2009

• Program Envelope 3 according to your taste. You should, at the very least, raise the
attack and release times. Define it to react to velocity, if you prefer. If you want to use
the sound for something other than a simple pad, a shorter Decay Time and a lower
Sustain Level of about 80 to 90% may be more appropriate.
• Reduce the Cutoff Frequency and Resonance of Filter 1 to make the sound softer.
• Save the new setting.
• Compare the result with the original PWM 2 Osc setting. You’ll hear that the sound has
undergone a remarkable evolution.
• Also compare it to PWM Soft Strings, which was created as described above. You’ll
probably notice a few similarities.
Creating Sounds with Ring Modulation in the ES2
A ring modulator takes its two input signals and outputs their sum and difference
frequencies.
In the ES2, Oscillator 2 outputs a ring modulation, which is fed with a square wave of
Oscillator 2 and the wave of Oscillator 1, when Ring is set as Oscillator 2’s waveform.
Odd intervals (frequency ratios) between the oscillators result in bell-like spectra, much
like those heard in the Ringmod Start setting.
The third oscillator can be used as a tuning reference, to maintain a kind of basic tuning.
On occasion, you may find that it’s nice to leave the sound out of tune—for use as a
source of overtones and harmonics for another basic wave, supplied by Oscillator 3.
Try to program an atmospheric bell sound. Use your imagination, but here are some hints
that may help:
• Experiment with the various frequency ratios of Oscillators 1 and 2. You may want to
use the 29 s 0 c/21 s 0 c ratio, which doesn’t sound out of tune at all. Ring modulation
is not only useful for bell-like sounds, it’s also good for a great variety of spectra that
tend to sound weird at lower frequency settings. Also try alterations to the fine-tuning
of the Oscillators.
• Check out an Intensity of 50% and a Rate, set to around 2/3 of the maximum value, for
the Chorus effect.
• Set the Attack and Release Times of Envelope 3 to taste.
• Check out Drive and Filter FM, if you like your sounds a little “out of control.”
• The rest is up to you.
Creating Sounds with Oscillator Synchronization in the ES2
If you select the synced square and sawtooth waveforms for Oscillators 2 and 3, they will
be synchronized with Oscillator 1. In the Sync Start setting, only Oscillator 2 is audible,
and Oscillator 3 is switched off.
119Chapter 5 ES2