Cut through

Lead · Lesson 3 of 3 · LD3

Exercise Add bite and a short delay.
Result A lead that sits on top of the bed.

The 3rd step of the lead track in PatchPond's subtractive synthesis curriculum. One expressive voice — and this lesson is where you put earlier concepts into practice without introducing anything new.

Built on

Pushing a vintage amplifier past the point where the speaker behaves politely.

Drive pushes the signal harder than the next stage cleanly handles, and the resulting clipping or saturation generates new harmonics — making the sound thicker, dirtier, or outright distorted. Full definition →

First taught in BS4 Dirt

An echo against a stone wall, except the wall is timed to the song.

Delay records the signal and plays it back after a set time, optionally feeding part of the delayed signal back into itself for repeats. Full definition →

First taught in PK3 Echo

A dimmer switch for treble, with a side knob that lets the dimmer ring like a struck wine glass.

A low-pass filter lets low frequencies through and gradually cuts everything above a chosen cutoff frequency. Full definition →

First taught in BS3 Open the filter

Build this lesson live in the PatchPond studio. Web MIDI in, on-screen keyboard otherwise. The patch you make here loads back into iOS later on — same patch format.

Open in studio →
LD1 One voiceLD2 VibratoLD3 Cut through

Previous ← LD2 Vibrato