#12 LFO sequence

If you’ve ever wanted your Zebra CM to help you out by playing short phrases, it’s time to step up to the LFO. Dave Gale gets sequencing…

- Dave Gale

If there’s one point that we keep coming back to in our monthly Synth Masterclass tutorials, it’s how incredibly versatile our very own Zebra CM synth is.

Apart from offering oscillators and filters that go way beyond the basic remit of subtractive synthesis, all while sounding absolutely fantastic, the modulation options are equally versatile, allowing for modulatory control of just about everything you can ask of it, from a multitude of sources. The one thing that the Zebra CM doesn’t offer though, is a capacity for onboard sequencing. Arguably, if you’re working within a DAW, you can easily do without this function, but if there’s one thing that we know about onboard arpeggiators and sequencers, it’s that they can be fun, aid workflow and have the capacity to inspire.

So this month, we’re going to take a closer look at the LFO section, and discover how we can use this humble modulation device, and turn it into a basic sequencer.

For the more adventurous out there, it can be extended to create sequences up to 32 steps in length. That’s a good couple of bar’s worth of notes, if working with 16th notes, so grab your DAW and boot up your free copy of the Zebra CM plugin synth (or download it from the CM Plugin Suite if you still need to), and let’s get sequencing with an LFO!

Step by step

1. LFO Sequence