8

256 Chapter 20 ES2
Three Detuned Sawtooth Oscillators and Unison Mode
“Fat” synthesizer sounds have always been popular, and are likely to remain so, given
their use in modern trance, techno, R n’ B, and other styles. The Analog Saw 3 Osc
setting features three detuned oscillators, and sounds fat as it is. The following will
introduce you to some additional tools to fatten the sound even more.
 Check out the 3-oscillator basic sound with different filter and envelope settings.
 Check out the chorus effect at different Intensities and Speeds.
 Engage Unison mode and select a higher setting for Analog. As the sound is
polyphonic, each note is doubled. The number of notes that can be played
simultaneously will be reduced from 10 to 5. This will make the sound rich and broad.
Combining Unison and higher values for Analog will spread the sound across the
stereo spectrum.
In many factory settings, the Unison mode is active. This demands a lot of processing
power. If your computer isn’t fast enough, you can switch off the Unison mode and
insert an Ensemble effect in a bus, for use with several plug-ins. This will save
processing power. Other ways to save CPU resources are by freezing or bouncing
several software instrument tracks.
Extremely Detuned Monophonic Analog Sounds, Effects
The Analog Unison setting is a fat, heavily detuned, un-filtered basic sound. As with the
example above, three sawtooth oscillators are used, but they are further detuned. The
combination of Unison and Analog (set to a high value) is essential—but this time,
monophonic mode is used to stack ten voices. Without further effects, the result is a
huge lead sound, much like those used in countless dance and trance productions.
With appropriate filter and envelope settings, electro sounds (that are ideal for
arpeggiation and sequencing) can easily be set up.
 Set the Cutoff Frequency of Filter 2 to 0. This will activate the preset filter envelope.
Feel free to check out different envelope settings.
 Switch Osc 1 to sound one or two octaves lower.
 Increase Drive or Distortion.
 Set Env 2 to be velocity sensitive. This allows for velocity sensitive filter modulations.
 Insert a delay effect in the instrument channel strip of the ES2. In order to delay
several software instrument channels, you might prefer to insert the effect into a bus,
which is accessed via each channel’s Send.
Logic Express incorporates reverb and delay effects, which are essential for many
synthesizer sounds. These aren’t integrated into the ES2, ensuring that no processing
power is wasted unnecessarily.