> Step by step
1. Getting started with Freestyle CM
1 Freestyle CM comes in standalone and plugin versions, for use within a DAW or as an independent plugin host. Two plugins are installed: Freestyle CM and FreestyleFX CM, the first loading as an instrument, the second as an insert effect. To install them all, double-click the installer for your platform – Mac or PC – and follow the instructions.
2 Upon first launch, you’ll be asked whether you want to run Freestyle CM without activating it, or register an account with New Sonic Arts to authorise it and do away with the nag screen. We advise the latter, naturally. Clicking the bottom option reveals buttons for demoing, buying and activating the full Freestyle, which adds compatibility with your non- plugins.
3 The next thing to do is click the Select VST Folder button to add your installed Plugins to the Freestyle CM database. The scanning process actually works through all your VST plugins – not just the ones – and thus might take a while if you have lots installed. Doing this for the standalone version also covers the instrument plugin, but the FX plugin has to be set up separately.
4 As you’ll immediately notice, all your
Plugins appear in the browser on the left, which houses instruments and effects on separate pages. Plugins are grouped by manufacturer and represented with thumbnails. Groups are collapsed by clicking the manufacturer name, you can star plugins as favourite, and the whole browser is hidden and revealed with the magnifying glass button (top left).
5 Here, we’ve loaded Freestyle CM as an instrument on a track with a MIDI bassline playing. Let’s make a triplelayered bass sound. We start by dragging Dune CM in from the Browser. The synth appears in the main Rack section. Clicking the thumbnail opens the GUI, enabling us to load and tweak a bass preset. So far, so unremarkable…
6 Next, we drag in Enkl CM and set it up to provide a second layer over the Dune CM patch. To get an overview of our Rack, we click the bottom-left button to switch to structure view. We’d like the Enkl part to only play on the very bottom note of the bassline, which is easily sorted using the Keysplit Module at the top.
7 Clicking the Keysplit Module opens it. Alternatively, Alt-click it to zoom the thumbnail and make it ‘live’ for editing in place. The keyrange of each synth is set by dragging the range handles, and layers are muted by clicking the dots next to their names. We pull the top of Enkl CM’s range back so that it cuts off at the bottom C, then add a third synth – Bazille CM – zoned to only trigger from D1 and higher.
8 We now have a pretty wild bassline, although the Bazille CM layer needs turning down, which is done in Freestyle CM’s basic mixer. Next, we can make more of that Enkl CM layer with some effects. Clicking the Browser’s FX tab switches to our installed effects plugins, and dragging PSP cmDelay directly onto the cable connecting Enkl CM to the Mixer inserts the plugin into that synth’s signal