nvrl
4b1a89626e
- Quench 0.1.0: first release. - Ballast 0.1.0: first release. - Mark both released in docs/ideas.md and add them to the release table.
Ballast
Ballast levels every note or switch-up of a bassline to one loudness, with a single gain for each. Current version 0.1.0.
Riddim and dubstep basslines change patch every few beats. Patches at the same peak level still differ in how loud they sound, so each switch-up lands at a different loudness and gets hand-set gain or clipping. A compressor would even them out but also change their envelope and punch. Ballast measures each part's loudness and gives the whole part one gain: inside a part nothing moves.
Install on Windows
Copy Ballast.clap into C:\Program Files\Common Files\CLAP\. In FL Studio
2024.1 or newer, open Options → Manage plugins, enable Verify plugins, and Find
installed plugins. Load Ballast in the mixer slot of the bass, after its sound
design. Keep the font license with redistributed packages.
Work with it
- Choose where a part starts with Parts from:
- Notes: every note start, detected from the audio, or from MIDI notes sent to the effect (Notes from: AUDIO or MIDI).
- Grid: every line of the host's beat grid, from 1 bar to 1/16. Use it when a switch-up changes the patch on the same note: the note tracker does not see a new note there.
- Play the bassline and press LEARN just before the switch-up that sits right in the mix. Its loudness becomes the Target. You can also set Target by hand.
- Watch the display: one bar per part with its loudness as it came in, and a mark where Ballast puts it. The marks line up on the target line.
- Lower Amount to keep some of the differences: 50 % halves them.
The panel shows the spread of the last 16 parts, in and out: the standard deviation of their loudness in dB. In the editor preview four patches spread by 7 dB come out within 0.4 dB; the rest is what Range left.
Other controls:
- Range is the most boost or cut a part gets.
- Measure from: the measurement hears only what is above this frequency; the gain still applies to the whole signal. When Anvil makes the sub on the bus, set it to Anvil's Split: Anvil replaces the sub anyway, so only the part above it should decide the gain.
- Gate is the note-start threshold (Audio). A part quieter than the gate keeps the last part's gain instead of being lifted, so rests and tails are not pulled up.
- Output trims the level; Bypass crossfades to the delayed input.
How it measures
A part's loudness is its K-weighted level (ITU-R BS.1770, the weighting behind LUFS) over its first 100 ms, or over all of it when it is shorter. The level is counted in 10 ms blocks, and blocks 20 dB under the part's loudest block are left out. Each part is weighted from rest, as if it played alone, so the last part's level does not ring into it.
The gain glides to the new value over 5 ms and is in place on the part's first sample, so the attack already has the new level. Later parts of a long note keep that gain: Ballast does not follow the note's envelope.
Timing and limits
Latency is the note tracker's lookahead (about 67 ms), the 100 ms measuring window and the 5 ms glide, about 172 ms in all, reported to the host for delay compensation. That is too much for playing live through Ballast: add it for the mix.
In Grid mode the grid follows the host's beat position while it plays and runs on at the last tempo when it stops. A note start found by a change of pitch can come about 20 ms early, inside the gap before the note; the block gate keeps that gap out of the measurement. Two parts closer than 10 ms are merged.
Ballast decides from the first 100 ms of a part. A patch that swells after that, or a note whose loudness depends on what plays with it, is levelled by its start only. It levels loudness, not brightness: two patches at the same loudness can still differ in tone.