Understanding the amplifier effects

In the right side of ES2 we have got the Amplifier and Effects section. So this is the last stage of the signal flow, because we've got the oscillators, then it goes through the filters, and then it hits the amplifier and effects. So in the amplifier we've got the Volume Control. This is just our master volume, which you can adjust-- (music playing) --up and down. If you want to reset it, just Option+Click sets it back to its default setting at 0dB. Beneath that we have actually a really cool feature. This is Sine Level. So what it's going to do is this is going to bring in a sine wave from oscillator 1 underneath whatever sound we have that's happening.

And it's going to be unfiltered sine wave too. So it goes directly from the Oscillator into the Amplifier stage. And the cool thing is we actually don't even need to have Oscillator 1 on. So if I turn Oscillator 1 off and I turn down the Sine Level, we should have silence. So I am playing the keyboard now and there's nothing. So I can bring up the Sine Level. (music playing) So you can hear there is a Sine wave now. And now I can add back in the Oscillator, or we could have several oscillators happening. (music playing) And I can blend this pure sine wave with our oscillated and filtered sound, and that way I can always have this solid low end to it.

So this is a very cool control. So from there we've got the Effects section. So we have a Distortion that has two different modes: Soft and Hard. So let's take a look at those. So right now here's no Distortion, but I can adjust the amount-- (music playing) --and it's going to increase the level, it's also going to overdrive the signal. (music playing) So maybe I will turn down our output just a little bit. (music playing) And I can adjust the color or the tonality of this overdrive, so I will adjust the Tone Parameter here. (music playing) And then we have the other mode, Hard.

This is more of a harsh distortion. (music playing) Especially when I have this open to bright. (music playing) So you can hear it's really thick, crunchy sounds, and that's what distortion is generally known for. So beneath that, we have a couple of modulation effects as well. There is a chorus, flanger, and phaser. All three are time-based effects and in some ways, they're similar in the way they sound but there are slight differences. So let's explore them. Here's chorus. So what I can do is I've got two controls for intensity and I have speed.

So chorus is generally good for helping make things more stereo and more lush. So let's up the intensity a little bit. (music playing) So you can hear already that there's a much wider stereo image, and then I can adjust the speed of the chorus. (music playing) Maybe slow it down. And what you want to try to do usually is find a good balance, like if you have too much intensity, it just overwhelms the sound. So finding the good balance is sort of the art of it.

So then we have the Flanger effect as well. This is similar. (music playing) A bit of a different characteristic to its modulation. And then last but not least, we have Phaser, which again is another modulation effect, (music playing) but also has different characteristic to it. So you can get a really wide range of effects. It's the combination of distortion and modulation effects-- (music playing) --for any even very simple sound like we've got here, you can really thicken it up.

That's really cool. So we've covered the top half and the main components of ES2: the Oscillator, the Filter and Amplifier and Effects section. Next let's explore the modulation sections below.