Cubase: Frequency 2’s Dynamic EQ

By John Walden

Screen 1. Frequency 2 combines powerful EQ and dynamics control in a single processor.

In Frequency 2, Cubase 11 Pro has a powerful dynamic EQ.

Version 11 of Cubase Pro added dynamic functionality to the already excellent bundled Frequency EQ plug‑in, and in this workshop I’ll take you through some examples that demonstrate what you might look to achieve with it in your mixes. If you’ve not yet upgraded to v11, or aren’t a Pro version user, don’t worry: you can still follow the examples using a freebie dynamic EQ such as Tokyo Dawn Labs Nova and perhaps upgrade later. You’ll also find some accompanying audio examples on the SOS website: https://sosm.ag/cubase-0921 or download the ZIP file below.

 cubase-dynamic-eq.zip

Control Freq

Let’s start with a simple example: an acoustic guitar track, whose lower‑mids we wish to ensure don’t get out of control. In Screen 1 above, I’ve toggled on Frequency 2’s SING (single‑band) view, so all controls for the selected band are visible. I’ve selected a Peak filter and, in the EQ section (on the left), applied a 12dB cut at 200Hz, with a Q (which dictates how wide the filter is) of 2. I’ve left the band in the default Stereo processing mode; there are also Left/Right and Mid/Sides options, but I’ll cover them another time.

Such EQ settings ought to remove some lower‑mid mud but a traditional static EQ cut also risks leaving the guitar sounding thin when the arrangement leaves it more exposed. By making this EQ band dynamic we can avoid that unwanted side effect. To do so, enable the Dynamics section in the middle, which will automatically enable the Side‑chain section in Internal mode and with Auto engaged. For reasons that will become clear, this is a good starting point generally and ideal for this example.

The Dynamics section offers the user a typical compressor’s control set (Threshold, Ratio, Attack and Release) alongside a less familiar Start knob. Leaving Start at 0dB for now, the Ratio control will influence the amount of gain reduction, lowering the Threshold will then eventually make some gain reduction occur, and the speed of the compressor’s response can be adjusted using the Attack and Release controls.

There are three key differences compared with a conventional compressor, though. First, the automatic gain reduction is frequency‑specific. Second, the Gain setting limits the maximum amount of gain reduction applied by the EQ band. And third, there’s that Start control, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Because our EQ cut is dynamic, it is only applied when those pesky lower‑mid frequencies get out of hand; the rest of the time, when the guitar’s tone is more balanced, the EQ leaves it alone.

When the Internal side‑chain mode is selected, the ‘compressor’ takes its queue from the main incoming audio signal, and with the Auto button engaged the internal side‑chain adopts the frequency and Q values set in the main EQ Band. In most cases, including our example, this is exactly what you’ll want: our guitar’s low‑mids will be compressed most when those frequencies are at their loudest. Meanwhile, other frequencies will remain unaltered.

Turn Auto mode off, though, and you can adjust this internal side‑chain’s Frequency and Q manually; you can use the Listen button to audition the control signal as you make adjustments. While it’s not pertinent to our example, you can imagine other situations where using a different trigger frequency could be useful: for example, you could duck a hi‑hat in a stereo drum loop during kick or snare hits. You can also turn a band’s Side‑Chain section off, so that the full, unfiltered input signal is its trigger signal.

Screen 2. Frequency 2’s dynamics section can be used for expansion as well as compression.

Start To Expand

The Start control enables you simultaneously to apply a static EQ cut and a further dynamic cut at the same frequency, without requiring two separate bands. As shown in Screen 2 for our ‘remove the mud’ acoustic guitar example, if we set the Start value at ‑3dB, the whole performance will have a static EQ cut of at least 3dB at 200Hz, but further gain reduction will be applied according to the Dynamics section settings, on top of this ‑3dB ‘starting point’. Again, the amount of gain reduction can be limited by the Gain setting in the EQ Band section.

The Start setting also makes frequency‑specific expansion possible. Imagine that with our acoustic guitar part, we wish to even out the dynamics of the upper frequencies (the ‘ching’ of the sound), making the quieter bits louder and the loud bits quieter. The settings for Band 8 in Screen 5 show an example configuration. Centred at 8kHz, the Start control has been set to add 6dB of gain. However, the main EQ Band controls are applying a 6dB cut. You can finesse the Threshold control so that, when these frequencies contain lots of energy, some downward compression will take place (to a maximum of ‑6dB, as defined by the Gain control) but, when there is less energy, some upward expansion can occur (up to the maximum of 6dB, defined by the Start control). The Attack and Release controls can then be adjusted to suit the tempo of the performance and ensure a natural result.

Chain Reaction

Screen 3. Frequency 2’s dynamics section can respond to several external signals.Frequency 2’s dynamics can also respond to an external side‑chain signal, activated by a button in the plug‑in’s toolbar strip. Indeed, click the Settings button and you can specify up to eight different external side‑chain inputs, each of which can have multiple audio sources, and use any one of these side‑chains for each of Frequency 2’s eight EQ bands (Screen 3).

In Screen 5, an instance of Frequency 2 is inserted on a synth pad. Typically, pads such as this will occupy a wide frequency range, and thus sometimes mask other sounds, but they’ll only play a simple supporting role in the mix, making them musically less significant than the other parts.

Here, three dynamic EQ bands have been activated, with each targeting the most important frequencies of a bass, a rhythm guitar and a lead vocal (80, 250 and 350 Hz, respectively). Three side‑chain inputs have been configured, one for each of these three instrument groups.

Screen 4. Selecting a side‑chain signal for a Frequency 2 EQ band.

This tactic can be really helpful in nudging pads out of the way of more musically important sources.

Screen 5 shows the settings used for the 350Hz EQ band. This uses the third external side‑chain input, which in this case is the signal from the lead vocal channel. The Dynamics section is configured to duck the pad by a few dB around this frequency only when the vocal is present. The other two bands, with the bass and guitar as the external side‑chain inputs, are configured in much the same way but target different frequencies and operate at different times. This tactic can be really helpful in nudging pads out of the way of more musically important parts: you can preserve clarity in the mix, without sacrificing a pad’s overall sonic texture.

Screen 5. In this example, a pad sound has three dynamic EQ bands controlled via external side‑chain inputs. EQ Band 4 is shown here in SING view and uses the lead vocal sound to duck the pad’s frequencies centred around 350Hz.

It doesn’t take much imagination to think up more applications for Frequency 2’s dynamic EQ facility. Whether you need to clean out the lower‑mids on busy guitar or synth parts, tame the splashiest excesses on a drum bus, combine de‑essing and plosive control on a vocal track, or combine frequency‑specific compression and expansion to add a little extra dynamics to your mix bus, the possibilities are considerable. Increasingly, I find I’m turning to Frequency 2 as a one‑stop alternative to EQ and compression, and this is definitely a topic to return to. Until then, have fun experimenting. 

Published September 2021

Korg wavestate Tutorial/Overview Part 6: Performance Features

Korg wavestate Tutorial/Overview Part 5: Mod Assignments

Cubase Pro: Mix Mastering With Multiband Tools

By John Walden

Voxengo’s CurveEQ plug‑in, bundled with Cubase Pro, allows you to compare the EQ spectrum of your mix with that of a reference track.

We explore how Cubase’s multiband tools can help you master your own mixes.

In April 2021, I described a simple, single‑band signal chain for DIY mastering in Cubase. The approach followed the principles outlined by Ian Shepherd in his SOS Mastering Essentials video series (https://sosm.ag/mastering-essentials), and used stock plug‑ins that are available to all users of Cubase 11 Pro, Artist and Elements, as well as a couple of third‑party freebie metering plug‑ins. As mentioned in that article, though, Cubase Pro also boasts an impressive collection of multiband processors — so in this article, I’ll consider the pros and cons of using these powerful tools for our DIY mastering signal chain. To accompany the article, I’ve prepared a number of audio examples, which you’ll find in the 'Audio Examples' box.

Join The (Multi)Band

In my previous article, I followed Ian’s keep‑it‑simple approach and used a signal chain comprising Cubase’s StudioEQ, Compressor and Limiter plug‑ins. I also placed an instance of Brickwall Limiter at the end of the chain, just to catch any stray peaks, and used freebie VU and loudness meters to monitor the final level of my in‑progress master.

For my multiband signal chain, I substituted StudioEQ for Frequency 2 and Compressor for Multiband Compressor, added instances of Imager (for stereo image adjustments) and Quadrafuzz 2 (for saturation), and kept Limiter and Brickwall Limiter in place. For comparing the spectral content of my master with my reference, I used Voxengo’s CurveEQ, which is bundled with Cubase Pro. SuperVision provided loudness metering alongside Klanghelm’s VU Meter (my favourite third‑party option).

Compare The EQ

As in the April 2021 column, my first step was to use my VU meter and SuperVision’s Loudness module to adjust the channel gain in the Channel Settings dialogue, aiming to get the level of my raw mix to average/peak levels around 2‑3 dB below Ian’s suggested final targets (‑11dB on my VU meter and ‑10 LUFS for short‑term loudness).

I then used CurveEQ to compare the overall spectral balance of my as‑yet unprocessed mix and a reference track I’d chosen. Inserted on any track, this plug‑in can capture an EQ spectrum of the audio that’s passing through; this spectrum can then be loaded into another instance of the plug‑in, allowing direct comparison between two (or more) signals. CurveEQ can also calculate an EQ curve that makes the signal (in this case, my track) match the EQ spectrum of a reference track. I did not actually use CurveEQ to apply any EQ changes — Instead, I made my EQ moves manually using Frequency 2 — but it is a useful visual guide if you wish to nudge your own track in the direction of a reference.

In this case, comparing the frequency curves encouraged me to experiment with small boosts centred at 60Hz, 2kHz and 7kHz, while also applying small cuts at 125Hz, 1kHz and above 10kHz. I also applied high‑ and low‑pass filters to tidy up the extreme ends of the frequency range. In keeping with Ian’s advice, the changes were subtle but, to my ears at least, they both added weight and brought clarity to the mix, and I retained these EQ settings as the foundation for my subsequent multiband experiments.

CurveEQ can calculate an EQ curve that makes the signal match the EQ spectrum of a reference track.

Two-band Approach: Multiband Compressor + Quadrafuzz 2

The majority of Pro 11’s multiband plug‑ins offer four bands of processing. The new Imager plug‑in allows you to specify exactly how many bands you wish to use but in the older Multiband Compressor and Quadrafuzz 2, you cannot completely remove the unwanted bands; you can only disable them. Starting with a two‑band approach, my Multiband Compressor and Quadrafuzz 2 settings are shown in the screenshot. In an ideal world, I’d have the same band configuration as in Imager, with a low band and a high band, split at around 200Hz. As it is, the two ‘unwanted’ bands in both plug‑ins have been centred in the low‑mids and made as narrow as the GUIs permit. It’s a modest, pragmatic workaround, but there is therefore a narrow frequency range between about 200 and 300 Hz that isn’t being processed in this configuration.

The settings used for the key plug‑ins in my two‑band DIY mastering signal chain.

To arrive at the settings shown, I adopted the same approach as in the Cubase Techniques April 2021 article, but on each of the bands. So, for example, for the compression, I set moderate attack (20ms) and ratio (2:1) values and then simply dialled in the threshold until each band was applying a maximum of 3‑4 dB of compression. For Quadrafuzz 2, I soloed each band, selected the gentle Tube mode (Tape worked equally well when I tried it) and increased the Drive control until the effect was clearly audible, before gradually dialling it back; I wanted to ‘hear’ the effect but without it being too obvious. I used the two Imager bands to narrow the stereo image below and gently widen it above 200Hz, and also checked for mono playback compatibility. Finally, I used identical settings for the Limiter and Brickwall Limiter plug‑ins as in the April 2021 article.

In comparison to the unmastered mix, this two‑band mastered version is louder, but even with the perceived levels matched it seems to have a punchier low end, less muddy mids, a crisper high end and slightly greater stereo width. The differences are subtle, which hopefully suggests the processing hasn’t been overdone, but to my ears at least they seem beneficial: the two‑band mastered mix has more impact.

Three, Four, Testing

If we start by sticking to the same keep‑it‑simple principle, moving up from two bands to three or four doesn’t involve much more than deciding what crossover points to use and configuring the required settings within Multiband Compressor, Imager and Quadrafuzz 2 for the new bands. For my three‑band version, I used crossovers at 200Hz and 5kHz, while for the four‑band version the values were 200Hz, 2kHz and 10kHz.

More bands means greater control over fine details, provided you can avoid abusing the processing power available!

Whether the differences are audible in a specific case or not, in principle, splitting our compression across more independent bands ought to produce a smoother overall result, as each band is focused on, and only triggered by, a narrower range of frequencies. Peaks in the low mids should not, for example, trigger compression in the high mids, or vice versa. That said, there’s nothing to stop you making further adjustments in the different bands: you might, for example, experiment with higher compression ratios in your low band (for tighter control of the bass levels) or low mids (for keeping the mud at bay) if you feel your mix requires it.

However, using more bands for Imager and Quadrafuzz 2 is only really necessary if you wish to make use of different settings in the additional bands. I’ve done this with both plug‑ins, applying gradually more stereo widening in each of the mid/high‑frequency bands in Imager and, in general, applying a little more saturation in the lowest and highest bands than within the midrange in Quadrafuzz 2. Used in this conservative fashion, these extra bands feel to me like I’ve got just that little bit of extra control over details and the amount of ‘mastering fairy dust’.

If you wish, you can easily construct alternative mastering chains using some of the other plug‑ins bundled with Cubase Pro 11, but applying the same principles. For example, you could use an instance of Squasher to provide your multiband dynamics processing, or use Frequency 2’s dynamic EQ options to combine multiband EQ and compression in a single plug‑in. Just for fun, I’ve included audio examples based on both those approaches, but I’ll leave a detailed discussion of those tools for another day.

Mixed Up Mixes

So, what’s my own takeaway from this little experiment? First, while sensible (ie. subtle) single‑band mastering in Cubase Elements and upwards can easily give a solid mix a good nudge forwards, I think the benefits of multiband mastering are obvious. This might simply be the ability to control the dynamics of your low end more firmly, without squashing your mids and highs. But the option to add different degrees of stereo width and saturation sweetening to your high‑mids and highs provides useful additional control over the end result. And while you can do the same thing with third‑party tools, Cubase Pro 11 users have plenty of scope on this front using just their DAW’s stock plug‑in collection.

Do note, though, as Ian Shepherd makes clear in the SOS videos, that less is generally more at any single stage in your processing chain. It’s easy to get lost wandering through the options presented to you when working with more bands, and thus to take your mix backwards rather than forwards. You must focus on what the material needs, not simply what your tools can do to it! Bear in mind, too, that splitting audio into frequency bands introduces phase shift which may be audible, especially when you do it repeatedly.

Finally, don’t forget to audition the audio examples. As a small twist, I’ve randomised the order of the multiband mastered examples so that, if you want, you can audition them ‘blind’. After you’ve decided which you think is most effective, check the small print at the end of the audio file description for the running order! 

Published November 2021

Korg wavestate Tutorial/Overview Part 4: Navigation

Cubase 11 Sound Design

By John Walden

StepFilter might not be the most powerful filter plug‑in ever created, but its step‑based pattern sequencer opens up some very interesting creative possibilities.

Want to create your own signature sounds? Cubase makes sound design easy.

There’s something very satisfying about making music with sounds you’ve designed yourself, and Cubase provides plenty of options to explore on this front. It’s a big topic, and I’ll consider two different angles in successive workshops: this time, I’ll transform a live audio input source into something more ‘synthetic’; and next month I’ll look at ways you can create playable instruments from a simple, single sample. In both cases, I’ll provide audio examples to illustrate the text, and you’ll find this month’s below or at https://sosm.ag/cubase-1221 with full captions.

Before we start, check your audio buffer size (in the Studio menu, select the Studio Setup panel and, via the Audio System section, open your audio interface’s Control Panel). This needs to be set low enough that real‑time monitoring through a plug‑in chain feels responsive, but not so low as to cause clicks and pops. Second, engage the Monitor button for the audio track you’ll use for your audio input. You may need to disable direct monitoring on your audio interface too, so that you are monitoring only the audio being processed in Cubase.

Sustain

You can process any live audio input through a Cubase plug‑in chain, but let’s start with something simple: transforming some sustained DI electric guitar chords into something that sounds more like a rhythmic synth. Sonically, an unprocessed guitar DI signal can sound pretty uninspiring. One problem may be a lack of sustain, in which case a useful first processing stage might be compression. In my example, I used (or rather abused!) Cubase’s Tube Compressor. With a fast attack, slow release and high ratio, the compressor quickly reduces the initial transients in the audio input while the slow release makes the sustained portion of the sound appear louder. As our aim is something synth‑like, we can think of this compressed DI guitar as our synth’s ‘oscillator’.

StepFilter & MidiGate Rhythm

Some filtering might be a good next step and StepFilter is a good starting point. This plug‑in offers the usual cutoff and resonance options but the main attraction is its step‑based pattern control of these parameters — this makes it super‑easy to add filter movement in real‑time. As shown in the screenshot, I programmed a cutoff pattern that includes some steps with zero values, essentially closing the filter. This chops the sustained guitar chords to create a rhythmic feel and adjusting the Glide control determines the strength of that rhythmic effect.

Many synth filters and filter plug‑ins include a drive control to spice things up a bit, and while StepFilter doesn’t you can insert one of Cubase’s distortion plug‑ins somewhere in your chain. I plumped for Distortion, and inserted it before StepFilter. With suitably high Boost and intermediate Feedback settings, this can generate a nice ‘growl’, without sounding too much like a distorted guitar amp. For Pro and Artist users, Distroyer could provide similar results while offering more options.

MidiGate lets you superimpose complex rhythmic patterns upon your live audio signal.A more adventurous option for creating a rhythmic feel is to use MidiGate. Essentially, this is a noise gate that’s keyed by MIDI notes, rather than by the audio signal exceeding a threshold and it thus requires some configuration — but it’s well worth it! First, set StepFilter’s Cutoff and Resonance patterns to provide a continuous sweep (rather than rhythmic pattern) for the filter. Then insert MidiGate just before StepFilter. To trigger the gate you must create a MIDI track and route it’s MIDI note data to MidiGate’s MIDI input. You can then use the MIDI notes on this track to open and close the gate rhythmically. The notes can be from MIDI loops, recorded parts or a live input, but if you already have a MIDI drum track or bass track in your production, elements copied from these (try the hi‑hat or kick/snare) will often work particularly well, instantly locking the rhythm of your designed sound to other elements in the production.

The screenshot shows my MidiGate settings, which force the gate to open and close quickly. Note that because the three lower controls are all set to zero, the pitch of the MIDI note has no influence on the gate’s attack/release time and the note velocity doesn’t influence the volume of the sound passing through. But these controls are definitely worth experimenting with at some point.

Retrologue 2 Side-chain

Although StepFilter can be very effective, Pro and Artist users have a more powerful option still: Retrologue 2’s filter. Retrologue 2’s side‑chain input can receive audio from another track, and this could be a ‘live’ audio input if you wish. This audio is passed through Retrologue’s filter and effects sections and if you disable all of its oscillators, you’ll hear only this Retrologue‑processed audio.

There are a couple of ways to route audio from your ‘live input’ audio track to Retrologue’s side‑chain. In this case, having enabled Retrologue’s side‑chain, an Input level control appeared in Retrologue’s Oscillator Mix panel. I then routed my audio track’s output directly to Retrologue’s side‑chain using the MixConsole’s Routing panel. This means my live audio input is first processed by the audio track’s plug‑ins (for example, my instance of Tube Compressor) before being sent to Retrologue.

My audio input track has been routed (top left of the screen) directly to Retrologue’s side‑chain input, so that I can apply the synth’s filter and effects processing to the sound.

Retrologue’s filter has plenty to offer: there are over 20 filter shapes, a filter envelope and a choice of distortion types. However, as with MidiGate, for Retrologue’s audio engine to be ‘active’ it must be triggered by incoming MIDI notes — even if all the synth’s oscillators are disabled. Your Retrologue track therefore needs a MIDI clip containing some MIDI note data. The upside of this requirement is that the MIDI note data can serve several functions...

First, the timing and lengths of the notes can be used to impose a rhythmic feel upon your live audio input; a single long note will allow you to hear your audio exactly as you play it, while a series of shorter notes will impart their timing on the performance. Second, some fun can be had with the pitch and velocity of your MIDI notes, which can influence both the filter’s Key Follow control and the velocity sensitivity of the filter and amp envelopes. The audio examples include a number of different MIDI note configurations that illustrate just some of the possibilities, from letting your audio dictate the dynamics (using long MIDI notes), through syncopated staccato patterns (short MIDI notes) and to pseudo‑reversed notes (using a slow attack time in the Amplifier ADSR), but you can get very creative with this.

Retrologue 2’s side‑chain input can receive audio from another track... and if you disable all of its oscillators, you’ll hear only Retrologue‑processed audio.

If enabled, Retrologue’s Arpeggiator features provide yet more rhythmic and modulation options. In the final screenshot, the Vel(ocity) lane is being used to create a rhythmic pattern and control the volume of each step, while I’ve set the first two Controller lanes to change the filter’s Cutoff and Resonance values. The tempo of the pattern (and, therefore, the speed at which your audio is modulated) is locked to your host tempo but can be adjusted with the Tempo Scale setting.

Once your audio has been routed into Retrologue 2, you can exploit the Arp page options to inject some rhythm and movement into your sound.

More Processing

As with the sound engines built into most virtual synths, the processing options don’t stop at the filter; you can deploy a whole array of ambience, modulation and other effects to further enhance your sound. Cubase’s Stereo Delay, available in Elements, is a good starting point but the less conventional Multitap Delay (Pro and Artist) and ModMachine delay (Pro only) both offer something a little less conventional and they’re well worth experimenting with. When using Retrologue 2’s filter, the full suite of Retrologue’s effects panel is available including the suitably experimental Resonator section. I’ve included a number of examples of what’s possible in terms of ‘post‑filter’ processing in the audio examples.

Having built a processing signal‑chain for transforming your live audio input, make sure you save the configuration using either the Track or Insert rack preset systems (whichever works best for your particular configuration); when you want to try it with your didgeridoo as opposed to that DI’ed electric guitar, you’ll be ready to go in a flash.

Of course, you might also like to build a fully playable instrument or two from just a sample of that didgeridoo, and if you check back next month I’ll offer you some more ideas.

 Published December 2021

Korg wavestate Tutorial/Overview Part 3: Multisamples, Layers, and Vector Synthesis

Cubase Pro: Take Control Of Your Stereo Image

By John Walden

Imager: up to four bands of stereo width control for Pro and Artist users.

We show you how to take full control of your stereo image with Cubase’s powerful bundled plug‑in suite..

Cubase has long included stock plug‑ins for manipulating the stereo image and they all have a role to play, as I’ll explain, but the recently added Imager is particularly interesting. It allows you to process up to four different frequency bands and, as is so often the case with multiband processors, it’s a powerful tool that’s capable of great results in the right context — but it’s also fairly easy to screw things up if you don’t know what you’re doing! In this article, I’ll work through a few examples that show you what Imager has to offer, while noting some of the potential pitfalls. You’ll find some audio files to accompany each example on the SOS website at https://sosm.ag/cubase-1021. 

Published October 2021

Creative Sound Design In Cubase: Part 2

By John Walden

Any sample can be dragged and dropped into the Sampler Control panel to create a new Sampler Track.

From plucks to pads, Cubase’s Sampler Track makes it easy to design your own sounds.

In SOS December 2021’s workshop, we considered how you can combine some of Cubase’s stock plug‑ins to apply some creative sound design to a ‘live’ audio source. In this second instalment focused on designing your own sounds, we will take a different approach: building new ‘playable’ sounds from a single sample. To give our discussion a focus, I’ll take a couple of sound‑design classics — a short (non‑sustained) lead sound and a sustained pad‑style sound — and use the Sampler Track, which is available to all Pro, Artist and Elements users, to create them. You can audition the sounds in progress, courtesy of the audio examples available on the SOS website (or download the ZIP file below).

 cubase_workshop_0122_audio.zip

While the Sampler Track may not be as powerful or sophisticated as, say, HALion or Kontakt, it certainly has enough options to make DIY sound design interesting. Importantly, it’s also very easy to use, because fundamental to the Sampler Track’s approach is that you work with a single sample. You can put almost any sample to good use for sound design but, for this demonstration, I recorded a single sustained note from an electric guitar into my project, and used this as the starting point. Having selected a sample such as this, a quick drag and drop into the Sampler Control panel (in the Project window’s Lower Zone) will add a Sampler Track to your project. Then you’re ready to get tweaking.

Short & Sweet

Starting with all settings at their default values (assume I’ve left them that way if I don’t mention a specific setting below), the sensible first step is to start in the Sampler Control’s waveform display, and define the portion of the sample you wish to use. This provides Set Sample Start and Set Sample End locators (both with fade options if required) that you can drag into position. A good starting point is to leave the Start locator at the beginning of the sample and adjust the End locator to get something close to the length of the sound you’re trying to create. Usefully, if you then hover the mouse between the two locators, a grey bar will appear that connects them, and you can then slide both along the timeline, preserving the selected length while auditioning other sections of the sample. In this case, I ended up with a selection just under a second long but avoiding the very start (where there was some unwanted pick noise), with no fade‑in and a short fade‑out.

The next sensible step involves making decisions about two settings: Loop Mode and Playback Mode. As the aim was a short sound here, I used the Toolbar to select the ‘No Loop’ Loop Mode, in which the sample simply plays once whenever it is triggered. Second, in the Playback Mode (blue) sub‑panel, you must choose between Normal and AudioWarp modes; the other mode, Slice, is designed for working with drum loops. Normal mode is old‑school sampling, whereby playback of the sample at different pitches is achieved by speeding up/slowing down the playback speed. Steinberg have included some cool choices, so don’t dismiss this mode until you’ve tried it, but in this case I went with AudioWarp mode, in which the Sampler Track engine does some time‑stretching and formant preservation as well as pitch‑shifting when playing back the original sample across the MIDI note range.

Next, it’s a good idea to finesse the amplitude of the sample’s playback using the Amp panel. If you click on the Mod (modulation) switch in the green panel header, the waveform display changes to show a fully editable amplitude envelope. In this case, all I’ve done is create a smoother volume decay over a short time period and set the Sustain node to zero (so there is no sustain volume if a MIDI note is held). Top left of the Amp Mod panel, I’ve selected One Shot Mode (the amplitude curve will not cycle when a MIDI note is held longer than the defined amplitude curve) and Velocity to 100 percent, so that the amplitude modulation is very sensitive to incoming MIDI note velocity.

The filter modulation envelope was used to add a little tonal character to our lead sound.

As you can hear in the audio examples, with the addition of just a little reverb and delay this is already a perfectly playable lead/melody sound. However, our next stop is the Filter panel, with which we can modify the tonal character of the underlying sample. I’ve selected the Classic filter type and a 12dB low‑pass filter, with the Cutoff centred around 160Hz and a high Resonance value (70 percent). Via the Filter’s mod panel, I’ve then created an envelope to modulate the Cutoff value. The AMT slider (far left) can be used to control how strongly the modulation operates, while the Velocity setting (top left) is set to 75 percent and this allows you to also control the strength of the filter modulation via your MIDI performance.

The final sub‑panel, Pitch, offers similar modulation options for the note pitch. You can get ‘experimental’ here but for our playable lead sound I simply added a very small, rapid, pitch ‘wobble’ over the attack portion of the sound and, again, I added some MIDI velocity sensitivity to this modulation. The overall effect is modest, but it just adds a little extra character.

As is hopefully demonstrated in the audio examples, we now have a very playable DIY lead sound, created in just a few minutes from one of the most boring source samples you might imagine. And if you then start adding in some further effects — reverb, delay, distortion, modulation, etc — you can easily up the ear‑candy levels even further.

Normal mode is old‑school sampling, whereby playback of the sample at different pitches is achieved by speeding up/slowing down the playback... Don’t dismiss this mode until you’ve tried it!

Extra Padding

If designing a pad sound from our source sample, we can follow almost exactly the same workflow. The key difference, and the trickiest bit, is creating a section within the sample for looping when a note is held for an extended time. In the main Toolbar, I’ve enabled the Snap To Zero Crossing button and selected the ‘Continuous’ Loop Mode. The latter adds left and right loop locators (in green) to the main waveform display, while the former ensures that when you position these, they snap to points least likely to result in audio glitching.

The trick is to define a loop range that cycles as smoothly as possible. Again, you can do the ‘hover and drag’ manoeuvre to move both locators simultaneously while auditioning. You can also add a fade‑in/fade‑out to help smooth things out and there are alternative Loop Modes to explore. There can be quite a bit of back‑and‑forth experimentation required here and getting a perfectly smooth result may simply not be possible with some source samples.

A composite image showing the loop region, amp envelope (with slow attack) and filter envelope (with LFO modulation) used for our pad‑style sound.In our example, I ended up with a loop range of just over a second, which starts just over a second into my sample. When sustaining a note longer than one second, you could hear the ‘looping’ kick in but, in this particular case, I thought it actually added to the sound by creating a gentle pulse effect.

In the Playback Mode (blue) panel, I opted for Normal mode, since when notes were sustained I felt AudioWarp produced some undesirable artefacts. Normal mode also meant that the ‘pulsing’ created by my loop region changed speed with the pitch of the triggering note, and I felt that this added nice some extra movement to the sound rather than being a problem.

As shown in the screenshot, I created extended Amp and Filter envelopes, providing both a gentle fade‑in and a gradual tonal change as a note was held (adding a sense of movement). I also made use of the Sampler Track’s other modulation option: the LFOs. The two independent LFOs can be used to modulate pitch, filter cutoff, volume and pan. You get a choice of LFO waveforms, the option to change the waveform shape, add Mod Wheel control, and sync the LFO speed to your project tempo. In this case, I simply used LFO1 to gently modulate the filter cutoff, adding a further tonal ‘pulse’ to each sustained note. Job done!

Lock/Replace

Once you’ve been through the Sampler Control workflow a few times, DIY sound design is an accessible process. I’ll leave a detailed discussion of all the controls and settings for another time but, as a final pointer, one is worth noting: the Toolbar’s Lock Parameter Settings button (padlock icon). As the name suggests, if you engage this, all the Sampler Control settings for the current Sampler Track get locked, helping avoid accidental changes to your carefully crafted sound.

A very useful exception to this is that you can still change the underlying sample. So if you’ve created settings for a lead sound (for example) and want to explore how they might work when applied to a different sample, simply drag and drop a new sample in and see what happens. I’ve included some audio examples of this process so you can hear how this might work. It’s a easy way to create new sounds and, once you find something that’s interesting, you can always unlock the settings and fine‑tune to taste. 

Published January 2022