Cubase 14: Banish Boring Pads

Screen 1: Spicing up our static pad with the new Modulator options by targeting parameters both in Retrologue itself and insert effects on the Retrologue channel.

Want to awaken those sleepy synth pads? Then give Cubase 14’s Modulators a try!

If existing Cubase users needed a single excuse to upgrade to Pro 14, the new Modulator options might well provide it, especially if your music makes use of synth‑based elements. While lots of modern virtual synths have modulation options on board, those only let you modulate parameters inside that instrument. In contrast, Cubase’s new Modulators have track‑wide reach — they grant you access to any parameter on the selected track, whether in the instrument itself, or in an insert effect or a parameter of the channel hosting it.

The creative sound‑design options the Modulator system offers are almost limitless but let’s start an exploration of the potential with three (from many) different options the Modulator system provides for tackling a common task: banishing the ‘boring’ from a simple synth pad.

Inside & Out

There are contexts where a static pad sound, such as the Retrologue sound I’ve started with in the audio examples (available on the SOS website: https://sosm.ag/cubase-0425), can be just what the musical mood requires. But if you need to add some sonic movement, parameter modulation is a great place to start. Retrologue has its own well‑featured modulation system, of course, but in this example the preset I’ve created makes no use of that. Instead, I’ve opened the new Modulators panel in the Project window’s Lower Zone and, as shown in the first screenshot, used its modulation options instead.

The new Modulator system provides six different modulator types:

• LFO
• Envelope Follower
• Shaper
• Macro Knob
• Step Modulator
• ModScripter

Any combination of these can be added in the eight available slots on the selected track/channel. To start things fairly simply, this first example just uses two instances of the LFO Modulator type and one of the Shaper. The LFO instances are both sine waves, but are set to different Note (speed) values, and with some Shape and Phase changes applied to the second instance. These target parameters in the synth’s engine, including Filter Cutoff and Osc 3 Fine pitch (LFO 1), and Filter Resonance and Osc 2 Fine pitch (LFO 2). The system for adding targets to a Modulator is beautifully implemented — in the majority of cases, you simply hit the large ‘+’ button, then click the desired target parameter.

In this example, all the Modulation Depth values are set quite modestly, so the changes to both filter and pitch are subtle, while the Note settings mean the modulation also occurs quite slowly. Even with just these two Modulators applied, the pad benefits from some nice tonal and pitch movement.

Up to this point, these modulation moves could have been created in Retrologue’s own modulation matrix. The Shaper modulator, though, demonstrates one of the key advantages of the new Modulator system, because it’s targeting parameters outside Retrologue. In this case,...