Chapter 4

In this chapter we will finally unravel the mysterious PULP effect.

Let's go in medias res...

Start snapshot 24 "Magnum". First, notice that I activated the stretch button for TIE in the REMIX section.

This allows me to trigger the TIE sample slightly off the normal 16 beat positions, which gives the riff a more human feeling.

Then there is XFX automation to add a bit of sound variation, like a very slow wah-wah. And, for the first time in this tutorial, the EQ section is activated to boost the high frequencies.

I will not explain the EQ section because I suppose you are familiar with EQs. If not, play with all the knobs in the EQ section now and you will easily understand what this module is for.

Did you notice that all sample modules except TIE are turned off?

Deactivate the TIE section, too. All samplers are now turned off but there is still sound playing...

So, this is the first important thing to learn about the PULP module. It is a sound generator that uses the audio from all sampling modules, no matter if they are activated or not.

Let's go back to snapshot 10 "Spam 2". We saw in chapter 2 that PULP is used here to add a soft whoosh sound. Solo the PULP section and turn off the XFX and FILTER sections. We want to study the PULP parameters in more detail. Also, turn all knobs in the bottom row except CUT to full left -- or just select snapshot 25 "Spam (PULP 1)".

Slowly move the OSC knob in the middle row to full left and back to full right. Should sound like this: OSC. At full left, the incoming audio is used to modulate a sine wave, at full right you get modulated noise and in center position you hear the incoming audio. The knob in the center of the PULP section selects which sample module is used for the modulation.

You hear that only HAT, SN (=snare), and KICK produce sound. The TIE and POD samplers are not used in this snapshot. Turn the knob back to ALL and experiment with the LO and HI knobs in the middle row. These knobs determine the range of frequencies from the incoming audio that is used to modulate PULPs sound generator (sine wave or noise, no effect if OSC is in center position).

Turn LO and HI to full right and move the D (=decay) knob. You hear that this changes the time the sound needs to fade out. This also works for the sine wave generator (OSC at full left). Play with both knobs and it should sound something like this: D and OSC. You can change the pitch of the sine and noise oscillators with the TUNE knob in the upper row. Try it out.

Select snapshot 26 "Spam (Pulp 2)". Here, I tuned the noise oscillator down with the TUNE knob and added a bit of the original audio (the OSC knob is slightly before full right). Now, slowly increase the COMB value.

This fades in the comb filter. Now also turn the FB (=feedback) knob slowly to full right until the filter self-oscillates. The FREQ (=frequency) knob determines the resonance frequency of the comb filter. Turn it slowly up and down. Turn the FB back to a middle position (12 o clock) and play with the FREQ again. You can also add (comb filter resonance) frequency modulation with the FM knob and finally filter out the high frequencies by decreasing the CUT (=filter cutoff) value.

One final experiment: change OSC to full left and play again with all the comb filter knobs (COMB, FB, FREQ, FM). You hear subtle variations but the impact is not as large as with the noise generator. The reason is, of course, that a sine wave has not that much to offer for a filter to work on.

This was a hard walk through the parameters of the PULP section. Let's get back to loops with some more example snapshots that use PULP.

I mentioned before that the comb filter is not so effective for the sine wave generator of PULP but, to prove myself wrong, just listen to snapshot 27 "Birdy". Turn PULP off and the loop looses its magic. If you wish, solo PULP and experiment with the parameters before going to the next snapshot.

In snapshot 28 "Slapper" I use PULP to add a bit of room and spatial movement to the loop. To hear that more clearly, solo the PULP section and set the input to POD.

Now also solo the POD section so that you hear both, POD and PULP. The different PAN (=panning) settings and the different sounds are responsible for this ping-pong effect. You can deactivate POD or PULP and try to get the same result by adapting the PAN settings but it will not work.

Here is a another example, snapshot 29 "Lamento".

We are almost at the end of this tutorial. You have certainly noticed that I omitted some sections of Limelite. The DELAY section for example. That is because delays are used everywhere in electronic music and I assume that you have at least a basic understanding of it. Furthermore -- but that is just my personal opinion -- delay does harm to most drum loops. If a loop sounds bad without delay, you will likely not be able to fix that by adding delay.

But of course, sometimes an effective use of DELAY can add to a loop. Here are two examples, snapshot 30 "Hit me!" and snapshot 31 "Resoclix" (notice the flam-modulation on the SNARE). Turn on and off the DELAY section to hear the difference.

I also did not say much about the MAGIC section. Well, I hope during this tutorial you did not only get an idea about how to use Limelite but also about how to approach a mysterious element of an instrument and find out what it does. This can be fun, too. So, I will leave it to you to investigate the MAGIC section (snapshot 12 "Spacetrain 2" might be a good starting point).

Maybe it is surprising that I did not even mention the pattern variation possibilities that the sequencer itself has to offer.

However, my aim was to show you how much variation is already achievable with the sample and effects modules, alone. The sequencer variations are just the icing on the cake.

I would not invest too much energy in drawing B, C, and D variations before the A variation does not sound like a killer loop, but that is just my personal way of working. Snapshot 32 "Prayer" is one example of a loop with a slight variation in the B pattern.

Superb snapshots with complex sequencer variations can be found in the snapshot banks by Richard Davis and James Walker-Hall (in case you don't know: James Walker-Hall and Jörg Remmer Müller are the creators of Limelite). You can download both banks in the update section of the Native Instruments website.

This concludes the Limelite tutorial. In case you enjoyed it, I'd be glad to find a positive comment in my guest book. Feel free to send me your Limelite creations so that I can learn from you, too. :-)

UPDATE: There are 24 NEW snapshots in the tutorial bank!

If you went through the whole tutorial, you should be able to understand everything that takes place in these snapshots. So, just listen to them and try to figure out how I made these sounds and rythms. Here are some additional hints...

Remember the mix modulation technique from chapter 2, where I turned on and off the FX with a mod sequence? This works with Delay as well and sometimes gives nice results. Listen to snapshots 34 "Tunnelblick", 35 "Tabula Rasa", and 36 "Doppler". Turn the DELAY as well as the MIX button in the MIX section on and off to hear the difference. Notice that in snapshot 34 I turned the FX MIX in the MIX section to full right. Otherwise, the chop XFX would be hard to hear. The same effect is used in 37 "Schleudergang". Turn the FX MIX knob to change the impact of the chopping.

38 "Gunner" has a very special kick sound. Once again, mix modulation is the way to accomplish this. The kick sound in 39 "Bleep" is also not your everydays bass drum...

The next four snaps play with the sequence length settings in the REMIX section. Solo the POD sampler in 40 "Tubaman" and you will hear that the 5 POD steps are stretched to the full bar, resulting in an interesting rythmic pattern when overlayed with the normal 16 step patterns. In 41 "Pancake" a 14 step bassline in the TIE module runs against a normal 16 step beat. 42 "RnB" is quite simple but the variation in sequence lengths (16, 7, 9) plus the subtle FX modulation with the slice effect (using a MOD sequence with 23 steps) produces rythmic changes over time.

Fasten your seatbelts before going to the next snapshot, 43 "Hammer". Did you imagine that you can do loops like that with Limelite? Play with the CUT knobs in the TIE and PULP section for some extra fun. 44 "Powaa" also waits for your manual TIE CUT modulation. 45 "Hyper 1" and 46 "Hyper 2" are variations of the same beat.

In 47 "Rummel", a REMIX pattern is triggered every second bar. Play with the REMIX knob to check out some of these wicked patterns (try for example 71, 78 and 84).

48 "Open Space" uses slowly modulated pitch shifting to generate this spacy sound. In 49 "Angry R2D2" you can manually shift the pitch by turning the CUT knob in the TIE section (which changes the frequency of the resonance).

The remaining 8 snapshots are some of those I used in this short demo song, and it is 100% Limelite.

Now, go to the init snapshot and rock the house with your own creations... ;-)