Exploring Scrawl Techniques - Creating Unique Sounds with the Poly Grid

Tutorial | May 15, 2023

In the video, I demonstrate how to use a Scrawl feature in the software tool. By utilizing the Poly-Grid and various modules like envelopes and audio outputs, I show how to draw shapes that generate unique sounds. Drawing slowly creates high-resolution dots, while drawing quickly decreases the resolution. I explain how to manipulate the shape by selecting and adjusting its properties using the value and histogram features. The chaos slider allows for randomization, resulting in complex wavetable-like shapes. I showcase techniques like duplicating shapes, mirroring, scaling, and combining the Scrawl with oscillators and filters. I mention the potential for creating dubstep-style baselines and encourage viewers to explore the tool's features to generate their own unique waveforms. Finally, I remind viewers to save their favorite waveforms and invite them to like, subscribe, and stay tuned for future content.

You can watch the Video on Youtube - support me on Patreon

Questions & Answers #

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

How can the Scrawl be used to create unique sounds? #

Scrawl allows users to draw shapes, which correspond to specific sounds. By manipulating the shape, adjusting resolution, and utilizing features like the chaos slider, users can generate complex and customized waveforms.

How can the Scrawl be combined with other modules to enhance sound creation? #

The Scrawl can be integrated with modules like oscillators, envelopes, and filters. By connecting the Scrawl's output to various inputs, such as the phase input of an oscillator, users can modulate and manipulate the sound further, resulting in effects like distortion and complex basslines.

What tips are provided for maximizing creativity with the Scrawl? #

I suggest experimenting with duplication, mirroring, and scaling of shapes, as well as exploring the chaos feature for randomization. Additionally, I recommend saving favorite waveforms for future use and encouraging users to delve into the tool's features to generate unique and personalized waveforms.

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] a folks welcome back to another video on this channel and I want to show in this
[00:05.660] video how to use this crawl and make some nice sounds so we're gonna use the
[00:10.400] Poly-Grid for that and I show you in a minute why it was less bug at the
[00:14.900] moment but in the Poly-Grid it works pretty nice so we use an envelope we use
[00:21.980] an audio out here and we probably have a sound now
[00:30.000] nice so when you have the Scrawl here you can draw in some tapes anything you
[00:35.680] want right get the sound out which is kind of nice but sometimes you don't
[00:43.080] even know what to draw so that's at least my problem so what I do most of
[00:48.360] the times I'm utilizing the pencil and then when you draw slowly in a line
[00:53.040] you get high resolution dots right you get a lot of dots here and then when
[00:57.960] you start to draw fast the resolution goes down right you have much bigger
[01:03.520] spaces between the dots and with this you can kind of pre-define how your
[01:09.240] end shape should look like so here we have these dots so we have a lot of
[01:14.200] resolution a lot of dots here and you can select everything here just this
[01:20.600] selection rectangle and then we when you have everything selected you can go
[01:25.880] up here to the value to the histogram and when you have a chaos slider here
[01:31.080] right you can click and drag up to 200% go back 200% and then you release the
[01:38.800] key on the mouse it snaps back to 0% now you can do the same again dragging up
[01:44.920] different shape dragging up different shape so you can create kind of random
[01:51.040] shapes with this you also have your scale thing where you can scale it down if
[01:55.360] you think it's too much again start over again then you get some kind of
[01:59.400] random complex shape almost sounds like a wall sound which is probably nice so
[02:09.600] we can do here a nice fade over to a different Scrawls we duplicate this and
[02:15.880] use a merge and maybe a value here you can fade between these two
[02:25.000] we fade to the second one and here we draw a different shape so what you can
[02:32.040] do now is we can do the same thing we can maybe draw here slowly then fast
[02:37.960] slowly here again then fast and here we just do some random things select
[02:46.560] everything scale it up see how it sounds okay we can also right click in here
[03:00.840] use transform and say double content so just duplicate everything in there
[03:05.840] double it right we get get more points more complex shape we select
[03:13.360] everything would be nice to have actually have here in this it does some kind
[03:17.000] of control in a where you can select everything so here we can select everything
[03:23.880] use chaos to randomize all the dots we get another random shape sounds like a
[03:33.240] complex wavetable so nice maybe use a third one here
[03:47.240] maybe do the same thing maybe right click and say let's go for mirror let's go
[03:56.360] for double and now we try to select everything again here chaos you can also
[04:11.960] try to use the curvature here but I think it's not really it adds a lot of
[04:17.560] roundings
[04:37.280] until you like it
[04:46.960] okay nice so now we can maybe use here let's say a pulse
[04:56.000] pulse oscillator so instead of using this output here we use this phase input
[05:05.360] here to this oscillator maybe we'll re-trigger also here all the oscillators
[05:11.360] maybe we pull this down one octave
[05:28.960] so we can take proof what you'll hear and use this as an input here right so we
[05:35.600] wait between this maybe one bar so this is one bar now and here we draw in a
[05:41.920] different shape set curve snap something like this try this in and again use here the chaos
[05:57.840] something like this you got the 16 node 16 the sections here and then try to
[06:12.720] match it to the grid let's see all the sounds
[06:27.760] maybe two bars
[06:41.200] so we need another curve module here basically bring in here the phase modulation
[06:48.080] maybe I'll open up here a different shape let's go for this one and
[06:53.280] modulate your the phase input
[07:01.920] so we get a nice distorted sound there let's go for a filter low bass
[07:09.760] it's used the same shape
[07:28.480] all we need now is probably some kind of dubstep drum set I guess let's start up my
[07:35.840] tempo folder so we can use some kind of drums you're at 140 ppm which is good
[07:44.160] so yeah you can basically use these node bitters to your advantage all these features to your
[07:49.600] advantage to create overly complex waveforms which is really nice
[07:58.160] so let's say if I have some 140 ppm stuff in here
[08:05.840] search for drums
[08:25.200] now it sounds okay okay ish we need to go in here
[08:28.880] so audio this is 140 right let's go to slice mode it's in the loop
[08:41.120] and then we need here some kind of note
[08:48.960] make this a bit longer trying to present
[08:58.960] so we need to fix here the the drum loop a bit
[09:16.240] also the bass here needs probably some splitting FX2 need to remove some some mid-range
[09:23.360] down this is probably fine at minus 4 until it's down
[09:54.000] so we need some kind of sidechain there but you can see you can easily create nice little
[10:03.440] riffs for dubstep tunes with this it's just one note yeah right but you can of course
[10:10.560] I'll do more if you want to
[10:14.000] you
[10:35.600] I like it so yeah use the Scrawl node editor here with the value thing and the one thing I
[10:43.760] want to show you is that this actually doesn't work in the polymer so in the outside world
[10:48.800] of the grid when you have here Scrawl in here and you call up the editor and you select everything
[10:56.000] right you have here the histogram but when you click on it it's just going away so there's
[11:02.240] some kind of bug there only works in the grid at the moment but it's really great to create
[11:09.440] randomized wave shapes here and then save them save them for later
[11:18.560] it's a wow one maybe I don't know and save this if you like the waveform but usually it's
[11:26.400] pretty fun actually to randomize use the chaos feature and come up with something new every time
[11:31.440] you create a track it's also not really complicated so I'm not sure if I want to save everything but
[11:37.280] sometimes you know you have a nice waveform you think oh well I want to use this more often
[11:42.560] then you can save it so yeah and then here I just use basically a pulse as a main
[11:49.760] synth or it's the ground foundation of the base one octave lower and then I mix in here with
[11:55.600] face distortion basically what I created here with a Scrawl so it's easy peasy dubstep baseline
[12:00.800] basically with this so yeah this is something I want to tell you because I did this on the weekend
[12:06.160] for some presets and yeah I want to give you some advice there so that's it for this video
[12:14.720] thanks for watching leave a like if you like the video subscribe to the channel
[12:18.080] and thanks for watching and see you in the next video bye guys