> Step by step

4. Helm by Matt Tytel

1 Matt Tytel’s Helm is a seriously deep synthesiser – almost as complex as a modular, thanks to its comprehensive modulation routing scheme. Let’s take a look at how you can create rich, evolving patches with this incredible open-source freebie. 2 The Init Patch is loaded by default, so that’s where we’ll start. Playing a note or two reveals a single oscillator outputting a basic sine wave. Boring! Change the waveform using the horizontal slider above the left waveform display in the Oscillators section. We’ve selected 8 Step. 3 Use the horizontal Mix slider below the Oscillators waveform display to balance the signals of the two oscillators – we’re favouring the second, rightmost one, for which we’ve also selected the square wave. Play and hold a note while observing the results using the oscilloscope up in the top-centre.

4 Transpose Oscillator 2 down to -12 and bring up the Sub-oscillator’s Amp to add some beefy square wave. Very impressive! Let’s have a play with the filter. Activate the low-pass mode and use the sliders beneath and to the right of the display to tweak the cutoff and

resonance, or simply click and drag in the filter display area. 5 Let’s modulate the filter cutoff. Set the cutoff to about 69 and increase the Env Depth knob to around 72. The Filter Envelope resides just below the filter section – give it a fairly lengthy Attack so that the cutoff opens gradually when you hold a note. Nudge the Release segments of both the Amplitude and Filter Envelopes up a bit for a slower fade-out. 6 Now let’s look at the Step Sequencer. We’ve got ours set to play eighth-notes, and we’ve drawn a quick pattern into the grid. To use it, we need to make use of Helm’s modulation system. Click the Helm icon at the lower-left of the Sequencer section. All potential destinations will be highlighted. Click the filter’s cutoff fader and drag it to the right to set the modulation range. 7 Click the Helm icon again to lock it down. Give your cutoff modulation a listen by playing and holding a note, and perhaps fine-tune the sequencer pattern for less dramatic movement. Once you have something you like, experiment with the step smoothing knob at the lower-right of the Sequencer section. This smooths the transitions between steps – just a tiny bit works wonders. 8 Other mod sources can be assigned in the same way. Some common MIDI sources are represented in the Keyboard Mod section to the right of the Step Sequencer. Assign the Mod Wheel to the Stutter section’s Freq knob, then activate the Stutter effect and use your mod wheel to tweak the frequency while playing and holding notes. Weird and wonderful! 9 Let’s call one of Helm’s LFOs into play. Route Mono LFO 1 to the Feedback knob of the Delay effect. Don’t forget to turn the Delay on! Click the musical note and select Hertz as the Sync mode for the LFO, then lower it to a pokey 0.04Hz. The default sine wave is fine, but use the LFO’s Amplitude slider (on the right) to reduce the amount.