Track DSP settings

Track DSPs (Digital Signal Processors) and their settings are effects ("DSPs) that can be applied to a track. There are plenty of those, and their usage requires a bit of experience. We will try to point out the most common usage for each individual effect to present you what you can do with the effects.

Screen displays (from top-left to bottom right)

• Available

  List of available effects which can be inserted into a track. VST effects will also appear in this list if the VST path was properly configured.

• Current

  List of effects you added to track. It may look, for example, like on the picture below.
  
  
  
  Current effect selection with MoveUp and MoveDown buttons
  
  
  

• Delete

  Deletes the selected effect from the list (and therefore also from the track).

• MoveUp/MoveDown

  Rearrange effects in the chain by moving them up/down. The position matters because effects are processed by the order of the viewed chain.

• Copy/Paste/Init

  Copies, Pastes or Initializes (sets back to default values) the selected effect. You can use copy & paste to copy an effect to another or the same track.

Effect window buttons

• X

  Deletes the effect (close window).

• < and >

  Changes the order of the effect in the effect list.

• On/Off checkbox

  Enables/disables the effect. Disabling the effect, however, does not delete it.

• Open editor

  This button appears only for VST effects. It opens the VST's own editor window.

• V

  This is another button that appears only for VST effects. It selects whether to parse VST effect parameters into Renoise window or not. Sometimes it is more practical to have those parameters in Renoise and sometimes such parameters are more easily tweaked with VST's own editor. In Renoise you can do both.

Using Track DSPs settings

To add effects to a track, first go to the track you wish to put the effect in. The effect list changes as you move along the tracks. Now select an effect from the "Available" list and double click on it. The effect window appears. Now you can modify its effect parameters or add new effects.

You can also automate effects using Track Automation or Pattern Effect commands. This way you can change effect parameters during playback.

After you've put some effects on the track, play a sample on it and hear the result. If it is not OK, modify the effect parameters until it sounds as you intended.

Effects are easy to add and work with, but to master them you will need to experiment and hear some examples. Look for examples in the Tutorials. Although Renoise effects are very fast, they can still take a lot of CPU power so take care how much you put in.

The Effects in detail

Track settings are always present. Use them to modify basic track parameters.

• Mute

  Enables/disables track playback.

• Solo

  Plays track in solo mode (mutes all other tracks).

• Unmute all

  Enables the playback of all tracks.

• Routing

  Sets a device/driver to which the current track is routed.

• Panning

  Sets the track panning (balance between stereo speakers). 50% is center position.

• Volume

  Sets the track volume.

• Width

  Sets the amount of 3D surround effect.

Gainer

This is a very simple effect but it can be of great use for proper sound volume balancing. Use the gainer to amplify the volume of your track or to change the panning. The volume and panning values are added to track settings volume and panning.

• Volume

  Desired volume level from 0% to 400%

• Panning

  Use it to additionally change panning on track.

DC Offset

In a normal waveform, there are 2 maximums (positive, negative) and the center (zero). On waves with DC offset in it, this center line is not at Digital Zero but slightly moved into the positive or negative range. This results in reduced dynamics. The DC Offset effect brings the center line "back to the zero line". Also see "DC Offset" in the Glossary section.

This effect can also be used to prevent bad samples with DC offset from clicking at the end. It can also, of course, intentionally be used to create this clicking effect if desired.

• DC Offset

  Forces DC Offset with the value set up.

• Auto DC

  Automatically compensates DC Offset (brings the "center line back to zero".

Gate

A Noise Gate is a special type of expander that can be used to reduce or eliminate noise below a threshold level. A gate is a similar device but generally is not used for noise elimination. It is usually used to increase or reduce the sensitivity of particular beat levels, i.e. if you use a drum loop you can use it to eliminate certain parts of the loop (that have a lower volume) or to make variations to loop grooves. Basically, if the audio signal is less than threshold, it turns the volume down, but not the signal itself is used. Instead, it uses an envelope follower. To control this envelope follower use attack, release and hold the parameters of the gate device.

• Threshold

  Level of volume that will be used to trigger gate device

• Attack

  Adjusts the Attack time of the envelope follower

• Hold

  This will define how long the volume will not drop down after the envelope has passed the threshold

• Release

  Sets the envelope follower Release time

• Floor Amp.

  Defines how low the gated volume will be.

Shaper

One of the most strongest production tools widely used today is the Shaper, a type of compressor/limiter. Shaper "squeezes" the sound by increasing the volume of the quiet and decreasing the volume of the loud parts. The settings set the rules for this process. The result is a more balanced volume amplitude but also a reduced dynamic range. When such compressed sound is amplified, the result is sound that sounds much, much louder than original sound. When you listen to today's CDs you will notice that they sound very loud compared to those published many years ago. This is the case because basically compressors are used in almost all pop music productions nowadays. A compressor/limiter can be useful as an effect in the Master track to make the overall sound louder.
A compressor can be very useful to get vocals to a certain amount of equal volume that you will need to work with it. Usually, if you don't have a good singer who knows about this problem, recorded vocals have too big volume differences to work with them properly. Especially for putting vocoder effects on vocals, you need them to be as dense (compressed) as possible.
In all these cases be aware that you shouldn't exaggerate the usage of compressors! It will only result in a big mess of sound lacking dynamics, and overuse of a compressor usually has the effect of "Pumping", too.

A limiter on the other hand limits maximum volume amplitude to a certain value. It is used in radio stations to limit the maximum signal to avoid distortion and also in clubs to reduce the risk of burning the speakers with high amplitudes of the sound.

• Small window

  Shows compression visually.

• hreshold

  Sensitivity of compression - i.e. minimum amplitude that will be affected by Shaper

• Ratio

  Ratio of compression applied to signal / selection of the limiter mode (move slider to right)

• Attack

  Determines how fast the compression starts.

• Release

  Determines how fast the compression ends.

• Post Gain

  Amplification amount after the compression. This setting actually makes the sound louder after being compressed.

Lo-Fi Mat

It may happen to you that a certain sounds sounds too good. With the Lo-Fi Mat, you can decrease its quality and add noise. This can sound very effective on some drum sounds, voices, or as an additional effect along with distortion. Some people might recognize this effect as the "Mr. Oizo effect".

• Bit Crunch

  Quantizes the dynamic range of the sample from full 16 bits to only 1 bit. The lower the bitrate, the lower the quality.

• Quality

  Changes the sampling rate from full frequency (usually 44100 Hz) to other, lower values.

• Noise

  Adds random noise which additionally decreases the sound quality.

• Wet Out, Dry Out

  Balances between the amount of DSP effect applied to track and the amount of original non-affected sound.

• Interpolation

  Improves calculation quality to reduce harmonics (quality value).

Distortion

This effect decreases the sample quality but gives it a "stronger" sound. There are two distortion types: Amp and Fuzz. Amp distorts the sound by over amplifying it. Fuzz thresholds and over-amplifies the sound to produce distortion. Distortion is used mostly on guitars and 303 sounds, but also on leads, bassdrums etc.. You've heard distorted guitars gazilliun times. This is it. If you feel like listening to a distorted 303 lead, have a look at the Tutorials to get the idea of how it can sound.

• Fuzz, Amp

  Sets the distortion type.



• Amp mode settings
  

  • Drive

    Amount of distortion

  • Filter Freq

    Sets the filter frequency if the filter is activated.

  • Filter On/Off

    Enables/disables the integrated low pass filter.

  • Wet Out, Dry Out

    Balance between the amount of the DSP effect applied to the track and amount of original non-affected sound.



• Fuzz mode settings
  

  • Threshold

    Sensitivity of distortion

  • Clamp

    Amount (amplitude) of modification

  • Gate On/Off

    When Gate is On, all signals below the threshold are shaped out.

Filter

This is one that Techno and Trance freaks simply love (and not only them). Use this effect on 303 baselines, basses, strings, or even on vocals! Various values for cutoff frequencies can specially enrich your sound. Look at the Tutorials to learn how filtered strings can sound. Try it with Moog filter, the Lowpass, the Highpass or the other filers!

• Cutoff Freq

  Sets the frequency range. In Low-pass filters, this is the maximum frequency beyond which the sound will be filtered out. In High-pass filters, it is the minimum frequency etc.

• Resonance

  Amount of Resonance the filter gives the filtered sound

• Inertia

  Defines how fast changes in the effect values will be reflected in output. The values range from instant to very slow. See also Inertia in the Glossary section.

• Vel2Cut

  Velocity sensitivity of the cutoff parameter

• Vel2Reso

  Velocity sensitivity of the resonance parameter

Filter types (buttons)

Choose the filter type by first selecting the main filter type with the arrow buttons, then click on the button that represents the sub-filter type.

• Low-pass

  2 pole Low-pass filter - frequencies that are below threshold will be allowed.

• High-pass

  2 pole High-pass filter - frequencies that are above threshold will be allowed.

• Band-pass

  Band-pass filter - Frequencies that are within threshold range will be allowed and none outside that range.

• Band-pass

  Band-pass filter -Frequencies that are within threshold range will be removed and the rest will stay intact.

• Moog (low-pass/high-pass)

  4 pole Hi/Low-pass filter which emulates moog hardware filter.

• Single pole

  1 pole Low-pass filter.

• Para EQ

  Parametric EQ - Band-pass filter.

• Peaking EQ

  Shelving EQ filter.

• Comp Dist

  Distorting Comb filter.

• AMod

  Frequency modulation.

EQ5 / EQ10

An equalizer is a series of band-pass filters you can make certain frequency bands louder or more quiet with. It is used for extracting vocals, removing basses or high tones, changing characteristic a sound etc.. Here, you can select a 5-band or 10-band equalizer that only differ in the number of frequency sliders (EQ10 has 10 of them and therefore better control, but in many cases EQ5 which is simpler for controlling and will use less CPU power).

• 50-15000 Hz sliders

  Controls the amount of presence for each frequency band.

Flanger

Flanging has a very characteristic sound that many people refer to as a "whooshing" sound or a sound similar to the sound of a jet plane passing by. This effect takes the original sound, copies it and shifts one copy's start offset by a very small amount, e.g. 2-3 ms. After that it modifies this shift with a period value (like LFO). Both sounds together result in the "flanging" effect.

Use a Flanger on strings, 808 snare drums and virtually all lead sounds. This will give a certain coloring to almost any sound.

• Amount

  The larger the amount, the more pronounced the notches are in the flanger.

• Rate

  Speed of the LFO that modulates the delay

• Amplitude

  The amplitude of the LFO, the amount of flanging

• Feedback

  Controls the feedback amount of the delay.

• Delay

  Sets the delay time of the flanged sound copy.

Phaser

Phaser or phase shifter is a special kind of a flanger filtering the original sound before delaying it.

• Upper slider

  Dephase amount between the left and right channel in degrees

• Ceiling

  Determines how far the notches sweep up in frequency.

• Floor

  Determines how far the notches sweep down in frequency.

• LFO Rate

  Speed of the LFO that controls the sweep

• Depth

  The amplitude of the LFO that controls the sweep

• Feedback

  Controls the feedback amount of the delay.

StereoExpander

This device lets you reduce a stereo signal to mono or expand the stereo width of incoming signals.

• Amount

  Sets the amount of stereo width you want the audio signal of the current track to have.

Delay (Echo)

This effect is used so commonly that you cannot imagine one song without this effect. It simply repeats (echoes) the original sound. It will sound very weird if it is not synced with the song speed and song beats, so use the x1, x2, x3, x4 buttons to automatically match the delay to the appropriate number of pattern lines.

• L/R Delay

  Time how long will effect wait before it starts repeating the left and right channel. It is good to sync this to song speed.

• L/R Feedback

  How much echo feedback effect will give - only few echoes, or many... Set to maximum value, the echoes repeat forever.

• Track Send

  Amount of DSP effect applied to a track

• x1, x2, x3, x4

  Used to sync delay time automatically with length of one, two, three etc. pattern lines. This time will change if you change song speed/BPM.

• Multi Tap Amount

  Not yet implemented.

Reverb

Reverb is series of echoes, like hundreds and thousands of them. It occurs in large halls, corridors, canyons, open spaces that are between walls or mountains, churches or any other acoustic chambers. Usually echoes of an original sound reach your ear very fast you can hardly distinguish a particular echo among all of them. What you hear is a "collection of echoes of an original sound" that is called "Reverb". The sound can be also partially "damped" by room walls cutting off certain frequencies out of original sound. All of these parameters can be controlled with this Reverb effect.

• Room size

  Value how fast the echoes will occur, lowest slider value is equivalent to "room" and highest to "hall"

• Width

  Stereo width of the incoming echoes

• Damp

  Amount of absorbed high frequencies. The higher the Damp setting, the "darker" the reverb sounds.

• Dry Mix

  Amount of original non-reverbed sound to mix into effect (or mix only effect without original sound)

• Track Send

  Amount of DSP effect applied to track

Using reverb and echo effects on vocals and leads

Let me share with you a little secret everyone knows. You may wonder why is it a secret then? Well, if you know it but don't notice it is almost like not knowing it. Here it goes:
All of the lead instruments and lead vocals must have added reverb and/or echoes. Only a few very special examples are excluded from this rule.

Why is this so important? First, if you ever entered any studio and heard "sound of silence" that is best to describe the acoustic chamber that is acoustically isolated from the outside world noise, you will begin to notice that virtually everything we hear has at least little echo or reverb added to it in normal life. You don't have to be in a large hall or canyon - even the room you are sitting in has a little room reverb: try clapping your hands to hear it. That is why reverbed or echoed leads or vocals sound more natural to the human ear.

Next, if you use lead or vocal without this time-based effects it may sound very, very raw and flat. Once you add an reverb on it, it will sound fuller and much wider. It works like magic - adds stereo to mono sounds, fattens thin sounds - but beware, this can be also a trap! Adding too much reverb will cover all of the other sounds. It is great if you have only a few instruments in your mix, but if you have loads of them, be cool, lower that reverb or nothing else will go out except it.
And hearing only one sound going out and covering the rest of sounds can be incredibly stressing to your ears!

Oh, and by the way, don't add reverb to bass sounds! These take so much acoustic space that they already are fat and wide. However, sometimes even reverbed basses sound good, not often though, so watch out and rather leave reverb out of those sounds.

VST effects

The parameters of VST plugins you use differ from plugin to plugin. Some effects have also an own editor window that can be opened by clicking on the "Open Editor" button. There are many VST effects available, describing them all here is impossible. You can use VST effects equally as internal DSP effects and mix them all together in any amount you like.

• Enable keyboard

  If checked and VST window is focused, this option enables you to enter values using the computer keyboard.

• Load FXP preset

  Loads VST preset files.

• Load FXB bank

  Loads VST bank files.

• Rand

  Randomizes VST plug-in parameters. Use it to design new instruments when you're totally out of inspiration of idea what you're doing.

Non DSP Devices

All DSP Devices in the "Available" list of the Track DSP section with an asterisk on their left side are non DSP Devices. This means that they don't process audio streams themselves. You insert them like normal DSP effects, but they will have no effect on sampled audio but have other functions that we'll explain now.

LFO Device

This device gives you automatic control over any parameter of another device by using an LFO. LFO parameters are set in LFO Device and then applied to the destination device that can be any other device including a VST automation device or even another LFO Device!

• Waveform selection

  Selects the waveform you want to apply to the target device - sinus, pulse, saw or random.

• Dest. effect

  Set it to the effect's order number in the Track DSP effect chain. This device will receive the LFO Device values.

• Parameter

  This sets the parameter that the destination effect will receive from the LFO Device.

• Reset

  This button restarts the LFO from its starting position. You can also apply this as a pattern command code, too. It is printed when you press the button.

• Amplitude

  Sets the range of affection of the specified target parameter.

• Offset

  Sets how far away the LFO center position will be from the effect parameter center position.

• Frequency

  Speed of the LFO's oscillation

MIDI CC Device

This is a helper device that lets you send, record, and automate Controller Changes (CC) of MIDI or VST instruments. In the effect box, you'll see the VST Instrument that is steered by it.

• Linked instrument

  Here you select the instrument you want to control with the Midi CC Device.

When a MIDI instrument is chosen, it uses its device/channel and delay settings.

When a VSTi instrument is chosen the CC's will be sent to this VST instrument. Usually all parameters of a VSTi can be controlled via CC messages. Please read the documentation that comes with the VSTi to find out which parameters can be controlled and which controller number you have to use.

For each of the 4 rows:

• "Empty Boxes"

  Click on them to enter a name that reminds you what the controller no. actually controls.

• CC No.

  The CC number of the controller change MIDI message. For example, 1 controls often the modulation.

• Slider

  The current CC amount - move it (as usual) with the right button to record the value into the pattern and hold down shift to record into a track envelope.

Search for "MIDI specification controller" to get a listing of "default" controller numbers.

VSTi Automate Device

This device is used to translate VSTi parameters into effect sliders which you can later control using Track Automation - therefore effectively controlling the VSTi device. It can control many different VSTi parameters. Mapping of controllers can also be user specified (the controller number doesn't have to be numerically identical to VSTi parameter).

• Linked instrument

  Sets the number of the instrument you loaded the VSTi in.

• No.01-XX

  Assigns a VSTi device parameter to controller 01-XX. The parameter name appears in the box next to it. This way you map a specific controller to a specific parameter number.

• Slider

  Depending on the loaded VSTi, this slider shows the controller effect value. This slider can be controlled by track automation later, therefore actually controlling the VSTi parameter.

Send Device

Send tracks are already explained in the Quickstart section, so if you have no idea what Send tracks are, please read that paragraph.

• Mode

  Sets whether the original source track containing the audio signal is doubled (while one copy is sent to the Send track) or not. "Mute source" means that the sound goes directly into the Send track while "Keep source" means that the audio signal from the source track is copied and one copy of the two is sent to the Send track while the other one is played without effect of the Send track.

• Amount

  Sets the amount of the source track's audio signal being sent to the Send track. Setting it to zero will result in no audio signal at all being sent.

• Receiver

  Sets the number of the Send track you want to receive the audio signal.

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