Logic Pro X - Video Tutorial 52 - Ultrabeat (PART 2) Drum Synthesis Video Lecture | Logic Pro X: A Practical Hands-on Course - Music

[Music]
hello this is music tech help guy and
welcome to episode 52 of my Logic Pro 10
video tutorial series in this episode
we're gonna continue on with our look at
the ultra beat which as I said in the
previous video is a synthesizer a
sampler as well as a step sequencer and
today we're gonna take a look at most of
the synthesis features of the ultra beat
not all of them but I'll go through most
of the important ones alright so if you
watch the previous video I kind of ended
the video with this drum pattern we
dragged in some samples we tweaked them
a little bit and we ended up with this
drum pattern so if you want to figure
out how to actually use the step
sequencer how to drop the pattern down
to the arrange window on how to drag and
drop in samples to build your own custom
drum kits then you're gonna want to
watch the the previous video so let's
talk about maybe how to start modulating
some of these sounds and tweaking them
with ultra beats synthesis capabilities
I might have said this in the previous
video but each of ultra beats voices
here each of the kind of the lanes as I
call them has a different synthesis
window so each synthesizer will be
different for each voice so what that
means is you have basically highly
customizable control over each voice so
let's start maybe like with our kick
drum here I'm just gonna solo out the
kick here and hit play so we get kind of
a snappy sounding kick there actually go
ahead and turn the filter off because I
need to demonstrate that but first let's
just take a look at this slider right
here
this is oscillator two's pitch control
so oscillator 2 includes the sample load
in area that we looked at in the
previous video where we dragged in this
from the pitch control allows us to up
tune or down tune any sample so by
default samples are pitched at c3 even
though technically you know a kick drum
doesn't have any definite pitch they're
just using c3 as a pitch reference so if
I wanted to drop the pitch and the kick
drum I would just pull this down and I'm
gonna get a deeper kick or if I pull it
up I'm gonna get a higher kick for the
kick drum I'm gonna pull it down just a
hair not too much though there we go
[Music]
the other thing we can do is we can
control the volume right here of this
individual oscillator just by grabbing
the middle of this and pulling it up or
down right now there's actually a
modulation effect set up on it to
control the volume via velocity so this
kind of blue option here's just says max
that's the source and then the velocity
here in green is the via you can click
on either of these and change them we're
not going to go too deep into all of the
via controls but you can actually make
an LFO or when the envelopes control the
volume of this one oscillator I'm pretty
much just gonna leave this alone but we
will I will come back to modulating
other things like in the filter or
modulating the noise generator so I'm
pretty much just gonna leave this alone
there are when you use the drag and drop
samples kit it automatically sets up the
the sample oscillator this way so that
when you pull up or pull down the
velocity of a note it also affects the
volume of it so that's basically all
that does let's come up to the filter
here you can turn the filter on just by
clicking here and then you can make an
oscillator go to the filter by clicking
right here so this just looks like a
little flat screwdriver screw it
basically means that this oscillator is
not going to the filter and you click on
it you get the arrow it means it is
going into the filter and by the way you
can send the top oscillator up here
which we'll look at in a moment you can
send this into the filter and you can
also send the noise generator into the
filter as well so we'll take a look at
those later
so filters too
you know simple filter it's got four
different types of filters low-pass
high-pass band pass band reject low-pass
cuts out high frequencies while allowing
lows high-pass allows highs through
while cutting lows bandpass allows a
middle band of frequencies through and
band reject cuts and middle band of
frequencies and then the twelve and
twenty four are the slopes so 12 DB
slope is going to more gradual than a 24
DB slope so what we can control here is
a cut-off frequency that's sort of this
cut knob is and resonance just like any
typical filter what I'm gonna do is I'm
going to turn off the modulation here
I'm just gonna say off just so I have it
just a just a red knob here with no
green or blue on it and basically this
just controls the cutoff frequency so if
I use a low pass filter and start
pulling this down you're gonna see more
and more of the high frequencies scooped
out of the out of the signal so we get a
kind of warmer sound and likewise with
high-pass as I pull it down or pull it
up rather you're gonna hear more and
more of the low scooped out so I'm not
gonna use that on a kick drum I am gonna
use the low pass on the kick drum but
one thing I want to show you is you can
actually control where this cutoff is
you can modulate the cutoff based on the
velocity of a note you can see here I
have different velocities for my kick
hit so I've got some that are kind of
quick and have lower velocities and
others that are right on the downbeat
that are a little bit louder so what I
can do is I can say the modulation
source here in blue I can say I want
that to be Max and then the via is
velocity so what I'm doing is I'm
controlling the maximum value of the
cutoff by velocity so what you'll see
when you choose these two options is you
get a little green slider and you
actually get a little blue slider in
here as well as well as
the the red control as well so what I'm
gonna do is I'm gonna set the blue to
max I'm going to put all pull it all the
way up and I'm gonna pull the green on
down a bit and basically what I'm doing
is I'm creating a range for velocity to
control the difference between this
slider
and this slider and so basically louder
velocities are gonna be more up here at
the top basically an open filter lower
velocities are gonna be more down here
at the bottom and so we'll get sounds
that are a little more filtered so let's
see what this sounds like and actually
what I did there is actually did it in
Reverse I need to switch these the green
needs to go on top the blue needs to go
on the bottom and they get a little
confusing that sometimes they're hard to
see the colors and you kind of get lost
because there's three different kind of
sliders on one knob so let's try that
again and if let me just kind of pull
one of these other ones down just you
can hear it a little better so the notes
they have lower velocities are the ones
that have more filter on them so this is
a great way to kind of just simulate
quick you know kick drum hits and you
know typically you know when a real
drummer hits a kick drum more quickly
something like this like I do sort of
sort of thing the first kick is not hit
as hard the second kick that's on the
downbeat is hit harder so that results
in not only a volume change but also
sort of like a tonal change there's also
a resonance knob just boosts the signal
at the cutoff frequency resonance is
essentially just feedback so sometimes
you'll get a little more crisp enos or I
call it froggy nests in the low range or
you'll get a bit of a ringing sound in
the upper rein
I'm not gonna use that for the kick-drum
another option contained er than the
filter here is the distortion unit
there's basically two modes for it
there's crush and then distort distort
is more or less kind of like an
overdrive unit it almost sounds like a
tube distortion crush is actually a bit
crusher kind of like a kind of like the
bit crusher plugin that's included logic
so if I pull up the drive here and pull
up the color and the clip amount you'll
hear a noticeable difference in the tone
and then the store mode it's more like a
a tube overdrive but it kind of cuts out
the low-end when I use this so I'm not
going to use this on the on the kick
drum but we will use it on the on the
snare drum one other control and the
filter is you can control the signal
flow of how the oscillator goes into the
filter and whether that signal goes to
the distortion unit first or whether it
goes to the filter first because there
is a noticeable difference let me turn
the crush unit back on there and this
little arrow determines whether
basically it controls the direction of
the signal so if it's up like this it
means that the signal from the
oscillators goes into the distortion
unit first then goes into the filter if
you click on it and flip it around that
means the signal goes into the filter
first then into the distortion unit not
causing us too much of a noticeable
difference here but we will hear that
difference when we add this to the snare
drum alright let's take a look at our
first oscillator up here the first
oscillator is limited in that it doesn't
have the sample function
that the second oscillator did but it
does have some other things that kind of
makes up for it so first all first of
all it has a phase oscillator option
which means that it's basically just a
regular synthesizer oscillator you know
you could produce a sine wave if you
pull up the slope you can produce you
know morph it into a triangle wave if
you pull up the asymmetry and the slope
you get sort of like a sawtooth and then
if you pull up the saturation it kind of
truncates the signal and you get
something like a square wave so you can
kind of you can get all of your four
main oscillator waveforms out of the
phase oscillator and by the way
oscillator - the one that we used for
our sample also has a phase oscillator
as well you just have to switch it to
that mode now the phase oscillator
basically is gonna allow us to layer our
sample down here with just a regular
synthesizer waveform for now I've turned
off oscillator 2 because I just want to
here oscillator 1 by itself so let me
just click on the key here yeah you can
barely even hear it and the reason for
that is that the tuning is down at C 0
so let me pull this up a bit I'm gonna
put this on C 1 and the reason why I'm
using C 1 is because I just I know
offhand that these little synth hits
that we use that we dragged in there in
the previous video I know that the low
one is a C so I just want to kind of
keep the tonality the same so I'm gonna
make my oscillator C 1 as well so let me
just try that again there you go so
we're getting kind of like a low sine
wave if we pull the volume up a bit so
we can hear that better there we go I
can pull up the slope the asymmetry get
more of like a sawtooth sound and then I
can pull up the saturation to get more
of like a square wave sound so what you
can do is when you have both of these on
it will layer them together and so you
can kind of reinforce the kick drum with
an actual tone you know here it's C 1 so
it's just the phase oscillator on its on
its gonna sound like this right now
and then with the kick on there we go
actually I've turned off the distortion
unit there so it's kind of cool that you
can layer a kick drum with another sound
what I'm also gonna do is the kick is a
bit there the sube the phase oscillator
is a bit long and actually one thing I
did in between videos was on my fourth
envelope here remember that controls the
volume of basically the whole of the
butts it's an output volume envelope so
it controls the kind of the the volume
of everything and we've said that when
you pull the release all the way out it
plays the full sample the problem with
that is that with the phase oscillator
on we're gonna get a note that just
plays indefinitely well the place for 10
seconds actually so a way to fix that
a way to fix that is to click on the
zoom here that'll just just pull the
whole envelope into one view and then
shorten our release time so we just get
a little bit of it and you can even make
it even shorter if you want and what I
did there is I just kind of controlled
these little um these little controls
here to kind of control the shape of the
release of the of the envelope just to
kind of make it a little quicker
sounding and then again we can send the
phase oscillator right into the filter
as well just by clicking here so let's
see what that sounds like with
everything there we go
another option for oscillator one is the
FM mode and in one of the previous
videos we had talked about FM synthesis
as the ability to feed the signal of an
oscillator into another oscillator and
that's exactly what this does when you
turn oscillator 1 in FM mode basically
what you're doing is you're taking the
signal of oscillator 2 and routing it
into oscillator 1 but this time instead
of using like two sine waves like we did
in the EFM one and one of the previous
videos is that we're routing the signal
of a sample into a sine wave and so you
can morph the tone that way let me just
play that for you just solo this out so
without it with it a little deeper what
I can also do is
up the f-m amount we can pull up the FM
amount we get a little bit more of like
a knock on it which is kind of nice and
again this is also controlled by the you
know the length of our envelope over
here too so I like that the other thing
to keep in mind is that the pitch of the
oscillator does matter so you'll get a
different tone a different tone out of
it depending on what pitch you get so
imma stick with c1 there's also a
sidechain sidechain oscillator but we'll
talk about that later
alright so I'm pretty much set with the
kick drum here there's also a modeling
oscillator down here that we'll talk
about later as well let me move up to my
snare drum and kinda just tweak this a
bit here's what the snare drum sounds
like now and actually in between videos
I pulled up the pitch on the snare just
a hair just it used to sound like this
so it was just a little lower I'm I like
pulled up to D sharp so three semitones
there we go
I'm gonna turn the filter on for this
I'm gonna turn the bit crusher on for
this as well I'm gonna use a high-pass
to kind of scoop out some of the low-end
in it drop the pressure
there we go
for this I'm not gonna use the first
oscillator but what I am gonna use is
this noise generator over here the noise
generator as you can hear generates
noise basically what it does let me turn
the filter off just for a moment
basically what it does is it generates a
white noise and then you can apply a
low-pass high-pass bandpass or a
bandpass filter to it so you can scoop
out the highs the lows or you can have a
little band of noise and if you turn
around bypass it's just white noise and
then you can control the cutoff
frequency of the filter here and the
resonance of the filter here and then
this is just the volume of the noise
we'll talk about dirt in just a second
so if I put this on bypass I'm going to
turn off the snare sample there I
basically just get white noise you can
hear that it just plays continuously
because the envelope over here envelope
four is pulled all the way out so my
snare drum acts like a one-shot one way
to get around that is to assign a
different envelope to just the noise
generator so the noise generator will
play just a little puff of noise and
then the snare sample will play it's
it's full length and the way to do that
is to use one of our other envelopes I'm
going to use envelope three here and I'm
going to kind of just adjust it so it's
kind of short and I also you can play
with the little controls here to kind of
ramp down the the volume there cuz this
want to be kind of like a quick little
transient as all I want and then what
I'm going to do is I'm going to say
modulate or the modulate of the
modulation the modulation source excuse
me modulation source is going to be
envelope three because that's what I've
chosen over here and then what I can do
is just set a range and what I'm going
to do is I'm going to pull the actual
volume all the way down but the envelope
volume all the way up so that means that
the noise generator every single time
there's an
down here is gonna trigger the noise
generator these notes are going to
trigger the noise generator and the
volume of the noise generator is going
to be like this as opposed to like this
which the snare sample is like so if I
hit play we just get a little puff of
noise now what I'm also gonna do let's
pull the volume down a bit here because
this is now going to control the maximum
volume is I'm going to attempt to try to
create sort of like a clap sound so just
to show you what the different filters
options sound like here's low pass and
play with the cutoff high pass and
bandpass I'm going to stick with the
high pass let me pull the resonance up a
bit and then I'm also going to play with
the dirt optional the dirt almost gives
it sort of like a gargled sound but it's
great for kind of emulating like claps
like like a hand clap and let me just
shorten the decay time here by the way
there's a sustain button here when you
click on sustain it adds this little red
slider and what it does is it turns the
envelope into an attack decay sustain
that's the red slider and release with
sustain off release becomes decay you
just have an attack and a decay so I'm
gonna just pull this in to make it a
little shorter there we go so I've
synthesized a clap sound to layer on top
of the snare sound
there we go so I just turned the filter
back on and I fed the signal of the clap
into the filter all right so I've kind
of customized my snare drum here a bit
let's move up to the high hats the high
hats right now sound like this
they sound up I hate to say is they
sound a bit too real because they are
recorded fo above there are recording of
a real high hat I want them to sound a
little more physically a little more
high-end a little more synthesized so
what I'm going to do is instead of using
the filter I'm gonna actually show off
the tube and EQ that is included with
each each voice so I'm gonna do with my
closed hi-hat here is I'm going to turn
on my upper band here
band one can be a low band or a low
shelf band two can be an upper shelf or
like an upper band so if I just this is
basically just the gain right here you
can reduce or increase the gain you can
control the frequency of the band there
we go you can actually grab it down here
and move it around as well and then you
can also control the Q the Q and like a
band an EQ basically just controls the
bandwidth so you can have a wide band or
a narrow band a little notch in there
with the shelves you basically just get
sort of like a change in the slope there
and I'm actually going to go ahead and
take advantage of that and use me for
band one I'm gonna pull down the signal
to kind of cut out the low-end let's see
what that sounds like
[Music]
there we go apparently I wasn't cutting
enough out all right so I'm just going
to try to take that same shape and pull
it over to the to the open high head as
well
there we go
let's move up to our synth hits here
this is what the synth it sound like by
themselves they sound okay but they're a
bit weak so what I'm going to do is I'm
going to layer them with the phase
oscillator I'm just gonna kind of throw
in a like a low sine wave there you go
let's see what that sounds like
yeah so that's without and with just
reinforcing that low C down there with a
sine wave that's also on a low C for the
upper one it's like a c-sharp
I believe so let me just pull all these
down search to have a sine wave I
already kind of set this in advance to
c-sharp so let's see the sounds like
let's use C sharp two instead of C sharp
three there we go there we go so I'm
gonna reinforce the bass on those as
well now if I really wanted a real
gnarly sounding bass I could use the FM
bass instead I'll show you what that
sounds like
[Music]
so you just run it through oscillator 1
and FM mode and pull up the FM depth and
you'll get a real kind of dirty
growly bass you know I think I'll stick
with that let me do that do that for
both of these yeah let's see the whole
pattern sounds like together now all
right there we go just tweaked a couple
things and sounds ok let's talk about
the modeling oscillator and what I'm
gonna do is up here I'll just pick a
note a couple notes here I'm just gonna
what I'm gonna actually do is I'm going
to play create some sort of like plucky
sounds I'm gonna make one of them be on
the note C and I'm gonna make another
one be on G and the great thing about
the modeling oscillator is that it
basically it's a physical modeling
oscillators what it is and the same sort
of the same sort of type of oscillator
is is also in the sculpture synth which
I'll eventually do a tutorial for as
well basically what the modeling
oscillator does is what physical
modeling does is it attempts to recreate
real-life Tambor's real-life tones and
so what you get is just an XY pad with
basically four main positions four
corners to it the the material pad is
the pad the XY pad is gonna basically
determine what sound you're getting the
resolution is how many overtones in that
sound are we getting so I'm going to
pull it all the way up to get the most
complex sound and then
the types there's two different types
for each sound so in the upper left
corner you get sort of like a metallic
or an out of metallic like a nylon sound
and the upper right you get sort of like
a wooden sound and the lower right you
get sort of like a glassy bell-like
sound and the lower left you get sort of
a like a steel or a metallic sort of
sound
hmm so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
use the plucky sound the plucky nylon
sound I'm gonna set the resolution all
the way up and set the pitch to c3 and
then I'm gonna do is over here I'm gonna
make this the same thing but I'm just
gonna change the pitch to g3 so one
thing you can do is if you have a
setting here that you want to just kind
of bring over to another another Lane
here is you can right-click on it and
you can say copy voice and sequence and
you can click on a new Lane right click
and say paste voice or you can also say
paste sequence but paste voice now it's
also gonna change the name to plucky see
like ahead before so I'm gonna just
change this to plucky G and then I'm
going to change the pitch up to g3
there we go and then I'm just gonna do
is just kind of play around with this
just add some little you know kind of
random notes in there just see what this
sounds like
let's see if that sounds like and I just
panned them hard left and hard right to
kind of make them almost like a
ping-pong sort of effect going back and
forth
there we go
now the last oscillator option we
haven't talked about is the sidechain
option so what I'm gonna do is up here
in this top voice I'm going to call this
side chain loop and the reason why I'm
calling a side chain loop is because
essentially what the sidechain
oscillator does is it lets you input the
signal of a loop that's out in your
arrange window so you can kind of
control the playback of that loop with
the step sequencer which is really
really cool so what I have out my
arrange window here is I have a loop
that I've just kind of dragged in in
advance and it just sounds like this so
what I'm gonna do with this is I'm gonna
actually believe it or not I'm gonna
mute it and what I'm going to do is I'm
going to sidechain the signal of this
into the ultra beat so the ultra beat
can control the playback of this loop so
there's anything that's if you've dealt
with side chaining or compression side
chaining or you know sidechain within a
vocoder you'll know that the actual
sidechain source the loop or whatever it
is your side chaining doesn't have to be
active you can you can mute the track so
let me just open up ultra beat again
here and what I'm gonna do is again
choose sidechain for this top lane and
then go up to sidechain up here and
choose a sidechain source so you'll see
blocking move beat one that was the name
of the loop and I'm gonna go to my step
sequencer and if I hit play nothing's
gonna happen but if I start laying in
some steps here on that side chain loop
and by the way it's solo that's why the
why we're only hearing this and not all
this down here what we'll hear is that
will begin to audibly hear
the loop so I have to press play for
this to work not just play here in the
sequencer I have to hit play like as in
spacebar play so what we're actually
seeing right here is we're seeing a
little slice a little piece of that loop
being triggered here starting at you
know just right at beat one and so
you'll only hear it when there's a step
in the lane so what I can do is I can
play around it like this I can say every
downbeat and we'll just get a little
kind of pieces of it whoops again you
get a hit spacebar and you can play
around this and with this and just kind
of grab little bits and pieces of the
loop to create your own sort of sliced
up and chopped up pattern what I want to
do with this I'm just gonna right click
and say clear what I want to do this is
I want to grab the snares on it so I'm
going to just kind of do something like
that
oops again I get hit the spacebar
actually the snares right here just want
to grab those snare drums out of it and
there we go so then what I can do is I
can layer that in with the rest of my
pattern let me just go ahead and drag my
pattern down here just like so
then we'll just loop this out there we
go all right I apologize that the screen
capture is starting to get a little
buggy my videos the video is getting
quite long so the screen captures having
trouble keeping up so let me just hit
play here and see what this sounds like
[Music]
there we go one last thing I want to
show you real quick is the ability to
import sounds from other drum kits into
this kit I can't remember if I showed
this or not in the previous episode if
there's a sound and another kit that you
really like that you want to import into
your current kit it's actually very
simple to do all you do is you click on
this import button right here and you
can you'll see basically the same menu
options as you saw in the drag down menu
from from within ultrabeat so I can say
drum kits and then I can say you know
let's say I want to grab the steely
beats kit what it'll do is it'll load up
the whole steely beats kit right next to
your current kit and you can click on
these and audition them and you can find
you can find a sound that you like so
maybe I want this side stick thing going
on what you can do is you can grab that
drag it into your your current kit it'll
pull it in there and you can do it with
multiples you just hit this up button
here to close the imported kit and now
you can use that sound that you just
imported in your current kit
[Music]
that's a little hard to hear let me just
clear it and put it on the upbeat
instead right click at every upbeat pull
the volume up and some of these imported
kits are pretty cool if you instead of
using the drum kits option if you use
the drum banks you can like choose from
a whole bunch of different kicks or a
whole bunch of different snares so you
can say you know I want the analog snare
bank and I get basically nothing but
snares to pick from that you can kind of
drag which one you want into your kit
and kind of build a custom kit just out
of other preset kits alright so that
concludes this video in the next episode
we'll talk about the step mode and then
we'll also talk about the multi output
mode which allows you to kind of mix all
of our voices individually which would
be really helpful for this kit because
there's a lot going on in it so I hope
you enjoyed the video and thanks again
for watching