Drumlab TUTORIAL

Every sound is made of two parts: a tone and some noise. You can use either one, or both.

The tone is the oscillator. Its pitch can bend and wobble (MOD). The noise goes through a filter. Each has its own volume shape.

Then the two are mixed, pushed through some distortion, shaped by an EQ and turned up or down.

The knobs are in pages of four: OSC, MOD, NOISE, ENV, OUT and SOUND. Turn ALGORITHM to flip between them. All the values go from 0 to 99, except frequencies, which show in Hz, and the EQ, which shows dB.

The PO-32 has the same 21 settings in the same order, so everything you make here goes over to it as it is.

WAVE picks the shape: sine (smooth, round), triangle (a bit brighter) or saw (buzzy and bright).

FREQ is the pitch, from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Low is a kick or a tom. High is a tick or a zap.

ATTACK is how slowly the tone fades in. At 0 it hits straight away. A little attack takes the click off.

DECAY is how long it rings out, from a tiny blip to a long boom.

MODE picks what happens to the pitch. DECAY slides it from one pitch to another. SINE wobbles it up and down. NOISE jitters it at random.

RATE is the speed of the slide or the wobble. A fast SINE wobble does not sound like a wobble any more: it sounds like metal. That's how you make cowbells and hats.

AMOUNT is how far. In the middle there is no bend. Turn it up and the pitch starts high and falls to FREQ (a kick). Turn it down and it starts low and rises (a laser going backwards).

VELOC lets harder hits bend more.

FILTER picks what the noise is filtered with: LP keeps the lows (a thud), BP keeps a band (a snare, a clap), HP keeps the highs (a hat).

FREQ is where the filter sits, in Hz.

Q makes the filter pickier. Up high it rings and whistles around FREQ.

VELOC lets harder hits make more noise.

SHAPE is the noise's volume shape. EXP falls away quickly, LIN ramps down evenly, and MOD chops it into a flutter, like a few people clapping a bit apart.

ATTACK and DECAY are the same as the oscillator's, but for the noise. In MOD, DECAY sets how fast the flutter goes.

MIX is the balance. Left is all tone, right is all noise, in the middle is half and half.

DIST is distortion. At 0 it's clean. Up high it's crushed and loud, and the sound gets fat.

EQ HZ picks a frequency and EQ DB boosts or cuts it, up to 40 dB. The middle is flat. Boost the lows for weight, cut the mids to open it up.

LEVEL is how loud the sound is. Turn it down for a sound that is too loud, rather than turning everything else up.

VELOC lets harder hits make the oscillator louder. A hit on an accent is a harder hit.

PITCH moves the whole sound up or down 12 semitones. MORPH slides from patch A to patch B: every sound is two patches. Press SEL in the LAB view to swap, and turn KNOB 4 on the PATTERN view to morph.

Kick: sine at 45 to 60 Hz, a long DECAY. MOD in DECAY mode with AMOUNT well up, so it starts high and falls. A little noise in MIX for the click. A touch of DIST.

Snare: triangle around 180 Hz with a short DECAY, plus noise through BP or HP at about 2K with a medium DECAY. MIX towards the noise, about 60.

Closed hat: MIX all the way to noise, HP at 8K or higher, a very short ENV DECAY. For an open hat, make the DECAY longer.

Clap: all noise, BP at about 1.2K with some Q, ENV SHAPE on MOD and a medium DECAY. Change DECAY to change the flutter.

Tom: a sine around 120 to 200 Hz, a medium DECAY, MOD in DECAY mode with a gentle AMOUNT. No noise.

Cowbell or metal: a triangle or saw around 500 Hz to 1 kHz, MOD in SINE mode with a fast RATE and some AMOUNT, then DIST. Short DECAY.

Zap: a saw high up, a long DECAY, MOD in DECAY mode with a big AMOUNT.

Bass: a sine at 40 to 80 Hz with a very long DECAY, no MOD, and some DIST for harmonics.

Turn one knob at a time. The sound plays when you stop turning, so you hear every change.

Press PLAY to loop the sound while you tweak it, and hold EDIT for fine steps.

Roll a kit with OCT+, then change what you don't like. It's faster than starting from nothing.

Sounds 1, 5, 9 and 13 share one voice (and 2, 6, 10 and 14, and so on), as on the PO-32, so a new hit cuts the old one. Put an open hat and a closed hat in the same column and the closed one shuts the open one up.