Apple MainStage 3 Instruments - MainStage 3 Instruments

Ultrabeat tutorials
Ultrabeat sound programming overview
The Ultrabeat tutorials presented in these sections cover a number of specific sound creation
tips. These tutorials will help you explore the possibilities available to you in Ultrabeat.
You’ll discover that there is hardly a category of electronic drum sound that Ultrabeat can’t
create easily.
As you become familiar with drum sound programming, you may begin thinking in building
blocks, realizing that drum sounds usually consist of different components.
After you mentally—or physically—write down your list of components, try to emulate each
component that contributes to the sound’s character, making use of the different sound
generators available in Ultrabeat. Assigning dedicated amplitude envelopes to the different
components allows you to control their temporal behavior individually. For example, you can
emulate the body of a drum with oscillator 1 and the sound of the stick hitting the skin (or first
transient) with the noise generator. Additional overtones and harmonics can be provided by
oscillator 2 or the ring modulator.
When you begin thinking that drum sounds consist of several building blocks or layers, the
design of the Volume controls in the individual sound generators might make more sense to
you—this is the place where the blocks are combined, balanced, and controlled.
Note: Choose the Tutorial Kit from Ultrabeat’s Settings > 03 Tutorial Settings folder. This kit
contains all drum sounds discussed in the tutorials. The Tutorial Kit also includes the Standard
Tut(orial) drum sound, which is a default set of neutral parameters that provide an excellent
starting point for many of the examples.
All Ultrabeat tutorial sections are listed below:
••
Create Ultrabeat kick drums on page 383
••
Create Ultrabeat snare drums on page 387
••
Create Ultrabeat tonal percussion on page 392
••
Create Ultrabeat hi-hats and cymbals on page 392
••
Create metallic Ultrabeat sounds on page 393
••
Tips for extreme Ultrabeat sounds on page 393
Chapter 14 Ultrabeat 382