LFO Tracks

This is a feature request for a new kind of track.

The LFO Track would have a built-in LFO plugin and a track. As well there would be a modulation matrix for all LFO tracks.

The LFO plugin should allow drawing LFOs with bezier curves on a grid. Grid sizes should be changeable from 4-64 lines up and down. You should be able to load and save LFO shapes. There should be toggles for dot and trip. It should have a swing feature. Users should be able to browse LFO shapes with thumbnails. If you have a 300-400 LFO shapes it is easier to find something in the ballpark via thumbnails of the shapes than from names.

The track should simply be automation lanes for disable toggle, dot toggle, trip toggle, LFO rate, swing, LFO smoothing, and toggle between BPM sync and Hz. Hz range should be at least 0-150k Hz. The automation lanes should have the option to draw the automations with bezier curves rather than dots and lines.

You should then be able to drag an icon from the LFO plugin to any control in Cubase to modulate that control. You should be able to then set the depth of modulation for that control and where possible see the range and current position of the modulation on that control. Otherwise these can be edited in the mod matrix. Modulation cues on the controls themselves are game changing.

See Xfer Records Serum (primary) and Native Instruments Razor (secondary) for implementation examples.

Finally I would like to be able to dock a set of these LFOs in my main cubase GUI.

+1
Whoa. Now that would be a very sweet feature!

Agreed.

I would add that LFO shapes should include random shape or at least noise shape, for some randomness because randomizing just a little bit the parameters is important in EDM, because it allows to bring life to the tracks.

Also, LFO rate should go very slow, as slow as 16/1 like in LFO Tool, because the LFO midi plugin included with cubase only goes up to 2/1 which can be still too fast sometimes.

http://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=146&t=28590&hilit=+lfo
I mentioned something like that a while back, but, in my idea, it was an LFO, Envelope, etc. unit in the RACK (think Guitar Rig style). Then, those could be used to assign to parameters in the project. The track thing seems like it might work also but I wonder if the LFO would modulate independent of the track or when the project is playing or not playing, etc.

This could be another option similar to the options in Xfer Serum.

The primary reason why I think these would work best as tracks is you want to be able to easily automate the LFO speed, and to a lesser extent the other controls. You could also have another automation lane for resetting the LFO to it’s beginning for when you want the beginning of the LFO to lineup with particular points in the timeline.

+1. This is a great idea. Kinda like the LFO/‘MonoMod’ options, as well, in DCam SynthSquad.

+1
Not only be able to use LFO’s as modulators, but also Envelopes, sample&hold, stepeditor, noise (random) control messages. Just like CV messages in modular synths!
If you could enable modulation on parameters in the cubase vst’s, (or third party vst’s, but I guess that would be a lot more difficult), this would open up a LOT of possibilities. Kind of like the modulation possibilities inside the Fabfilter plugins.
As a very simple example: be able to control the gate of an audio signal with modulation sources.
Ableton has his MAX for live system (Cycling74) that can provide such possibilities for example.

If we could modulate any plugin parameter with LFOs and enveloppes inside Cubase, Cubase would be miles ahead of the competition, that would be truly innovative.

fl studio has had it for years but it would be great to catch up. :]

btw. i’m keeping a sort of a poor man’s cubase envelope shapes ‘bank’ handy to copy & paste from.

I came to suggest something very similar. My idea is to have an option to create an LFO track like you mentioned with a drawable shape, like an MSEG. When you goto add or edit an automation track you could have the option to receive data from the LFO track of your choice and an adjustable amount of the LFO it can receive which would work in conjunction with any automation you have drawn in.

This would be an amazing feature as it could bring neww life to synths or plugins that have poor modulation. You could use your favourite saturation plugins/filters etc on a synth patch with everything in sync.

Can’t believe such an awesome feature was requested over 7 years ago and still hasn’t happened yet!!

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