Popcorn- style lead line
This was an unexpected instrumental hit in the 70s by Hot Butter, with a classic lead line sound that’s become the stuff of legends. We recreate this now, using Zebra CM
> Step by step 1. Moreish Popcorn- style sounds
1
We’ll begin by opening a copy of your DAW and plugging in an instance of Zebra CM. Once you have the plugin open in front of you, go to the display at the very top and click on ‘Init’ at the bottom of the menu. This will initialise your patch. 2
This patch is only going to use one oscillator, but our first task will be to select an appropriate waveform for use on Osc1. Click and hold on the Waveform icon, and drag the mouse up until you see a square wave, which will be confirmed by a value of 2.00 in the upper display. 3
The relative pitch of this sound is quite high, so we will alter the tuning of Osc1 to make it easier to play from the centre of our keyboard. Increase the tuning pot to a value of 24, which equates to two octaves higher in pitch. 4
Let’s move to the filter section; chiming with the vintage status of this patch, we can change the filter type to the LP Vintage setting. This will render the right kind of filter character for our patch. 5
Despite being a lead sound, it isn’t very bright, and we can attend to this using the Cutoff element of the low-pass filter. Adjust the Cutoff pot, to a value of 130. That should decrease the overtly bright frequencies sufficiently. 6
To help our patch with its vintage characteristics, we can introduce a small amount of overdrive distortion. We can apply this from the filter section, by increasing the Drive amount subtly, to a value of 25. 7
Probably the most obvious elements to change are related to the snappy nature of the envelope that controls the volume. This is accessed through the use of Env1. Change the Attack pot to a value of 11, and the Decay pot to 16. 8
Staying with Env1, alter the Sustain pot to the value of zero, and also the Release pot to a value of zero. This underlies the fact that there is no sustain in this sound at all, and no time for a release phase either. 9
It might be tempting to add reverb to our sound, but to keep it reverential, keep it dry and without effects. To mimic the musical construct, work with minor arpeggios. You could even use an arpeggiator for melodic inspiration, which would be highly effective as part of a track or sequence.