Modulate This! - Electronic & Experimental Music Tech, Technique, & People

U-HE ACE TIP: Pulse Width Modulation Basics

After watching my YouTube video “u-he ACE Tutorial: Patch Cables 101”, I had a viewer ask “How can i modulate the pulse width of the osciliator?”, so I thought I’d do a quick answer here in text form. Click the image above to see a larger version of the synth. Annotation numbers in diagram match steps below.

For VCO1, LFO2 is already hard-wired to modulate pulse width. To get going follow these steps:

1. Turn the Waveform1 knob clockwise to select pulse width
2. Turn the lfo2 knob clockwise. You’ll hear Pulse Width Modulation right away
3. Turn the sync knob to increase the speed of modulation
4. Turn pw knob to set the PulseWidth

Play around with other lfo2 params to get more extreme results.

Mark Mosher
Electronic Musician, Boulder CO
www.ModulateThis.com
www.MarkMosherMusic.com

New Single "First Orbit" Performed Live + Percussa Audio Cube Presentation Video from Ableton Denver Meetup

On the 14th of March I gave a presentation on Percussa AudioCubes at the Ableton Denver Meetup. David Henderson was kind enough to shoot video and he even took the time to post on YouTube. Thanks David.

By the way, if you haven’t subscribed to his blog yet, you should check it out - http://www.hendersounds.com/. Lots of cool insights on Ableton Live, Monome and more.

As part of this presentation, I decided to perform a brand new single called “First Orbit” using only AudioCubes and a Launchad. The song is in the second video below and starts at the 1:20 mark.

Watch embedded video

In this song I’m using AudioCubes to send MIDI notes and MIDI CC data to Ableton Live 8, specifically to:

• Change scenes
• Trigger Artillery 2 FX with MIDI notes
• Modulate parameters of Ableton Live FX (Redux; PingPong Delay; Arpeggiator Rate, Gate, Distance)

I misspoke in the the video on what synths I’m using in this song. I’m using Gladiator 2, Absynth 5, and U-He Ace. Two synths that are well suited for cubes that are not in this song are Alchemy and Synplant.

The launchpad is used as a visual reference for what is going on inside of Live. at 2:55 I switch to User Mode 2 on the Novation Launchad and trigger a metallic sound then change the Rate by breaking the beam between cubes. I then play notes on the launchpad which plays both Gladiator and Absynth. When I pick up the Sensor cube, I’m modulating arpeggiator Gate and Distance. Opening up the gate makes the Absynth patch much more tonal.

Marc W. from Ableton Denver just gave me additional footage from a second camera angle and I plan to post a video on my channel of just the song by combining footage from both cameras. I’ll also post this live performance of the song in audio format and will also do a studio version down the road and release that as well.

Watch embedded video.

Thanks for watching!

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Composer, Sound Designer
Louisville/Denver/Boulder

http://www.modulatethis.com
http://www.markmoshermusic.com
http://www.twitter.com/markmosher

Download/Buy my album REBOOT on Bandcamp
Buy on iTunes

“First Orbit” Copyright 2010 Mark J. Mosher, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

u-he ACE Video Tutorial: Patch Cables 101

Click here to watch embedded video

I’ve been working a lot with u-he’s ACE modular synthesizer which recently released. It’s quite fantastic and made my recent Best of 2009 Electronic Music Tech list. ACE has a very nice clean and simple user interface where almost all programming is done on one page.

To program ACE you need to have a basic understanding of how the patch cable system works. To help you shorten your learning curve and to help you make more sense of the factory presets I developed the video above. It’s a step-by-step tutorial with a conceptual overview of patch cables and a walkthrough where I create two presets using patch cables.

Enjoy!

Links

• Official u-he ACE site
• Read other Modulate This! posts on ACE

Mark Mosher
Electronic Music Artist, Composer, Sound Designer
Louisville/Denver/Boulder

http://www.modulatethis.com
http://www.markmoshermusic.com
http://www.twitter.com/markmosher

Download/Buy my album REBOOT on Bandcamp
Buy on iTunes

Modulate This! - Best of 2009 Electronic Music Tech

Despite the economic downturn, 2009 was thankfully a huge year when it came to new technology for electronic music artists. Rather than try and cover every significant release, I’ll instead list some of my favorite products and notable trends.

The Year of Ableton
What a big year for Ableton. Live 8 with great new features set, Max for Live, 10th Anniversary of Ableton, launch of Live Intro, dedicated hardware controllers (APC40 & Launchpad). Awesome!

Grid (Matrix) Controllers
 

Grid controllers everywhere in 2009. New controllers like the APC40, Launchpad and Bliptronics 5000. Continued development with existing controllers like Tenori-On and Monome. The grid metaphor also became quite prevalent in apps as well. I have the APC40 and Tenori-On and simply love them.

Percussa Audio Cubes “Tangible Interface”
 

Not new in 2009 but new to me, Percussa AudioCubes are self-powered wireless computer systems. Cubes can detect and interact with each other and can detect the proximity of your hand near a cube face sensor and send this controller information to your DAW or to various free software apps provided by Percussa. I working with a 4 cube configuration within Ableton Live.

Fantastic Synths
A great year for virtual instruments. Below is a list of new and updates synths that I used over and over again in 2009 for both sound design and for music performance.

• u-he ACE (Any Cable Anywhere)
  
  This synth just released by I use it all the time now! It’s a fantastic virtual analog synth with a great UI with patch cables. Sounds like butta’.

U-He Ace Tip: Resizing Interface to Fit Your Window

 
Want to resize U-HeAce to fit your display? Right-click on the interface anywhere there is not a control and pick a window size from the list. I wish more virtual synths supported this feature.

Links:

• Modulate This ACE Index Page
• Other posts on ACE

www.MarkMosherMusic.com
www.ModulateThis.com
www.RebootAlbum.com