Some powerful VST synthesizers are now included in Cubase, and although they contain various great presets it's well worth delving deeper to create your own patches. This month I'll explain how you can start to make custom bass sounds using the Prologue synth.

Before I start, it's worth reading the comprehensive technical information about Prologue in the Plug-In Reference PDF — and the signal-flow diagram at the end of the VST Instruments section is particularly helpful.

Prologue is a virtual subtractive synthesizer that has three oscillators, each of which offer the same selection of waveforms — with the common sawtooth, parabolic, square, triangle and sine waves supplemented by some more unusual options. The balance between the three is set via the Osc 1, Osc 2 and Osc 3 rotary controls, and setting any of these controls to zero mutes the output of that oscillator.

Oscillator 1 can be considered the 'master' oscillator that determines the fundamental pitch for the overall sound. Oscillators 1 and 2 both feature wave modulation, and Oscillators 2 and 3 offer frequency modulation. This isn't the place to go into the intricacies of various synthesis technologies (see the 'Waving At The Freqs' box below, or for a comprehensive explanation try Paul Wiffen's 'Synth School' series starting in SOS May 1997, or Gordon Reid's epic series 'Synth Secrets' that started in SOS May 1999). Wave modulation and frequency modulation both modify the fundamental waveform being used, allowing you to create a greater range of sounds.

The outputs from the oscillators are combined prior to processing through Prologue's single filter section, which offers a good selection of low-pass, band-pass, high-pass and notch filter types, and a number of further controls that include the usual frequency cutoff and resonance (labelled 'Emphasis' in Prologue). Further sound-sculpting can then be...