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4. Swing ducking with Xfer Records LFOTool

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Xfer Records’ LFOTool ($50, demo at www.xferrecords.com) is an incredibly powerful rhythmic modulation plugin, and its Swing parameter makes it particularly useful for creating pumping sidechain compression-style effects that go nicely with shuffly house rhythms. Create an audio track in your DAW and drag Euro chord.wav onto it. 2

Insert LFOTool into the channel. At first the plugin won’t make any difference to the audio output, because all of the LFO routings on the right hand side of the interface are set to 0. To apply the LFO to the output level of the audio, turn the Vol fader up to 100. 3

This gives us a fast tremolo effect. Normally for this kind of effect we’d want the Rate to be set to 1/4 rather than the default 1/8 we have here, but this resolution is actually perfect for getting the swing feel we’re after. We do, however, need to change the shape of the LFO. Drag the node at the bottom of the central panel to the bottom left hand corner as shown above. (Audio: Straight pump.wav) 4

This changes the shape of the LFO from triangle to sawtooth. Now, as you turn up the Swing parameter below the central window, you’ll hear that every other cycle of the LFO is delayed more and more, giving the pad a swung rhythm. This technique can be used to give a track an implied shuffly groove without clogging the mix up with additional sounds. (Audio: Swung pump.wav) 5

You can control the shape of the LFO with the PWM parameter. Higher settings make the curve increasingly concave, which – along with the Vol modulation amount – can be used to fine-tune how the ducking effect sits with your drum sounds. 6

Create a new audio track and drag Beat.wav onto it. Gradually turn up the Phase parameter. This offsets the start of the LFO and can be used at low settings to alter how the LFO movement interacts with the transient of the beat, or with higher values to create syncopated rhythms. (Audio: Increasing Phase value.wav)