Spectral Resonator
Spectral Resonator
Spectral Resonator uses spectral resonances and pitched overtones to add tonal character to any audio source. You can highlight chosen frequencies of the resonating partials and alter their decay, creating either short percussive reverberations or long washed-out tones. Choose which frequencies are affected through an internal resonator or via an external MIDI sidechain. Similar to a vocoder, you can use the MIDI input to place the resonances in key with its surrounding musical elements, playing the effect polyphonically with up to 16 voices. Spectral Resonator also offers several spectral processing types on the input signal, including spectral filtering, spectral chorus, and granularization.
Spectral Resonator uses a spectrogram to display how frequencies in the dry and wet signals behave over time. Dry signals are represented in yellow, while wet signals are shown in blue. You can hide the visualization by clicking on its toggle button.
On the left side of the device, you will find the Pitch Mode section. Different controls are available depending on whether Internal mode or MIDI mode is selected.
When Internal mode is enabled, Spectral Resonator will be tuned to the frequency set by the Freq dial. The frequency can be set either in Hertz or to a specific pitch; to toggle between the two options, use the Frequency Dial Mode buttons. Note that the MIDI mode controls are disabled in Internal mode.
When MIDI mode is enabled, Spectral Resonator can be tuned to the frequencies of incoming MIDI notes. When MIDI mode is enabled, the MIDI router, Mono/Poly switch, Polyphony control, MIDI Gate, Glide and Pitch Bend range controls are also enabled.
The MIDI router allows you to choose any MIDI track as a source.
The Mono/Poly switch enables polyphony for incoming MIDI, enabling you to send polyphonic material such as chords to Spectral Resonator. You can choose between 2, 4, 8, or 16 voices in the Polyphony chooser. The number of harmonics set by the Harmonics control are evenly distributed between the voices, resulting in fewer harmonics per voice when high voice counts are used. The combination of high Polyphony and Unison values will create a darker sound.
When the MIDI Gate button is activated, the device behaves like an instrument, and will only resonate while MIDI notes are being played. In Polyphonic mode, MIDI Gate is always active, so you will need to play MIDI notes to produce sound.
The Glide parameter adjusts the time in milliseconds over which it takes notes to slide their pitch to the next incoming pitch. Note that this is only active in Mono mode. The PB parameter defines the effect of MIDI pitch bend messages, allowing a range of 0-24 semitones. Note that Spectral Resonator is also able to receive MPE.
The Harmonics parameter (in the upper right corner of the spectrogram) changes the number of harmonics. More harmonics will lead to a brighter sound and fewer to a darker sound. Note also that a higher number of harmonics increases the CPU usage.
Stretch increases or decreases the spacing between the harmonics. Values below 0 will compress the distance, while values above 0 will stretch it. At 100%, only odd harmonics are created, which leads to a square-wave type sound.
Shift transposes the input signal’s spectrum up or down within a range of +/- 48 semitones. Note that this does not shift the spectrum of the actual effect, but rather the spectrum of the signal which is fed to the effect.
Decay adjusts the decay time in milliseconds. A higher value leads to sustained tones. HF Damp sets the amount of damping applied to high frequency partials. LF Damp sets the amount of damping applied to low frequency partials.
For both HF Damp and LF Damp, the frequencies affected by the control shift with the pitch of the Freq knob (when in Internal mode), or with any incoming MIDI notes (when in MIDI mode).
Using the available switches, you can choose between four Modulations Modes:
- None applies no modulation.
- Chorus applies triangle wave modulation for every partial. When Mod Rate is set to 0, this mode only modulates the amplitudes of the partials.
- Wander uses random sawtooth waveforms as the modulation source for each partial.
- Granular modulates the amplitude of all partials randomly, using exponential decay envelopes. The partials are generated at random and, in this mode, the Mod Rate parameter affects the density of the partials.
Both Wander and Granular modes will affect each individual Unison voice, creating very warbly, dense and indistinct sounds.
All Modulation Modes are also affected by the Mod Rate and Pch. Mod (pitch modulation) parameters. Mod Rate sets the modulation rate, while Pch. Mod adjusts the range of pitch modulation in semitones. Though Pch. Mod displays only a positive value, pitch modulation is applied in both a positive and negative direction (except in Granular mode, where the grain envelopes are only applied in a positive direction).
The Input Send dial sets the amount of gain applied to the processed signal. There is also a built-in limiter, to ensure that no signal gets too loud. The LED next to the Input Send dial will light up if the limiter is in use.
The Unison parameter allows you to choose 1, 2, 4, or 8 voices, while Unison Amount (displayed as “Uni. Amt”) adjusts the intensity of the unison effect. A higher Unison value increases the number of voices, and increasing the Unison Amount causes the voices to become further detuned from each other.
The Dry/Wet adjusts the balance between the processed and dry signals and modifies the visibility of the two signals in the spectrogram. Set Dry/Wet to 100% when using Spectral Resonator in a return track.
