PD Space Guitar Synthesizer Forum

the Cabinet and Reverb are 2 IR engines (IR = Impulse Response)
They are stock material and not highly optimised. When used an a plugin, using a reverb in your host is mostly preferable. In standalone mode this concern is ofcourse less pressing, however if you're set on getting the lowest possible latency, you might want to turn at least the reverb off ( the cabinet does shorter IR's, and uses less CPU

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CABINET - turn the speakersim on
LEVEL   - mixlevel
the dark button is clickable an opens a popup to choose from a list of speaker IR's

REVERB - turn the speakersim on
LEVEL   - mixlevel
the dark button is clickable an opens a popup to choose from a list of reverb IR's

The MOD tab contains 2 effects, that work with time
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MOD - the centered label is also the on/off switch of this modulator
BLEND - mixes the dry signal with the modulated signal. The mix of 50% gives the most rich sound.
FREQ - speed with which the modulator delay changes.
DEPTH - how much time the modulator is using at the max.
STEREO - makes it stereo by altering the modulation phase between left and right.
FEEDBACK - feedback in a delayed signal leads to colorisation, which with changing time constants leads to a bit of caleidoscopic flavour.

DELAY - the centered label is also the on/off switch of this delay
LEVEL - mixlevel
TIME - delay time in milliseconds
FEEDBACK - determines how many repeats you get
TONE - a bandpass filter to colorise the delayed tone..
Q - ..the severness of this colorisation. Keep  this at 0 for straight delays. the colorisation is incremental with every repeat of the delay: this is used to get a bit of oldschool delay flavour

MOD->DELAY signal order: first modulate, then delay
DELAY->MOD signal order: first delay, then modulate[/b]

To avoid confusion at forehand: this is not claiming to be a guitaramp!
It is an easy to use "EQ-LIMITER-OVERDRIVE".
For guitarsynths, fullfledged tubeamp emulations are often too thick, the aim from this amp is to be transparent: the guitarsynth allready creates enough harmonics..
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LOW CUT - highpass filter, the displayed numbers are midinotes. 28-Bassguitar low E', 40-guitar low E. Note that for leads, often a very high LOW CUT is used in productions, to focus the guitar more into a violin range. Same goes for acoustic guitars!
MID - this 800hz "mid scoop" is a typical feature of electric guitaramps.
SWEEP GAIN - A parametric sweeping EQ..
SWEEP FREQ - ..with its center freq. Again: midi note display.
TREBLE Cutoff the hight frequencies. This filter is placed *after* limiter and overdrive!
GATE - A simple noisegate
GAIN - GAIN pumps up the volume until it limits, so this is also a 1 knob sustainer
OVERDRIVE - does what it says, is however most usefull for mild usage.
LEVEL - master output level. Note that the slider on the right of the interface, is the master after mod, delay, reverb and cabinet. This is just the amp

COMP->DRIVE - in this mode you get the max sustain with a more constant edge of the overdrive
DRIVE->COMP - in this mode you get more dynamics with a more dynamic edge of the overdrive
 

the REMOTE tab has midi controllable siders in it.
Incoming MIDI CC (Continuous Controller) commands can be linked to the 4 Sliders.

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there Sliders are
VOLUME  -

• OFF - slider is disabled
• BLEND - slider will go from 0 to max BLEND. The BLEND knob needs to be at the max synth level you want to achieve
• SYNTH - this levels the output of the signal going to the amp, dry plus synth
• AMP - master ouput level of teh amp

WHAMMY  -

• MAX SHIFT - The shift is summed upon the normal shift that is determined by OCT and PITCH.
• MARGIN -This will ignore a certain percentage of your footpedal's range at the heel and toe. This assures that your guitar will sound in tune. More extreme settings will make this a pitch switch instead of a glide

FILTER  -

• moves the cutoff from MIN to MAX. The SENSE knob also does this, so if you want just this slider to control the cutoff, set SENSE to 0

HOLD  -

• HOLD - the knob on the bottom is the master hold switch: it can work like a normal piano hold pedal
• Auto Hold Level - whenever HOLD is activated, this determines the level at which the hold buffer will be refreshed with new sound. For a new sound to be detected, the attack has to be more than 100mS. this is to ensure that pickattacks and noise are not sustained
  Regardless of this setting, the buffer will fill at each press of the HOLD knob.
  Just turn Auto hold Level at 30dB, and it will never fire.
  **PLEASE BEWARE**: using Auto Hold, requires clean in tune playing without glides and bends, otherwise the none chromatic content of your guitar's sound will slip into the hold buffer!
  
• Decay - The decay time of the hold signal
• Damping - Often it is unnatural to have the higher frequencies sustained that long. A higher setting here will shorten the life of the higer frequencies in the holdbuffer.

First tab is SHAPE, here the actual synthesizer lives:
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BLEND -  blends the dry guitarsignal with the synth signal: the output is send to the AMP
TRESHOLD - this is not a normal gate, it is a spectral gate, meaning every frequency component indivdually has to cross the treshold to be heard.
ATTACK - this knob can slow down the attack, again for everyfrequencycomponent independently
OCT - pitches the whole spectrum in octave steps
PITCH - pitches the whole spectrum in halfnote steps
DROP - splits the spectrum into 2 parts: the lower part is dropped ("lowered") 1 octave.
DOUBLER - adds an extra voice: 1..9 unisono with varying detuna, 10..19 added fifth with varying detune, 20..30 added octave with varying detune.
LATENCY - normal setting for guitar is 20%. If you dont play lower chords, you might like to set it to 10% for faster playfeel. For bass guitar, you might set it to 50%, it will then sound clean on the low E. This knob does *not* alter the CPU usage in any way, in contrast to the buffersize setting in the audio config!

Now we get to the additive synthesis part:
HX OFF - no extra harmonics are added. You basically hear a representation of your normal guitar.
SAW - adds all multiples of the source frequency components.
SQUARE - adds odd multiples of the source frequency components.
BRIGHT - adds even multiples of the source frequency components.

The level of the added harmonics are ruled by a filtering scheme:
LP  - (Low Pass) the harmonics are added from 0 up to the cutoff frequency.
HP - (High Pass) the harmonics are added from cutoff frequency onward.
BP  - (Band Pass) the harmonics are only added around the cutoff frequency.

+ORIG The filterschemes above can mute the sound. If you want to allways have the original frequencies in the output, this knob will do just that!

SENSE - the sensitivity to the input: high sense will move the cutoff from MIN to MAX
ATTACK - the SENSE envelop can be slowed doen here to create interesting attack filter effects.
MIN - this is the rest position of the cuttof. If SENSE is 0, this will 100% determine the cutoff position. (Note that REMOTE/Filter uses this as min too!)
MAX - This is the MAX position which can be reached by SENSE. (Note that REMOTE/Filter uses this as a max too!)
RESONANCE - In LP and HP mode, this determines the height of the bulge at the cutoff frequency. In BP mode there is only this bulge, so it will work there as a pure volume for the filtered harmonics.
TONE - The added harmonics can be much brighter than your guitar. Therefore this knob can tone down the synthy sound. Note that the +ORIG knob's original spectrum contribution will be not affected by this. This means you can have bright guitar, filled in by synth in the lower frequencies.


At last, but not least, there is the dynamic modulation section:
OFF - no dynamic modulation
TREM - a tremolo with depth DEPTH, speed FREQ. The ATTACK above 0 will postpone the effect on newly plucked sound. ATTACK below 0 will only use the effect on newly p lucked sound.
DETUNE - A detune with 1 octave max DEPTH. The ATTACK above 0 will start the note at a lower point to glide into the normal frequency. ATTACK below 0 will glide in from above.
VIB - a vibrato with depth DEPTH, speed FREQ. The ATTACK above 0 will postpone the effect on newly plucked sound. ATTACK below 0 will only use the effect on newly p lucked sound.