UE5 Metasound as a modular synth - Tutorials, discussion and more

#7

Got another one coming up in roughly 45 minutes if you want to join the big premiere LOL:

#8

Another tutorial, this time an overview for a patch I made a few days ago generating a basic DNB loop:

#9

Wow, this is really cool. I’ve seen a few people doing this in the past (probably more recently than it feels) and I’d love to give it a try sometime! Since it’s Unreal, I have to ask the obvious: “How’s the CPU drain on it?”

The block-style really reminds me of Bespoke, but I’ve kind of given up on that because my brain hates the constantly-flashing visuals, and I like that this is at least tamer than that.

Great tutorial videos, too! Do you plan on doing any with talking in the future by any chance?

#10

Thank you, glad you like the tutorial!

About the CPU drain, it’s strange tbh, the patch somehow seems to be too much for the input parameter handling for some strange reason, even though there aren’t that many inputs, and changes in input parameters stop the GUI and take like 10 seconds to be completed for some reason.
In my tutorial project (using my i7-6700), the idle CPU drain is around 25% in general when the main GUI with maps and content browser and so on is visible (when an empty map is open), but goes down to like 15% when I open a Metasounds window on top of it. The additional CPU drain when playing the Metasounds patch is barely visible and seems to be around 5% or 10% max from what I see. But it’s a bit strange, a much less complex patch I just started takes like 20% max. In this new patch there are hardly any elements apart from a few input arrays with trigger repeater setups that serve the role of step sequencers and the click of a kick, but changing the input parameters has no lag at all in this patch so far. Have to make some tests to see which elements really get problematic for the input parameter handling or Metasounds in general.

It’s also possible that there are some bugs in the current version (UE5 still is in early access), there will be changes before the full release, such as send/receive nodes will be replaces by variables.

So, not completely sure about this topic, the patch seems to be kinda problematic based on the extremely slow reaction to input changes, but the CPU usage barely registers.

And yes, I’m planning to make some voice-based tutorials, but my recording situation is not the best - I have some very old and cheap mics but last time I had to record my voice the old iPhone of my wife worked best among my options LOL. Would def be faster than putting everything as text into the video…

#11

Made another tutorial a few days ago, this time featuring some talking. It’s really long so I cut it into three parts. First part starting with the beat, next two parts are going to be uploaded over the next few days:

Took me way longer than expected, first time I did it my audio wasn’t recording, second time Unreal Engine developed a strange audio bug… And exporting and uploading to Youtube was a complete day.

This will probably be the longest tutorial I make for a while, gonna get back to quick stuff dealing with more specific aspects, but for some reason I wanted to do this. Not sure if I keep it up, I was a bit tired and my accent is pretty heavy in this one and in some parts it sounds as if I’m falling asleep :laughing:

#12

I keep meaning to start doing something on U5 but I always end up firing up 4 and tweaking projects here and there…

#13

Using a modular game engine to make music…wow.

That accent very german. :slight_smile:

I know your covering the basics.

I would like to see some more complex sounds.
Like a clock timer thingy on an lfo modulating the tempo of the drum beat to get swing. Or something…

I would like to see you document an fsu resampling session.

#14

It’s kinda the opposite for me right now - I still have projects on 4.27 because of some plugins but don’t get back to those very often because of Metasounds ^^

#15

Thanks for the feedback and great ideas! Planning to do more tuts on more gameplay-related features, but def gonna do some music-related stuff from time to time - already recorded one additional tut for after the three-part beat series on more complicated step sequencers with on/off switches for patterns and modulation of LFO frequencies and stuff like that.

#16

Man, this video looks so in-depth and awesome. I’m following your channel and I’ll definitely be binge-watching these when I’m ready to deep dive (too many irons in the fire for right now, but there will come a time!).

Honestly this looks like the most easy-to-understand tutorial up on YT so far for U5. Just by skimming I can tell these are going to be awesome. Thanks for putting so much time into this!

#17

Thank you very much, that means a lot coming from you with all you modular experience :smiley:

#18

Wow you sound so much more German than I imagined. Maybe it’s just the accent, but your voice reminds me a bit of Stimming if you’ve seen any of his stuff.

#19

Hehe yeah my accent was very strong in these, I hope it was at least partly because I was tired… Tbh I was a bit surprised, too. I didn’t record myself often talking in English and always thought my accent was not that bad after a US guy asked me if I was “from the states, too” some years ago, but he probably just didn’t hear me clearly :laughing:

#20

The additional two videos in this series are up now, but the third one has the beat fading in slowly over time. Just gonna leave it like that since it’s only the final 20 minutes of around 145 and I already deleted some source files :roll_eyes:

#21

This is the one about different kinds of step sequencers in Metasounds that I was mentioning above - probably will be the last for a while, but gonna try to make more sometime this year :smiley:

#22

Started a new series with quick videos on trying out some ideas and basic stuff in metasounds:

#23

And another one, made a few short ones on some very basic game sound effects:

#24

Today: a basic car engine sound and a delay-based reverb with EQ:

#25

Here are some more - a strange vibrating thingy with on/off switch, some basic menu/UI sounds, how to control a beat from within a game and some bird sounds:

I think I’m gonna do more on connecting Metasounds to gameplay since I’m having a lot of fun with an “endless driver” I started in which the engine sounds and the music are controlled by driving speed ^^ I also decided not to start any more games beside the three I’m already working on until I actually finished one :crazy_face:

#26

The sixth part in my Wavetabling series is about the “WaveTable” generator in Metasounds which was introduced recently in UE 5.1 (I posted the other vids in theTutorial Thread since those were not focused on Metasounds):