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Setting up an LFO

Lesson 5 from: Modular Synthesis with Reaktor

David Earl

Setting up an LFO

Lesson 5 from: Modular Synthesis with Reaktor

David Earl

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Lesson Info

5. Setting up an LFO

Next Lesson: Using Macros

Lesson Info

Setting up an LFO

So maybe I'm gonna create 1/3 envelope and this one I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to. Well, actually, what I'll do instead is I will. I'll set up in LFO because an LFO is another type of modulator doing things at a distance. So the envelope we've decided are defined as being something that is controlling a parameter over time, right? And the envelope? Basically, we have a tactic. A sustained release going on right now with an LFO, we have a low frequency oscillator that we can assign to any parameter. So if it was assigned to panning and it was a sine wave, it would Pam, like this go back and forth and back and forth. If it's a square wave, it's going to start on the right and go to the left and right into the left, right? So if I want to create an LFO, I control click built in module LFO. There's my LFO for a frequency. I'll just create a control for amplitude. Mm, yeah, all created am not. That's gonna basically be how much the LFO is going to be affecting something else. And when I...

look at it, to 1. So I have to keep that in mind That are envelope are the output of our LFO is going to swing. Um so in this case, it's going to be you have control of the audio engine. So one a negative one with only used for square waves But I'll put one in their sink. So if I want to I can tell this l A photo started zero every time. If I send it a gate value, then it will sink every time the LFO will start at zero otherwise is this free flowing wave. And whenever I happen to hit it, whatever pointed the way of its at is where it's at. But with sink, I can give it a re trigger like until the LFO to start again and then I have phase. Now I have three outputs on the back, so I need to create a switch or I could just decide do a sine wave if I wanted to. You don't have to put a switch. You just use one of the elephants outputs if you want, But in this case well actually, maybe for time, because there's one of the thing I was thinking about doing. Um, so yeah, yeah, I think I'll do it. Built in model panel switch. So switches received multiple inputs, and I give it three ports sine wave triangle ways. Pulse wave. Now, the output of the switch. I got a name it real quick sign, Try apples. What? I think I'm gonna do first because, yes, I could make this lfo assign ableto all kinds of things. But maybe for now, I'm just gonna have it affect the filter. And what kind of need is I can just go to this ad module and say, Hey, you know what? Let's give you three ports. So then my lfo I'm thinking about a mountain knobs, right? Because I know that it's going to be similar to the envelope. I need to create this thing that allows allows us to adjust the amount that the elephant is gonna affect something. Larry did the work, so why not just copy paste right? Command C command v attach it. Attach this over here. I rename this control so that I realized that it's the filter l f O amount. And now guess what? My panel's a mess. So I got to go in again. Pull this over. Pull these down. There's the elephant amount. Now It's interesting cause I actually have to amounts cause I've got the amplitude of the LFO and then I've got this filter LFO amount. It's kind of lame. There's my sine wave Hey, look at my filter Real, real rear. So that means my telephones working. Yeah, well, way wow! Wow. Well, the frequency knob down here. So if I turn my lfo filter amount down, that's not moving anymore. It's static, so my LFO doesn't have any control over the cut off, right? It's pretty cool. But like I said before, if I turn this up and I turned this down, it stops working again. So I've got a redundancy going on here. I've got the amplitude of the LFO, but then I have it going out to this LFO filter amount knob. So it's kind of redundant. I have a way that I can actually I have two knobs were doing the same thing. So this is a case where we can use a constant for the first time. So we've been using knobs, right nobs, air, all variable, and that's all great But sometimes, like in this case, this amplifier doesn't need to be anything but one because we already have this control, which is doing all of the amount, right? So these two are the kind of the same, so I'll get rid of this control click, and she is a constant. So now we won't see that amplitude knob there anymore. And it's just going to town. If I turn this down, it stops. Cool. Cool. Any questions? No. That way you can also go to our different filters, right? Changing my pulse with here for my square way that I'm using. E If I wanted to get, I could get even fancier like you can do stuff like you can go into your instrument and go. You know, I'd like it if my LFO frequency rate was being controlled by an envelope. So, like, that's called second order modulation. And I'm not really going to go into that. Now it's starts to get a little crazy, but essentially what you can do is you can do things with second order modulation. You're taking an envelopes output and you're having that control the control rate of another modulator. So, like your envelope. You could have control how fast your LFO goes over time. Well, just kind of fun. Um, but the other thing I was going to say was that we're using one sawtooth right now. Well, one thing you could be kind of fun is going here and create a couple more oscillators, like a triangle wave. Usually you'll see a sawtooth wave, a triangle wave and, like, a pulse wave. And, you know, I could use the add module, right? We're talking about that. Be cheat mixer or built in modules. Signal path. How about just a mixer? Now, this is very similar to a Mini Moelgg. That's actually what I'm kind of building. Um, if I go to this mixture and give it three ports, I can have my Sawtooth going one port triangle go into another, and a pulse go into another. The output of this mixer would go into the filter section so that they could all get filtered at the same time. But now things get really interesting because, Aiken, I could not blend three different kinds of waves together, and things start to get a little messy, right? You have to be careful of the spaghetti because it can get in your way and ultimately, what you might dio it started building macros. That's when you start. When things start getting this nuts, you build a macro. And that's just a folder that you put things in. So not sure that in a minute. Okay, so now I've got my sine wave. I am a triangle wave and my pulse wave or my square wave, and we have to hook all of the note pitches up because they all need to receive note pitch from the external controller. They all need to receive the gate. And in this case with a pulse wave, we have something called with. So a pulse wave has an on and off, and that's actually how the oscillator is. Creating that wave is by going on off, on off, on off. So that's the same as a square wave, right? Precisely. Okay, So square waves were funny cause they're called square waves. They're also called pulse waves. They're also called duty cycles, so they're used for stuff. They're often used for timing, like clock. If you think about clock, which is used a lot for timing things, it's like a snapping sound, right? It's actually a square wave on and off, on and off, on and off, because you don't want any. You don't want anything on other side of that? You just want a pulse when you're doing something for timing. So that's why they were called duty cycles. Because we put them toe work and they beat. We'd be using them to create timing for stuff. So in this case, when it comes to pulse with what we what we can do is this really interesting shifting of the on period to the off period? So if the on period is shorter, then it starts to create some different harmonic content. So it goes from being on off to on off, you know, the honest, shorter and shorter. So to create that, I'm just going to control click, and there's my pulse within, man, that spaghetti is getting bad. So we are definitely gonna need to make a macro or at least one maybe a couple to get this thing organized in looking nice. Um, so let's see now I have these together. Of course. My panel is gonna look like a mess because I just did this stuff, right? So now I gotta pull this over. There's my pulse with, So I'm gonna kind of organize things a little bit here. I've got my filter section down here. This kind of all stuff that's doing filtering government l a focus stuff over here. Um, this kind of organized it a little bit. This is the main output for the entire sense. So I'll pull that way over to the right. Now I have my oscillators. There's my square wave. Here's my triangle wave And here's my sine wave under the square wave Output Pulse with thing. Check out my envelope, man, I did something wrong. If it's blank, they usually means it's not connected. So I did something wrong. Oh, look at that. Because I forgot. Oh, it's not the gate ice I put directly to the oscillator. It's the envelope. So I got the envelope feeding all of the all of the amplitude settings for these oscillators gonna be controlled by this envelope who now it's really starting to look interesting, right? So now I can mix thes three waves together, which is pretty awesome, so I'll start off with This is not a sine wave. This is a sawtooth wave, Dave. All right, turn this off. I'll pull these down. Here's my sawtooth. You turned down my, uh, telephone out. There's the triangle. Easier to hear if I don't have any filter envelope in turn the filter up, There's my saw. There's my Triangle Square wave.

Class Materials

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Reaktor Ensembles, Loops, Macros & Sample Maps + Course Slides

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

This is a GREAT class. I highly recommend it. Reaktor can be intimidating, but little by little he breaks it down. I feel like I have gotten practical use out of it from watching these videos. There is so much to learn here. I have come back multiple times to watch. David Earl is a superior instructor. You will enjoy him. I hope he will do more here.

a Creativelive Student
 

David Earl (he doesn't care what you call him) is the best! I watched so many tutorials on Reaktor and by his second video I already learned more than the other ones. Thank you!

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