ASHLIGHT Explained

ASHLIGHT, from Native Instruments, is an awesome virtual instrument with a whole world of explorative possibilities, but it can be a bit tough to understand exactly what's going on and how it works. Studio expert Eli Krantzberg has put together this extensive ASHLIGHT video course to do just that. He'll walk you through all the parameters, explaining each and illuminating their function with telling musical demonstrations, empowering you with the knowledge to make ASHLIGHT do your creative bidding. These videos are for new ASHLIGHT users.

Videos

• What is ASHLIGHT? (06:05) - Take a quick tour of the main areas of the interface and see how ASHLIGHT is used to create complex atmosphere, pads, leads, soundscapes, and effects by combining a grain module and a sample playback module. It also includes multiple effect stages and a real-time performance focused X/Y modulation panel.

• Using the Browsers (05:54) - Learn how the three ASHLIGHT browsers are used to filter and load snapshots, grain source presets, and sample source presets. Also see how to save your own user snapshots.

• Perform Page (06:42) - Learn your way around the Perform page and see how the XY Pad is easily set up for single-point modulation of multiple parameters found on other pages within ASHLIGHT.

• Sample Page Overview (07:05) - Get acquainted with the main sample playback functions on the Sample Page, including some basic modulation routings.

• Filter Section (07:55) - Explore the Sample Engine's filter and filter envelope parameter and hear how they shape the timbre of the loaded samples.

• Amp Envelope & Arpeggiator (06:48) - Explore how the amp envelope is used to shape the volume and contour of each note, how the arpeggiator is used to create rhythms from held chords, and how its rhythms are also used as a modulation source.

• Grain Page Basics (06:05) - Discover how the interval parameter is used to adjust the time between the generation of individual grains, and how the size parameter influences the duration of each individual grain until it is faded out.

• Grain Cursor (06:08) - See how the Position, Poly, Free, Scan, Jitter, Range, and Bounce Edges controls affect the cursor's playback as it moves across the audio.

• Grain Page Tune, Amp, & Envelope Controls (05:50) - Push granular manipulation even further by introducing the retuning and panning of individual grains and altering the cursor movement during the release stage of a note's envelope.

• Effects Page (05:50) - See how the effects slots and effects chains work and hear some of the unique modulation and gating processes available in ASHLIGHT.

• Global Page (03:30) - The intuitive and straightforward Global Page is used to edit XY Pad hardware controller assignments and set up global processing effects at the end of the ASHLIGHT signal path.

• Send Effects (04:11) - Hear the global Delay and Send effects in action on both the grain engine and sample engines.

• Macros (05:29) - Learn how to assign and label the four macro knobs and explore an interesting use case scenario with the Gater effect.

• LFO Modulation (07:06) - Explore how these cyclical waveforms are used as modulation sources to alter destination parameter values.

• Shaper Modulation (04:52) - Discover how these are set up and used as secondary modulation sources by defining a new output value for every input value.

• Modulation Matrix (05:06) - See how the Matrix section in ASHLIGHT's modulation system is used to combine multiple modulation sources in different ways and create more complex modulators.