>Step by step

10. Filter sequencing with u-he ZebraCM (cont)

> Step by step 4. Programming a deep house bassline with ZebraCM

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Deep house embraces all kind of bass sounds, including acoustic, electric, and, of course, synth-based ones. To make our bassline, we’re using ZebraCM, which is ideal for simple, fat sounds. Start with the default patch and increase the number of voices used by setting both oscillators to Quad mode. 2

Tune Oscillator 1 up 12 semitones and adjust the Wave knob to 2.00, setting the oscillator shape to a square wave. Boost the Volume level to 74, turn the oscillator’s Reset mode On and set the Detune amount to -10.50. 3

Now turn your attention to the second oscillator. Set the Wave knob to 3.00, turn the Volume up to 134 and switch the Reset mode On. Now change Env1’s Sustain level to maximum. This gives us a raw sound that we can use to make a fat bass, but we need to get some funky filtering going on first.

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In the Filter panel, change the mode to LP Old Drive, Env2 mod amount to 48, Cutoff to 19 and Resonance to 14.5. We need to fine-tune Env2 to get just the right sound: set its mode to Linear, Decay to 31, Sustain to 0 and Velocity to -42.

Now, low-velocity notes will trigger an accentuated filter envelope.

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In the global panel below the Computer Music logo, change the play Mode to Retrigger, turn the Portamento up to 17, then, in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, double-click ModFX1 to activate it. Copy the Chorus settings we’ve used here.

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Here’s the MIDI part we’ve played in to trigger our bass synth. The D1 note has less velocity and is thus accentuated by the envelope, as described above.

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The sound is almost there, but it’s far too bassy at this point. To solve this, we first duplicate the bass track. The original version is then high-pass filtered to take out the bassy rumble, and the mids are boosted a touch. A limiter plug-in is also inserted to get it sounding as loud as possible.

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The new version of the bass is low-pass filtered and also limited. Getting the EQ right is extremely important, so time is taken to ensure that it makes both parts sound as good as possible. The two tracks’ volume levels are then balanced to get just the right mix of low and high end in the mix.

> Step by step 5. Generating patterns with Squaredheads’ Nora CM

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Modern arpeggiators such as Squaredheads’ Nora CM offer a lot more than just simple ‘up/down’ patterns. Here, Dune CM is playing a bass preset before passing through a delay. We’re going to insert Nora CM as a MIDI effect

– see your DAW’s manual if you need help. 2

By entering notes on Nora CM’s piano roll-style Phrase Editor, we can define when and how the notes of incoming chords are played back, and at which octave. Adjust Velocity on a per-step basis, and stack notes vertically to create chords within your pattern. 3

Click the little cog icon in the upperleft corner of the piano roll to access more Arpeggiator Settings. Here, we can add some random variations to note velocity, adjust the play speed, add some shuffle or even restrict playback to a given scale.

> Step by step 6. Using one note to sequence a bass riff

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We have Enkl CM loaded up, ready to make a bassline. With a single quarternote C3 playing every bar, we turn to Kirnu’s Cream CM – a hugely powerful arpeggiator, free in Plugins. Load it onto a new instrument track, and route its MIDI output to the Enkl CM channel’s input. Check your DAW’s manual if you’re not sure how to do this. 2

Cream CM is currently only affecting one octave, so tweak its octave range to lie between C0 and C9. Activate the Hold section to keep the C3 note looping for the entire bar. Now head for the Transpose tab and set the first 16 steps to -22, giving us a repeated low D note. Bring Cream CM’s loop end bracket back to the 16th step rather than the default 32nd. 3

In the Chord Memory panel, select a key for the first slot and click OK. We’ve gone for a basic Minor. We delete the lowest note, then use the left Inv button to move the chord lower on the onscreen keyboard. Next, we repeat the process, choosing different chords for slots 2, 3 and 4. 4

Select the Chrdmem tab in the main sequencer, reduce the loop bracket to 16 again, and select between the four lowest rows to choose a chord for each step. Heading to the Length and Accent tabs, we can hold certain steps (notes) for longer, and play around until we’re left with an inspiring bassline that we can record to MIDI and tweak further.

> Step by step 7. Generating different scales with RF Music Scale Player CM

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As with many of our other plugins, installation of Scale Player CM is a simple matter of dragging the VST and/or Component files into their correct folders on your system. The MIDI plugin loads up as an instrument in your DAW, although it produces no sound – rather, it’ll be routed to a track that does. Check your DAW’s manual for how to do this. 2

Try and play your MIDI keyboard now, and you’ll probably fail spectacularly! Scale Player CM has a different way of doing things. To get it right, locate the MIDI note A5 on your keyboard or in your DAW’s piano roll and play that. You’ll see in the very centre of the interface that A5 is designated as the Home note. The white notes either side of A5 are designated as positive or negative numbers. 3

Play the note B5 a few times, and you’ll see what happens: B5 adds one to the note value, C6 adds two, G5 subtracts one, F5 subtracts two, and so on. At any time, or if you get lost at this point, hit A5 again to return to that safe Home note. Be aware that A#5 is designated Rep, meaning it repeats the same note as before, whether that’s the home note or another. 4

Anyone with keen ears may have noticed that our A5 note wasn’t actually playing an A – it was playing a C all along! You can change this using the Root note selector on the very left of the second-highest row of buttons. Raise the note value to get a different scale going – D major, F major, even A# major… the world of major scales is your oyster! 5

You can change the scale using the Scale selector above. Let’s put it to Blues for some moody soloing. Start slowly to get the hang of things, and learn to get comfortable with this different way of playing. When you’ve got your mind around single notes, it’s time for some chords. Multiple notes will sound together, and the current note (ie, A#5) will be changed by the total of their positive and negative values. 6

Let’s look at some more controls. You can set your home note to be a different degree of the scale using the Home selector. It’s set to 1st by default, but you can change it to, say, 2nd, to use the C Dorian mode when set to a major scale. You can also change the Octave of the home note using the selector to the right of this. 7

We’ve already seen the Scale selector in the top row. To its right are three switches set to Off. The first two map MIDI notes of your choice to the left and right arrow selectors; the third lets you choose a whole octave to select the Scale used – ie, C for major, C# for minor, D for melodic minor, and so on. These three controls are seen on the Root, Home and Octave selectors, too. 8

Once you’ve got the middle strip of notes that do all the work, you can delve deeper into them. Select the current assignments to define which notes do what. You can select multiple Home notes, Repeat notes, and define the positive and negative values applied. 9

Here we’ve set up multiple definitions of Home and Repeat, as well as other options like Home: + Oct, Home: -Oct, and Home: Don’t Play, leaving only a few positive and negative numbers still in the mix. With a G minor pentatonic scale selected, all that’s left to do is bang around on the keyboard and come up with something we never would have arrived at without Scale Player CM!

> Step by step 8. Instant chord construction with Dune CM

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Let’s build the most basic chords, triads, and use them in a chord progression. Load Dune CM on a MIDI instrument track in your DAW, and select the 022: Earth Views RL preset. Load Beat.wav on an audio track and set tempo to 100bpm. We’ll use a MIDI Construction Kit to guide us, showing you how it’s done in Logic Pro X. 2

On the Dune CM track, create a 4-bar MIDI clip starting bar 10, loop it, then import C > Scales > C Major - All notes.mid, starting bar 14. Select both clips and double-click them to open the Piano Roll editor. Use the stack of notes as a visual guide, or click the collapse mode icon to restrict programming to only the notes in the scale. 3

To create triads, use a 1-3-5 pattern. Draw in the first note on C3, then miss the D, draw in the E, skip the F and draw in G. This gives us C major: C-E-G. Carry on up the scale and create more triads using this pattern. We get the other six C major triads: D major ( D-F-A), E minor ( E-G-B), F major ( F-A-C), G major ( G-B-D), A minor ( A-C-E) and B diminished ( B-D-G). 4

Let’s make an eight-bar chord sequence. Create a MIDI clip from bars 1-9, and loop it. For bars 1-3, program chords C, Em then F. We want a ‘turnaround’ in bar 4 to bring us back to chord 1, C. Use the 5th chord of the scale before it. Going from chord 5 to 1 is a very strong progression – a perfect cadence. So program chords Am and G during this bar. 5

We’ve used all triads except chord 2, Dm, and the B diminished triad, chord 7, so try and work those in during bars 5-8. Program bars of C, Em, then Dm, then halfbars of G and Bdim to fill the final bar. The B in Bdim is called the leading note, and it has a strong ‘pull’ to resolve to the next semitone up, C, which is why it makes a good transition back to chord 1. 6

Now to make our sequence less predictable. Going from chord 5 to chord 1 sounds strong and if we don’t go to chord 1, it will sound unexpected. Change bar 5’s C chord to Dm, and bar 6’s Em to G, so we get a ‘back and forth’ between chords 2 and 5, leading up to our 5-7-1 turnaround. Finally, load CM Arp.fxp patch in Dune CM for an arpeggiated take.

> Step by step 9. Making a big, techy DnB bass with Zebra CM

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It’s possible to get some big, bad bass noises out of several synths in the Studio, but we’re going to use ZebraCM because it has features particularly well suited to the task, including filters with drive control, unison detune and chorus. Load the synth and turn down the Volume control on the second oscillator. Set the first oscillator’s Volume level to 140. 2

We’re after a sustained, solid sound. By default, Env1, the topmost of the two envelopes, is set up to control the volume level. Set the Sustain level of this envelope to full. We’re going to use unison detune to get a fat, wide sound. Click where is says Dual in the Oscillator 1 panel and change the Voice Mode to quad. 3

Change the Reset mode from Off to On, so that each voice retriggers with each new note, and set the Detune level to 40. The sound will gradually get duller as a note is played because the second envelope is affecting the filter cutoff. In the filter panel, turn the Env2 modulation amount down to 0.

> Step by step 9. A big, techy DnB bass (cont)

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In order to hear the sound again, turn the Cutoff knob all the way up to maximum. Change the Filter mode to LP OldDrive, and set the Drive level to 25 and the Resonance to 21. So far, so good, but the sound isn’t quite there yet. 5

To really give the sound that techy feel, activate ZebraCM’s Chorus effect by clicking the ModFX1 box at the bottom left-hand corner of the interface. This adds a silky sheen to the sound, giving it a futuristic DnB vibe. 6

If you want to give the sound more character, you can add an EQ to boost specific frequencies. Here we’re using the DDMF CM EQ Pack and experimenting with its Linear Phase EQ options, but you could also try its 19 filter types for even more dynamic bass action.

>Step by step 10. Filter sequencing with u-he ZebraCM

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We’re going to explore ways that you can use ZebraCM’s multimode filter with its user waveform functionality. Load ZebraCM into your DAW. The basis is going to be two sawtooth oscillators tuned a perfect fifth apart, with a good helping of unison detune. Turn Osc 2’s Tune knob up to 7.00 – this gives us our perfect fifth interval. Guitarists may know this as a power chord. 2

We want as many unison voices as possible, so set the voice mode of both oscillators to Quad, then sweep Osc 1’s Detune level to -15 and Osc 2’s Detune level to 15.50. This produces a thick tone that’s going to give us a really interesting character later on. 3

The filter’s cutoff is currently set up to be modulated by Envelope 2, which gives it a gentle sweep effect. We want the filter to be controlled by LFO2 instead, so right-click the Env2 knob in the Filter panel and select LFO2 from the dropdown list.

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LFO2 is set to a sine shape by default, giving us a rather pleasant rhythmic pad sound that’s pretty cool in itself. The LFO isn’t polyphonic, so you can produce some cool rhythmic effects by playing broken chords (ie, with the notes starting at different times rather than all pressed down at once).

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While this sound is fun, it’s not what we want! So, hit the LFO2 button to bring up its parameters, then click the

Waveform menu and select User. The window on the right will now display a really simple step-sequencer, in which we will compose our filter sequence.

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Change the Restart mode to Gate and set the Sync to 1/8 notes. Before we start programming a sequence with the user waveform, write a chord into a MIDI track on your DAW. We’ve gone for a variation on a Gm11 chord, featuring G2, Bb2,

D3, G3 and C4. Set your creation to play for four bars.

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The user waveform is bipolar (ie, it causes positive and negative modulation), so turn the Filter’s Cutoff frequency up to 50 to create headroom above and below the bass frequency. Because we’re going to have a lot of voices and resonant filter movement, this sound can be prone to volume peaks, so we suggest adding a limiter after ZebraCM – the one in your DAW will do just fine.

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Turn the Filter’s Resonance knob up to 50 and enter a pattern on the user waveform. Keep moving the sequence around until you hear something you like, and then fine-tune it until you’ve got something interesting to work with. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can increase the number of sequencer Steps all the way to 32.

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This is already a pretty cool sound, but we can do a lot more with it. For starters, try turning up the Drive/Vow knob to change the character of the filter. Set it to a level of 40, then try out some of ZebraCM’s filter types by selecting them from the menu that says LP Xcite.

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As you can hear, this gives us tons of creative possibilities. Change the filter back to LP Xcite mode for now – it’s time to add some effects! Double-click the Delay1 button in the effects-routing window at the bottom left-hand corner of the interface.

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The two delay taps are currently set to quarter-notes and dotted eighthnotes. Change them to 1/4 triplet and

1/4 dotted for a more interesting effect. Sweep the Feedback knob up to 74 to get some feedback delay going, then set the Lopass and Hipass knobs to 80 and 50 respectively – this will filter the delay tail and stop it from cluttering up the mix so much.

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Let’s try smoothing the sound out. Turn down the Drive /Vox knob in the Filter window, then double-click the ModFX1 button in the effect-routing section to activate the effect. Select the LP OldDriver filter mode and turn up the Resonance to bring back a bit of bite.

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Activate the Rev1 effect and turn its Wet level up to 76. This is pretty much as far as we can take the sound just using ZebraCM, but you can produce some great variations on what we’ve done here by automating parameters such as the Filter Cutoff and Lfo2 modulation amount.