The Malström is a very advanced synth. It uses a cool way of sound generation which is called Graintable synthesis. This is actually an invention of Propellerhead. They have combined Granular synthesis with Wavetable synthesis. Graintable synthesis uses wavetable like sounds. Which are sampled sounds like the attack of a guitar. Then this sound is cut up in little parts which are the grains. Each of these grains have a timbre (sound color) of their own. If you load up a graintable and leave all the controls on the Malström alone the sound will play back like it would have normally. The fun part begins when you start to mess, speed and modulate the grain sequence up. You can control the speed of which the grain sequence is played without changing the pitch of the graintable. You could also isolate one grain at a time by making the sequence to stand still. Further on in this tutorial you will learn how to do that. I'll try to explain each control of the Malström and tell you what it's used for.

Some controls which are new to us on the Malström need some clearing up first:

Motion (found on each Osc)
This control is used to set the speed at which the graintable is played back. It does this without changing the pitch of the sound

Shift (found on each Osc)
This control is used to add various harmonics to the sound.

Index (found on each Osc)
This sets the starting point of where the playback of the graintable will start. It's just like when you have set loop points in your sequencer. And you put the playback marker somewhere inbetween the L and R marker instead of at the beginning. When you set the motion knob to 0. You can browse to the individual grains a graintable has been made of by using the index slider. Giving you many, many more usable wavforms then the 82 graintable's available.

1 Shot (found on each Mod)
This will make the Mod go thru the selected curve once instead of repeating it as long as you hold the note.



Global Operation

The global controls (controls which control the operation instead of soundgenerating operation) are positioned on the left side of the Malström. These controls include: Modwheel, Pitchbend wheel, Velocity assignment knobs, Modwheel assignment knobs, Portamento knob, Polyphony switch, Legato button and in fact the patch selector also.

Modwheel
This is the wheel that can be used to modulate certain controls on the Malström. You can use it to control the filter, Index of the graintable, Shift of the graintable and Mod (modulator) to control the amount of affect the Mod has. You can assign the modwheel to control A, B or both. When you choose to control B you control all parts which are named B. So f.e. when i choose B to control with the modwheel i control Osc. B, Mod B and Filter B. The modulation assignment knobs can be used to control howmuch the modulation wheel affects this function.

Pitchbend Wheel
This wheel really doesn't need a further introduction as it's available on each instrument in Reason (except for the Redrum). You can use it to bend the pitch up or down. The maximum range is selectable.

Velocity Assign Knobs
These controls are used to make settings for how much influence the velocity (speed of which a key has been pressed) has on various functions. You can make settings for Lvl. A (volume of Osc. A), Lvl. B (volume for Osc. , F.env (Filter Envelope), Attack, Shift and Mod. You can also select if part A, B or both will be controlled by the velocity level.

Modwheel Assignment Knobs
Here you can make settings for how much influence the modwheel has on various functions. You can make settings for: Index, shift, filter and mod. Again you will be able to choose the destination (A, B, Both). You can choose between positive and negative settings on the modwheel assignment knobs. If you make a positive setting the modwheel will move the destination controls also in the positive direction. And vice versa.

Portamento Knob
This control is used to set the speed on which a note's pitch glides to the next note's pitch. Leaving the setting at 0 disable's portamento.

Polyphony Switch
Here you can select the number of voices the Malström can play simultaneously. If you set it to a value of 1, only 1 note can be played at a time. This is called monophonic. Each new note played then will cancel out the one played before and so on. Some really interesting effects can come out of a monophonic synth.

Legato Button
This knob is used to activate the option to play Legato. Legato means you press one note and then press another before letting go of the one played before. There will be no new attack on the note played after the first and so on.

Patch Selector
Well, this one kinda speaks for itself. Here you can select and save your patches.
You will notice that i explain the way to operate the various parts only for the A version of these parts. Ofcourse the B version works the same and can sometimes be chained with the A version. If that is an option i'll explain that also.

The oscillators

Well, you probably know what each knob does now. Let's put some of that knowledge into practise. Start up Reason (if it weren't already) and create a Malström. Now press a key on your keyboard (or add one in the piano roll or Matrix). What you hear is a basic sin wave coming out of Osc A. Now turn the motion knob to the right. Wow what a cool effect. well, in fact nothing happens at all!! This is because the sin wave only exists out of 1 grain (which is the sin wavform). So letting the Malström play that sequence faster won't give any results. The only button which does anything to this wavform is the shift button. This will add harmonics to the signal. It sounds a bit like a feedback error on this wavform. But in fact will get some very interesting results on a real graintable. Load up the LoTwang graintable from the guitar group by pressing your right mousebutton on the display of Osc A. A nice guitar sound will be heard when you press a key on your keyboard. Now turn the motion knob to the right while playing some notes on your keyboard. You will notice the sound will play faster without the pitch rising. A bit like timestretching without pitch shifting. Put the motion knob on 13. Now set the shift knob on 28. You will hear a much brighter version of the guitar which first sounded pretty low. And it has been done without using a filter or even raise the pitch. A guitar has 6 strings (there are guitars with more but a conventional guitar has 6) so in fact it has 6 voices. To make the Malström to also have 6 voices you have to set the polyphony to 6. Both oscilators have their own ADSR envelope. Not like the Subtractor where both oscilators are mixed together before going thru the amp envelope. This let's you do some really cool things. Like having one osc providing the initial attack of a sound while the other provides the rest.
Now set the motion all the way to the left on 0. what you will hear is a very static noise. In fact it's just one grain out of the graintable and it's the first grain. Use the index slider to move thru the various grains. Put the shift knob back in it's initial position which is 0 and put the index slider on 2. Sounds a bit like a metal guitar doesn't it. Raise the release on Osc. A's envelope to 58. This will give the guitar like sound the tail it needs to be believable. The sound is still a bit static. But you get the point. With one graintable you can make many more sounds as the initial graintable let's you think.


The Mod(ulators)

You probably want to add some movement to your sound. This can be done by using the Mod A and B. You can assign each mod to Osc. A, B or both. So this means you can use both Mods to drive one Osc as well as a dedicated Mod for each Osc. We are going to use Mod A first to get some movement in our static metal guitar like sound. Move the A/-/B switch to A. That means we are going to assign this Mod to Osc A. Well, nothing still happens because we haven't selected which function will be modulated by the Mod yet. We can do this by turning on of the 3 blue knobs in either one direction (you will notice that Mod. B has an added function which is to modulate the filter). Let's move the index button to the right to have a setting of 3. Still not very impressive but we now need to select the right curve the modulation should have. Just go thru each one of the curves to decide which one will suit your taste. I like the curve which you get to after pressing the up button next to the curve display 7 times. That one gives a bit of movement without the movement being to sudden or blocky. You can ofcourse also use the pitch and shift knobs to have these functions also modulated by the Mod. A nice setting for this guitar sound will be:


Rate: 36
Index: 3
Shift: -6

This will make the guitar sound more like a real one going thru a set of guitar effects. Ofcourse it's not 100% but still it's a nice sound. And it has been made by using a graintable which sounded very different from the end result. This is the thru power of the Malström. You can make numerous sounds by using only one graintable.


The Filters

The Malström has 2 advanced filters and a shaper. The shaper can be used to ''shape'' the sound. You get various mode's on the shaper like: Sine, Saturate, Clip, Quant and Noise. The shaper can be looked at as some kind of distortion.
To have Osc A going thru filter A you need to press the little square button on the left of the shaper. this will route Osc A to the filter. Optionally you can place the shaper right into the signal path by pressing the little square button on the upper left of the shaper. This will make the signal going to the filter to pass thru the shaper. If it's off the shaper will be bypassed. Since we have a guitar the Saturate mode will be best suited since it causes a nice overdrive kind of sound which fits nicely with guitar sounds. The AMT knob sets the amount of saturation the shaper will add into the sound. Put the amount (AMT) knob to 18.
The sound is really to begin shape now (hence the name: shaper). The only thing is that it's kind of dark, which it became after you pressed the button to route Osc A into filter A. Turn the freq. knob of the filter all the way to the right. The sound will become as bright as it was before now. The filter is armed with 5 different modes: Lp12 (Lowpass), Bp12 (Bandpass), Comb+, Comb- and AM. The Lowpass filter will, like it's name suggests pass on the low frequency's and block the high frequency's. By using the freq knob you determen on which frequency the blockade is placed. The Res knob will boost the sound precisely on the point of where the freq knob is set. The bandpass filter will let midrange frequency's thru. The comb filters are delay like filters with very short delay times (a few ms). They have an adjustable feedback which is controlled using the res knob. The AM filter basically is a ring modulator. The res knob will control the mix between the sin wave produced by the filter and the sound passing thru the filter. The freq knob is used to modulate the sin wave. Let's add a bit of comb- filtering to our sound. Put the freq knob on a value of 20. This will make the sound to sound a bit hollow which is nice (well, i think it's nice).

The filters can be chained up to give you even more filtering options. To get them to be chained up do the following: First uncheck the little square kob which routes Osc A into Filter A. Then press the little square knob which routes Osc A into filter B (you see the light greeny color go into filter B like an arrow). Now press the button which routes filter B into the shaper. The filters will be chained now. You will notice that the sound is once again a bit dark. This is because filter B is still in it's initial position. Raise the freq knob to make the sound more bright. Chaining the 2 filters together gives the great option to make a certain sound in one filter using a mode and then filter it's complete outcome again in the other. This way you have a very powerfull filter section.

The Filter Env
The filter envelope is used to control how the filter works over time. F.e. if you raise the A (attack) the filter will set in later then the original sound. Raising the R (release) will make the filter to continue after you have released a key or when a note off message have been given to the Malström by either the sequencer or the Matrix. The Inv function on the filter envelope let's the filter envelope work in reverse. if you then raise the release the tail of the sound will become shorter instead of longer and vice versa. The AMT (amount) knob sets how much affect the envelope will have on the filter. It controls the amount of which the filter will open up from the set filter frequency. So setting the AMT knob to a high amount will make the filter to open up more. By using the filter envelope you can get to some really interesting sound shaping.

Spread?

Just above the main volume control of the Malström you can find the Spread knob. This knob will spread the 2 Osc's to the left and right. By raising the amount of spread Osc. A will be moved to the left and Osc. B to the right. By using this function you can make the Malström sound a lot wider and more impressive.

Audio Input

The Malström has 2 inputs on it's back. Turn the rack around to see them. Here you can connect audio coming from any Reason device as well as the Rebirth module. These inputs are treated just like it was an oscilator on the Malström itself. Well, not entirely, you can't f.e. modulate it. But it is in the way that when you activate a filter or the shaper, the input signal is routed to that filter also. It's being processed by the filter and mixed with the Malström's own output (if you use the Malström's own output, you could also just use a Malström for the sole purpose of filtering another audio source). However the filters envelope will only be triggered if a note is pressed on the Malström or when the filter will be opened using filter Env Gate in. So when you would like the filter envelope to affect the audio input you should either play the Malström or have a source to send a gate signal to the filter env, which the Matrix or any other device capable of sending out gate values can do. You can also route the oscilators of the Malström itself to the audio input. This will disconnect the internal connection to the filters and will result in a totally different sound coming from the shaper. This is because the notes are then mixed before going into the shaper instead of each note getting shaped independently and mixed afterwards. You can imagine which posibilities this gives. You could connect effects inbetween or route an entire mixer thru the Malström. The posibilities are countless.

Conclusion

Just as it's the case with the Subtractor. Making patches on the Malström is also a creative process. It's really just a case of turning knobs and fiddling with routings to get to the sound you like. The 82 graintable's are a perfect start to get a sound you like fast. It's then just a matter of tweaking some parameters untill you are happy with the sound. However the thru power lies in playing with the grain's. By speeding the grainsequence up, changing the index of the grainsequence etc, etc. You can even mix up the Malström's own voices by connecting another device into the audio input. This can result in very complex sounds. The Malström really is a very complex and innovative device with which you can have a lot of sound shaping fun. There are almost no sounds which can't be made with it.

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