Screen 1: Spicing up our static pad with the new Modulator options by targeting parameters both in Retrologue itself and insert effects on the Retrologue channel.
Want to awaken those sleepy synth pads? Then give Cubase 14’s Modulators a try!
If existing Cubase users needed a single excuse to upgrade to Pro 14, the new Modulator options might well provide it, especially if your music makes use of synth‑based elements. While lots of modern virtual synths have modulation options on board, those only let you modulate parameters inside that instrument. In contrast, Cubase’s new Modulators have track‑wide reach — they grant you access to any parameter on the selected track, whether in the instrument itself, or in an insert effect or a parameter of the channel hosting it.
The creative sound‑design options the Modulator system offers are almost limitless but let’s start an exploration of the potential with three (from many) different options the Modulator system provides for tackling a common task: banishing the ‘boring’ from a simple synth pad.
Inside & Out
There are contexts where a static pad sound, such as the Retrologue sound I’ve started with in the audio examples (available on the SOS website: https://sosm.ag/cubase-0425), can be just what the musical mood requires. But if you need to add some sonic movement, parameter modulation is a great place to start. Retrologue has its own well‑featured modulation system, of course, but in this example the preset I’ve created makes no use of that. Instead, I’ve opened the new Modulators panel in the Project window’s Lower Zone and, as shown in the first screenshot, used its modulation options instead.
The new Modulator system provides six different modulator types:
- LFO
- Envelope Follower
- Shaper
- Macro Knob
- Step Modulator
- ModScripter
Any combination of these can be added in the eight available slots on the selected track/channel. To start things fairly simply, this first example just uses two instances of the LFO Modulator type and one of the Shaper. The LFO instances are both sine waves, but are set to different Note (speed) values, and with some Shape and Phase changes applied to the second instance. These target parameters in the synth’s engine, including Filter Cutoff and Osc 3 Fine pitch (LFO 1), and Filter Resonance and Osc 2 Fine pitch (LFO 2). The system for adding targets to a Modulator is beautifully implemented — in the majority of cases, you simply hit the large ‘+’ button, then click the desired target parameter.
In this example, all the Modulation Depth values are set quite modestly, so the changes to both filter and pitch are subtle, while the Note settings mean the modulation also occurs quite slowly. Even with just these two Modulators applied, the pad benefits from some nice tonal and pitch movement.
Up to this point, these modulation moves could have been created in Retrologue’s own modulation matrix. The Shaper modulator, though, demonstrates one of the key advantages of the new Modulator system, because it’s targeting parameters outside Retrologue. In this case, the targets reside in two insert effects, Destroyer and Chopper, but they could have been any parameter in the channel that’s hosting Retrologue. What you have, therefore, is an integrated, channel‑level modulation system, where individual Modulators can provide synchronised modulation of both instrument and channel/effects parameters. This can make for some very cool sound‑design possibilities!
Having added my own tweaks to Shaper’s modulation curve, the modulation is targeting Destroyer’s Drive control (changing the amount of distortion added) and Chopper’s Mix control (changing the depth of the volume ‘pulse’ Chopper is adding). Whether in the plug‑ins themselves, or in any of the three Modulators, there are already plenty of adjustments you could make to finesse the result. But the sound has gone from a static pad to something with tonal, pitch, distortion and volume modulation and, for the purposes of our demonstration at least, is sonically more interesting.
The Modulator system allows one Modulator to modulate another, so there are plenty of creative possibilities.
Up The Intensity
The Modulator system allows one Modulator to modulate another, so there are plenty of creative possibilities, but there’s one caveat. In this first iteration, at least, you can only use a Modulator in one slot to modulate the controls in the main panel of another modulation slot; the parameters in the target parameter sub‑panels, including the Modulation Depth controls, cannot themselves be selected as modulation targets, and in terms of our ‘pad enhancer’ task, that’s a bit of shame...
For instance, in our previous example, we could have added an instance of the Macro Knob in an additional slot and used this to target the Modulation Depth controls in other modulators, thereby intensifying the resulting sonic changes. Unfortunately, that’s currently not possible. Thankfully, by combining the Macro Knob modulator with another highlight of the new Modulator system, the ModScripter modulator, we can create a workaround that achieves a similar type of end result.
Screen 2: Don’t let ModScripter’s JavaScript coding possibilities put you off exploring: there’s an interesting selection of presets provided, including the Intensity option shown here.
The second screenshot shows a possible configuration. ModScripter is perhaps the least intuitive (most intimidating?) of the modulation types. As the name suggests, it includes a scripting panel that lets you code your own modulation scripts using JavaScript. Thankfully, for those of us who are here to make music rather than code, ModScripter comes with some very useful presets, accessed via the drop‑down menu located top right. There are some intriguing options amongst this selection, including the rather wonderful Apply Randomness, but for this example I selected the Intensity preset.
ModScripter’s control set includes a Modulator Input control (the slider beneath the waveform display) and this particular preset script also provides an Intensity control. In our example, Slot 1’s Step Modulator is sending its step‑based modulation pattern to ModScripter’s Modulator Input; that slider is controlled by the Step Modulator. However, the Intensity control can then be used to modify the (yup!) intensity of that modulation signal, essentially scaling it from 0 to 100 percent. This modified (modulated) modulation pattern in ModScripter is then used to target both the Filter Cutoff and Filter Resonance, but could potentially control any other parameters on the Retrologue channel.
Finally, in Slot 3, an instance of Macro Knob is configured to target the ModScripter’s Intensity control, and as I have Macro Knob linked to my MIDI controller’s mod wheel (courtesy of the MIDI Remote system), I have hands‑on control: moving the mod wheel adjusts the Macro Knob, which in turn adjusts ModScripter’s Intensity, which in turn scales the Step Modulator modulation data transmitted via ModScripter to Retrologue’s filter. Got all that? Phew! Yes, it can at first seem like data‑modulation spaghetti, but for our boring pad, it does provide a way to manually control the intensity of any modulation being applied to the sound. It’s not exactly the same result you’d get by adjusting the Modulation Depth sliders, but it’s certainly in the same ball park!
Multitimbral Modulation
Another strategy for banishing bland from pad sounds is to layer and/or blend two sound sources together. This could, of course, be combined with applying modulation to the two (or more?) individual layers. However, as the new Modulator features work at the track level, if you use two separate virtual instrument tracks for your blending, you can’t easily ‘share’ Modulators between the two layers; each requires their own Modulator configuration...
Screen 3: If you use a multitimbral instrument such as HALion Sonic, blending between pad sounds on different layers can be easily configured on a single Cubase channel.
Except that you can! In fact, there are a couple of options. One of them exploits the audio side‑chain support that’s offered by some of the Modulators — these have a whole range of applications, by the way, and I plan to explore them in more detail in another workshop. The second option is much more pragmatic: simply use a multitimbral virtual instrument! In Cubase’s HALion Sonic (and the full version of HALion), Steinberg have an excellent candidate for this. In my final example, therefore, I’ve set up two (boring!) pad presets in HALion Sonic’s first two sound slots, but have configured both slots to respond to MIDI channel 1. So whatever notes I play will trigger both sounds. I’ve then configured a couple of Modulators to spice up each of the individual pad layers, much as I did for the Retrologue example earlier.
The blending fun really begins when you use a single Modulator to target both pad layers. Slot 3, using a Macro Knob, shows this at its most simple. I’ve assigned the volume of each layer to the HS Quick Controls, and then targeted these using the Macro Knob, but with the Modulation Depth set in opposite directions for each layer. As you rotate the knob, one layer will get louder as the other gets quieter, meaning you can adjust the sound blend as required. You can also do exactly the same sort of thing with other parameter targets, and suitable candidates include pan, filter cutoff and pitch. There are all sorts of possibilities here, and to give you a feel for what you can do, I’ve provided a couple of additional options in the audio examples on the SOS website. It’s so easy to configure the modulation for all of the layers because it can be done in a single location, using the new Modulators panel.
All Mods, No Cons!
I have to say that the Modulators are a brilliant addition to Cubase Pro, and absolutely brimming with potential. I’ve barely scratched the thinnest of surfaces here in terms of what’s possible. My experiments to date suggest that the side‑chain audio input mentioned earlier is well worth further exploration, and the Envelope Follower modulator also seems to hold plenty of promise. So watch this space — this is undoubtedly a topic we will return to in a future column or three!