Lowcut & Volume

At the top-right of Atrium's rising edge, we find two finishing touches before the dish is served.

lowcut

A gentle, variable, highpass filter (6dB) is applied to the output of the five voices. spectre takes input after this filter, so its output is left unaffected.

Press the lowcut key to increase the cutoff frequency, removing more and more of the low-end signal from the voices.

This might sound boring on digital paper, but this intermediary filter opens up new sound design options which would've been difficult to provide otherwise.

Use the lowcut at full-strength to create spatialized hi-hats from wave's noise generator! Or spice up a low-frequency spectre feedback loop by using lowcut at mid-strength to add a bit of form's sizzle.

Of course, don't forget that lowcut is classically useful for polyphonic pads, like string sounds. If you're in the studio and find Atrium is just too big in the mix, try bumping up this setting.

volume

While volume is pretty self-explanatory, we had to call it out as an essential. Turning clockwise makes Atrium's output louder without changing its timbre. Still there are a few tricks with this control.

Firstly, the static position of this control is not saved in patches. You'll always be controlling the main output level of the instrument directly, so different patches don't jump dramatically in volume.

Meanwhile volume is a valid mapping destination! Be careful here as the effect of the same mapping intensity behaves differently depending on the position of the knob. That said, it's a fun way to add some shaping after spectre has been applied.

Map lfo to volume for classic tremolo, or even apply contour over an oscillating spectre patch to re-apply some articulation and break up the feedback.