ace tricks and tips for newbies
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 1585 posts since 13 Nov, 2005 from St. Paul
I recently purchased ACE and have found myself back in touch with my inner sound designer. For a "simple" synthesizer there's a lot in there. I'm still learning a lot from the presets, but I was also hoping maybe others might want to share some tips and tricks they've found for getting new/different sounds out of ACE. I'll be sure to post any discoveries I make along the way here.
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- u-he
- 28065 posts since 8 Aug, 2002 from Berlin
One of my favourites is PWM at audio rate:
- Start from the initialize patch
- Set LFO2 to "partial" tuning
- Set VCO1 waveform to square
- Crank up PWM on VCO1
- tune LFO2 to taste (whole partials sound good) and try different waveforms
What's happening here is that the PWM is so fast that it creates new, harmonically rich waveforms.
If you want detuned sounds, both modulator and carrier have to be detuned same amounts. But you can try detuning in beats to have the detuend modulation in sync to host tempo
- Start from the initialize patch
- Set LFO2 to "partial" tuning
- Set VCO1 waveform to square
- Crank up PWM on VCO1
- tune LFO2 to taste (whole partials sound good) and try different waveforms
What's happening here is that the PWM is so fast that it creates new, harmonically rich waveforms.
If you want detuned sounds, both modulator and carrier have to be detuned same amounts. But you can try detuning in beats to have the detuend modulation in sync to host tempo
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- KVRian
- 775 posts since 15 Nov, 2005 from sweden
Hi Urs, i tried this just now. is there a step missing or something? must one patch the PW modulation to LFO2 to get that effect going that you are describing? please let me know. i am interested to hear this result! 
my tip (from one who has toyed with ACE for many hours and days now) is to not forget the mapper and cross-talk control.. very interesting and rhythmic results when modulating certain sources. don't forget you can right-click on the mapper window and quantize and help position the nodes! i absolutely love the modulation potential of this synth... as the manual says..The Sky is NOT the Limit. the sounds that you can get out of this thing are not even of this earth.
another tip is to not forget that this synth has option for STACKED voices for a true unison. to get the benefit of this you can change 'voices' from medium to many. this is useful mostly if you detune the different voices against one another. i have a patch now that i am using 3 voices for. one is tuned up the middle, one tuned up a 7th and down a 5th. you might watch your cpu usage when doing this, by the way.
ah yes, one more important tip do not forget to read the manual that comes with ACE.. very useful tips in there as well.
my tip (from one who has toyed with ACE for many hours and days now) is to not forget the mapper and cross-talk control.. very interesting and rhythmic results when modulating certain sources. don't forget you can right-click on the mapper window and quantize and help position the nodes! i absolutely love the modulation potential of this synth... as the manual says..The Sky is NOT the Limit. the sounds that you can get out of this thing are not even of this earth.
another tip is to not forget that this synth has option for STACKED voices for a true unison. to get the benefit of this you can change 'voices' from medium to many. this is useful mostly if you detune the different voices against one another. i have a patch now that i am using 3 voices for. one is tuned up the middle, one tuned up a 7th and down a 5th. you might watch your cpu usage when doing this, by the way.
ah yes, one more important tip do not forget to read the manual that comes with ACE.. very useful tips in there as well.
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- u-he
- 28065 posts since 8 Aug, 2002 from Berlin
Hi snigelx,
You don't need to patch LFO2 into VCO1 becaus eit's already pre-patched internally. Here's the patch that I describe. Change LFO2 waveform, level and frequency to taste:
www.acesynth.com/download/UHAudioratePWM.zip
You don't need to patch LFO2 into VCO1 becaus eit's already pre-patched internally. Here's the patch that I describe. Change LFO2 waveform, level and frequency to taste:
www.acesynth.com/download/UHAudioratePWM.zip
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- KVRian
- 775 posts since 15 Nov, 2005 from sweden
OK, I see now. Yes, I saw in the signal flow diagram that it was already modulating the PW there. I thought perhaps it should be routed back there again for some reason to get the effect you described, but now I see from the kind example you sent that it is fairly easily achieved. Thanks for the tip! Please please divulge more tips like this at leisure! I am trying to teach myself subtractive programming. I have never been more satisifed with my results than I have when I use your synthesizers (Zebra and now ACE). They seem to be made by someone who genuinely enjoys what he is doing.Urs wrote:You don't need to patch LFO2 into VCO1 becaus eit's already pre-patched internally. Here's the patch that I describe. Change LFO2 waveform, level and frequency to taste:
Jason Anderson
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- KVRAF
- 4130 posts since 11 Aug, 2006 from Texas
In FM synthesis, the carrier is the thing producing the sound. The modulator is the thing changing the frequency (frequency modulation). SOS has a good primer on the subject: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr00/a ... ?print=yes.
In the specific case of Urs' example VCO1 is the carrier and LFO2 is the modulator.
In the specific case of Urs' example VCO1 is the carrier and LFO2 is the modulator.
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Echoes in the Attic Echoes in the Attic https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=180417
- KVRAF
- 11054 posts since 12 May, 2008
Urs, if I may, I'd to volunteer you to offer another trick you mentioned before - How to get a waveshaper out of ACE. You mentioned something somewhere in one of the 100 page long threads about making a waveshaper via somerouting. I don't totally get how wavshapers work so you could some advice on that?
Thanks!
Thanks!
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- u-he
- 28065 posts since 8 Aug, 2002 from Berlin
A waveshaper adds some distortion to the sound by mapping the input from a linear scale to a distorted scale. There is a little recipe in the manual that explains how to use any signal to map it to the sine wave of LFO1. If LFO1 has no frequency (e.g. fine tune is set to 0.00 in multiply mode), then it can still be moved by modulating the phase.Echoes in the Attic wrote:Urs, if I may, I'd to volunteer you to offer another trick you mentioned before - How to get a waveshaper out of ACE. You mentioned something somewhere in one of the 100 page long threads about making a waveshaper via somerouting. I don't totally get how wavshapers work so you could some advice on that?
However, the more spectacular waveshaper in ACE is any of the filters with fully open cutoff.
