Lessons

Lesson Info

FM Polyphonic Leads

All right, Welcome back. Now we're on less and three of level two, this is gonna be taken that fat FM mono base that we just made and turning into a polyphonic lied, still employing velocity sensitivity. But now, in the case of making leads or pitched percussion passively, that's gonna kind of take the notation and melodic part of the track somewhere special and allow for maximum articulation from our performance or a sequencer, or push for a keyboard or whatever we're working with. So to start things off, I'll just pluck a couple notes from that patch were working was kind of our fat mono bays. So you could tell those tambor shifts. Those were all happening because of velocity. Hits yourself velocity. So you employees that velocity sensitivity to those operators modulation deaths. Things get rich in this case. I didn't I didn't use the global panel. I felt like it was too rugged. I just went with that first modulator and turned up last. See sensitivity. A whole bunch put it on 100% an...

d I play out like one velocity. I will get sine wave harder. I hit. Uh, is there It's evoking the overtone modulation from all these different modulators because again, they're all in Syria's behind this guy. When this turns up, they all turn up. All right, So to turn this into a lead, come on over here. But this is a polyphonic mode. Allow us to play chords. Nice harmonies there. Watch out for this d tuning. If you have this too drastic, you'll hear that beat sound. That sounds pretty cool, but it can get pretty rough when you're especially playing Maura minor, um, or shorter intervals. You know you're gonna end up with some beating that can be really cool, but not desirable if you're not trying to do that on purpose. So the first thing we want to dio is switch this over into polyphonic mode. I usually recommend sticking with, like, three or four. You know, four is a seven chord that's plenty loud until we're making big sustaining pads with big, long, overlapping harmonies. I usually say keep it simple and politically account. Um, the next thing I would do is I check an algorithm that's going to allow for more internal kind of built in harmonic functionality. What I mean by that is like I mentioned this. This could be a really great one. Another album with my life that I haven't talked about yet during this course. Is this with this algorithm? I've got one FM modulator and I've got three carriers that are all in parallel. Let's go ahead and turn these all off. We turn my velocity sensitivity back down. Zero. Make sure we're working with just sine waves. Now you can hear when I played that fourth note in my polyphonic in my seven chord end up with Trunk. It's the first fundamental pitch. You can even watch my fingers across the keyboard. We owe way just a sine wave. We could add some tremolo vibrato from our LFO or do other classic added or subtracted techniques. But like I mentioned before, I highly recommend just sticking with the operators in the beginning. While you're learning how to get the best results possible. So long word with this. Let's go ahead and add some other come some other elements and say we, especially in the interest of not needing to know a lot of music theory and know how to play seven chords or maybe having a push, but just plucking one or two notes at the time. It's go ahead and use our course tuning. Let's add an active above the fundamental pitch. Remember, this is a multiplier to tow one that's inactive. Maybe a perfect fifth. Go ahead and go, Um, a perfect fourth as well. This is gonna be a kind of triad ask feeling. They all have their own volume to remember. They're all sine waves. Now I get one nice modulator. Let's take a look at our way for me. Wait. One nice modulator for revoking FM over the whole deal. Let's go ahead and give it a little pluck just for it. And add some Tambor at the attack. Maybe with this lever that way. So you got to see how this kind of function works, adding just FM to just to a whole parallel sear parallel combination. So this is just like an additive synthesis patch, right? Let's go ahead and maybe take that top one. The fifth overtone. Let's try wait for him with a little more overtones, even a triangle with way. Sorry, you can hear when I bumped the wrong keys there. It starts to sound really gnarly, and that's because I mean probably phonic mode. Let's go ahead and even try a more complex wave form for our modulator as well. Let's go with the digital square wave. And in fact, this is a great application for a square wave with less overtones. Because if I tried the digital square wave, it's gonna be really intense. Plunk action or I can get slow. So this is a cool way to combine series and parallel modulators as well as take advantage of some of these more rich wave forms. So we've now taking advantage of some different algorithms. It's even go. Let's try this guy. Let's keep it right where it is. Just click around method that I really, really like is this has given you examples. A lot of these I like to use for leads because they gave me the ability to combine series and parallel operators like, in this case, the yellow one. A is its own kind of parallel sub occupy modulator, our apartment sub octave oscillator carrier. Whereas B is also a carrier that has two FM drivers, it's back these off. Start with just be keeping a out. It will be my lead well Well, Polly, lead there. I'm gonna go ahead and add a sub base sine wave low end. Now, I can FM this to just put a little plug on the front of that. Keep some sustain up. I'm gonna want to have a little bit of growl that do that. Slowly. Attacks go way up high. I think so. This is really utilizing Siri's combination in the true FM since. But now we have this sub. It was a long way, huh? So now you can see how these different algorithms work and helping you be able to create just a combination of simple waves that are truly rich and that have a lot of life. Now let's evoke a little bit of with motion or beating by d tuning these a little bit for that subtle vibe. Rato zoom out of this a little, said that shaking. That's because of the D tuning way. Which leads me to my lack next tip for leads. You don't just go zero or one or two. That's when you want things to sound constant, but with a little bit of motion. I like to build a patch that's purely constant on and then I use my ears and just listen and even watch for when those overtones start to pile up and lying up and create more interesting new results. Keep going. So yeah, this is this gets to be really fun. Watch out for kind of classic subdivisions like to 53 500. But use your ears and just suddenly navigate around and see what kind of cool results you come up with. This, to me, is a really cool lead patch. I'd probably go in here and maybe back off my attack a little bit on some of these. So not quite so bitey, You know, other things I'd probably due to the lead is I honestly experiment with maybe a little bit brighter of away form this way for him. This square for is pretty bright. Let's go ahead and crank it up to like a square 60. Notice how when I bring up the sustained level of modulators, see getting more depth or more as action on a D, and it's because it's behind in the modulation chain. Right? So you got to remember that those algorithm you choose is going to affect all different elements for how these operators interact with each other s o. Now that I've got this nice polyphonic FM lead to patch happening, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna utilize my LFO on one of my favorite things to do. I need a slow modulation generator. I could use it for VEB Arado by modulating the pitch. Or I could use it for tremolo by modulating the volume but instead I'm going to actually modulate the FM drive. This is when I was doing earlier from the V a section. But I love this with a re triggered LFO keeping that are turned on. Put it to keep it in low speed mode. Give it a nice slow attack. Let's say okay, about three seconds it'll start attacking anything about 10 more seconds before it reaches maximum level and it's going to stay out. Ah, so FM drive also is being critically affected. By which algorithm you've chosen your in this mode, it's doing nothing. If you're in this mode, it's affecting the volume or level of B, C and D. If you're in the mode, we were just in its only affecting the level of D. So how much coloration D is evoking is gonna affect how much motion you're getting out of the l A phone. I watch if we kick this over into a more complex FM algorithm, we get all sorts of complex action of a good LFO. And it's just because of the algorithm we've chosen because these guys were all generating. Ah, lots of heavy, heavy modulation happening again out of this combination waves. So for at this at this stage of the game for the end of the level, I'd like to give you guys an exercise. To what I'd like you to do is I'd like to start creating some presets. I'd like you to go ahead, select your device when you have a setting that you like and hit command are Let's call this a pound Polly lead, try or square. We're gonna hit, save, make sure it's in our library, right. And you can even make sub folders in here JP jams or whatever. Make your folders that you like so you can access them for later. The cool thing is, what I highly recommend this is a side note is if you're really into using the operator allowed If you have a device like a push, go ahead and grab this operator user folder and drop it down here. That way, you'll always have quick access to it from the places directories. Okay, So, um, in addition to that, when I highly recommend is once you have a setting that you really, really like and you feel like this thing's ready for primetime group it into Iraq, put the name out here, FM, Polly lead back, maybe even through a reverb or delay on their map. A few Mac Rose is FM Deb, there's LFO amounts on the last but not least, we can do global tone spread. They're cool functions of the operating with some really cool way. So yeah, this is Ah. Now, this is what I would save into my library. And be perfectly honest with you if I'm using the push. I'm not loading operator presets unloading racks because I want those Macro is ready to go, so you'll notice right away. I have instrument rack and here's my favorite Axe FM Polly lead rack, where you go some good cool. So, yeah, there's my tips that some that's gonna be the under level three. Go ahead and make yourself some racks mixing presets first. And then when you think they're really banging, threw him into Iraq Maps and Mac Rose dr those into your instrument rack library. And then put this in your places directory, especially if you're using the push. So hopefully you are, uh, meanwhile on if you're not, we've got a whole bunch of Islamic Adamu. Come on through and use many time, uh, hit us up my email addresses JP at slam academy dot com, and we're all back in Weird. We've got a room full of modular since we've got a really nice mixing and mastering room that I'm in right now as well as some other laboratories and also a big venue with a huge wall of custom void bass bins. So we get weird. We also get scientific, and we also have a great time. So people's come on through, hit us up and definitely keep making music. With the operator looking forward to Level three and level three, we're gonna be creating drums doing drums. Census. I'm really excited about that. I use at least four or five instances in every drum rack I've ever made forgetting. The ultimate articulation of my Shakers Club is bongos, Tom snare drums even and definitely kicks and stuff like that. We're gonna be busting all those in the next coming videos, so keep on slamming.