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6. DIY modular mayhem with Freestyle CM

1 Modular synthesisers seem limitless – but in reality, there are some stipulations about what modules can be used in a single system. This limitation is not extended to software, where products like New Sonic Arts’ Freestyle allow users to mix, match, and patch entire plugins to create one big modular patch. Let’s fire up the CM version. 2 The CM edition of Freestyle is limited to using Plugins. Think about that for a moment – that means you can use entire synthesisers as oscillators in a bigger patch! Let’s drag an instance of Cableguys Curve 2 CM from Freestyle CM’s browser into the Project area. Play a note from your MIDI controller or DAW… 3 That’s a great sound, and we’ll use it as-is. But let’s try adding something else to it. Click the little signal flow icon in the lower-left of the Project area to see the Structure view. In the browser, find u-he’s Zebra CM and drag it into the Project area. Open Zebra’s interface and select the patch called UH Wavetabloid (AU) from the factory patches. 4 Notice that the two synthesisers have been joined by a tiny mixer module. This is, in turn, routed to an output at the bottom of the Project field, and all are connected by virtual patch cables. Click on this mixer module to edit it. You can adjust the individual levels of each synth, as well as the master level. Pan pots are provided as well. 5 Look in the browser’s FX section. There you’ll find a Filter module. Drag it in to the signal path just after the Mixer module we’ve been playing with. Click on the Filter module icon in the Project view to bring up its editor, and play with the Cutoff and Resonance. As you can hear, the Filter is applied to both synths. 6 Try inserting an instance of Alpha CM into the project. By default, it’ll be added to our Mixer’s inputs. We can, however, right-click on the connection to disconnect it from the Mixer. Let’s add a second Mixer after the Filter. We’ll right-click on the new Mixer and choose Add Channel, into which we’ll drag a cable from our Alpha CM. Tweak the mix – it sounds huge!