Sweet Berta

Wind blown through organ pipes: pink noise into a ladder held just under self-oscillation and tracking the keys, so each note whistles at its pitch, with a quiet triangle under it for a core, in a long hall. Play slow melodies in the middle and upper keys; it breathes rather than sings. Macros: Whistle, Body, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A pad that plays backwards: as each note swells in, the inverted envelope closes the filter, so it starts as a bright breath and settles dark, and when you let go it opens again into a bright release. Hold notes for two seconds or more and leave gaps for the release to bloom. Macros: Attack, Darkness, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A wall of fuzzed haze: detuned saws spread across the speakers into a germanium fuzz, then slow rushing jets, a deep chorus and a huge hall, so every note blurs into a roaring wash. Hold long notes and move slowly; octaves make the wall bigger. Macros: Fuzz, Wash, Bright, Jets. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A field of insects on a summer night: two narrow pulses jittered at random twenty-odd times a second, with a fast buzz in osc 1's width and a little noise, through a chorus and a plate. Hold notes in the upper middle, or move slowly between them. Macros: Swarm, Buzz, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Calls across a deep ocean: a soft triangle and a quiet saw through a resonant, dark filter, gliding slowly between overlapping notes, into long, wavering echoes and a vast hall. Play legato: hold one note and press the next before letting go, and the pitch swoops there over a second and a half. Low and middle notes work best. Macros: Glide, Call, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A pad heard on a far-off station: a soft saw and square, squeezed and dirtied, the lows and highs cut to a radio's narrow band, with a little static and a slow fade in and out as if the signal drifts. Hold long notes; it sits well behind a vocal or a beat. Macros: Tuning, Static, Fade. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Sunk beneath the surface: a dark saw and triangle through a low ladder, the filter nudged at random a little each second like light through water, with dark bubbles wandering slowly through it, never quite repeating, and a dark hall. Hold low notes; Surface brings it up toward the light. Macros: Surface, Current, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Noise alone through a near-self-oscillating ladder tracking the keys 1:1: a pitched, whistling wind. The mod wheel adds slow gusts to the cutoff. Macros: Whistle, Swell, Rate. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A high, glittering haze in twelve bits: a narrow pulse and a square up high, scattered by deep-wobbling twelve-bit ping-pong echoes into a plate, like an old sampler's cheap shimmer. Hold notes in the middle of the keyboard; it sounds an octave and more above them. Macros: Repeats, Echo, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A pad split down the middle: osc 2's saw goes through a chorus in the Case and back into its own mixer channel, while osc 1's square stays dry, so a solid centre sits inside a wide, shimmering halo. Play slow melodies in the middle; Halo brings the chorused saw forward. Macros: Halo, Cutoff, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A choir from somewhere else: the LFO runs at audio rate an octave under each note, tracking the keys, and frequency-modulates osc 2, so inhuman undertones growl inside a vowel-like band. Hold slow notes in the middle; Alien pushes the modulation from a murmur to a snarl. Macros: Alien, Vowel, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

Two sounds, one on each side: osc 1's saw goes into the ladder on the left and osc 2's narrow pulse, an octave up, on the right, each side filtered apart, so the pad fills both speakers with nothing quite in the middle. Best on headphones or wide monitors; hold long notes. Macros: Cutoff, Spread, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A shimmering pad whose motion follows the keys: the LFO sweeps osc 1's pulse width and nudges the filter, and its rate rises with each note, so low notes swirl slowly and high notes flicker. Play melodies across the keyboard to hear the motion change. Macros: Motion, Bright, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A sound that hardly ends: a soft triangle and saw into the longest hall Fjord has, twenty seconds, far behind a long pre-delay, so every note joins a cloud of the notes before it. Play slow, sparse notes and let the room fill. Macros: Decay, Wet, Attack. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A warm, overdriven glow: detuned saws through an amp in the Case before the filter, so the grit is shaped by the ladder into a dark, amber growl that swells in and sways slowly. Hold long notes in the low middle; Drive turns the glow to a roar. Macros: Drive, Cutoff, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A storm rolling in: brown noise and a low triangle through a dark, gusting filter, and every new note kicks a set of springs for a crack of thunder, into a dark hall. Play a low note and hold it, then play another for the next crack. Macros: Gusts, Thunder, Space. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

The oscillators off and the ladder's resonance at full, so the filter itself rings as a sine at the cutoff, tracking the keys 1:1 from middle C: the ladder filter as an oscillator. A trace of noise starts it ringing. Macros: Swell, Release, Vibrato. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

The long, booming drum-machine kick: the ladder ringing on its own as a sine, its pitch thrown up by the envelope and sliding down into the note. It tracks the keys, so play it as a bass line too, from C2 to C3; hold nothing, every hit rings out by itself. Macros: Boom (length), Punch (the pitch throw), Drive (Pumice's saturation). Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A short, tight kick with a hard front: a triangle an octave down whose pitch drops an octave on every hit, a click of noise on top, saturated for bite and squeezed by a compressor. The four-on-the-floor kick; play C2 to C3 on every beat. Macros: Body, Click, Decay, Bite. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A distorted, hard-dance kick: a triangle and a square falling an octave and a half, through a cranked amp, so the body turns into a square, gritty thump. Play it on every beat at C2 to C3; the amp's tone on a macro takes it from warm to harsh. Macros: Gain, Tone, Decay. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A soft, round kick with no click: pink noise and a low triangle through a nearly closed ladder, a quick dip in pitch, all thump and no snap. For lo-fi, hip-hop and quiet beats; play it a little behind the beat at C2 to C3. Macros: Body, Air, Decay. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

The warehouse-techno kick: a punchy kick played dry, with a dark hall behind it thickened and filtered down to a low, rolling rumble that fills the gap to the next hit. Patched in parallel through the Case: Main Out goes straight to Master In, and Euro Out, the voice before the Volume, through a wet hall and a dark amp beside it. Play straight quarter notes at C2 to C3. Macros: Rumble, Length, Punch. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

A bright, cracking snare: white noise through an open ladder over a triangle body that blips down in pitch, in a small room. The backbeat snare; play it at C3, harder for more crack. Macros: Snap, Body, Room. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.

The tight drum-machine snare: two triangles a fourth apart for the shell, tuned a little down on each hit, under a short burst of noise rolled off by a 12 dB ladder. Dry and close; play it at C3, or up the keys to tune the shell. Macros: Snappy, Shell, Decay. Macro 8, Master, is the output level.