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Patches of the month - 10 fresh presets for DUNE 3

Published 11:27 am on Wednesday 28th September 2022 by Beat Magazine

Lead Sound la Stephan Bodzin

When you hear a track by Stephan Bodzin, you immediately know that it comes from the pen of the Melodic Techno DJ and Producer. This is particularly attributable to the distinctive synth sounds, which can also be convincingly created with DUNE 3. Our patch „BEAT-Bodzin Lead“ uses three oscillators with the Ramp Up waveform. Voice the second one seven semitones higher for that characteristic fifth interval. The first two oscillators are detuned slightly in opposite directions, the third one oscillates an octave lower than oscillator 1. Since the sound is to be played monophonically, we set Polyphony to Mono and increase Glide to 21%. Stephan Bodzin uses the Moog Sub 37 for many of his synth sounds. To mimic the filter sound, we‘ll choose the TR Lowpass 24 dB model for Filter 1. If you control the filter frequency with the modulation wheel, you can easily build up voltage. To do this, we first reduce Cutoff to 45% and set Keytrack to 22%. For a subtle filter saturation, use a Drive value of +32%. The volume envelope should be adjusted as shown in the picture. Now, the only thing missing is the modulation assignments shown in the picture. The modulation wheel influences the filter and, with the addition of some aftertouch, you can bring some slight vibrato into play. A little more bite is added to the sound by adding a little saturation (Distortion: Saturation), while Delay and Reverb provide the desired atmospheric sound.

Classic Synthwave Bass

For those classic rolling synthwave basslines la The Midnight, Fury Weekend and Scandroid, Korg‘s Polysix or its software version are often used. Such sounds are also child‘s play with DUNE3, as our preset „BEAT-Classic Synthwave-Bass“ shows. The desired fat basic sound is provided here by two oscillators with the Ramp Down waveform, whereby the oscillator oscillates one octave lower. We set the polyphony to Mono and also activate the arpeggiator to fire off a bassline with only one keyboard key. Reduce the number of Steps to 1 and increase Velocity (Vel) to 127 and Length to +100% for the first step. With the settings shown for Filter 1, as well as for the filter and volume envelopes, a cool, dry bassline is already in place from the beginning. If you set the Density of oscillator 1 to 6, Detune to 32% and Spread to 100%, the sun rises: The bass now sounds livelier and fatter and also has a wider stereo width. For the second oscillator, we adjust the Unison parameters as shown. It sounds even wider if you set Voices to 8, Detune to 20% and Spread to 15%. With the Equalizer values shown, the bassline comes through in the mix in the best possible way. Finally, the modulation assignments shown here allow you to control Filter Frequency with the modulation wheel for exciting voltage responses.

Synthetic Singing? Oh yeah!

Synth sounds that resemble human voices usually involve a formant filter, which can be heard on Skrillex, Daft Punk, Infected Mushroom and Flux Pavilion, among others. DUNE 3 also has a corresponding effect on board. So, how about letting the synthesizer sing „Oh yeah“ in the Chorus? First, initialize a patch, increase Polyphony to 16 and select the Ramp Up waveform for both oscillators. Tune Oscillator 2 up an octave and adjust the levels in the mixer as shown. Then select the Vowel effect for Filter 1. With the Amt control, you can now crossfade between different vowels. Sounds cool, but how do you get an „Oh yeah“ out of DUNE 3? Well, by modulating the parameter. So, we make the following assignment in the Modulation Matrix: Source: MSEG 1, Amt: +100, Destination: Filter FX Amount. To ensure that the Modulation is synchronized to the host tempo, we set the Sync parameter under Settings to Host. We also activate the Sync mode of MSEG 1 and define a rate of 1/1. When drawing in the curve, a bit of dexterity is required to ensure that the desired vowels are played at the correct tempo. The oscillator density settings shown and the Global Unison mode provide the desired beats. It sounds especially cool when you play chords with this sound. Thanks to the Modulation Assignments shown, you can crossfade between two curves with the Modulation Wheel for more varied „lyrics“.

Epic pads thanks to Wavetables

With its multi-faceted waveform palette, wavetable synthesis is ideally suited for expressive pads like our „BEAT-Mysteria Pad“ preset. We start with one oscillator and increase Polyphony to 16. Select FM as the Synthesis Type and the wavetable IW Gravity. You can then use the Position knob to sweep through the wavetable, creating lively sound progressions. To modulate these with an LFO, we turn the Position knob all the way up and create the following modulation assignment: LFO 1, -100, Osc 1 WT Position. Reduce the Rate of LFO 1 to 0.171 Hz. To make the modulation sound smoother, we set Interpol to 100%. Then, adjust the Amp Envelope for the desired volume curve of the pad sound as shown. For an atmospheric sound, we select the Swarm mode for Density with the settings shown. Oscillator 2 gets similar settings, but with the Wavetable WH Absolution and Position set to 0. Then, make the Modulation Assignments shown. It gets even more lush by slightly detuning the oscillators in opposite directions and using the Unison mode. To make the pad sound fit better into the mix, we lower the high and low frequencies. Finally, we refine it with a lush Reverb effect, using the Shimmer Reverb algorithm.

EBM bassline la Front 242

Another specialty of DUNE 3 is the dynamically playable FM sounds. Although the synthesizer has only three operators per oscillator, many classic FM sounds like crisp EBM basses la Front 242 can be created. For our bass, we set Polyphony to Mono and select FM as the Synthesis Type for oscillator 1. The first algorithm is best suited for the desired sound. The Amt knobs control the volume of each of the three operators. We turn the Amt control of Operator C all the way up. The Amt values of the first two operators now determine the intensity with which they modulate Operator C‘s frequency. The Ratio values, on the other hand, define the frequencies of the three Sine waves. For our bass, the settings 1.00, 1.50 and 0.50 deliver good results. If you want to create a sound that is richer in overtones, you can also try higher values. Since we want to control the Amt values with the arpeggiator, we set them back to 0.00 and make the assignments shown in the Matrix. Activate the arpeggiator and adjust MSEG 1 as shown in the picture. Now this envelope modulates the Amt values of Operators A and B, with the modulation intensity being affected by the velocity of the step sequencer. With the Modulation Wheel, you can make the sound more muffled. Finally, the Unison settings shown here and a subtle saturation with the Distortion effect provide more fat.

Here you can download the 10 patches for Dune 3

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