09 Audio Effects

 

Audio Effects

(30 minutes)

Audio Effects act on the sound (audio) that is coming out of a track. You can drag them to both MIDI tracks (which have Sounds or Instruments loaded) and Audio tracks (which have Samples or Audio Clips loaded).

1. Auto Filter


  • The most important filter parameters are Frequency and Resonance. Frequency determines where the  filter is applied; Resonance boosts frequencies near that point.
  • The filter can be set to Low Pass Filter (cuts off higher frequencies), High Pass Frequencies (cuts off lower frequencies), Band Pass (only lets through frequencies of that band)
  • LFO makes the filter "oscillate" at a Rate which can be set to match the beat, or in Hz

2. Delay


  • Delayed audio results in 'echoes'
  • If the Sync button is on, both Left and Right sides of the audio will be delayed by the same amount
  • The numbered switches represent time delay in 16th notes. For example, selecting ”4” delays the signal by four 16th notes, which equals one beat (a quarter note) of delay.
  • Feedback % determines how many echoes you will hear
  • Dry/Wet % determines how much of the Dry (non-delayed, original) audio you hear, vs. how much of the Wet (delayed, processed) audio

3. Redux


  • If the downsample dial is set to ”1”, the signal does not change. If set to ”2”, only every second sample will be processed, so the result sounds a bit more ”digital.” The higher the number, the lower the resulting sample rate, and the more ”deconstructed” the sound. 
  • Bit Reduction is similar, but while downsampling superimposes a grid in time, bit reduction does the same for amplitude (loudness). If the Bit Reduction amplitude dial is set to 8, you get the well known 8-bit sound. If set to 1, the result is pretty brutal.

4. Reverb



  • Predelay controls the delay time, in milliseconds, before the onset of the first early reflection. This delays the reverberation relative to the input signal. One’s impression of the size of a real room depends partly on this delay. Typical values for ”natural” sounds range from 1ms to 25ms.
  • Early Reflections are the earliest echoes that you hear after they bounce off a room’s walls, before the onset of the diffused reverberation ”tail.” 
  • If Dry/Wet is set to 0% you will not hear any Reverb at all. If set to 100%, you will hear only the Reverb, and none of the original audio.

Hands On Task

Try applying Audio Effects to your existing MIDI tracks and Audio tracks

Automating Audio Effects

(30 minutes)

Automation enables you to make the Audio Effects change automatically as your song is playing.


1. To show automation envelopes, enable Automation Mode by clicking the button above the track headers 

2. Clicking on a track’s mixer or device controls will display this control’s envelope on the clip track.

3. Envelopes appear in the track’s main automation lane, “on top of“ the audio waveform or MIDI display. (This is useful for lining up breakpoints with the track’s audio or MIDI content.) 

An envelope’s vertical axis represents the control value and the horizontal axis represents time. 

4. The Device chooser either selects the track mixer, one of the track’s devices, or “None“ to hide the envelope. It also provides you with an overview of which devices actually have automation by showing an LED next to their labels. 

5. The Automation Control chooser selects a control from the device chosen in the Device chooser. The labels of automated controls have an LED.

Once an envelope has been selected on the track, several new buttons appear:

6. The [+] button moves the envelope into its own automation lane below the clip. You can then select another automation parameter from the choosers to view it simultaneously. 

7. The [-] button hides its respective automation lane. It is only hidden, the automation still works. 

8. The [triangle] button appears when an envelope is moved into its own automation lane. This toggle lets you show or hide all additional automation lanes.

Draw in Automation

9. Click at a position on a line segment to create a new breakpoint there.

10. Double-click anywhere in the envelope display that is not on a line segment, to create a new breakpoint there.

11. Click on a breakpoint to delete it.

Hands on Task

Add Audio Effects to your tracks and try drawing in Automation for the following parameters

  • Auto-Filter: automate the Frequency and Resonance
  • Delay: automate the Feedback %
  • Redux: automate the Bit Reduction
  • Reverb: automate the Dry/Wet %



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