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Chapter 14 Ultrabeat 386
Create Ultrabeat snare drums
The sound of an acoustic snare drum consists primarily of two sound components: the sound
of the drum itself and the buzzing of the snare springs. Try to approximate this combination in
Ultrabeat with a single oscillator and the noise generator. Follow the tutorials sequentially to get
the most from these examples.
Create a basic snare drum
1 Load the Standard Tutorial setting.Turn o oscillator 1, and turn on oscillator 2 (in phase oscillator
mode).
2 Choose LFO 1 from the mod pop-up menu of Osc 2 Pitch.
3 Set the pitch value for Osc 2 to around G#2 and set the Mod amount (the blue Mod control) to
about 3 to 4 octaves higher.
You have modulated Osc 2 Pitch with a rapidly vibrating LFO with a medium Ramp Decay value.
This eliminates the sine wave—which is not especially desirable for a snare sound, in contrast to
the bass drum.
4 Set LFO 1 to a high Rate. Choose a value of 20 for Cycles and −20 for Ramp. Set the LFO
Waveform parameter to a value of about 0.58, which is a square wave.
5 Use Env 1 to control the volume of oscillator 2 by setting Vol to the lowest possible value
(−60 dB), choosing Env 1 from the mod pop-up menu, and adjusting the modulation intensity to
a point just below its maximum value.
The gure shows the settings of oscillator 2 and Env 1.
6 Experiment with dierent Slope and Asym values to impart a more or less electronic character to
the sound.
7 Turn on the noise generator and control its volume with the same quick envelope used in
Osc 2 Volume.
8 Use the lter parameters of the noise generator to roughen up, rene, or add bright frequencies
to the noise component of the snare drum sound. Select an LP lter type, and try a lter
frequency between 0.60 and 0.90. Modulate it with LFO 1, which you’re already using to control
the pitch of oscillator 2.
Note: The snare drum sound is listed as “snare 1” in the Tutorial Kit, at a pitch of E1.