Franco Catrin's
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DeFX Plug-in at detail
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The current version of DeFX includes 6 effects that can be activated simultaneously and
configured separately. For each effect I've included a little demo (22Khz mono)
using an extract of one Dream Theater's song called New Millenium.
After each description you will find a link to donwload the sample file with the
effect applied to it. But, before that, you must
download the sample file without effects to note the
difference.
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| 1. Chorus |
This effect is mostly used on voices or basses. It adds an aditional voice, so you
hear like there are two sound sources. Most people have difficulty to recognize it, but
most musicians will appreciate it.
The chorus effect uses a varying delay that make the second
voice sound somewhat different from the main voice. An additional delay is added to the
varying delay to avoid flanging.
There are seven parameters for chorus.
- The first is the AMOUNT. You can select how much effect is applied to your sound.
- The second is the LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) waveform used for the varying delay.
Select between triangular, sinusoidal and exponential.
- The RATE of the varying delay,
left values (lowest) give a slow variation.
- The DEPTH of the variation, higher values give a wide variation.
- With AMOUNT you can select how much effect is applied to your sound.
- FEEDBACK tells how much of the output signal is sended to the input. Try high
settings of this parameter to increase the presence of the effect
- The STEREO option makes the left channel to be out if phase from the right, so
you have different chorus on left and right.
Hear the second voice: Download sample file with chorus
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| 2. Flange |
This is another delay based effect. Its use is more common, surely you have heard it
before. It's hard to descibe how it sounds, but you can do the following experiment: take an
empty cup of tea (make sure it's empty :) and put it over one ear, like if you would
hear the void. That sound is similar to flange.
Flange uses the same algorithm than chorus except that the additional delay is removed,
so you can easily have amplifications and cancelations of the original waveform.
The parameters of flange are the same of chorus.
Feel the waves: Download sample file with flange
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| 3. Phaser |
Some people tend to confuse about this effect. It's very similar to flanger but with
a really distinctive sound. It's a varying filter wich make some frequency cancelations
and amplifications. It's very weird at hi feedback settings!!
There is no sample for this effect yet
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| 4. Voice Removal |
This is one of the simplest and most popular effect. It removes the mono channel on stereo
sounds. Most singers record their voice on the mono channel, so, if you remove it,
you can remove its voice.
The bad thing is that the voice cannot be removed if it is not
recorded at the mono channel, another bad thing is that any other sound that lies in the
mono channel will be removed also.
I figured this effect a long time ago, while I was pluging my phones to the radio,
there was a position when the signal turns to mono and some of the vocals and another
sounds were removed, that make me think about this way to do it. But nobody believed
me that it could be so easy!!! (hey CesarHM).
To remove the center channel I add the inverted left to the right and vice-versa, using
that, all the sound that is common to both channels is cancelled out!.
I mean the folowing.
If L is the left channel and R the right, the sound is in the form of:
L = X * Z
R = Y + Z
Where X is the Left component, Y the right and Z the mono component. Them Voice removal do:
VR = (L-R) = (X+Z) - (Y+Z) = X-Y
With the parameter AMOUNT you indicate the volume of the mono channel, higher
values give you the lowest volume.
In the sample, you will not hear the center channel, that includes bass and
main drums, while the funky guitar (right channel) and additional drums (left channel)
are amplified. Download it
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| 5. Pitch Change |
This is a GREAT effect. You can change the pitch of the sound, without altering its
tempo. Quite soon I'll be working to extend this effect so you can change the
tempo without altering pitch!.
For now, you can move pitch from 10 semitones below to 10 semitones above. Far
away from that makes little sense because the singal will be very distorted.
Now the we have raised the tone: Download sample file one tone above
This effect is not ported to v0.97 yet (due to source code reorganization)
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| 6. Reverberation |
This effect tries to simulate the sound that is reflected by the walls or objects
that sorround the sound source. For example, if you clap your hands on an empty hangar,
its not the same that doing it at you bedroom, the first will sound 'fatter' than the
second.
My reverb uses a simplified algorithm (4 combos, no ER) to reduce the amount of CPU
power needed. Previous versions of DeFX also used floating point math, but the poor
performance obtained on some CPU's (like AMD K6), make me rewrite the routine to
use fixed point math. That reduced the CPU use from 70% to 30% in my P200MMX.
You can change 3 parameters:
- The LENGTH parameter change the time reverb takes to decay, higher
values give you a long decay time. If you can simulate large rooms, use high values.
- You can change the amount of reverb added to the original singal using the
LEVEL parameter.
- The INPUT parameter change the amount of original signal used to produce
the resulting signal. If you use low values you will hear like you were far away from
the sound source.
Take care while using higher values for the three parameters, you can easily get
a clipped output. To avoid this, if you want a lot of reverb with no clip, try lower
values of the INPUT parameter.
Now we are playing on a bigger room: Download sample file with reverb
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| 7. Balance |
This another simple effect. It lets you hear any of the two channels (left and right)
on both ears. I made it to transcribe some songs where keyboards were recorded on left
and guitars on right. Hope you find an use to it too:)
The only parameter you change is the amount of presence of one channel on both speakers.
On the Center position you have a normal output.
The file now is splitted on left and right channel. Notice that left channels
contains some drums while right channel contains the guitar:
Download left channel of sample file,
download right channel of sample file
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