of its overall impact, the more of it you can surgically chip away, the more sonic space you have to let other instruments shine.

Either way, whether Elements, Artist or Pro, Cubase 11 has all the tools you need to get good results. And once your EQ‑based tonal balancing is done, you can move on to some additional dynamics control... but that’s a discussion for another day.   

Published April 2022

Choose Your Style: The Pa3X LE High Performance Arranger

Creating Electronic Rhythms In Steinberg Padshop 2

 By John Walden

Screen 1: With its powerful arpeggiation options and the ability to import samples, Padshop 2 can create far more than the evolving pads that are its raison d’être.

Steinberg’s Padshop 2 can create much more than just pad sounds! We show you how...

Isn’t it satisfying when you discover a cool application for a plug‑in that its designers probably didn’t intend? This month I’ll take you through a great example of that: using Steinberg’s Padshop 2 synth (included in the Pro and Artist versions of Cubase but also available separately for other DAWs) to generate electronic and cinematic rhythms.

Padshop was designed, as the name implies, primarily for creating pad sounds. To that end, it combines two independent sound layers (A and B), each of which gives you the choice of spectral and grain oscillator sources, as well as its own filter, effects and modulation possibilities. It’s certainly a powerful tool for pad/texture sound design. But we can also experiment with those same elements to create rhythmic interest, and two features are particularly useful for this: sample import, and each sound layer’s independent arpeggiators.

Dropping In

When attempting to create sounds suitable for an electronic‑style rhythm, it probably makes sense to start with impact/hit samples, but the nature of the oscillator engines means almost any sample can provide something useful. Before you attempt to bring samples into Padshop, pop open the Sample Functions mini‑menu, accessed using the small double arrow icon in the top right of the waveform display for both the Spectral and Grain engine displays. Ensure that the Import Sample When Dropping option is ticked; this ensures that any drag‑dropped samples are copied to Padshop’s user folder, so can later be found and recalled easily in Padshop’s sample browser (next to the Sample Functions mini menu).

For our application, sensible sample choices would include a low‑frequency dominated sound (eg. a kick drum or impact sound) and a more high‑frequency dominated source (for example, a hi‑hat or other percussive sound). However, two different low‑frequency samples or two different high‑frequency samples can also be put to good use; it all depends upon the musical context. Your chosen samples can simply be dragged and dropped from your OS file browser into Padshop 2’s layer A and layer B.

Button Mashing

Both the Spectral and Grain engines can be used for our purposes so, at this stage, pick whatever combination takes your fancy. Whichever engine type(s) you choose, the next step is to experiment with each layer’s engine settings, to coax a suitably percussive sound out of each of your samples. I find it best to work on one layer at a time: use the layer power buttons (top centre or bottom right) to solo each layer as you work.

Some of your experimentation will involve configuring fairly conventional things, such as the filter and amplifier envelope controls, to manipulate the tonality and attack/release of each sound, but you’ll definitely want to delve into the Spectral or Grain oscillator settings — this is where things can get more interesting. The first screenshot (above) shows examples that, essentially, initialise the controls beneath the waveform displays of both engines. Note that Loop mode is switched off in both engines, so we get a ‘one‑shot’ sound when triggered. In addition, playback speed has initially been set to 100%, so when triggered using C3 (the default root note) you’ll hear the sample at the original pitch. These ‘vanilla’ settings are a good ‘base camp’. From here you can start adjusting the Pos (position) dial, to identify a good playback starting point for your sample, and then the Gain, Level and Width controls can be adjusted, to create an initial level balance between the two layers.

From this point on, we’ll ramp up the ‘experimental’ component of this process. I wouldn’t be surprised if Padshop 2’s design team are the only people who truly understand how every one of the Spectral and Grain oscillator panel controls interact — there’s so much going on here — but thankfully some random button mashing (knob twiddling) is unlikely to break anything. At this stage therefore, perhaps the best advice is move it and, if it sounds good, try moving something else until it sounds even better! That said, I’ll come back to a couple of the key oscillator controls in a minute...

Got Rhythm

Screen 2: Both the Spectral and Grain engines can be used to design hit, impact or percussive type sounds, but starting with some ‘vanilla’ settings makes it easier to experiment.

Having found suitable Pos settings, lets inject some rhythm. Padshop 2’s arpeggiator is well specified so, with independent control over layers A and B, it’s easy to coax an interesting rhythm from our two sound elements. The second screenshot again illustrates some useful starting points. In the Main panel, the arpeggiator is toggled on and the Mode can be set to Chord or Step. Both settings simply mean that the MIDI output doesn’t employ the typical pitch up/down arpeggiator patterns; the active steps create a rhythmic pattern rather than a pitch‑based arpeggiation. If you wish to add pitch changes too, though, you can do that using the Steps panel’s Pitch lane.

Next, focus your attention on the Steps, Tempo and Vel panels. You can drag the Vel panel’s triangle icon to change the number of active steps (up to a maximum of 32) and adjust the tempo sync using the Tempo Scale setting. Then, it’s simply a matter of defining your pattern by activating steps within the Steps panel and adjusting the velocity of each active step in the Vel panel. Providing you have Loop engaged in the Tempo panel, when you hold a MIDI note your sound will play back with a rhythm as defined by the pattern steps. Create a complementary pattern for the second sound layer and hey presto! You can trigger a cool electronic rhythm from a single MIDI note.

Screen 3: The arpeggiators can be configured independently for layers A and B, and these can help you conjure up all sorts of rhythmic interest.

Steinberg have populated Padshop’s arpeggiator with an extensive collection of presets that are worth checking out if you need some inspiration. But whether using presets or rolling your own rhythms, a couple of tricks can be employed to introduce further rhythmic interest. First, note that you can use different step counts for layers A and B (Screen 3). For example, if you use 16 steps in layer A and 15 steps in layer B, as you hold a trigger note and cycle through these patterns, the different step numbers mean that the patterns will shift against each other. Second, and as an alternative way to shift the rhythm, once you trigger (and hold) a note to initiate playback, you can press the Shift Phrase Left/Right buttons (with your mouse; they are found at the left of the Steps panel) to offset the pattern in the currently selected layer by one step at a time. Both approaches can produce some interesting results — sometimes very cool ones, sometimes rather unsettling.

It probably makes sense to start with impact/hit samples, but the nature of the oscillator engines means almost any sample can provide something useful.

All Mod Cons

A further level of movement can be created using Padshop 2’s comprehensive modulation system. There are too many possibilities here to consider them all, but the Matrix and LFO panels in the first screenshot show a simple example that illustrate the potential. I’ve configured LFO1 as a simple sine wave, sync’ed to cycle over two bars (8/4). In the modulation Matrix panel, I’ve used LFO1 to modulate two parameters in the Spectral engine: Pos and Purity. Pos (Position) is a good target, and if you use this you can see the LFO modulation cycling the playback start position within the waveform display as the pattern is triggered. In the Grain engine, Pos and Pitch make good initial modulation targets and the Number parameter is also a good target in both engines. Note that the strength of the modulation is very modest as even small changes in these parameters can produce quite a significant tonal change in the sound. In this example, I’ve also targeted the old favourites of Cutoff and Distortion in the Filter section for good measure. Incidentally, in both engines, a low value of the Random control produces random variations in the Pos setting and, as a result, can add some further tonal variation.

Of course, you don’t have to confine yourself to these targets or just a single modulation source; you have four independent LFOs, a step modulator, an envelope (Env 3) and (within the Arpeggiator screen) three step‑based Control lanes you can also use, as well as MIDI velocity, key follow, pitch wheel and mod wheel options. For the mod wheel, right‑clicking on Padshop’s Mix control (bottom right) and linking this to your hardware mod wheel provides a great way to adjust the blend of your two sound layers in real time.

So you can hear some examples before creating your own sounds, we’ve put some audio clips below. But with the ability to use your own samples and the almost endless parameter and modulation possibilities, you can coax all sorts of electronic rhythmic performances out of Padshop 2. So go experiment!

Published June 2022

KORG Pa3X LE Video Manual - Part 8: Global Media Updates

Cubase 12: Audio To MIDI Chords

By John Walden

The upper half of the screenshot shows the Audio To MIDI Chords result from a fairly simple strummed guitar performance with three‑ and four‑note chords. The chords were correctly identified (top) and only some minor timing edits (second row) were needed. The lower half shows a less successful example, based on simple chords but with some open‑string drones. Cubase’s chord identification struggled but, even so, the required editing took only a couple of minutes.

We get to grips with Cubase 12’s new Audio To MIDI Chords feature included in Pro, Artist and Elements.

One of the most intriguing features Steinberg introduced in Cubase 12 is Audio To MIDI Chords. Included in Pro, Artist and Elements, it’s one of a number of enhancements to the Chord Track system and the basic process couldn’t be easier. Simply drag and drop an audio recording onto the Chord Track: Cubase will analyse it to work out the chord and key/scale changes contained within, and will then populate the Chord Track with that information. Obviously, you can use this to analyse commercial tracks and sampled loops, but in this column I’ll focus on using it when you’ve laid down your own musical ideas — a strummed guitar part, for example — and want to develop them further in Cubase but are a little unsure of the chords.

Keep It Simple?

It’s quite a tricky thing that Cubase is attempting to do here, and common sense suggests that simpler recordings should increase the chances of success — so how ambitious can you be? In my experiments, Cubase did an impressive job of extracting the chord sequences from clean DI electric guitar performances containing three‑note triad chords, even when played with busier rhythms, and with four‑note chords the identification was still good, though not always quite as accurate. Unsurprisingly, the results grew less predictable as I reached the limits of my jazz‑flavoured voicings, and I found that arpeggiating the chords or using an alternating thumb bass note could throw the detection off track. Things were also a little hit‑and‑miss with guitar chords that featured open strings as ‘drones’.

When extracting the chords from an overdriven or heavily processed guitar sound, the process was still very usable if the original part featured a solid chord progression. I also experimented with a bunch of EDM‑style synth/piano loops and, with the same qualifiers about harmonically complex chords, the process also did a decent job with this type of audio source. By the way, note that the chord identification process won’t distinguish between different voicings or inversions; a G minor will be displayed on the chord track as G minor, regardless of how or where you play it on the neck.

The first screenshot and the audio examples (you can find these at: https://sosm.ag/cubase-0722) show how successful my various experiments were.

If you do find that Audio To MIDI Chords struggles to analyse any given performance (for example one that contains complex rhythms and processed sounds), you can always record a simplified ‘guide performance’ — simplify the strumming or just play chords where you want the chord changes to appear.

Check & Change

Chord Events in the Chord Track can be auditioned easily with a virtual instrument such as HALion Sonic SE.

Once Audio To MIDI Chords has done its thing, you can check the chord identifications and timings in several ways. The easiest is to add an instrument track (I used a HALion Sonic SE acoustic piano patch) and, in the Chord Track’s Inspector panel, ensure the Acoustic Feedback button is enabled (the ‘speaker+cursor’ icon is orange). Then, in the Chord Track’s header in the Track List, use the Select Track For Auditioning drop‑down to pick the target track (in this case, my HSSE piano). On playback, the Chord Track sends simple block chord changes to this target track and, as the performance loops, you can easily compare the timing of the Chord Track changes with those in your audio performance. Then simply then add/remove or adjust the position of the Chord Events, until all the chord changes are perfectly timed.

The Chord Editor’s Detected tab can help with editing any Chord Events created using the Audio To MIDI Chords function.When it comes to editing the chords themselves the previous Chord Editor tools remain available, but Cubase 12 adds an option specifically for Audio To MIDI Chords. Called the Detected tab, this is found in the Chord Assistant panel, and it’s only available when the Chord Events have been detected by Cubase from an audio source.

It shows a list of chords that might be suitable alternatives to Cubase’s own first choice, and they’re ranked in order of likelihood. You might actually find that the Chord Editor offers alternative chord choices that are more interesting than the original performance — that could be great if you’re stuck in a rut! Any changes you make here (or using other Chord Editor options) will be reflected during playback, so cross‑checking between your original audio and the virtual instrument is quick and easy.

If you’re struggling to identify a chord in a guitar performance, you can always enter the notes into a MIDI event and let Cubase help.By the way, if you are struggling to match a chord from within your own guitar recording using the Chord Editor, you can always create a new MIDI track and, based upon the fingering of the chord (including any open strings), enter those notes into a MIDI clip. If you then select all the notes, the Chord Editing panel in the Track’s Inspector will take its best guess at identifying the chord for you. Usefully, it also offers an Add To Chord Track button, so you can easily add it to your chord sequence.

There’s An App For That

Once you’ve smoothed out any of the wrinkles, what can you do with your perfectly populated Chord Track? Quite a lot actually, given how deeply the Chord Track is integrated with other Cubase 12 features! But I’ll finish this month’s column by exploring two simple, yet very useful applications.

First, having started with a strummed guitar part, you may wish to add virtual instruments to flesh out a musical arrangement. As I’ve mentioned before in these columns, my piano skills are somewhat limited, so I’ll often turn to the Chord Pad system to trigger MIDI chord sequences for instruments such as piano, keys or synths. And, as the Chord Pads system includes the Assign Pads From Chord Track option, the Chord Track can be used to populate the Chord Pads instantly with all the chords required for your project.

Once your Chord Track is populated with the correct chords, the full chord set can be assigned to the Chord Pads for use with any virtual instruments.Second, if you add and select a new instrument track and execute the Project / Chord Track / Chords To MIDI command, this will create (on the selected MIDI track) a MIDI clip containing block chord changes based on the Chord Track. Then select a patch for your virtual instrument that uses an arpeggiator (whether built into the instrument or courtesy of a MIDI plug‑in such as Arpache 5), hit Play, and you have an instant arpeggiated chord pattern that follows the chord sequence of your original audio recording. Tweak the arpeggiation to suit, and the results can seem almost magical!

Of course, a suitably stocked Chord Track can be used for a whole range of other applications. And, as Audio To MIDI Chords provides such a useful kickstart in populating the Chord Track, it’s probably a topic I’ll return to in future 

Published July 2022

KORG Pa3X LE Video Manual - Part 7: Recording a Song

Cubase 12: FX Modulator

By John Walden

Screen 1: A simple step on/off modulation curve to control Level within FX Modulator’s Volume module, made using the second Factory curve preset in the top row.

FX Modulator brings powerful new creative processing options to Cubase 12

Included with the Pro and Artist versions of Cubase 12, Steinberg’s FX Modulator is a multi‑effects plug‑in which takes an approach that’s reminiscent of Output’s Movement and Cable Guys’ ShaperBox. It comes with plenty of cool presets and these are well worth exploring if you want to find out what it can do, but it’s also a very approachable plug‑in that makes it pretty easy to design your own effects from scratch. This article will take you through some examples, and on the SOS website (https://sosm.ag/cubase-0822) you can find some audio clips that should bring them to life.

The Rhythm Method

FX Modulator has lots of potential uses but first we’ll look at creating rhythmic effects from a sustained sound. As my starting point, I’ve used Padshop’s somewhat anonymous‑sounding Mellow preset with the in‑built delay turned off — but the same principles could be applied to any source sound.

Screen 1 shows an instance of FX Modulator inserted on my Padshop track. Any combination of FX Modulator’s 14 individual effects modules could be modulated to create rhythmic effects, but I’ve picked the simple Volume module for this example. This module offers a single parameter for modulation: Level, as shown bottom‑left of the UI. We can create a modulation curve to control this parameter in the upper panel. Some modules offer multiple parameters: for example, the Filter module allows you to modulate both Frequency and Q (resonance), and you can create independent modulation curves for each parameter.

FX Modulator ships with a bank of Factory curve presets which you can’t overwrite, as well as three banks of empty curve preset slots for your own creations. In this example, I’ve simply selected the second Factory preset curve, which steps the Level between maximum and zero once over the timebase of the envelope. This timebase can be changed with the Time control and, in this case, I’ve selected 1/4 so, when I trigger a sound in Padshop, I get a (very!) simple quarter‑note rhythm, as FX Modulator follows the modulation curve over the selected timebase. Yay: job done!

Screen 2: More complex rhythmic patterns can easily be created by combining the Factory preset curves. In this case, the curve’s vertical range has also been compressed using the editing tools.

Curve Control

That’s the basic principle covered but we can, of course, get more creative with the modulation curves — and pretty easily too! Editing the curve follows the standard approach of double‑clicking to add/delete nodes and click‑dragging to reposition them (they snap to the grid, but you can defeat this by holding Shift). You can also create curves by dragging the line between two existing nodes; a ‘shape handle’ will appear when you do this.

Depending on the nature of your source sound, sudden switches in parameter values (as for Level in the first screenshot) can produce noticeable audio artefacts such as clicks. Setting the Smooth control into the 1‑5 % range softens the transitions around the nodes (a thinner curve is superimposed on the main curve to visualise what’s happening) and will usually take care of such artefacts. Larger Smooth settings can be used to easily transform a stepped pattern into a ramped one for a pulse‑like effect.

The tool buttons beneath the curve editing window control various useful functions and, as well as undo/redo buttons, these include the ability to flip the curve horizontally or vertically and shift the curve left or right (by one grid step in the display). However, you also get buttons to reset the curve (the ‘x’ button), generate a random curve (the dice button), ‘select all curve points’ (the little mountain range), and ‘duplicate curve’ (leftmost in the row). The last two in particular warrant further comment...

You can select multiple nodes for editing by dragging with the mouse within the display, and the ‘select all curve points’ is simply a shortcut for selecting everything. However, what’s useful is what you can then do with your selection: this includes dragging left/right or up/down and, even better, the option to scale/compress the curve’s range vertically if you hold the Alt key while dragging one of the selected nodes.

The ‘duplicate curve’ button takes the existing curve and places a copy of it next to the original. Interesting to note, however, is that this is done by time‑compressing the original curve, so if you leave the Time control unchanged your curve pattern will effectively play back at double speed. You can adjust the Time control to return the pattern to the original speed, though, and then make whatever edits you might like to your modulation curve to create additional variety to your now duplicated curve.

Curve Collector

Once you’re fluent with these editing tools, it’s incredibly easy to create custom modulation curves. In our Volume module example, this results in custom rhythmic patterns but a further editing trick can speed up this process. If you don’t have any nodes selected, and then click on any one of the curve presets displayed at the top of the display, that preset curve is copied to the editing window, replacing any existing curve, and filling the timeline. However, if you first select a range of nodes on your existing curve before clicking on one of the presets, the selected preset curve replaces only the selected nodes. This makes it trivially easy to combine the preset curves in new ways, generating more complex curve starting points for further editing.

Screen 3: Creating your own curve building blocks within the user banks makes it easy to experiment with new rhythmic patterns.

Two further things arise from this feature. First, if you design a curve you like, and might want to re‑use it in another module, a separate instance of FX Modulator, or even another project, saving it into an empty preset slot in one of the three user banks (and then saving the bank using the Load/Save button on the left) is a good move. Simply click on an empty user slot and the current modulation curve will be copied to it for later recall.

Second, and putting these ideas together, we can create some simple step on/off patterns (like that shown in the first screenshot) but each with a different number of steps. The next screenshot shows an example in which I’ve created four such presets featuring 1, 2, 3 and 4 curve cycles of on/off respectively. These can then be quickly combined in any number of ways using the option just described to replace a selected range of nodes with the current curve. This makes it super‑easy to experiment with different rhythmic patterns via our Volume module modulation and, once you have a basic rhythm you like, you can apply further manual edits to fine‑tune the end result.

To Infinity & Beyond

I’ve used a simple example here for the purposes of demonstration, but even the most complex FX Modulator presets are built from these same tools; they simply use more modules and parameters. And even if we confine ourselves to the ‘rhythmic sounds from a static pad’ aim, once you have the basics in place it’s easy to suggest a few quick ideas to try next.

For example, if you engage the Filter Bank button you can constrain the processing of the current module to just a specific frequency range (drag the two node points to adjust). So we could, for instance, apply our rhythmic volume modulation to just the low frequencies and leave the higher frequencies untouched; play with two hands and it’s almost like the sound has two layers, one rhythmic and one sustained.

Second, while you can only use a single instance of any particular effects module within FX Modulator, you can easily process your sustained pad sound through two separate FX Modulator instances, each using the Volume module to create a different rhythmic effect. If you also automate the bypass options on these two instances, you can quickly switch between different rhythms for the same sound. However, with both instances active, you can let the rhythmic effects interact and, by automating the respective Mix controls, you can change the blend between the two rhythms. The results can get really interesting if your two instances use different Time settings!

Screen 4: The Filter Bank allows you to constrain the frequency range that each effect module is applied to.

Finally, you can try adding in other effects modules. An obvious candidate to add to your volume‑based rhythmic effects is the Filter module with both Frequency and Q set to be modulated gradually over a number of bars; your rhythm then gets some classic tonal variations added to the mix.

There’s plenty of fun to be had with the Volume and Filter modules alone, but FX Modulator is capable of way more than just rhythmic effects. These further options will, however, have to wait for a future column.

While FX Modulator might not quite reach the dizzy sound‑design heights of something like Output’s Movement, it is much easier to master — so dig in, and you’ll soon by enjoying the fruits of your sound‑designing adventures. 

Published August 2022