Jesusonic Effects Documentation

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Revision as of 21:35, 11 February 2007

Here you find a brief description of some of the pre-programmed effects that are bundled with Jesusonic.

Note: Some may only be bundled with REAPER and are not inlcuded in the stand-alone version or DX version.

Delays

These are Delay effects. They are located in the Delay directory of the effects folder and those are:

delay: simple digital delay

delay_chfun: stereo bounce delay

delay_chorus: delay with integrated chorus in the delay path

delay_lowres: delay with adjustable resolution of the signal in the dalay path

delay_tone: delay with tonealcontrol

delay_varlen: variable lenght delay

Filters

Filter effects such as EQs. Located in Filters.

bandpass: Bandpass filter

dc_remove: DC offset removal plug-in

FIR_8: 8th tap finite impulse response filter

highpass: Highpass

lowpass: Lowpass

mdct-filter: Mdct-filter

parametric_eq: Parametric EQ

Guitar

Effects for the useage with guitar. Located in Guitar.

amp-model" Amp Modeler with selectable IRs to simulate various different preamps and combos etc.

chorus: Chorus effect

distort-fuzz: Delivers a fuzzy distortion such as a fuzzbox.

distortion: Digital distortion like modern distortion stomp boxes.

flanger: Flanger effect

Phaser: Phaser effect like heard on many psychedelic records in the 1960s.

Pitch

mdct_shift: Provides a pitch shifting effect based on MDCT shifting.

octavedown: Shifts the signal down by one octave.

octaveup: Shifts the signal up by one octave.

The SStillwell Jesusonic Effects Collection

These are some of the most interesting and versatile plug-ins available in the Jesusonic Collection.

3x3: 3-band eq with harmonic enhancement

4x4: 3-band eq with harmonic enhancement (different style of enhancement)

1175: Fast-attack compressor, similar in style to a UREI 1176.

autoexpand: Downward expander with program-dependent attack/release.

chorus: Chorus effect

chorus_stereo: Stereo chorus effect

delay_pong: Ping-pong delay

delay_tempo: Delay with optional tempo synchronization.

dirtsqueeze: Compressor that adds quite a bit of grit and distortion

drumtrigger: Plugin that generates MIDI trigger from sound input, optionally passing the dry audio signal as well

eventhorizon: non-lookahead limiter that simply rounds off and truncates peaks.

exciter: HF boost/enhancer

expander: Downward expander with manual attack/delay times.

expressbus: Compressor...meant to be used on buss signals.

fairlychildish: Emulation of SOME of the features of a Fairchild 670.

flangebaby: Flanger

hpflpf: steep high-pass & low-pass filters in a single plug

hugebooty: LF frequency enhancer...adds upper harmonics to LF content

louderizer: Psychoacoustic loudness enhancer

louderizer_lpf: Psychoacoustic loudness enhancer (with LPF to choose what frequencies are affected)

majortom: Compressor, ala dbx160 VU (old model) or kinda like an LA2A when in Feedback mode.

mastertom: Same as majortom, different algorithm, slightly different sound.

ozzifier: Multi-voice chorus/delay...you'll recognize it.

randomizer: Randomizes midi input...useful for taking signal from drumtrigger and using multiple reasamplomatic instances to trigger multiple snare samples, avoiding machine-gun triggered snare sound.

rbj4eq: 4-band EQ

rbj7eq: 7-band EQ

rbj1073: 3-band EQ with HPF, same feature choices as Neve 1073.

realoud: Psychoacoustic loudness enhancer, with different algorithm than louderizer.

realoud_lpf: Same relation to realoud as louderizer_lpf is to louderizer

thunderkick: LF enhancer...adds in subharmonics to enhance lowest octaves. Note: does NOT work well with pitched instruments. Mostly useful for kick drum.

volscale: Think of it as a MIDI compressor...scales output volume range and adds/removes gain.

1175

The 1175 is a VERY FAST ATTACK compressor reminiscent of the hardware 1175. The attack slider lets you choose from as fast as 20 microseconds (that's 0.2 miliseconds) for transient killing, and extends as slow as 2000 microseconds (2ms). BUT, if you want to use the 1175 with more run-of-the-mill attack settings, open it up in the editor and change the line

slider4:20<20,2000,10>Attack time (usec.) to slider4:20<20,10000,10>Attack time (usec.)

This will allow to set attack times up to 10ms (1 ms = 1000usec). Setting the attack much longer than 10000 is doable, but you should watch CPU usage of the plug-in after this point. The 1175 is a great vocal, snare, and kick compression - you can get some wonderful results when you set attack times from 1ms - 10ms and short release times of 50-100ms. (on the 1175, setting an attack of 10ms and 60ms release will work particularly well for beefing up a kick drum along with the rbj1073 - see tips below). One of the coolest features of the 1175 is the "mix" slider, which lets you specify how much of the compressed sound you want to hear in the mix. Setting this to 100 lets all of the compression thorough, while setting it to 0 give you the original uncompressed signal. this is especially useful when you use the ultra fast attack settings, but want to keep some jump in the track (ala New York style compression).

Major Tom

Major tom is an excellent compressor that can be used in a wide variety of ways. Here is a description of the settings: Threshold, Ratio (1:1 to 20:1), Gain (this is the make-up gain), Soft Knee? (you can choose between soft knee for complex signals or hard knee for vocal/simple signals), Detector Input (choose between normal or sidechain for ducking), Automakeup? (choose between automatic makeup gain or manual makeup gain), Detection - choose between peak or RMS (rms window = 10ms, and 2.5 microsecond peak detector, Detection source - Choose between feedforeward (regular compression) or feedback (includes an opto attack of 2ms, release of 200ms)

a good explanation of The difference between Feedforward and Feedback Compression

Major tom works very well in a variety of settings, and you can really hear the ratio at work clamping transients.

FairlyChildish

The adjustable settings on this compressor are
Threshold
Bias
AGC
Time constant
Level Detector RMS window.

There are two non-adjustable settings "current comp ratio" and "gain reduction", which move automatically with the program signal - currently, fairlychildish is the only JS compressor that lets you see how much gain reduction is happening!

Here is a breakdown of the plug-in.

The Bias

When this is set low and the threshold set to catch peaks, you get fairly hard ratios of 30:1 (give or take) - and as you lower the threshold, the ratios goes up a LOT - to around 300:1 (give or take). But with the bias set high and the threshold set to just catch the peaks, you get some gentle compression, with the ratio fluctuating from around 1.1 to 3:1. As you lower the threshold, the ratio goes up ... to around the 15:1 mark give or take.

Time constant

Time constant affects the attack/release times of the compressor. The original Fairchild hardware had some REALLY short attack times (measured in microseconds), and LOOOONG release times (measured in fractions of a MINUTE). The higher the time constant, the longer the attack and release, generally. attack and release times on "fairlychildish" are measured in microseconds, the lowest value being 200 microseconds (0r 0.2 ms) on time constants 1 and 2, AND 5. On time constants 3, 4 and 6, the attack time is 0.4 ms. The release times of time constant 1 is 300ms, time constant 2 is 800ms, time constant 3 is 2000ms, time constant 4 is 5000ms time constant 5 is 10,000ms and time constant 6 is a whopping 25 seconds!

BUT, part of the beauty of the JS plugins is that you can change the default settings by manipulating the code. You may find that an attack setting of 0.1 (100ms) and a release of either 0.2500 (250ms), 0.5000 (500ms) or 1.000 (1000ms/1 seconds) might provide smoother compression (perhaps in replacement of the 25 second release and ultra fast attack of time constant 6). You may also find that setting the attack to 0.0100 (10ms) and release to 0.100 (100ms) might work well for guitar and vocal compression with fairlychildish.

AGC

There are two options for this - Lat/Vert and Left/Right. the Lat/Vert setting on the Fairchild was used when cutting actual masters for vinyl. What it does is switch the level detection and compression from normal stereo to L+R and L-R, reconstituting the normal signals after compression. This allows you to separately compress the center signal (typically bass) from the side signals...a form of Mid/Side compression. The reason it was used on vinyl was to keep the grooves from being cut too wide (lateral) or too deep (vertical).

The level detector rms window slider

The RMS window acts in a similar fashion to the RMS slider in Reacomp. When this is set to very low values, the compression follows the curves of the waveform more closely. As you move the value higher, you get a smoother compression and less gain reduction.

Making the Settings work Together

With "fairlychildish", there is a direct correlation between threshold and ratio - the lower the threshold, the higher the ratio. With High threshold situations where you want to work mostly on peaks, you may want to set the time constant and level detector RMS window values lower, which should result in gain reductions of between 1 and 4dB. With lower threshold settings, you should set the time constant and RMS window values a little higher - just know that setting a time constant of 6 will give an EXTREMELY LONG release of 25 seconds. The bias works as a pseudo ratio control - and it will really squash peaks when it is set very low. Even though you can set the threshold very low, threshold settings below -15dB (on hot signals) will produce pumping, due to the nature of its fast attack, so higher, peak-cathcing thresholds seem to be where the sweet spots are for "fairlychildish" using the default settings.

rbj1073

the RGB73 is a great EQ reminiscent of the Hardware 1073 by Neve. The high shelf of this EQ is a frequent go-to option on the hardware 1073. It has a fixed frequency of 12k, but the wide Q of the slope affects the signal lower down the spectrum.

This slope has been emulated beautifully in the JS version of the 1073, which gives anything you run through it a really nice "sheen" due to the broad-spread lift it can generate. It will also really tame the harsh high end of some percussion. The rbj1073 works quite like the original in that you can crank it right up and still get pleasing tones out of it (if you need it to).

Tips

If the high shelf sounds like it's getting brittle, but you like the smooth top it's giving you, you can try dialing in a few db cut at 3.2k on the mid frequency filter. Similar complimentary boosts/cuts can be made with the mid range filters.

Another trick you can do with the original neve hardware which you can also do on the 1073 fx (!!) is to cut the bottom off with the HP filter and boost at the same time. For example, you can make quite a nice change to the timbre of a bass sound by selecting the low cut filter (say to 50 hz) and boosting the low shelf at 60 hz. You get clean, punchy bass with no unwanted "woof".

Utitily

bitred: A bit reduction effect with setable dithering.

KanakaMS5: M/S decoder.

KanakaMS5Encoder1: M/S encoder.