Logic Pro X - Video Tutorial 49 - ES2 Synthesizer (PART 2) Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to episode 49 of my Logic Pro 10
video tutorial series in this episode
we're going to continue on from the
previous episode talking about the es -
synthesizer in the previous episode we
talked about the oscillators we talked
about the filters the effects generator
the modulation routers LFO s and
envelopes well and also what we did is
we created a basic you know kind of
synth pad patch that had a amplitude
kind of stutter effect on LFO to slow
filter sweep on LFO 1 as well as a
resonant sweep on envelope 2 and so what
I did just off-screen was I created a
really basic just kind of chord idea for
this now that's pretty cool but what if
I want to be able to control over some
of these modulation parameters across
time as opposed to them automatically
being controlled by an envelope or an
LFO one thing I really like to do is I
like to make use of the XY pad over here
as I said in the previous episode the XY
pad has nothing to do with the effects
around the XY pad is essentially just a
- you know a two parameter controller
that you can sync up to the MOT
modulation routers here and you can also
use it in vector mode which we'll get to
in just a moment
what I'm going to do is I'm going to
make the cutoff sweep be controlled by
pad X and I'm going to make the
resonance sweep be controlled by pad Y
so when you directly control them this
way when you put the X&Y pad as this as
the modulation source you're directly
controlling the cutoff frequency or the
cutoff sweep or the resonance sweep so
the LFO and the envelope are taken
completely out of the equation
now in order to do this you can actually
just press play and you'll hear the the
difference in tone as I move the XY pad
around the problem is that it doesn't
save your it doesn't save the motion
unless you write that in with automation
now one of the reasons why I split up
this video and started here with this
video is that between the last episode
in this episode I switched over to my
laptop which is currently running logic
10 points 10 point 0.6 unfortunately
there is a bug with the es 2 and just
the es 2 in version 10 point 7 the most
recent version at this point where you
cannot write plug-in automation in the
es 2 you can do with all the other sins
but not the es 2 so keep in mind for you
if you're using 10 point 0.7 you're not
going to be able to do this if you're
running 10.0 point 6 and earlier you
should be able to do this so this is
just a known bug where you're not able
to write in plugin automation like you
should be able to ok so first thing I'm
going to do is going to hit a to pull up
automation and I'm going to change the
automation mode from read to latch and
we'll go a little bit deeper into what
the live automation modes are later on
but essentially latch including touch
and right they allow you to write in
automation in real time by moving a
controller around so all I have to do
now is just press play you don't have to
press record you just press play and
then I can move that XY controller
around and what it's going to do is it's
going to create an automation shape for
us that is equal to both the X and Y
axis on this XY pad and then it'll be
able to play this back and it will
remember the motion that I drew in so
and this might get a little glitchy just
because I'm trying to run a screen
capture at the same time so let's let's
see how this works
and there you go and so what you can see
is that it's actually written two
different two different shapes of
automation there's one here in pink in
the front and there's another one here
kind of hidden in the background one of
those is the X pad and one of them is
there one of them is the x-axis one's
the y-axis so if I just decrease my
track zoom here what you can do is you
can click on this little arrow here
it'll open up another automation lane
and what I can do is choose the x or y
modulation pad access to be shown on
this so since up my upper one there it
says it's mod pad Y the bottom one I
want this to be mod pad X so you can
view both the X and y axes at the same
time so I'm you could go in here and you
could type in the automation you could
draw in the shape but just remember
again if you're using logic 10.7 it's
not going to let you draw in the
automation like this with the es - it's
you'll hit you'll turn latch on you'll
hit play you'll move the XY pad around
and nothing nothing will get written you
could like I said you can still draw it
in and the es2 will react to the
automation but you just can't draw you
can't move the controller in real time
in 10-point 0.7 it's just it's a bug
that needs to be fixed
one thing you want to make sure you do
is after you draw automation in this way
is you want to change the automation
mode back to Reed so that we don't
accidentally write any more automation
I'm just going to hit a to close
automation mode out and I'm just going
to open up the es2 again and then I will
just hit play and we should see the XY
pad move around to the automation that
we drew in
member there you go you can also do this
with pretty much virtually any control
in the es - if I just want to move my
cutoff here manually you can do that if
you want to move on to the oscillators
manually you can do that as well pretty
much any knob or fader in the es - is
fully automated what I'm going to do is
I'm going to option clicking the XY pad
to set it back to the center and I'm
also going to I'm going to click on this
track go to mix delete automation and
I'm going to choose delete all
automation on selected track because I
want to get rid of the automation that's
on this so now a no automation alright
the next thing I want to show you how to
do is I want to show you how to use the
vector mode in addition to in addition
to the router mode you can also have
vector mode the vector mode is
essentially a vector envelope and one of
the things I mentioned in the previous
video is that with envelopes they don't
repeat with LFOs LFOs they do repeat
with a vector envelope it's a special
type of envelope where you can create
basically as many stages as you want or
as many stages as you possibly need and
you can make it repeat itself and loop
itself you can make it go forward
backward forward and backward so there's
all sorts of cool things you can do with
this I'm just going to show you the kind
of the tip of the iceburg thing that you
can do with the with the vector envelope
it's one of my favorite things to do
with it and that is to create kind of
rhythmic motion sequences or kind of
sometimes they're called gated sense
because it's like a synth that has
almost like a rhythmic motion to it so
what I'm going to do is going back to
router mode I'm actually going to turn
off my amplitude effect here that I
created earlier it's just option option
click on it
whoops wrong keyboard there we go I have
two keyboards sitting out here right now
and I'm going to keep thee and actually
I can turn these off as well because
that's not going to matter so let's go
back to vector mode and the first thing
we need to do is we need to assign to
modulation targets to be affected over
time and you can do that right here
there's an X target and a Y target and
these do correspond to the XY pad as
well which is why I got rid of the the
routers over here because I'm going to
reassign the the X&Y pad in vector mode
instead so let's say that the x axis I
want this to be volume or amplitude so
I'll choose amplitude and then for the Y
target I'm going to make this cutoff one
and two there we go guys I apologize
about the glitchyness my screen capture
software does not run as well on my
laptop what I'm also going to do is I'm
going to pull the intensity up the
intensity at zero is a lot like having
one of these green knobs over here at
zero it means that the modulation router
is going to do nothing if I have my
intensity at zero nothing's going to
happen so I need to pull this up and
it's a factor between zero and one you
can even go in the negative as well and
I'm going to pull this up a bit as well
maybe not all the way though there we go
the next thing we need to do is we need
to choose a vector mode and right now
the vector mode is off and so I want to
be able to control these two parameters
with my XY pad so for my vector mode I'm
going to choose X Y now what I'm going
to do is I'm going to initialize this
this vector envelope to a 16 16 or an 8
8 loop if you right click on it you can
see it you can see there's two options
initialize 2 8 8 or 16 16 loop this
essentially breaks up the envelope into
8 equal pieces
so I'm going to do this with 16:16 there
we go
and why is this a 498 and these say let
me just uh hang on a moment we just
delete these points it's actually clear
envelope right click clear envelope
we'll try this again right-click
initialize to 16:16 there we go
it's still doing something weird but
we'll see what it sounds like later
essentially what you what we can do now
is for each one of these stages each one
of these points on the envelope we can
choose a different XY position and
that's what XY the XY mode does only put
it back in XY mode and so without any
automation without us having to move
these controls around it'll the envelope
will essentially kind of automatically
control the position of the XY pad over
here so what I'm going to do is just
click on the first point and then just
choose a spot and click on the next
point and choose a spot and I'm kind of
just doing this at random but you can
kind of you know if you remember you
know what each because zone sounds like
you can kind of tailor this into a
rhythmic sequence that you like you can
also click on this solo point button
down here and if you play your midi
controller you'll be able to hear what
the tone of that particular position
sounds like so I could click here and
then make sure solo point is on and then
play my midi controller and you'll hear
what the tone sounds like just at that
point without actually cycling through
the whole envelope because I don't have
a MIDI controller hooked up right now
I'm not going to do that so just going
through randomly picking spots
there we go and let's go look way down
here I'm going to put the very first
point right in the center okay now when
you initialize this to a 16 16 loop
what's supposed to happen is you'll
normally see like a percentage here I'm
not really sure why that's this is
happening normally it'll show us like a
percentage of 12 point something percent
or something along those lines I can get
sit with an 8 8 loop but what you can do
is what you can do is you can choose a
loop rate and my loop rate is 1 1 that's
basically means a whole note so it means
this entire loop is equal to one measure
of music so if I press play it should
play through a weird sort of morphed
sequence where the x and y pad is just
jumping all over the place
16 different times and there you go now
if I wanted this to happen a little bit
faster you would just set your loop rate
to a shorter loop and yeah they're ago
when I moved it it kind of corrected the
glitch of so many glitches in logic 10 I
tell you what so let's go to a half note
so now this whole sequence is only is a
half note long and so you'll hear the
motion of of this effect go faster if I
want it to be slower I could set it to
you know maybe two bars instead of one
bar so we can go to bars
now yet another thing that you can do
with this is in addition to controlling
the position of the XY pad you can also
control the position of the triangle
over here of the mix of the three
oscillators so if you want to do that
you just change the vector mode from XY
to mix or mix plus XY so mix plus XY is
going to let us control this and this
simultaneously so now for each one of
these points I can also choose a
position on the triangle and you can get
a different balance between the three
the three oscillators so I can kind of
make this jump around between the three
oscillators and sort of like a rhythmic
pattern so let's go ahead and do that
just going to choose some random points
like last time sometimes this is really
the best way to do it just randomly
choose spots and if there's like a point
that doesn't really sound right you can
go tweak it and then listen to it and
see what it sounds like so like I said
this is a really great way to create
sort of like rhythmic rhythmic sequences
and make the synthesizer not only have
like a tonal like chordal you know idea
with it you know it also has a rhythmic
kind of motive behind it as well
and there you go
so that's just the the vector envelope
in a nutshell it's much much more
complex than I'm making it out to be I
just barely kind of scratched the
surface on it and I talked a little bit
more about it in my in my es 2 tutorial
series that's separate from this logic
series so if you're really interested in
that you can go check that out or just
you know read the manual
one last thing or want to last things I
want to show you what the es 2 is if you
would prefer to use the routers as
opposed to the vector mode to control to
control things its control targets and
you want to be able to learn a MIDI
continuous controller that maybe that
isn't included in the via in the via
menu so for instance if I want to
control like we did before I want to
control the amount of a stutter effect
I'll say amp with an LFO and you click
on your via and velocity is there you
know the pitch Bend is there modulation
wheel is there you can also choose from
six different they're labeled control a
through F 6 different continuous
controllers and these are mapable learn
about MIDI controllers our continuous
controllers so if I click on control a I
can create a range for it just like we
do the modulation wheel but what I would
do is go down here and click on the MIDI
button and what you'll see is controls a
through F we talked a little bit about
this when we were going over continuous
controllers earlier on in this series
and you can change control a to any of
your 128 MIDI CCS so if I want to
control this with my volume fader which
is CC 7 you just assign control a to be
number 7
that means that this is going to be
controlled by cc7 if you don't know what
a CC number a particular particular
fader is on your keyboard you all you
have to do is choose the learn option
and then move that fader it'll
automatically learn it for you so real
quick I'm just going to off-screen this
I need to plug in my MIDI keyboard so I
can actually show you how to map this
and I'll be right back okay so I'm back
and I've got my MIDI controller hooked
up what I'm going to do now is since I
want to control the amount of the
stutter effect with a MIDI continuous
controller I'm going to go to learn and
I'm just going to move one of the faders
on my MIDI controller and it'll actually
just map that control for us so I'm
moving the fader that fader happens to
be CC 72 so this is just a great way to
learn you know learn a various fader or
knob on your MIDI controller if you're
not sure what the exact CC number is so
now when I push that fader down
we don't get much of the stutter effect
but if I push it up we get more of that
stutter effect so then we can we can you
know you could map up you know like I
said before there's six of them you
could map up to six different faders or
knobs and have those six faders or knobs
control six different parameters in the
s2 the very last thing I want to show
you about the s2 is the ability to
randomize it I don't really use this
much but it is useful if you're just
trying to come up with you know weird
sound effects and things like that the
ran the randomization feature is right
here you just click on this rnd button
it automatically just randomizes it and
you can choose an intensity for the
randomization between one and a hundred
percent now obviously the higher this
goes the more random everything's going
to be and you can also choose what
features you want to randomize I'm going
to stick with all so everything's
randomized and I'm going to sure I'm
going to go ahead with a hundred percent
let's click on it and we're going to get
a completely random patch now these
generally don't sound they're not
generally musically useful but they're
kind of cooled for just for generating
you know like random sound effects and
things like that so here's this one
not that useful let's click on it again
we'll get another one let's try again
but that was completely useless let's
track another one so a lot of them are
really really random and not very
musically useful but if you try to
generate like computer sounds and maybe
like some sound effects for film or
something that you're doing a film
project you're doing you could try using
them all right so that's the es - in a
nutshell like I said before this is no
way a complete tutorial on it more or
less just an overview for you and again
remember if you skipped over the
beginning of the video you're only going
to be able to use the plug-in automation
if you're using a logic ten point 0.6 or
lower ten point six hour ten point 0.7
is where this bug emerged so I'm
assuming that once ten point 0.8 comes
out that they will have fixed that
because as far as I've I've read it is a
confirmed bug and so hopefully it's
something they take care of in the next
and the neck and the next update so I
hope you enjoyed the video and thanks
for watching