Exploring the Polynomial Modulator in Bitwig Studio

Tutorial | Jul 06, 2021

In this video, I showed how to use the polynomial modulator inside Bitwig Studio to create interesting distortion, wave shapes and overtones. I demonstrated how to use a DC offset device with the modulator, and how to modulate the X parameter with an audio rate modulator. I also showed how to use an LFO, as well as a stereo split to create unique sounds. Finally, I shared some tips and advice on creating presets, and how to save the new device for future use.

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Questions & Answers #

Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

What is the Polynome modulator in Bitwig Studio? #

The Polynome Modulator is a versatile modulation tool found in Bitwig Studio. It can be used to modulate the audio stream or insert values or voltage, as well as change the waveform and create unique distortions. It is an audio-rate modulator and is capable of analyzing the audio signal coming into the chain.

How can the Polynome Modulator be used? #

The Polynome Modulator can be used to create unique distortions and wave shaping. It can be used to modulate the DC Offset Device, creating a polarity flip. It can also be used to modulate the X Parameter, creating a linear transition. Additionally, you can use the Polynome Modulator to modulate parameters with an LFO and a pitch of the current note.

What is the benefit of using the Polynome Modulator? #

The benefit of using the Polynome Modulator is that it can be used to create unique sounds and distortions. It can also be used to modulate parameters in interesting ways, creating overtones and harmonics. Additionally,

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00.000] Welcome back to another video today. It's all about the polynome modulator inside Bitwig studio
[00:05.440] It's not my most used modulator at all and you probably know this when you watch my streams
[00:12.720] But nonetheless, it's an interesting modulator and it's versatile and you can do some interesting stuff at it
[00:18.840] And I want to show you some examples for inspiration, you know, and to maybe lead you to new paths to sound design or for sound design in Bitwig studio
[00:29.160] So let's switch over here to Bitwig
[00:35.080] So yeah, we have a completely empty project here. Maybe let's load a pick drum
[00:41.960] Paint a new small pattern
[00:47.320] So we have this running here, so it's a kick drum
[00:52.720] Pretty simple pretty easy
[00:56.080] Yeah, it's recalling nice
[00:58.080] So now that we have this we can insert you may be a chain device, which is just a container with nothing in it
[01:06.080] But then we insert here a tool device and I remove this here because it's my default modulator on the tool
[01:12.520] So we have now a tool in here and we bring the volume down to minus infinity, which just moves the sound
[01:19.640] So we can't hear anything
[01:21.640] So now we insert your DC offset device and when we use a DC offset device, we can just modulate the audio stream or insert values or voltage
[01:33.200] I don't know how you want to call it
[01:36.880] Or we can change the waveform at all. So when we hook up here and
[01:42.280] Oscillator or oscilloscope
[01:44.280] You can see everything that we move here with the DC offset device. You can see in the oscilloscope. Maybe you can also hear something
[01:52.640] Happening on your on your speakers or your headphones
[01:57.040] Because I'm modulating your membrane of the speaker directly with this here, right?
[02:02.040] So you can move the speaker or the membrane in and out or in and out. So like this
[02:07.360] So that's okay, but now we just add here an audio rate modulator, which kind of analyzes the audio signal coming into the chain here into this
[02:19.680] Modulator, you can see the waveform on here and we
[02:25.680] Analyze or grab the mono channel here because it's probably a mono sound. That's the e-kick
[02:31.720] But you have to be aware of that that it's only covering one channel at a time
[02:35.560] So we
[02:37.840] Selecting on the mono channel and then we modulating DC offset device which gets us
[02:44.480] Just the sound as before
[02:48.520] like this and
[02:51.520] Now we answered here insert here a polynomial modulator and
[02:55.960] When we dial in here a certain numbers for instance here zero
[03:00.120] Zero zero zero. Okay, so now we dial in one. We have a perfect nice
[03:06.160] linear
[03:08.760] trans trans
[03:11.920] Transition no, no, it's not so interesting transform function
[03:15.800] Where we get the same signal out as we are sending in so now we modulating at the X
[03:21.600] Parameter and then instead with this one we modulate. We don't modulate the DC offset device
[03:29.560] We only modulating here from the polynomial on the X parameter and then we modulating with this one here the DC offset
[03:36.240] Device which now gets us the same sound as before
[03:40.680] But now we can see here to kick drum
[03:44.280] As values on this line and now we can transform this line in
[03:49.280] In different ways
[03:58.520] So it's it's more like a it's kind of a wave shaper
[04:07.920] I
[04:11.200] Think if when you put in here one and instead of one you go to minus one you have the inverted line here
[04:18.960] And you get a a polarity flip if I'm not wrong
[04:32.560] Well, maybe we
[04:35.440] We dot the gate us here into a chain device and then we flip this year around so it should be quiet now
[04:43.000] It's completely quiet. So it's a polarity flip
[04:45.440] Yeah, so you can flip the polarity with this if you want
[04:53.200] Let's see. Let's put this out here again
[04:56.640] um
[04:58.640] And you can change the waveform or you can you can wave shape basically your sound what you can also do is to
[05:05.920] How do you rate and modulate some of these parameters here which gets interesting sounds? So you can create some overtones to
[05:22.640] Simple sounds or Sine-Wave he sounds if you want. It's a nice way of adding distortion or unique distortion
[05:30.880] But just more important to have some devices that are unique to your to your own sound
[05:36.880] Or at least that's what most people search for write your own unique sound
[05:41.280] So you can design your own wave shaper or come up with some nice patchings for distorting the sound also interesting instead of using here the same
[05:53.120] Audio rate modulator for modulating all these parameters here. You can also switch for a go for
[05:59.520] um LFO
[06:02.480] Which has also here audio rate
[06:06.240] Speeds kilohertz for instance
[06:08.240] And then modulates on parameters here
[06:29.440] Nice huh
[06:31.440] I can also go for a pitch
[06:33.440] Pitch of the current node and because the e-kick is pitch agnostic and it doesn't care which kind of
[06:41.280] Um note you are you you are using on on the piano roll
[06:46.320] Um, but this one does now here this
[06:49.680] This modulator modulator this LFO
[06:52.480] Uh, so we changed this here to pitch and now we can
[06:55.600] Oops can change some of the keys
[06:57.600] I
[07:00.800] And can get kind of different modulations for different
[07:06.240] kick drums
[07:12.560] You can change the overtones to some of your kicks by changing the pitch because now this LFO is um
[07:21.440] Yeah, changing the modulation speed um with the notes. Okay, so that's pretty fine
[07:26.640] The e-kick is a mono um, so we have basically only one channel. We we need to care for
[07:33.600] But what if we use actually some stereo sounds? So this is also no problem
[07:39.040] Can you maybe exchange the e-kick for a policeman?
[07:44.080] Dial in your unison. So we have a nice stereo spread
[07:48.800] So we kind of create a
[07:50.800] It had sound or something like this. I don't know. Let me turn this up here. Maybe we go
[08:00.400] Um, dial in here some
[08:05.360] Some sounds
[08:07.360] It's a bit longer
[08:17.360] Oh
[08:36.880] Okay, so now that we have this you can hear
[08:40.000] Um, we get only a mono sound out of this distortion device or
[08:43.680] Oh, out of this um, yeah, wave shape, but we created when we um
[08:49.200] Remove this you can instantly hear how how the signal becomes wider
[09:02.720] Okay, but now to to make the stereo or the distortion device stereo um
[09:08.960] We just duplicate the modulators here
[09:13.680] Um, like this and for the first one we use the left channel for the
[09:18.880] For this one we use the right channel and then we put this here the DC offset device into the stereo split
[09:27.280] And this goes into the left channel here. So we modulate here the left
[09:32.000] um
[09:33.520] With this uh thing here and then we need of course also twice the um
[09:41.440] polynoms. So this one modulates this and
[09:46.000] This one modulates this one here
[09:50.080] Like this and then we modulate here the the right one. This one is modulating this one
[09:55.840] We put this in here
[09:57.840] So
[10:02.480] This one is modulating this device. Let's see
[10:13.760] So this is the right channel is the this the right channel and there's the left channel here
[10:20.000] Okay, so now we have it finally
[10:22.000] And then we have just one LFO modulating both of these polynoms, right
[10:28.640] So now let's try this
[10:30.640] Oh
[10:46.000] Nice
[10:49.520] I've also got here too much for you, which is the most pitch
[10:55.200] Or one octave higher
[10:57.200] Oh
[11:00.400] Now we get some overtones on um digital distortion on top
[11:05.360] Can be interesting when you put the reverb on on the end so we get more overtones
[11:09.440] Maybe modulate your more of these
[11:29.360] But we also interesting device instead of in front of this reverb we can put this here in the tank FX
[11:35.280] So it would be also interesting
[11:39.280] Oh
[11:41.280] So
[12:01.280] So you have some distortion or device in the tank FX that adds some overtones to your sound in the pre reverb stage
[12:18.720] Which can be nice
[12:20.720] Maybe not always what you want, but you have the option and you have the possibility to do it
[12:26.560] I'm just here to inspire you on trying to inspire you
[12:29.680] So
[12:31.680] Okay, so this is also possible we need basically for stereo version of this device just two
[12:38.240] polynoms we also need to
[12:40.240] I'll do rate modulating modulators and then
[12:43.760] You feed everything into a DC offset device inside
[12:48.160] Stereo split for the left and the right channel
[12:51.680] Pretty much an easy setup you can do this every time you want to use some kind of device like this
[12:57.280] But you can also of course
[13:00.640] Save yourself some time and create some
[13:04.240] Yes, I'm pretty sad yeah, maybe modulator the intensity with this call it
[13:08.720] intensity
[13:10.720] And then you have a device with just a nice macro you can use dial in the effect maybe also at your preset page
[13:18.960] Bring in the mix knob and intensity
[13:21.360] and then hide all the modulators and you have a new
[13:27.440] um unique
[13:30.240] um wave shaper
[13:34.000] Right, and then you can save it as a preset
[13:41.280] And recall it every time you need it
[13:46.080] Distortion there's no distortion category
[13:48.560] um
[13:51.280] I'm called modulation
[13:53.280] And save it so now we have a nice new device for bitwik studio we can use every time we need it
[14:10.800] So that's just one use case of course of the polynom inside bitwik studio, but for me it's probably the most interesting
[14:17.280] um
[14:18.400] Set up to use it with
[14:20.240] uh audio audio rate speeds to create overtones and nice harmonics distortion and so on
[14:26.640] and
[14:27.520] Yeah, you can of course use this with much much lower frequencies to change the modulation
[14:32.880] Um or some modulation values over time in a nice curvy way
[14:38.320] Um, so it's an interesting modulator
[14:40.880] Um, I probably use it more often than in the future try out some new
[14:45.440] um patches
[14:47.120] Maybe I release some presets in the future. I don't know
[14:50.400] But for this video, I want to give you some inspiration some tips
[14:53.600] What you can do with it. Maybe try it out for yourself
[14:55.840] Maybe you come up with much much better ideas than I am in this short video
[15:00.320] So keep me updated and um have some fun
[15:04.560] If you liked the video then please leave a like subscribe to the channel
[15:07.520] Thanks for watching and I see you in the next one. Bye