Delay And Its Parameters; Chorus And Flange - PRESONUS StudioLive III Series Owner's Manual

13 Resources
13.9 Effect Types
13.9.2

Delay and its Parameters

13.9.3

Chorus and Flange

Early Reflections. Early reflections are those that reach the listener a few
milliseconds after the direct signal arrives. Your brain uses them to identify the size of
the room you're in. If you are trying to simulate a specific type of room, this control
will be extremely important. This control allows you to set the level (in decibels) of
the early reflections. The louder the early reflections, the smaller the room will seem.
A delay essentially creates an echo, although you can often use delays to create more
complex time-based effects. The source signal is delayed so that it is heard later than
it actually occurred.
Below are some of the most common reverb parameters for the delay effects:
Time. This is the time (in milliseconds) between the source signal and its echo. The
simplest delay effect is a single repeat. A short delay between 30 and 100 ms can
be used to create slap-back echo, while longer delay times produce a more distant
echo. Delay times that are too short to hear as distinct echoes can be used to create
thickening effects. Whether these echoes are timed with the tempo is a matter of
stylistic choice.
This is the parameter that is controlled by the Tap Tempo button. Using the Tap
button on the StudioLive, you can speed up or slow down these repeats or, more
commonly, time the repeats to occur with the tempo of the music.
Power User Tip: While you have to select the Time parameter in order to use the Tap
button, you only have to do this the first time you use the Tap button for that effect. Once
the Tap button has been used to control the Time parameter, it will always control the
time of that particular delay, no matter what page you are currently viewing. To assign
the Tap button to control another delay, simply navigate to that delay's Time parameter
and use the button to enter the desired delay time.
Time X. Time X is the value of the beat you are using as a reference for the tempo. The
basic unit of measure is a quarter note, so for example, if the beats you are tapping
represent quarter notes in the music, you would set Time X to 1.00. If they are eighth
notes, you would set Time X to 0.50; half notes would be 2.00; and so on. In this way,
you can precisely synchronize or syncopate the delay echoes to the music in real
time.
Variable Feedback. Variable feedback, or regeneration, produces multiple decaying
repeats. Increasing the feedback value increases the number of echoes, as well as the
resonance that is created as one echo disappears into another.
F_Frequency. Sets the center frequency in Hz for the Filter Delay. F_Gain. Sets the
boost at the center frequency for the Filter Delay.
F_Q. Sets the Q for the Filter Delay. The Q is the ratio of the center frequency to
the bandwidth. When the center frequency is constant, the bandwidth is inversely
proportional to the Q, so as you raise the Q, you narrow the bandwidth.
Close relatives of delay effects, modulation effects change the pitch and time of a
delayed signal using a Low Frequency Oscillator or LFO. Two of the most common
modulation effects are chorus and flange.
Created by mixing two identical signals together and delaying one of the signals by
a constantly varying time, the flanger is perhaps the simplest of modulation effects.
The resulting effect creates a kind of whooshing sound as the delay signal rises and
falls in varying parts of the frequency spectrum.
Similar to a flanger, a chorus effect is created by mixing the source signal with one or
more pitch-shifted copies of it. Each copy is then modulated by an LFO. A chorus is
different from a flanger in several ways. First, the time between the modulated delay
signal and the original source signal is longer in a chorus than it is in a flanger. Also,
a flanger only has one delayed signal, whereas a chorus may have two or more. And
finally, choruses do not feed any of the processed signal back into the processor.
StudioLive™ Series III
Owner's Manual
139