User Guide

Chapter 29 Ultrabeat 607
Note: The bass drum sound described is called Kick 3 in the Tutorial Kit at a pitch of D1.
Use the second oscillator (with similar settings or with a sample) or use the filter and
the ring modulator—the sky’s the limit as far as your imagination is concerned, so get
on with it, and create that next “gotta have it” drum sound.
Note: You can find an “emulation” of the legendary 808 bass drum under the name Kick
4 in the Tutorial Kit, at a pitch of D#1.
Creating Snare Drums
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.
To create a basic snare drum:
1 Load the Standard 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, choose 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 to 4 octaves higher.
3 Set LFO 1 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), choosing Env 1 in the Mod menu and adjusting the modulation
intensity to a point just below its maximum value.
The screenshot 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 Turn on the noise generator and control its volume with the same quick envelope used
in Osc 2 Volume.