Complete Guide to Phase Plant

With its semi-modular interface and unrivalled specifications, it’s no wonder Kilohearts’ Phase Plant has won multiple awards and become one of the hottest new soft synths available today. To help you get fully up to speed with how to use it, we’ve enlisted expert sound designer and Bass Music producer Seppa to show you the ropes.

On the course, he’ll take you through every part of the gargantuan GUI and include numerous examples of how to implement many of the features, culminating in 4 lengthy sound design lessons at the end of the tutorial series, to inspire and provide you with a wealth of techniques to try out at home.

The tutorials begin with a dive into the many generators on offer, from standard analog oscillators and wavetables, to samplers and granular engines. As well as demonstrating how each individual generator works, there are examples of grouping and connectivity, showing how sounds can be shaped with filters, distortion and amplitude envelopes, as well as used as modulation sources to create spectral transformation.

After going into the range of effects on offer, including how multipass and snapheap can be employed to add multiband and parallel processing, Seppa starts working through the massive selection of modulators available. From standard envelopes and LFOs, to curves, randomisation, audio and MIDI modulators, each area is outlined and put into context, to help understand the sorts of applications in which they can be put to use. 

The final section begins by explaining the various individual and global voice settings, such as unison, polyphony and tuning, before embarking on a detailed look at the wavetable editing and creation in the instrument, after which Seppa then moves onto his sound design examples, creating bass, pad, poly and lead presets.

Enrolling on the course gets you instant access to well over 4 hours of expert tuition, along with some bonus presets made by Seppa; everything you need to start making awesome sounds with Phase Plant today! 

Sample Module

Course Breakdown

Module 1 - Intro to Phase Plant

An introduction to the course and overview of the GUI and preset browser, helping to understand the basic architecture and loading, editing and saving of presets.

• Lesson 1 - Course Intro
• Lesson 2 - Interface Overview 
• Lesson 3 - Preset Browser 

Module 2 - Generators Part 1

The first module exploring the generator section, looking at the main types of sound creation within the instrument, from standard oscillator and wavetable generators through to sampling and granular techniques.

• Lesson 1 - Generators Basics 
• Lesson 2 - Analog Generator 
• Lesson 3 - Noise Generator 
• Lesson 4 - Wavetable Generator 
• Lesson 5 - Sampler Generator 
• Lesson 6 - Granular Generator 

Module 3 - Generators Part 2

A look at the remaining features within the generator section, including the routing and dynamic shaping of generator outputs, application of distortion, adjusting of frequency content and modulation of audio rate (FM/phase modulation).

• Lesson 1 - Output Modules 
• Lesson 2 - Distortion and Filter 
• Lesson 3 - Mix and Aux 
• Lesson 4 - Audio Rate Modulation 

Module 4 - Effects Section

An intro to the effects section, showing how to add individual effects and the various ways serial and parallel processing can be carried out, including a first look at Multipass and Snapheap.

Module 5 - Modulators Part 1

The first module going into the modulators available in Phase Plant, covering the main types and how to use them to set up a multitude of patterns within the instrument.

• Lesson 1 - Modulation 
• Lesson 2 - Modulator Generic Parameters and Envelope 
• Lesson 3 - LFO 
• Lesson 4 - LFO Table 
• Lesson 5 - Curve 
• Lesson 6 - Random 

Module 6 - Modulators Part 2

A guide to the additional devices within the modulator section and instrument, including the audio and MIDI data that can be set up as modulation sources, ways of controlling, scaling and grouping modulators, and assigning macros.

• Lesson 1 - MIDI Modulators 
• Lesson 2 - Utilities 
• Lesson 3 - Audio Modulators and Group
• Lesson 4 - Macros

Module 7 - Voice Settings and Unison

A more detailed exploration into individual generator and global unison voicing, as well as glide, polyphony and tuning.

Module 8 - Wavetable Features

A thorough demonstration of the wide array of wavetable features within Phase Plant, from creating your own wavetables from scratch, to editing waveforms and the harmonic content of frames, as well as how to apply effects, fix issues and convert samples to wavetables.

• Lesson 1 - Wavetable Editor Overview Selection and Waveform Crossfade Tools 
• Lesson 2 - Waveform Editing Tools 
• Lesson 3 - Harmonic Editing Tools
• Lesson 4 - Wavetable Effects 
• Lesson 5 - Wavetable Fixes 
• Lesson 6 - Sample to Wavetable Conversion 

Module 9 - Example Sound Design 1 - Simple Bass

The first sound design example creates a bass patch with a phase-modulated, distorted and filtered sine wave in the generator section, shaped with envelope, LFO and note modulation, and processed with a host of parallel and multiband reverb and distortion effects.

Module 10 - Example Sound Design 2 - Granular Pad

The second sound design example sees Seppa making a pad from a sample using Phase Plant’s granular generator, with various randomisation, parallel comb-filtered reverb and pitch-shifted delay layers.

Module 11 - Example Sound Design 3 - Poly Synth

The third sound design lesson has Seppa building a poly synth patch, with different generators routing to their own effects lanes. Both make use of the poly effects setting to process individual voices with randomised filtering and effects, which include comb-filtering, serial and parallel reverb.

Module 12 - Example Sound Design 4 - Lead

Multiple wavetables are stacked to create the last patch, which is a twisted lead sound, modulated with various randomised curves and processed with nonlinear filtering, phase distortion, flangers, multiband compression and lots more!

Outro

Seppa wraps up the course and signs off.