> Step by step
2. A tour around Flux Mini CM
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Once you load Flux Mini CM into your DAW of choice, simply drag it onto a track and run some audio through it. Use a loop during this phase just so you have audio constantly running through it as you experiment with it. 2
Ours loaded in Live with the Amp button pressed so the UI to the left (with the CM logo) is essentially controlling the volume of the audio you are passing through it. The single peak means that the volume will peak and drop once on every cycle through. 3
However, you can adjust the rate of this, and how it syncs with your DAW tempo with the left-hand Sync control which is adjustable by divisions from 1/32 right up to 4. This means the effects of the volume increase will happen more times over the smaller divisions of 1/32 and less the higher you go.
4
To understand this in greater detail, we have a bar long drum loop going through Flux Mini CM with one Amp peak as shown. The volume goes up once as the loop cycles around one bar.
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Take the divisions/Sync dial down to 1/4 and the volume effect happens four times over the duration of the loop (take it down even more to 1/32 and you get a stuttery, rhythmic effect as it occurs 32 times per bar/loop).
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Take the Sync up to 4 and the effect slows right down, happening once every four bars for a more gentle, subtle effect. Experiment with these timings. Also adjust the tempo of your DAW and the effect should sync with it as you increase or decrease tempo.
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The Mix control, bottom-right, increases the effect the more you dial it up. We had it at maximum in the previous example so you can easily hear the impact of the effect but it’s best to take it down to around 50% for less in-your-face results.
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Flux Mini CM gets really interesting when you start drawing in your own modulation curves on the UI. Simply double-click to get a new pink pointer which you can click and drag around the screen to create more peaks and troughs, in this case still controlling volume.
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Every time you double-click to create a new point you can also drag the curve between each point up and down to create smooth transitions. The white nodes here indicate which connecting points we’ve dragged down, creating smooth transitional troughs between four peaks.
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Now it’s time to explore the other main modulation options so press the LPF button. This now applies our four part modulation curve not to volume any more, but to a low-pass filter.
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Again, in order to hear what is going on in LPF mode we turn to our one-bar drum loop and a single modulation peak. With Sync on 4 (slowest setting) you can now hear the filter resonance gradually being applied over four bars; it sounds quite dubby, especially at 50% mix.
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And again, dialling the Sync value to the other extreme of 1/32 the resonance effect hits 32 times per bar so delivers a very fluttery effect, still locked into your DAW’s tempo. Very nice.
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The LPF delivers that more dubby effect as the lower frequencies are being allowed to pass. Now switch to the next modulation option, HPF (High Pass Filter), for the opposite frequency effect.
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We can best hear the HPF in action on our drum loop by again slowing down the timing to its Max 4 Sync option. Bring the Mix right up and your drum loop will sound very toppy with gradual low end variation as the Resonance amount kicks in and out.
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Switch back to the LPF and the main elements are once again the bass frequencies with the highs and mids varying with the change in Resonance.
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Now draw in some variations in modulation on the UI and experiment with both HPF and LPF for some great sidechain style effects.
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You can only use one modulation effect at any one time but don’t forget, that you can simply chain two Flux Mini CMs together for twice the fun. Just drag another instance into your effects rack.
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Then you can have one set to, say, High Pass Filter and one set to the last option not yet discussed, Pan. Now you can have your filtered audio swirling across the stereo field, all defined by you.