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346 Chapter 23 Ultrabeat
Snare Drum
The sound of an acoustic snare drum primarily consists of two sound components: the
sound of the drum itself and the buzzing of the snare springs. Try to approximate this
combination in Ultrabeat with a single oscillator and the noise generator.
Start programming your snare drum as follows:
1 Begin again with the Default Tutorial setting. Deactivate Oscillator 1, and switch
Oscillator 2 on (in Phase Oscillator mode).
2 To get rid of the sine wave (which is not especially desirable for a snare sound, in
contrast to the bass drum), modulate Osc 2 Pitch with a rapidly vibrating LFO with a
medium Ramp Decay value. To accomplish this, select LFO 1 in the Mod menu of Osc 2
Pitch. The pitch value for Osc 2 Pitch should be around G#2 and the Mod amount (the
blue Mod control) should be about 3–4 octaves higher.
3 LFO 1 should be set to a high Rate. Choose a value of 20 for Cycles and −20 for Ramp.
The LFO waveform parameter should be set to a value of about 0.58, which is a square
wave.
4 Use Env 1 to control the volume of Oscillator 2 by setting Vol to the lowest possible
value (−60 dB), selecting Env 1 in the Mod menu and adjusting the modulation intensity
to a point just below its maximum value.
The GUI detail shows the settings of Oscillator 2 and Env 1 described in steps 2 and 3.
5 Experiment with different Slope and Asym values to impart a more or less “electronic”
character on the sound.
6 Now turn on the noise generator and control its volume with the same quick envelope
used in Osc 2 Volume.
Use the filter parameters of the noise generator to either roughen up, refine or add
bright frequencies to the noise component of the snare drum sound. Select a LP filter
type, and try a filter frequency between 0.60 and 0.90. Modulate it with LFO 1 that
you’re already using to control the pitch of Oscillator 2.
Note: The snare drum sound is called “Snare 1” in the Tutorial Kit, at a pitch of E1.