Explore the features of Drone and improve your workflow with UVI Sound Designer, Antoine Martin.
1. Into the Loop
On the Mod Page you can quickly assign the Feedback Loop level to your MIDI Mod Wheel. Don’t hesitate to play with it, results are awesome and unpredictable!
2. Movement, Always
Activate the XY LFO to instantly add movement to your sound. X and Y axis are modulated by discrete LFOs. In the Edit page, you can change their shape freely (from square to triangle), speed, depth and phase. Try to mess with the LFO parameters to build complex patterns.
3. Surround Sound
To use Drone in surround and fully enjoy its immersive potential, open Falcon, go to Configuration in the menu bar then choose « Quad » or « 5.1 ». Then, open Drone in Falcon and select the preset « Quad » or « 5.1 ».
4. Shaping the Harmonic Content
Using the Harmonics effect we can color the sound. Increase only the even harmonics (II, IV, VI and VIII) if you want a pleasant and warm sound. If you prefer a more aggressive flavor, go for the odd harmonics (I, III, V, VII), and try to put the Distortion afterwards to enhance them even more.
5. The Swarm Effect
With the pitch depth of the Swarm set at 12 semitones, you can have a nice chorus with Swarm level at 10 to 30%, between 40 to 50% it starts to get scary. For the Swarm effect, beware that the more voices you add, the more CPU is used.
6. Setting up the Filter
On the FX page, the Filter is super simple but very powerful when used in conjunction with the XY LFO. To set up the Filter, the upper knob (Freq) is used to set the cutoff frequency when FX Mix = 0% and the lower knob (FX Mod) is used to set the cutoff frequency when FX Mix = 100%. When you’ve adjusted Freq and FX Mod knobs, you can then play with XY pad and hear the filter being modulated.
7. Velocity Mappings
If you want to design a very responsive preset, go to the Settings page (the gear icon on the top right corner), and try out different velocity mappings. If you activate « Gain », the harder you play on your MIDI keyboard, the higher the Gain will be, for a natural feel. Things get more interesting if you activate « Harmonics » for instance, which links together Velocity and Harmonics levels.
8. Granularity
On the Edit page, you can play samples in two ways: classic or using granular synthesis. In this case, choose IRCAM Grain mode.
If you are looking for a kind of arpeggiated sound, typical of granular synthesis, set a high value for Size (300 to 500ms) and low values for Density (between 0.1 and 0.6). If you prefer creating an atonal atmosphere, turn the Density knob up to 3 and play with the Variation knob.
9. Vibrato
To build a simple vibrating sound, select the same sample (or the same kind of sample) for both sources 1 and 2, and slightly detune one of them by 1 or 2 semitones. Then, activate the XY LFO. Going to the Edit page, the Speed and Depth of LFO X correspond to the frequency and amplitude of the vibrato.
10. Creating your own Preset
You can save and load your own presets using the dedicated buttons next to the Presets menu, and they are easy to make!
For instance, try to use the randomize button just below the Sound source menu to pick up a random sample amongst the hundreds included. Once you are happy, put the FX Mix to 100% in order to fully hear the Keygroup effects (Distortion, Harmonics, Filter), and mess around with them in the FX page. Finally, on the Edit page, activate the XY LFO to make the sound more lively. Ta-dah!
Discover more about Drone: www.uvi.net/drone