Add grit, ring and echo

About 8 minutes

You will build a heavy slam and learn three effects that make plain sounds bigger: Distortion (crunch), Resonance on a filter (a ring or whistle) and Echo (repeats). All three work on tones and on noise.

Start from nothing

Open a blank sound (opens in a new tab)

1. A low, falling note

Press + Tone and set Wave to sawtooth, a harsh, buzzy wave.
Set Pitch to 90, switch on Slide to another pitch and set Slides to to 45.
Set Length to 0.4 and Volume to 0.25.
Play. A dull, low thump.

Hear step 1 (opens in a new tab)

2. Distortion: crunch

Distortion squashes the wave's peaks, which adds harsh overtones. A little sounds warm; a lot sounds like a broken speaker. It suits hits, engines and explosions.

Switch on Distortion. The Amount starts at 0.5.
Set Amount to 0.7 and play. The same thump now bites.
Try 1 to hear it at its most extreme, then put it back.

Hear step 2 (opens in a new tab)

Distortion makes a layer sound louder without raising its peak. If the sound is suddenly too strong, lower the layer's Volume.

2b. Resonance: a ring on the filter

A filter normally just removes sound. Resonance makes it also ring at its cutoff, so a sweeping filter whistles. It is how you get "wow", vocal and sci-fi swoosh sounds.

Press + Noise. Set Length to 0.3 and Volume to 0.12.
Switch on Filter (leave Kind as lowpass). Set Cutoff to 3000 and Sweeps to to 300.
Play, then set Resonance to 8 and play again. The noise now sings a falling note as the filter closes.

Hear the slam with its whoosh (opens in a new tab)

Resonance is a loud setting: a high value can make a layer about ten decibels louder. Turn Volume down as you turn it up. About 1 is smooth; 5 to 10 rings clearly.

3. Echo: repeats

Echo repeats a layer after a short Gap, each one quieter, like a sound bouncing off a wall. It makes a small sound feel big. Echo is part of the layer, so each layer can have its own.

Select the first layer (the sawtooth) and switch on Echo.
Set Gap to 0.12 (seconds between repeats), Trail to 0.4 (how long they keep going) and Level to 0.4 (how loud the first repeat is).
Play. The slam now rolls away in a few shrinking thumps. Look at the layers' count line under the list: the sound is longer than its layers, because it includes the echoes.

Hear the finished slam (opens in a new tab)

Which one for what?

A short Gap (0.02 to 0.06) makes a metallic, flutter-like ring. Good for lasers and robots.
A medium Gap (0.1 to 0.2) gives a bouncing, rhythmic repeat. Good for slams and gunshots.
A long Gap (0.3 to 0.5) with a high Trail sounds like a big hall or a canyon.
Echo on noise turns a puff into a rolling blast. Try it on the explosion from lesson 3.
Echo repeats at most eight times and for at most two seconds, so a long Gap with a high Trail may end sooner than you expect.