Producer's Guide To Spire

Reveal Sound’s soft synth Spire has quickly become a standard in the plugin collection of most aspiring producers, with its powerful feature set and impressive audio quality allowing the creation of a huge range of desirable sounds. In this 3-hour course from Producertech senior tutor Rob Jones, you’ll be taken through every section of the plugin interface and shown a multitude of techniques for designing a variety of different patches.

Spire’s 4-oscillator sound engines offer a host of unique options for the type of synthesis, with amplitude, pulse width and frequency modulation all available, as well as a sync mode. This is further enhanced by a double waveform feature, where the first waveform is selectable from all standard oscillator types and the second from a long list of sample-based waveforms, which can be combined independently in each oscillator and made to interact in weird and wonderful ways. Once Rob has explained how each mode works and how waveforms can then be processed and blended in the unison and mix sections, he provides a number of patch design examples to help cement the techniques learned so far.

The next part of the course then tackles Spire’s filters and various modulators, including envelopes, LFOs and a stepper, before moving onto the Arpeggiator, EQ and FX. Once every part of the synth has been dealt with, Rob moves onto a series of extensive patch design lessons, with the first showing the designing of a gritty, raucous bass, the second a gripping lead and the last a multi-part, groove sequence.

Signing up to the course gets you instant 24/7 access to the streamed tutorials for as long as you need, plus a download pack containing the patches made on the course and 10 bonus presets from Loopmasters. Check out the free sample modules before signing up for an example of the course style and content, which ensures you’ll walk away with a much-improved understanding of how to use Spire to create your own masterful sounds!

Sample Module

Modules

Module 1 - Wave Section

A guide to the oscillator engines and the many different modes within them for creating classic, PWM, FM and sync sounds with the synthesiser and sample-based waveforms.

• Lesson 1 - Classic Mode
• Lesson 2 - Additional Modes

Module 2 - Unison and Mix Sections

A module showing how the unison section allows a host of detuning effects and also intervals and chords to be made, before the width and panning of the oscillator is defined.

• Lesson 1 - Unison Section
• Lesson 2 - Mix Section

Module 3 - Example Wave Designs 

Two examples of how to use multiple oscillators to create the foundations of a patch.

• Lesson 1 - Detuned Sawtooths and Sub
• Lesson 2 - Multi-layered FM and Pulse

Module 4 - Filters

A guide to the filter section, including the individual filter controls and how to set up and use them in series and parallel modes.

• Lesson 1 - Filter Parameters 
• Lesson 2 - Setting up in Series and Parallel

Module 5 - Modulators 

Spire’s main modulators are covered, looking at how to modulate oscillator pitch in one-shot and continuous looped fashion with the envelopes and LFOs, respectively.

• Lesson 1 - Envelopes
• Lesson 2 - LFOs

Module 6 - Stepper 

A module showing how to use Spire’s stepper to modulate the filter cutoff up and down, in order to create a classic, rhythmic bass patch.

Module 7 - Arpeggiator 

The Arpeggiator is used to create a dancing, melodic patch, with the sequencer bars shifting the pitch of notes across several octaves in a syncopated rhythm.

Module 8 - FX and EQ

The final sections of the synth are covered, showing how they enable the application of numerous effects as well as parametric EQ to the master output.

• Lesson 1 - FX
• Lesson 2 - EQ

Module 9 - Patch Design 1 - Bass Part 1

The first part of a lengthy series of lessons showing how to create a bass patch, which includes a guide to the different monophonic modes available, creative use of filtering to add additional layers of sound, and application of effects.

• Lesson 1 - Creating a Classic Bass with Osc 1
• Lesson 2 - Guide to Monophonic Modes
• Lesson 3 - Using Parallel Filters to create a High Freq Layer 
• Lesson 4 - Adding Shaper and Reverb

Module 10 - Patch Design 2 - Bass Part 2

The bass sound from the previous module is expanded, with a bass layer added using another oscillator, modulation applied to the shaper effect, and then important parameters on the synth mapped to different macro controls. 

• Lesson 1 - Adding a Sub Layer with Osc 2
• Lesson 2 - Modulating the Shaper 
• Lesson 3 - Setting up Macros

Module 11 - Patch Design 3 - Lead 

A multi-layer lead patch is made, consisting of an FM striking sound, bolstered by filtered noise, followed by a more gradual sync’d oscillator for the secondary part of the sound.

• Lesson 1 - Creating the Main Transient
• Lesson 2 - Adding extra Noise to the Transient
• Lesson 3 - Designing a Secondary Post-Transient Layer
• Lesson 4 - Adding Effects and Adjusting the Amp Env
• Lesson 5 - Final Shaping and EQ

Module 12 - Patch Design 4 - Sequence

A rhythmic, looping sequence is created, which includes a psy style bass, syncopated minor chord stab and up-beat hi hat.

• Lesson 1 - Making the Chords and Bass Sequence
• Lesson 2 - Adding Hat and FX

Features

• 3 Hours of Tutorials from a Certified Trainer
• Pro Sound Design Tips and Tricks
• 13 Included Spire Presets
• Access 24/7/365