understanding ultrabeat: part 1: the basics sos

7/4/14 12:36 PMUnderstanding Ultrabeat: Part 1: The Basics

Page 1 of 3http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug08/articles/logictech_0808.htm

Buy PDF

Copy and paste options for voice andsequence data.

Printer-friendly version

Bookmark and Share

Published in SOS August 2008

Understanding Ultrabeat: Part 1: The BasicsLogic Notes & TechniquesTechnique : Logic Notes

Not everyone finds drum programming easy, and if you'reone of the rhythmically challenged, Logic's Ultrabeat drumsynth could be your ticket to more interesting andsophisticated percussive parts.

John Moores

Introduced with version 7, and further developed with version 8, Ultrabeat is asoftware instrument specially designed with drum and percussion sounds in mind. Ithas 25 voices, each having access to a fully-featured step sequencer, and isdescribed as a drum synth, but it's handy for other sounds as well, and it also hassome neat hidden features. Included with the factory installation are over 800Mb ofsampled sounds, along with more than 80 preset kits that can be loaded in the usualway from the preset menu in the plug-in window header. I recommend that youexplore these presets: they all come with drum and percussion patterns pre-programmed and they offer a wide range of voices and styles.

All Kitted Out

Ultrabeat's layout can be broken down into three areas: the Assignment section; theSynthesizer section; and the Step Sequencer (see the screen below). We'll start with the Assignment section.

You can audition sounds by playing your MIDI keyboard or by clicking on the small keys on the left-hand side of theAssignment section. Clicking on the blue name selects that sound and highlights it with a white box. With the 'Voice AutoSelect' function enabled at the top of the Assignment section, a played voice is automatically highlighted.

Each kit preset has 25 voices in it, 24 of which play fixed-pitch sounds (assigned to MIDI notes C1-B2), while the 25th voicecan be played chromatically above C3. This would allow you, for example, to include a single pitched sound in a drum pattern(perhaps for a bass line), which might save you having to load another soft synth if you were short on CPU power. The built-inmixer allows you to adjust the volume, panning and outputs for each sound (multi-output operation is explained later), andthere are Mute and Solo buttons for each, plus a Master Volume slider for the whole instrument, right at the top. Various copyand swap functions are available to let you set up things the way you'd like them, and we'll come to those in due course.

Having selected your preset, you can simply program or record your drum parts in Logic's Arrange window, as you would withany other software instrument, or you could use Ultrabeat's built-in step sequencer, which is covered later in this article.

Copying & Pasting Voices & SequencesIn the Assignment Section, dragging and dropping has four functions:

Drag and drop alone swaps voices; sequences are not affected.

Drag and drop with the Option key copies the voice; sequences are not copied.

Drag and drop with the Command key swaps the voices and the sequence data.

Drag and drop with Option and Command copies the voice and the sequence.

If you prefer to use the Control-click (right-click) contextual menu, you must first copythe voice and sequence data to the clipboard. You can then paste the voice orsequence data. When pasting the sequence data, you can either paste the sequencefor a particular pattern or for all of them. (Note that you must select the correctpattern.) This also works when importing voices and sequences from the Import menu.

Organising & Importing

Logic comes with many kit presets for Ultrabeat, as well as a library of individual snares, kicks and so on. It's likely that you'llwant to mix and match the sounds to make your own presets, and this is quite straightforward. Within a preset, sounds can bemoved, copied or swapped, with or without copying or replacing of any step sequence data that goes with them. This is donein the Assignment section using two basic methods: drag and drop, or the Control-click (right-click) contextual menu.

It's also possible to import individual sounds from other Ultrabeat presets (again, with or withouttheir sequences), either by dragging and dropping or via the Control-click (right-click) contextual

In this article:All Kitted OutCopying & Pasting

Voices & SequencesOrganising &

ImportingStep Length &

ResolutionThe Step SequencerA Pattern EmergesMulti-Output

OperationPattern Mode

DAW Tips from SOS100s of great articles!CubaseDigital PerformerLiveLogicPro ToolsReaperReasonSonar

Home | Tablet Mag | Podcasts | WIN Prizes | Subscribe | Advertise | About SOS | Help Fri 4 Jul 2014 Search SOS Have an account? or Register for freeLog in

Sound On Sound : Est. 1985

Search News Articles Forum SOS TV Subscribe Shop Readers' Adverts Information Blog WebExtras



Import mode.

The velocity/gate contextual menu.

The trigger row contextual menu.

Accent buttons are found above the stepnumbers.

menu. Click the Import button to summon the file dialogue, then choose which preset to open(see screen, right). You can then audition the voices (in version 8.0.2 this feature actually works!),and either drag and drop to import one or use the contextual menu. If the imported voice includessequence data, holding Command while dragging and dropping will import the sequence data aswell.

The range of sounds available to Ultrabeat is further enhanced by the ability to import EXSsampler instruments. If the .exs instrument file is selected from the Import menu, the EXSinstrument zones appear in the import box (if there are more than 25 zones, a scroll triangle givesaccess to the rest), allowing you to add all sorts of sounds to the Ultrabeat preset. You can alsoimport a complete EXS instrument by dragging and dropping, though this method will only importthe first 25 sounds.

It should be noted that the Ultrabeat sample file format (.ubs) can contain velocity-switchedsamples, but without using Redmatica's Keymap utility (www.redmatica.com), there is no way tomake your own .ubs files. One way around this limitation is making a velocity-switched EXS instrument and then importingthat.

Step Length & ResolutionThe interaction between the length and resolution of the steps in the sequencer needs some consideration. As an example, whensequence length is set to 32 steps with a resolution of 1/16, we have a total of 32 1/16th notes, making a two-bar pattern. Changingthe resolution to eighth notes gives a four-bar pattern. Changing the resolution to 1/12th notes produces an eighth-note triplet, andwith a length of 24 steps a two-bar pattern would result.

The length and resolution parameters are set for each pattern within a preset, so you can mix and match if you need to. For thoseinterested in polyrhythmic material, it is possible to get Ultrabeat to play a 15/8 pattern across a 4/4 time project (set the length to30 steps, with a resolution of 1/16)!

The Step Sequencer

Each voice in an Ultrabeat preset kit has its own step sequencer, and all 25 sequences are combined to make a drum pattern.Up to 32 steps per pattern are available, and they can have resolutions of between an eighth note and a 32nd note (see the'Step Length & Resolution' box).

Before you can use the Step Sequencer, you have to enable it using its on/off switch. When this switch is on, Ultrabeat willplay whenever Logic itself is in playback, and will be synchronised to the main Logic tempo. There's also a Play button in thisarea, which starts the sequencer without starting the main Logic playback. You can thus audition Ultrabeat when Logic isn'tplaying back. Ultrabeat does always run at the tempo of the Logic project, as just mentioned, but there are issues when time-signature changes are involved, because Ultrabeat doesn't take them into account!

Simply click on the numbers in the trigger row to switch a given step on or off ;clicking and dragging across the trigger row buttons will also turn them on or off.Alternatively, you can click in the velocity/gate row beneath to switch steps on. Hereyou can also adjust the velocity of individual hits, and (if the Gate parameter in theSynthesizer section is enabled) the length of each hit. A glance at the AssignmentSection for each sound reveals a small 'sq' light, which indicates that there are eventsin the sequencer for that particular voice.

Accents can be added to individual hits by clicking on the buttons above the numbersin the trigger row. An accent applied on a given step applies to that step every time itoccurs in the pattern: an accent on Step 1, for example, will accent every voice in thepattern that plays on Step 1. The amount of accent applied is adjusted by the slider tothe left (and it actually turns up the volume, which can produce a different result toincreasing velocity). Accents can be disabled per voice by clicking on the button justto the right of this slider, allowing you to have accents just on the kick drum orcongas, for example (see screen below). In a similar way, the Swing function appliesto the whole pattern but can be disabled for individual sounds: you could, forexample, have a slight swing on just the hi-hats, although it should be noted thatswing only applies when the step resolution is set to 1/8 or 1/16.

A couple of very handy contextual menus are available in the Step Sequencer. Forexample, you can quickly alter, randomise or reset the velocity or gate parameters byControl-clicking (or right-clicking) on one of the blue bars in the velocity/gate area(see screen at top of page). Doing the same in the trigger row or in the Full View area(see below) opens a second contextual menu offering all sorts of cool and quickfunctions including copy, paste and several 'Create and Replace' options (see screenabove).

New to Logic 8 is the Full View mode, which allows you to quickly work on the triggerrows for the whole pattern. Steps can be switched on or off for all the sounds in onewindow, although you still have to adjust velocity and gate settings in the main StepSequencer area below.

A Pattern Emerges

Ultrabeat can have up to 24 complete patterns of sequences, accessible from the pattern menu on the lower left hand side ofthe plug-in window. Once again, an 'sq' indicates that the pattern does contain sequences. The patterns are assigned to lownotes ranging from C-1 to B0, allowing you to call them up using your MIDI keyboard (see 'Pattern Mode' box). Patterns canbe copied, pasted and cleared using the contextual menu, which is opened up with a Control-click or right-click.

The basic MIDI data of the pattern can be dragged into the Arrange window to createa MIDI region, which can then be used in the normal way. It's important to rememberto turn off Ultrabeat's 'on' button after you do this, because otherwise the StepSequencer will continue to operate when you play the Logic project, and you'll havethe same thing playing back simultaneously from Ultrabeat and from the Arrangepage. You'll notice that if voices are muted in Ultrabeat, the note data is transferred to



Email: Contact SOSTelephone: +44 (0)1954 789888Fax: +44 (0)1954 789895

Registered Office: Media House, Trafalgar Way, Bar Hill,Cambridge, CB23 8SQ, United Kingdom.

Sound On Sound Ltd is registered in England and Wales.Company number: 3015516 VAT number: GB 638 5307 26

Current MagazineWeb EditionBuy PDF articlesMagazine Feedback

Podcasts

Competitions

SubscribeSubscribe NowWeb Subscription FAQs

Home

News

SearchNew SearchForum SearchSearch Tips

ArticlesReviewsTechniqueSound AdvicePeopleGlossary

Help + Support

ForumToday's Hot TopicsForum Channel ListForum SearchMy Forum HomeMy Forum SettingsMy Private MessagesForum Rules & Etiquette

SOS TVWatch exhibition videos, tutorials,interviews, masterclasses

Readers ClassifiedsSubmit New AdvertsView My Adverts

SOS Directory

My SOSChange PasswordChange My EmailChange My AddressMy SubscriptionMy eNewslettersMy Downloads

InformationAbout SOSContact SOS StaffAdvertisingControlled CirculationLicensing EnquiriesMagazine On-sale DatesSOS Logos & GraphicsSOS Site AnalyticsPrivacy Policy

Home | Search | News | Current Issue | Tablet Mag | Articles | Forum | Subscribe | Shop | Readers AdsAdvertise | Information | Privacy Policy | Support | Login Help

All contents copyright SOS Publications Group and/or its licensors, 1985-2014. All rights reserved.The contents of this article are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, whether mechanical or electronic, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the

Publishers. Great care has been taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this article but neither Sound On Sound Limited nor the publishers can be held responsible for its contents. The views expressedare those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the publishers.

Web site designed & maintained by PB Associates | SOS | Relative Media

A MIDI region in the Piano Roll editor,showing control notes for Ultrabeat's patternmode, plus some extra notes I added totrigger individual sounds for a drum fill.

Above: Ultrabeat Multi Outputplug-in selection in the I/O box ofthe instrument channel strip.

Published in SOS August 2008

the MIDI region as muted notes, which appear greyed out in the Piano Roll and Score editors, or with a black spot in the EventList. Conversely, if you've soloed a voice in Ultrabeat, all the other notes will be muted when you drag the pattern data into theArrange window. Accent information is transferred to the region as polyphonic aftertouch data.

Multi-Output Operation

As well as being available as a basic stereo plug-in, Ultrabeat has a multi-output version,with eight stereo and eight mono output channels (24 outputs in total). Routing individualvoices to separate outputs allows you to add effect insert plug-ins to particular sounds such as reverb on the snare or compression on the kick.

First, select the Multi-Output Ultrabeat in the I/O box of the instrument channel strip (seethe screen below left). In Logic's Mixer, click on the '+' button of that channel strip to createas many Aux channels as you need. These will automatically be assigned sequentially tothe Ultrabeat output channels. If you need to alter this assignment, click and hold on the I/Obox on the Aux channel, and select the required instrument and channel. Finally, in theAssignment Section of Ultrabeat, choose which voices are routed to which outputs.

Ultrabeat is an amazing tool offering loads of scope for creativity and fun. We've onlyaddressed the basics here, so in part two, next month, we'll go further, investigating theSynthesis section of Ultrabeat, explaining the new Step Edit mode and uncovering somesecrets. In the meantime, as you work with and explore Ultrabeat, please remember that allits data (voices, sequences and patterns) is saved within the plug-in preset. Don't forget tosave your work!

Pattern ModeUltrabeat's Pattern Mode can be used to startand stop patterns, and change which pattern isplaying, using the low keyboard notes assignedto each pattern, as mentioned in the main bodyof this article. (You may need to transpose yourcontroller keyboard to get to these low notes.)Once Pattern Mode is enabled, there are fourtypes of operation available to you, set from amenu.

Toggle modes allow you to start and stop thepattern playing, or change patterns, eitherimmediately or the next time step 1 comes around.

One-Shot Trig will simply trigger and play thepattern once.

In Sustain mode, the pattern will only play as longas you hold the note down.

These modes are great for live work and for jamming, but you can also record or programthe trigger notes into a region in the Arrange page to create your rhythm parts. Sustain modeworks well for this, because you can control how long Ultrabeat runs by using the length ofeach note. Don't forget that you can also add extra note events for additional crash cymbalsand fills, for example (see accompanying screen). There's also a Voice mute mode thatallows you to mute and unmute individual Ultrabeat voices, using MIDI notes, while thepattern is running, adding even more flexibility for live performance. Once again, this can beprogrammed into Arrange regions.

understanding ultrabeat: part 1: the basics sos

Documents