The Fourteen Effects

This is the reference: every slot in the rack, what it does, and every control on its strip with its default. They are listed in the order they run in by default, which is also the order they appear in the chain row. Nothing here is a preset and nothing is hidden behind a tier: a licensed plugin and a trial plugin have exactly the same fourteen slots.

What you'll learn

• What every slot in the rack does
• Every control on every strip, with its default value
• Which slots wait for a key, for a progression, or for a second take
• Which slots write their own voice, and which rewrite the line in place

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Three conventions run through the whole rack.

Every strip opens on one big knob, its macro. The macro turns several of that effect's own knobs at once, along a set path. At its starting point the effect is exactly as it ships, and double-clicking the macro puts it back there. The rail down the strip's right edge opens its drawer, which holds every control. On the rail, a filled dot marks each knob the macro turns and a ring marks each one it leaves alone; in the drawer, the same filled dot sits before the name of each knob it turns. Move one of those by hand and the macro reads custom until you turn it again. A switch that brings back something another slot silenced stands in a small row under the macro instead of in the drawer: my line for Play the line I sang too, chords for Play the chords too. A few strips also put their own most-used choices there: Chords' play (Play the chords), Motif's after (Add after, don't replace), and an another button on Chords (the next Answer) and on Reply, Bones, Arp and Chance (the next Roll). Click another for the next one; Alt-click (Option-click on a Mac) goes back one. The Roll and Answer dials stay in the drawer, so you can turn straight back to one you liked. The plugin remembers which drawers you left open. Each section below names its macro, what it turns, and what it leaves alone.

A control the effect is not reading is hidden, rather than shown doing nothing. Motif's dials each belong to one or two transforms, so switching transform changes which dials are on the strip.

Generated parts go on their own voice. The sung line is voice 0, harmony 1, chords 2, and so on, which is what lets your host route them separately and what the sung and made counts in the take bar are counting.

8.1 Motif

Turns the phrase into a sequence, a fragment, upside down or backwards, or rebuilds it as the chorus or the verse it contrasts with. Rewrites the lead voice.

Motif runs before Chords in the default order, because Chords fits a progression to the melody it is handed and Motif changes what that melody is.

As a chorus and As a verse rebuild the phrase as the section it contrasts with, rather than moving its notes somewhere else. As a chorus keeps each line's landing, its highest note and each bar's strongest note, and holds them on the beat. It lifts the top a note or two while the bottom moves less, so the two ranges overlap. Each line comes in somewhere new, your highest line is said twice as the hook, and the chorus ends on the tonic. As a verse says your notes in two-bar lines of quarters and eighths, with the same beats split in every bar. Each line comes in where yours did and lands held on a strong beat. Long notes are said several times over, leaps get smaller, the line sits lower, and it ends open, on the 2 or the 5. Nothing in a verse is shorter than an eighth or off the half-beat grid. Both put chord tones under held notes and landings: the chords under them when Chords runs ahead, and the key's 1, 3 and 5 in the default order, where Motif runs first.

Its macro is Develop, and it starts at the bottom, with the phrase as sung. Turning it walks Transform through a sequence a step up, a sequence of two copies stepping down, a half-bar fragment climbing a step each repeat, upside down, backwards, and then the phrase rebuilt as a chorus and as a verse, setting that transform's own dials as it goes. It never switches on Add after, don't replace: switch that on yourself to hear each one after what you sang.

8.2 In Key

Corrects the take against the key on the bar above, and leaves the notes you meant. Needs a key. Rewrites the lead voice. On by default.

Covered in full in Chapter 7. Controls: Strength (70%), Keep passing notes (on), Keep notes you meant (on). It answers to the key alone: a note in the key is never moved, and it runs ahead of Chords so a note you missed cannot pull a chord the wrong way.

Its macro is Correct, and it turns all three: Strength rises with it from 0% to 100%, Keep notes you meant switches off from 85%, and Keep passing notes from 93%, so the top of the turn corrects every note to the key.

8.3 Chords

Writes a progression from your melody, and puts it in the rack. Needs a key. Writes its own voice.

Covered in full in Chapter 6. Controls: Play the chords (on), Rate (1 bar), Answer (best fit), Colour (Support it), Spacing (Close together), Let them invert (on), Bottom note (C3), Level (33), Strike (Hold it).

Its macro is Lush. It turns Rate, Colour, Spacing, Strike and Level, from plain chords held for two bars, through opened-out, coloured chords struck every bar, to reharmonised chords spread wide and changing twice a bar. It leaves Play the chords, Answer, Let them invert, Bottom note and any chord you locked alone.

This is the slot every harmony-aware effect downstream reads. Switching it on is what gives Harmony a chord to land on, gives Echo a chord to keep its repeats in, and gives Arp something to arpeggiate. In Key runs ahead of it and does not read it, so the progression is fitted to the corrected line.

8.4 Bones

Keeps the notes that carry your tune, and writes a new line on them. Rewrites the lead voice.

Hum a verse and get its chorus: the same skeleton, a new rhythm, new figures between the bones. It reduces the phrase to the notes that are structural, scored against the chord underneath, then grows a new line on that skeleton out of your own hook, which is the bar of the take that carries the most (longest note, strongest beat, on the chord). Its rhythm and its interval shape are the only material the fills are made of, which is why the result sounds like the same writer rather than like a random walk with good manners.

Three rules it keeps: nothing written goes above the highest note you sang, the last bone of every phrase rings out with nothing after it, and the dials never make silence.

It runs after In Key by default, so the fills grow from corrected bones and the progression Chords fitted to the take still fits the variation. The variation plays in place of the take, so moving the take on the roll moves the variation with it.

Its macro is Rewrite, which turns Keep, Fill, Leap, Hold, Offbeat and Variety together: from the line you sang to a new tune on its bones, with fewer notes kept, more room filled, wider leaps, more offbeats and fewer repeats as it turns. It leaves Land on the tonic and Roll alone.

8.5 Reply

Sing the first half of a tune and hear a second half made out of it. Adds to the lead voice, after the take.

The call is the take up to its end handle, plus anything Motif added after it. The reply starts on the first bar line after both, lasts as long as the call did, and is added after it: nothing you sang is replaced. To answer only the first part of what you sang, drag the end handle in, and the reply moves with it. A note held over the reply's bar line stops where the reply starts. The exception is a push, a downbeat sung just early and held: that note rings on, and the reply rests until it ends. A note sung just ahead of a bar line never puts a stray note over the answer. It is built to be rolled: with Shape and Rhythm left on Roll picks, every roll is a different answer, and the slot's strip names the shape and rhythm it chose, so a roll you like can be pinned by setting those two selectors to what it printed.

Both are made from what you sang. Shape is the contour the reply is pulled towards: follow the call, mirror it, arch up to a new peak a third above your highest note and back down, fall from the top, or climb into the end. Rhythm is built from the call's own note lengths: as sung, its first half said twice, fewer longer notes, more shorter notes, or a new cell dealt from your lengths. A short note moves by step or repeats and only a long note may leap, which is what keeps a busier reply melodic rather than jumbled.

With Chords on ahead of it, the reply gets chords of its own: Chords listens to the reply's bars as it listened to your take, with the same settings, and the call keeps the chords it had. The last bar closes on the key's own chord for Home and on the V chord for Open. The pad plays on under the reply if Chords is sounding, and everything after this slot has a chord to read there. Pick a chord on one of the reply's bars and that bar keeps yours.

Its macro is Dare: from an answer that echoes your phrase to one that strays. It turns Keep down, Nerve and Variety up, moves Shape and Rhythm from Follow the call and As sung to Roll picks early in the turn, and near the top switches Land to Open. It leaves Lift and Roll alone, so Roll still deals another reply at any setting.

8.6 Harmony

A second line that stays right through the changes. Needs a key. Writes its own voice.

Instead of stacking a fixed interval that goes sour the moment the chord turns minor, it picks the note that is a third or a sixth away in the key, and, with Land on chord tones on, moves it onto the chord underneath.

Its macro is Weave: from a quiet third below under the long notes only, to a third under every note, to a third above, to a sixth below moving against the tune. It turns Interval, Motion, Skip notes under and Level, and leaves Land on chord tones and my line alone.

8.7 Arp

Runs the chords the rack wrote as a figure. Needs Chords. Writes its own voice.

An arpeggiator arpeggiates a held chord, and the chord track is the held chord, so this slot does nothing at all until Chords is ahead of it. Switching Arp on switches Chords on and silences its bed, and it silences the sung line too, because an arp plays the idea itself rather than under it. Both come back from the small row under Arp's Energy knob: chords and my line.

The figure restarts on each chord change.

Its macro is Energy: from a slow figure that plays only while you sing, to a faster run across more octaves, shorter and harder, ending in a random scatter. It turns Direction, Rate, Octaves, Length, Level and Only while I'm singing, and leaves Register, Follow my feel, Roll, chords and my line alone.

8.8 Euclid

Turns a note into a rhythm. Rewrites the lead voice by default.

Hum one long note and get an evenly-spread pulse, already in the key and in the chord. Euclidean rhythms distribute a number of pulses as evenly as possible across a number of steps, which is where a great many folk and dance patterns come from.

Its macro is Density: from one pulse a cycle to a busy roll. It adds pulses, then doubles the steps at half the length so the cycle stays as long, shortens the hits, and from halfway switches on Walk up the chord. It turns Pulses, Steps, Rate, Length and Walk up the chord, and leaves Rotate, Replace what came before, Follow my feel and chords alone.

Replace what came before defaults to on, and Euclid runs over every note in the rack, so switching this slot on with the default settings replaces the sung line, the chords and the harmony with a bare pulse. That is the intended behaviour of the effect, and the switch is in Euclid's drawer to say otherwise.

8.9 Echo

Note delay that keeps its repeats in the harmony. Writes its own voice.

Repeats climb by scale steps rather than semitones, and each repeat snaps to the chord it lands on rather than to the chord the original was in.

Its macro is Space: from one quick slap to a long tail at a dotted eighth, each repeat fading less, and near the top the repeats climb through the key. It turns Repeats, Time, Decay and Climb per repeat, and leaves Keep repeats in the chord, Climb in the key and my line alone.

8.10 Register

Folds a part into a range. Rewrites in place.

A sung take lands wherever your voice lives, which is not always where the part belongs.

Its macro is Range, which slides the part's range, Lowest and Highest together, from bass up through the middle to the top of the keyboard. At the bass end it sets Out of range to Flatten, as a bass part wants, and a little way up it switches to Fold. It turns all three controls.

There is no octave slider here. To move a part an octave, select its notes and press Shift with the up or down arrow: see Chapter 10.

8.11 Chance

Rolls a die per note, or per phrase. Rewrites in place.

Seeded, so a take renders identically twice and the roll number brings a figure back.

Its macro is Thin: fewer notes kept as it turns, and past halfway whole stretches drop out together rather than single notes. It turns Keep, Whole phrases and Phrase length, and leaves Never drop what I sang and Roll alone.

8.12 Feel

Swing, humanize and quantize, as dials. Rewrites in place.

A sung take is mostly phrasing, so the question is never "quantize or not", it is how much grid you want. Most takes want about 40%. Feel runs late in the chain so that generated parts do not inherit a grid you never played.

Its macro is Groove, and it starts at the bottom, with your timing as sung. The first part of the turn pulls your timing onto the grid until it is tight, then the rest swings it, up to triplet swing with the off-beats accented. It turns Tighten, Swing and Accent the swing, and leaves Grid, Loosen, Push, Tighten note ends too and Join the notes up alone.

8.13 Expression

How much of your actual singing reaches the synth. Rewrites in place.

Expression is last in the chain because it reads the sung pitch curve after every transform has finished moving it. At 0% the notes are flat. Turn it up and the scoop into the note and the fall off the end are written out as per-note pitch bend.

Its macro is Voice, and it starts at the bottom, with no bend written. Turning it raises Keep my singing, and toward the top it lowers Ignore wobble under and Skip the attack so the smaller wobbles and the start of each note come through too. It leaves Bend range alone, because that has to match your synth.

Notes that were never sung, including everything Euclid and Arp generate, have no curve to read and stay flat. That is deliberate: a sixteenth should not inherit a whole note's bend.

8.14 Morph

Walks one dial from this take to another one. Needs a second take. Rewrites the lead voice.

Sing a verse, flip to a new take, sing the chorus, and Morph walks between them. Halfway is a real line between the two, not both at once.

It walks toward the other take as you would hear it, rendered through its own rack, so take 2 with an Arp on it is the arpeggio, and one dial walks from your line into that. Both sides enter the walk as one pool, sung and made together, so a monophonic sung melody walking into a monophonic arpeggio is one note at a time the whole way. Where one side stacks, a sung note walks into the chord tone nearest it: a sung C on a downbeat is C at the foot of the dial, C D at a quarter, C E G at the top.

It sits last in the default order, so this take's own parts exist by the time it runs.

Its macro is Blend, which walks the line from this take to the other one. It turns Morph from 0% to 100% and lowers Keep through the middle of the turn, so more notes swap over rather than glide and halfway sounds like a third tune. It leaves Towards take alone.

To keep an in-between position and work on it further, flatten the take. See Chapter 5.

Chapter 9 covers what changes when you move these around.