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3. Six more Thorn CM tips for sound designers

1 Following our quick tour, let’s go further into a few specific soundcrafting features unique to the synth. The Distortion effect’s high- and low-pass filters can be used sans distortion – turn the effect On, disengage its effect by pulling back Mix to 0%, then use the Post HP/LP knobs for final tone-shaping.

2 The multi-stage envelopes ape the synth’s Env 1 and 2 when you want to customise your curves. Switch an MSEG to Curve and Oneshot modes, set Speed to the minimum unclocked 25ms, then draw an envelope shape like the one above. Use this curve to modulate a sine or triangle oscillator’s pitch, and you’ve made a kick!

3 When designing synthetic percussion (such as the kick from the previous step), pick one of the Noise oscillator’s Percussion >> Click samples to layer a transient over the sound. Or, try loading one-shot synths via the Import WAV menu, then toggle the Key button to play this sample chromatically.

4 For a classic FM house bass, set Osc 1 and 2 to Sine. Turn Osc 2 On, but pull its Vol down to 0%. Now set Osc 1’s FX Type to FM, and use a tight envelope to sharply open and close its FX Amount knob. Turn it into a warping garage bass by raising the modulation envelope’s Attack.

5 The pulse width of a sawtooth (or any waveform) can be modulated, facilitating the creation of hoover-style patches. Select PWM in an oscillator’s FX Type menu and modulate FX Amount with an LFO. Load our example hoover preset ( CM >> LEAD Hoover.thorn) and deconstruct how we made it!

5 Use Thorn CM’s modulation options to create evolving chords and pads. Wiggle Osc Pos, Osc FX, HarmFilter Balance and Shape, Noise Osc Volume and Osc Pan. Call up our _CM >> PAD Drifter.thorn preset, play a chord, then open the Mod Matrix to check out our multiple mod routings.