Ultrabeat
Ultrabeat is a 25 voice drum synth and operates similar to a traditional hardware drum machine. 24 Drum Voices are assigned to the first 24 MIDI keys (C1 to B2) while the 25th drum voice (beginning at C3) can be played chromatically on up, making it ideal for bass sounds, pads, or leads.
You can run through all the presets by key command (⌘→ or ⌘←) or in the Settings area at the top of Ultrabeat's window. Each preset contains all the drum sounds and their synth parameters as well as any step sequencer patterns.
Contents
Ultrabeat Assignment Section
Used to select and mix drum sounds.
Take note of the following functions:
- Voice Auto Select: allows you to select drum voices through MIDI. It's useful when you're going back and forth between two sounds (kick and snare, e.g.) and use your left hand to select the drum voice with your keyboard while editing the synth section with your right hand.
- Master volume slider
- The blue Volume Slider on each drum voice can be dragged left and right to lower and raise the volume of that sound.
- The vertical Keyboard is playable and lights when a drum voice is played through MIDI.
- Solo and Mute buttons
- Pan knob
- The Output Menu lets you route the drum voice to individual outputs or an output pair. These options change depending on whether you load a Stereo or Multi-Output instance of Ultrabeat.
Drum voices can be dragged and dropped. If you drag one voice onto another voice, the drum voices and synth settings are swapped. If you hold Command while dragging and dropping, the sequences are also swapped. Option-drag to copy, not swap, the sound and not the synth or sequencer settings. Hold down Command+Option to copy the sound and sequences.
Ultrabeat Synthesizer Section
Used to change the sound of the selected drum voice.
Ultrabeat Step Sequencer
Used to edit and control patterns and sequences.
- Length field and bar
- Defines the length of the pattern. Drag the value in the Length parameter field or the bar beneath the swing buttons to adjust the length.
- Resolution menu
- Determines the resolution of the pattern. 1/8 = each step of the grid represents an eighth note. A pattern length of 32 steps would run for 4 measures (4*8).
- Note: The interplay between the Length and Resolution values allows the creation of different kinds of time signatures.
- Length = 14. Resolution = 1/16. 7/8 time.
- Length = 12. Resolution = 1/16. 3/4 time.
- Length = 20. Resolution = 1/16. 5/4 time.
Related
- Basic Hyper Editor: Drum Sequencing Part 1
- Learn how to set up the Hyper Editor window for use as a traditional drum pattern sequencer.
- Basic Hyper Editor: Drum Sequencing Part 2
- This tutorial demonstrates how to input MIDI note data via the Hyper Editor event definition lanes for drum sequencing.
- Basic Hyper Editor: Quantization
- Learn how to quantize existing MIDI note events in the Hyper Editor by using the Convert Event Definition dialog.
- Basic Environment: Mapped Instrument
- This Logic Pro tutorial covers basic functions of the mapped instrument object in the Logic environment. You will learn how to make MIDI connections with the mapped instrument object and how to label each key to match the pitch mapping of software instrument or hardware drum synthesizers.
- Ultrabeat Side Chain Part 1
- Learn how to bus tracks into the Ultrabeat Side Chain for processing and step programming.
- Ultrabeat Side Chain Part 2
- Part 2 of our Ultrabeat Side Chain tutorial. Learn how to bus tracks into the Ultrabeat Side Chain for processing, step programming, automation, and how to route voices to separate mixer tracks.
- Ultrabeat Step Mode Shortcut
- Step mode allows you to automate the Ultrabeat parameters. Learn a shortcut to toggle between Ultrabeat's step mode and voice mode so you can make changes to your drum sounds once automation has been engaged.
