Refining the sound with EQ in the Output section

Let's take a look at how we can polish and EQ the sound with the output section. So I am going to load up that clap sound that we started to make. So I'm going to go to the Load settings and go to Desktop/Exercise Files/Ultrabeat, and then in there the Preset folder, and I am going to load in this Ultrabeat_LfoClap. So this is where we got with our clap sound so far. It sounds pretty good, but it needs a bit in terms of the EQ and so on.

So I can see the sound is actually clipping, so what I am going to do is just bring down the voice volume a bit. Okay, so now it's not. So taking a look at this output section here, there are a couple of different things. We've got a two-band EQ that I can turn on by pressing each band right here, and then we can either have pan modulation or a stereo-spread adjustment. So first let's take a look at the EQ functions. So for band 1, we can have two different types of EQ. It can either be a peak, so I can boost it like this.

Here is my gain control that I am adjusting right now. And then I can adjust the frequency right here. You can see I can sweep that around. And I can also adjust the bandwidth of it. So it's very much kind of like a Channel EQ, but it's built right into Ultrabeat. The other mode that this EQ can function in is a shelf. So I can have a low shelf here, where I can boost the low frequencies, or I can attenuate them, bring down the gain, and I can adjust the frequency of that as well. And I can also adjust the cutoff on that. You can see that's going to create a little bit of a boost here, so it's like resonance in a way.

So those are the two different modes. And if we look at band 2, it's very similar. We've got this parametric EQ peak here that we can move around. Or if I reduce the gain, it's a notch. And then we've got a shelf here as well, and this is a high shelf. So I can boost the high frequencies or I can attenuate or bring down the level of the high frequencies. So then in the context of this particular sound that we are working on, let's see what we can do. So I am going to turn on band 1. I'll set it to peak. I am going to adjust this to around 920 and just boost it a little bit here.

Okay. So that sounds all right, but really this needs more high frequencies also. So band 2, turn it on, and we have it set to a high shelf. And I'll bring this down to sort of the mid-range, lower mids, bring up the level here, and really bring up the bandwidth too. (music playing) There we go. That's sounding pretty good. (music playing) It's definitely sounding more like a clap. So check it out when I turn off the EQ. (music playing) So it's not quite as defined.

(music playing) There we go. We've got more clap action happening here. So the next thing we can do is take a look at the stereo spread parameter, because this might be useful for the clap sound as well. So I can press the spread button here, and what this is going to do is it's going to split up the high frequencies and low frequencies and the stereo image bit. So I'll up the amount of high frequency spread. You can hear, especially if you're listening on headphones, that it's very stereo sounding.

Maybe a little bit too much. And I can adjust the low frequency spread as well. (music playing) So you can definitely play around with those parameters and find where it sounds right. Sometimes a little bit goes a long way, so you might just have a little bit and that makes all the difference. Again, we're clipping here a bit, so I am going to turn down the level. Okay. That sounds pretty good! So that's how the spread works. Another possibility in terms of the output section here is pan modulation. Now, this might not be ideal for a clap sound, but let's try it anyway.

So I am going to press pan modulation. Notice when I do that, the spread turns off. So you can only have one or the other on. So what I've got here is this little red line in the center. So what that's telling me is my initial pan position that I have set in my mixer. So if I move that on the mixer, in the assignment section, you can see it's moving the starting place. So I'll just go ahead and Option+ Click that and set it back to the center. Then what I can do is assign something to modulate the panning. So right now it's set to Lfo1, but I could choose any of these modulation choices here.

And what I'll do it is set the range with this slider here. So you can hear the panning is moving rather quickly back and forth. I'll adjust our settings here. You know what? I actually want to use Lfo2, because Lfo1 is essential to our clap sound. So fortunately, we have two LFOs, so I am going to change the modulation here to Lfo2. There we go, it's a little bit slower. And I am going to change the waveform of Lfo2 to a pulse wave, so that it's just going to be hard-panned back and forth. And I'll set the rate a little bit slower just so it's easier to hear.

A little faster than that. There we go. (music playing) So you can hear it jump back and forth. So that's how you can use the pan modulation here. So I'll turn that off and turn back on the spread, because that works better for our clap sound. And then the other feature that you have in terms of the output section here is your voice volume, which we've looked at before. And you can see that envelope 4 is hardwired to it, so much so that you have no other choice. So typically when you see this modulation tag up here, it means that you can choose. Envelope 4 is permanently assigned to your voice volume.

But you can modulate it with Velocity or the A, B, C, or D MIDI controls. So I could have it be modulated by via a Velocity, and then I just set the range here that I want that to be modulated, and then we could make our clap be velocity responsive. So there you go. So now that we've taken a look at the output section and how we can use the EQ, pan modulation, and spread to enhance and polish the sound. In the next video let's explore how we can synthesize a kick drum from scratch.