Effects

These are the devices a chain can hold, besides the Amp and the Impulse Response. They go on a track, a bus or the master alike.

Effects

Available on every platform.

Adding, bypassing, removing

In the Sound pane, a + in the rack (or Add in the bar) lists Amp, Impulse Response, Drive, Wah, EQ, Delay, Chorus, Room and Bus Compressor, and under Electronic: Phaser, Flanger, Tremolo, Auto Filter, Bitcrusher, Widener, Hall, Duck, Dynamic EQ, Tape, Vinyl and Clipper. Patch mode adds Mix. On the Mac and Windows, a + or Add Device opens the device browser instead, where these and your plugins are listed together and searched by name; a right-click on the rack keeps the short menu.

A device’s full face (⌄ on its head in a rack; in Patch mode, the panel on the right; an Inspector pane shows it too) has all its controls. Its power button bypasses it: the sound passes through as if it weren’t there. Every change is one undo step, a whole knob drag included, and any control can be automated.

A delay, a chorus, a room or a hall added on a bus starts with its Dry off and its mix full: the bus returns the effect alone, and each track’s send sets how much (Buses and sends). On a track, Dry on keeps the track under its effect.

Effects that follow the song

The Phaser, the Flanger, the Tremolo and the Auto Filter move with an LFO. Its Sync is Off (it runs at its Rate in Hz) or a division of the song’s beat: 4 Bars, 2 Bars, 1 Bar, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/8T or 1/16T. Synced, it starts from the song’s position, so every pass of a loop and every export sounds the same. The divisions count four beats to the bar.

Drive

Overdrive before or after anything. Drive (how hard), Low Cut and High Cut around it. It’s the same drive Stab Strings has built in for an overdriven or distorted guitar.

Wah

A resonant peak swept between Heel and Toe (in Hz). Mode: Pedal, where Pedal sets the position (automate it to rock the pedal), or Auto, where how hard the string is picked opens it, by Sensitivity. Resonance sharpens the peak.

EQ

A low cut, a low shelf, two bell bands, a high shelf and a high cut, with the curve drawn above them:

Low: Low (its frequency), Low Gain, Low Cut.
Mid: Mid 1 and Mid 2, each with its Gain (±15 dB) and Q (narrower as it rises).
High: High, High Gain, High Cut.

A flat EQ does nothing; its device says Flat until a band is shaped.

Delay

Repeats Time apart (20 ms to 2 s), each Feedback of the one before, at Mix over the signal. Ping-Pong sends them from side to side. Tone darkens the repeats and Low Cut thins them, as a tape echo would.

Chorus

The signal again, a few milliseconds late and swaying, the two sides in opposite phase: width and shimmer. Rate, Depth (in ms) and Mix.

Room

A short reverb: the space around a part. Mix, Decay (up to 8 s), Damping (higher is darker), Predelay (the gap before the room answers) and a Low Cut on what goes in. New songs have one on a Room bus.

Bus Compressor

A compressor and a limiter, for a bus or the whole mix: Threshold, Ratio, Makeup, Attack and Release, then the limiter’s Ceiling. The meter at the top shows how many decibels it’s taking off as the song plays. New songs have one on the master.

Phaser

Swept notches. Stages (4, 6, 8 or 12: more is deeper), Centre (where the sweep sits), Feedback, Depth, Stereo (the right side’s sweep apart from the left’s) and Mix, with Sync and Rate.

Flanger

A short delay swaying under Delay ms, fed back. Feedback from −95 to 95 %: below zero it sounds hollow. Depth, Stereo and Mix, with Sync and Rate.

Tremolo

Mode: Tremolo (the level swaying) or Auto-Pan (the sound moving from side to side). Shape: Sine, Triangle, Square or Ramp. Depth, with Sync and Rate. A square tremolo synced to 1/16 is a trance gate.

Auto Filter

A resonant filter swept by an LFO and by how loud you play. Filter: Low 12, Low 24, Band, High or Notch; Cutoff, Resonance and Drive. Then the motion: Sync, Shape (Sine, Triangle, Saw Up, Saw Down, Square or Random), Rate, Depth (in octaves) and Envelope (how much the level opens it, or closes it below zero).

Bitcrusher

Fewer Bits and a lower sample Rate, held rather than smoothed, so the grit is kept. Drive pushes into it; Mix blends it with the clean sound.

Tape

A tape machine’s color. Drive pushes into a saturating curve: the quiet parts come up, the peaks are held, and harmonics grow. Clean Lows keeps everything under it out of the drive, so an 808 or a bass grits on top while its sub stays round (at 20 Hz, its lowest, nothing is kept out). Wow is the slow drift of a stretched tape, Flutter the fast one; Tone rolls the highs off, and Mix sets the tape against what went in. With no drive, wow or flutter and Tone at the top, it changes nothing.

Vinyl

A record under the music: Crackle (clicks and pops, mostly small) and Hiss (the surface), heard only while the song plays, the same crackle every time from the start; Wow, a warped record’s slow drift; Tone rolls the highs off. On the master or a pad, a little of each makes a lo-fi bed.

Clipper

Squares off the peaks over the Ceiling after Drive pushes into it; Knee rounds the corner. It runs at four times the rate where it clips, so the edges don’t fold back as noise, and anything under the ceiling passes untouched. A limiter turns the whole mix down around a loud peak; a clipper flattens the peak alone, which is how loud trap and phonk masters are made. Put a Bus Compressor after it to hold the true peak.

Widener

Width above 100 % makes the sides louder against the middle, below it narrower. Bass Mono keeps the lows under that frequency in the middle. Haas delays one side a few milliseconds, to open up a mono part.

Hall

A long, smooth reverb, up to a minute. Decay, Size, Predelay, Damping and Modulation, then Shimmer: the tail pitched an octave up and fed back in, so it rises as it fades. Mix and Dry as for the others.

Duck

Pulls the level down whenever another track plays a note, then lets it back up: the pumping of dance music, exact every time because it follows the notes rather than the sound.

Key: the track whose notes duck it (None: it does nothing). A muted key still ducks: its notes, written or played by a Smart Track or Smart Clip, keep the pumping without being heard.
Notes: Every Note, or Kicks Only when the key is a drum kit.
Depth, Attack, Hold and Release: how far down, how fast, for how long, and how fast it comes back.

The meter shows how far it’s ducking.

Dynamic EQ

One band, a Low Shelf or a Bell at Frequency with its Q, cut by up to Range dB only while it’s needed:

With no Key, by the part’s own level over Threshold: a boomy note tamed and the rest left alone.
With a Key track, whenever that track plays (Every Note, or Kicks Only on a kit): a bass’s low end stepping aside for the kick, then back. A muted key track still keys it.

Attack and Release set how fast it cuts and lets go; the meter shows the cut.

Mix

In Patch mode only: up to sixteen inputs added together, each with its own level (Input 1…). A rack’s split lanes meet in one, and a kit’s stems in another.