11. Sound

The signal flow

Every sound in a song takes the same road. Knowing it tells you where to reach when something is too loud, too dry or too bright.

How a track sounds: patches and nodes

Available on every platform.

The road a note takes

1. The source plays the track’s notes: Stab Strings (the guitar synth, the default for strings), Stab Synth, the SoundFont, a sampled kit or instrument, or the drum synth. A track’s sound button in the Mixer picks it.
2. The track’s chain: the devices after the source, such as a drive, an amp and its cabinet, an EQ, a delay. Together with the source, this is the track’s patch, and the Sound pane shows and edits it. A track with nothing on it goes straight to the mixer.
3. The track’s strip in the Mixer: its fader, pan, mute and solo.
4. Sends to the buses: some of the track goes to each bus it sends to, each bus a shared chain of its own (a room, a delay) with its own fader. See Buses and sends.
5. The master: everything meets there, through the master’s chain (the whole mix’s compressor, say), and out to your speakers.

Patches

A patch is made of nodes joined by wires: the Source, the devices, and the Output that goes to the mixer. Most patches are a straight chain, or a chain that splits into lanes and meets again; the Sound pane shows those as a rack. A patch that branches in other ways shows as nodes and wires (Patch mode). A drum kit’s source can split into stems (kick, snare, toms…), each a lane with its own devices.

A bus has a patch too, fed by the sends, and so does the master, fed by the whole mix.

Tracks that play through the SoundFont have a patch too: their devices shape them before the mixer, as any track’s do.

How a new song starts

New songs, imports and the demos start with a sound already: each guitar with an amp, a Room bus that each track sends to by what it plays (drums and keys the most, guitars less, basses not at all), and a bus compressor on the master. A song that already has its own master chain or buses keeps them.

Where to look

• Too loud or too quiet: the track’s fader in the Mixer. A drum kit’s pieces each have their own, under the kit’s ▸.
• The tone of one part: the track’s chain in the Sound pane.
• Space around several parts: a bus, and each track’s send to it.
• The whole mix: the master’s chain, and its meter in the Mixer.