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Ballast gives every part of a bassline one gain that brings it to the target loudness, with no compression inside a part. Parts start at note starts, detected from the audio or taken from MIDI, or on the host's beat grid, so a patch change on the same note counts too. - Loudness is K-weighted over each part's first 100 ms, in 10 ms blocks with a relative gate, and every part is weighted from rest so the last part does not ring into it. - The audio path is delayed by the tracker's lookahead, the window and a 5 ms glide, so each gain is in place on its part's first sample. - Learn takes the next part's loudness as the target. Amount, Range, Measure from (leave the sub out), Gate, Output, Bypass. - Editor shows the last 32 parts in and out, the target, and the spread of the last 16 parts. - Registered in the catalog, workflows, editor-check, README, chain and development docs, and the website copy.
72 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
72 lines
3.7 KiB
Markdown
# Signal chain
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The order of the Bass Foundry plugins in a chain matters. Anvil, Lathe, Temper,
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Knurl, Planish, Braze and Ballast each detect the pitch from the audio they receive. If a plugin earlier
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in the chain changes the audio, the pitch detection after it can go wrong.
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## Recommended order
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```text
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bass track: synth → Lathe → Temper → Planish → Braze → Knurl → Patina → Ballast → Weld
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bass bus: Anvil → (bus compression) → Quench → Crucible
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master: … → Quench (last, or before a true-peak limiter)
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```
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- **Lathe and Temper before Knurl.** They hear the plain synth, where the pitch
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is clear.
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- **Planish after the distortion, before Knurl.** OTT usually comes after
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distortion. Planish's band edges follow the tracked note, so it also needs a
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clear pitch: after Knurl, use MIDI.
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- **Braze after Planish.** Its copy beats against the bass, so a pitch
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detector after it is less sure: Knurl after Braze works best in MIDI mode.
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Weld after Braze sees the beating as a looser match between the layers; if
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it reads Loose, move Braze to the bus after Anvil, with Low cut at or above
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Anvil's Split. There it reads the pitch from Anvil's clean sub, and the sub
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stays out of the beating.
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- **Ballast after the sound design.** It levels what the patch finally sounds
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like, so it comes after the distortion, OTT and Patina. It finds note starts
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like the other tracked plugins: after Knurl, use MIDI or Grid. Weld and Anvil
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come after it. On the bus with Anvil, set Measure from to Anvil's Split.
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- **Knurl last among the pitch-tracked plugins.** See below. Ballast only
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needs note starts; after Knurl, run it from MIDI or the grid.
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- **Patina after the tracked plugins.** It does not detect pitch, so the order
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does not change its result.
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- **Weld after every plugin with latency on its track.** Weld can delay its own
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layer but cannot move it earlier. If FL Studio does not compensate the
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sidechain route, any latency added after Weld's input on the main layer makes
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that layer late.
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- **Anvil on the bus, in MIDI mode when Knurl is in the chain.** For Kick
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lock, send the kick's track to Anvil as a sidechain.
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- **Quench last on the bus or the master.** It clips the top and leaves the sub
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alone, so put it where you would put a clipper. On the bass bus after Anvil,
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set its Split at or a little above Anvil's Split: Anvil's sub then passes
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Quench untouched. Quench does not detect pitch, so it can sit after Knurl.
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- **Crucible at the end of the chain you want to resample.**
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## Knurl and pitch detection
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Knurl's patterns make every second (or third) cycle quieter. That is a real
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sub-octave in the signal, so a pitch detector after Knurl hears the note one
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octave low, or with Triple an octave and a fifth low. Measured with the suite's
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tracker on a saw bass:
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- From C2 (65 Hz) upwards, Double, Fry (the default), Triple and Gallop make
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the detector read the wrong octave for about 85 % of the note.
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- Below C2 the false sub-octave is under 30 Hz, out of the detection range, so
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low notes are tracked correctly.
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- Level and time jitter add 5–25 false note starts per second. Anvil restarts
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its phase on each, Lathe, Temper and Planish retune on each.
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When a tracked plugin must come after Knurl, select **MIDI** as its pitch source
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and route the bass's MIDI notes to it.
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## Latency
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Each tracked plugin adds its own lookahead: Anvil 80 ms, Lathe, Temper,
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Planish and Braze about 67 ms, Knurl about 71 ms, Patina about 45 ms, Ballast
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about 172 ms, Quench under 1 ms. A full chain is
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about 400 ms. FL
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Studio compensates this for playback and rendering, but playing a MIDI keyboard
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through the full chain is not practical. Write with a shorter chain and add the
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rest for the mix.
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