TransverbTransverb is like a delay effect, but it can play back the delay buffer at different speeds. Think of it like a tape loop with two independently-moving read heads. There are lots of parameters to control and a parameter randomizer for the impatient. Tom's first released plugin. Fun! The controls are divided into sections. Head #1 is the section of controls for one of the delay playbacks. Head #2 is the section of controls for the other delay playback. Each of these controls has a big slider and also little fine adjustment buttons to the right of the slider. The buffer size parameter controls the size of the buffer that both delays use.
The mix section lets you control the volume levels of the input signal (your sound unaffected) and the two delays.
The quality button selects variable levels of transposition quality of the delays' speed. Turning it on will result in better sound quality (hi-fi resampling vs. no interpolation), but it will use up more of your computer's processing power, so that's why you have the option of turning that off. Also, you might sometimes maybe prefer the grainier dirt-fi sound. An X in the quality box indicates regular hi-fi mode and an ! indicates "ultra hi-fi" mode. Ultra hi-fi mode uses filters to reduce the aliasing noise that can occur when speeding up delay heads above 0. This imposes an even bigger CPU load, though, and the load increases as you speed up a delay head, although the load stops increasing after +2.25 octaves. Speaking of grainier, you can turn on TOMSOUND if you want megaharsh sound. Freeze will pause recording new audio into the delay buffer, leading the delays to keep reusing the same audio that existed when you enabled freeze mode. (Consequently, feedback has no effect during freeze mode.) Each head section has three parameters: speed, feedback, and distance. Speed lets you control how quickly or slowly the delay playback moves through the delay buffer. Feedback controls how much of the delay sound gets mixed back into the delay buffer. Distance only really makes a difference when the speed is at zero. This is the how far behind the delay is from the input signal. If the speed is anything other than zero, then the distance quickly becomes irrelevant because the delay head is moving through the buffer at a different speed than the input is writing into the delay buffer. Speed is also the fanciest parameter. There are many ways to control it. The units are expressed in octaves and semitones so that you have musically useful control over the speed. In addition to controlling the speed parameters with the big sliders and the fine tuner buttons, you can press the buttons above the fine adjustment buttons to change the way that the fine buttons function. If you switch them to "semi" mode, then clicking on them will snap you to whole semitone values. If you switch them to "8ve" mode, then clicking on them will snap you to whole octave values. On top of that fanciness, you can also click on the value field and manually type in your own values for total precision. When you type in these boxes, Transverb looks for two numbers: the octave followed by semitones. So if you want + 1 octave and 3 semitones, you type in "1 3." If you want to just enter that in terms of semitones, then type in "0 15." If you do something kind of stupid like "1 -3," then it reinterprets the semitones as positive (since you're going in the positive direction with the octaves) and makes it +1 octave +3 semitones. Similarly "-3 4" will get changed to -3 octaves -4 semitones." If all you type is one number, then that gets interpreted as the octave value. You can even make that a fractional number and the fraction will get converted into semitones. For example, if you type in "3.75," you'll get +3 octaves +9 semitones. But if you type in an octave with a fractional value and a second number, the second number overrides the fractional part of the octave number, i.e. "3.3 8" will result in +3 octaves +8 semitones, not +3 octaves +3.6 semitones. There are two ways to randomize Transverb's parameters. You can press the "randomize all settings" button or you can choose the "random" preset. These two approaches are different in certain ways. Pressing the button will tell the host application to save automation data for each parameter change. In hosts that support this (Logic, Cubase, and other multi-trackers), that means that these parameter changes can be saved in your song and then each randomized change will occur in exactly the same way every time you play back your song again later.
Choosing the "random" preset will randomize Transverb's parameters without telling the host to save automation data. And with hosts that support sending MIDI messages to effects plugins, you can automate the random preset by sending MIDI program change message of program 15. This way, you can automate the randomization of parameters as a part of your song, but the outcome of each randomization will be different every time you play your song back. parameter adjustment tricks: You can make fine adjustments by holding the shift key while adjusting a parameter with your mouse. You can make even finer adjustments with the little arrows nears the sliders. You can also reset a parameter to its default value by holding the command ⌘ key (control on Windows) when clicking on it. And you can flip through the quality and fine/semi/8ve buttons in reverse order by option-clicking (alt-clicking on Windows). |