Audio Effects

Audio Effects

Renoise currently offers 22 built-in audio effects which can be applied as Track DSPs on any track. These are guaranteed to be included with every Renoise installation. This ensures that songs made using these effects can be played by other people on their setup exactly as you do. However, this is not the case with plugin effects or instruments (VST, AU or LADSPA). These are optional components that have to be installed on a system in order to be played back in a Renoise song.

Below is a list of the current Renoise plugins organised by category, with links to detailed descriptions for each of them:

• Delay
  • Delay
  • Reverb
  • mpReverb

• Dynamics
  • Bus Compressor
  • Compressor
  • Gate
  • Maximizer

• Filter
  • EQ 5
  • EQ 10
  • Filter
  • Mixer EQ

• Modulation
  • Chorus
  • Flanger
  • Phaser
  • Ringmod

• Shape
  • Cabinet Simulator
  • Distortion
  • LofiMat
  • Scream Filter

• Tools
  • Gainer
  • DC Offset
  • Stereo Expander

Shape Devices

Shape Devices modify the amplitude of the signal in various ways.

Cabinet Simulator

The Cabinet Simulator emulates the sound of hardware amplification cabinets. It features a tube that is used for distortion and a built in EQ. This effect is recommended for bass, synth, guitar or drums, to add roughness to your sound. Also try combining it with the other Shape Devices and/or chaining multiple Cabinet Devices for interesting effects.

• Cabinet: Select the type of the Cabinet that should be used. There are bass, guitar and various other models available.
• Routing: Set how the Cabinet Simulator should internally route the signal through the cabinet, EQ and tube.
• Gain: Amount of Gain applied in the tube. More Gain will result in more distortion.
• Wet Mix: How much of the processed signal should be kept.
• Dry Mix: How much of the original, clean signal should be kept.
• EQ: A standard EQ with 5 bands and Q settings. See EQ 5 for a detailed description.
• Mono/Stereo: When set to Mono, incoming stereo signals will be combined and processed as a mono signal only. The Cabinet is twice as fast in Mono, so this can be useful to save on CPU consumption if the input signal is mono.

Distortion

The Distortion effect is a versatile way of changing an input sound in real-time to produce a range of characteristic distortion sounds, from traditional overdrive to bizarre sonic extremes.

• Mode Type - Four buttons select the type of distortion:
  • Razor: Razor mode cuts off the top of the waveform by amplifying and clamping the signal, also known as clipping. This gives the traditional digital overdrive sound that is quite harsh and full in character.
  • Shape: Similar to Razor mode, except that instead of clipping, the signal is saturated. This results in a warmer sounding overdrive that emulates analogue distortion.
  • Fold: Instead of clipping or saturating, part of the waveform is folded back towards the DC line, giving the waveform a slightly triangular shape. This is an aggressive foldback type distortion that mangles the sound and growls fiercely at high gain.
  • Shift: Shift mode generates a new waveform from the original by folding amplitudes below the DC line. The introduced DC offset is corrected by shifting the signal. This is a noise-floor distortion with a very scratchy sounding character.
• Drive: Controls the amount of distortion. Depending on the selected mode, different amounts of drive produce different sound characteristics.
• Tone: Controls a pre-filter for adjusting distortion colour. Values above 0% add brightness to the sound, whereas values below 0% dull the sound.
• Wet Mix: Controls the output volume of distorted sound. Initially set to full volume.
• Dry Mix: Controls the volume of the unaltered original signal. Initially set to silent.

Tips and tricks

• The Wet Mix will usually need to be reduced, depending on the amount of distortion applied.
• Sometimes the distortion can sound too harsh or 'cold' - this can be countered by adding a small amount of Dry Mix to add warmth.
• Extreme distortion can bring out a lot of harmonic overtones and high frequency detail - sometimes not all of it is desired. This can be controlled with a Low Pass Filter after the distortion effect.

LofiMat

The LofiMat degrades the input signals quality by either lowering the bit-depth or lowering the effective sample rate of the signal. Applied softly, this can add nice harmonics.

• Bit Crunch: The applied bit-depth.
• Quality: The applied sample rate.
• Noise: Amount of extra noise that should be added to the signal. The noise will also be degraded by the Bit Crunch.
• Wet Mix: How much of the processed signal should be kept.
• Dry Mix: How much of the original, clean signal should be kept.

Scream Filter

The Scream Filter is a unique combination of a Filter and a Shift Distortion. Because of the resonating and distorted feedback, it often sounds as if it is screaming, hence the name.

• Type: Select the basic filter type: Low or High Pass.
• Distortion: How much distortion should be applied.
• Cutoff: Cutoff frequency of the filter.
• Resonance: Amount of resonance applied to the filter.
• Inertia: Determines how fast parameter changes are applied. Low Inertia will create sweeping effects by noticeably sliding from one parameter setting to another.

Tools Devices

The Tools Devices are a small set of utilities which are often useful to "correct" sounds.

Gainer

The Gainer simply amplifies and pans a signal, just like the Pre/Post-Mixer devices. The advantage of having a dedicated device for this though, is that you can apply volume and panning changes at any position in the DSP effect chain.

• Gain: Sets the volume level.
• Panning: Sets the panning of the signal.
• Inverse: Allows you to invert the phase of each channel separately. This should mainly be used to correct wrongly inverted phases in recordings. Playing back the same signal inverted on one channel creates a spacial effect when speakers are very near to the ear, like with headphones, but further away this is barely audible.

DC Offset

The DC Offset device allows you to shift the signal up and down on the DC line. It is mainly used to correct unwanted DC offsets from signals.

• DC Offset: Shift the signal up or down on the DC line. Use the Scopes to analyse the changes.
• Auto DC: When enabled, incorrect DC offsets will be automatically corrected by the device.

Stereo Expander

The Stereo Expander can strengthen or attenuate the stereo effect of a stereo signal. Surround effects can enrich the stereo field of a mono signal by creating spatial effects. This is more audible on headphones than with speakers.

• Expand: Emphasises or attenuates the differences between the left and right channel.
• Surround: Adds a spatial stereo effect to the signal. This will phase-shift some frequencies of the signal on a single channel to create a stereo effect.
• Mono Mix: When using the Expand option to create a mono signal, you can define which part of the stereo signal should be kept. "L+R" will use the average of both channels.