In the present version the Space Toad provides 24 build-in effects. These will appear together with the VST plugin effects in the VST | Load / Unload Effect list and can be used just like their VST relatives.
This one simulates the first echoes in a room. It should be put in series before any of the late reverberation simulators for natural sounding reverb.
Width, length & height of the simulated room in meters.
The position of the listener.
The position of the sound source rendering the left channel.
The position of the sound source rendering the right channel.
These reverberation units are the most complex among the build-in reverbs. To emulate the nature of echo build-up in a real room, sound processing runs through two entirely different stages. The first is the 'early reflection' stage which only disperses the sound, the second is the 'late reverb' stage which does the actual reverberation. Note that only the last two reverbs of this series are true stereo, while the first one is not (i.e. left and right channel are boiled down into one mono channel before processing).
The duration of the 'reflection' stage in milliseconds. High values may significantly increase CPU load.
The amount of high frequency damping applied to the sound before it propagates into the 'late reverb' stage. With the full stereo varieties left and right channel can have different values for the pre-processing parameters.
The virtual room size. The large variety design simulates a "complex" room whose dimensions are expressed through 'Size A' and 'Size B'.
The compactness of the 'late reverb'. Low values make the effect sound more like an echo than a reverb. This parameter can be set individually for different parts of the reverb (which parts depends on the reverb design).
Sets the overall duration of the 'late reverb' stage.
Zero means no reverb, 100 % means reverb only.
How quickly high frequencies will get absorbed inside the 'late reverb' loop.
Adjust the output level with this.
These late reverb simulators present the "classic" comb filter design as used in analogue reverb units of old. They sound more dense than the "room simulators" do but also exhibit the metallic tinge typical for vintage reverberators.
How much high frequencies will be damped before entering the reverberation stage (not in the small variety). The large variety also has a low frequency damping control.
The virtual room size.
The appoximate reverberation time.
Zero means no reverb, 100 % means reverb only.
The amount of high frequency absorption.
Adjust the output level with this.
The large variety also has:
How many milliseconds the sound will be delayed before it is send into the reverb.
The feedback level of this initial delay (sound becomes more dense when this is high).
The amount of stereo width.
These late reverberators do not sound very natural compared to the "room simulators", but have an exceptional high density combined with a low diffusion level which makes them suited for reverberating sounds with a very short duration as e.g. drums. They are all mono.
How much high and low frequencies will be damped before entering the reverberation stage.
Controls the reverb density.
The appoximate reverberation time.
Zero means no reverb, 100 % means reverb only.
The amount of high frequency absorption.
An additional post-processing high pass filter for adjusting the tone colour of the reverb.
Adjust the output level with this.
These effects are simple echo providers. For convenience the delay times are not expressed in milliseconds but in musical time to allow easy synchronization with the sequencer tempo.
The "Stereo Delay" consists of the two simple delay lines each operating on one stereo channel:
These two together determine the delay speed.
Determines the number of audible echoes.
The amount of high & low frequency absorption of each delay tap.
The ratio of processed and unprocessed signal.
Adjust the output level with this.
The "Cross Delay" is a little more complex. It consists of four delay lines: The first pair (A+B) is fed by the left and right channel of the input signal, as with the one above. This signal is send to the second pair (C+D), where it is delayed again and then routed back into the A+B pair with swapped channels, so what was originally was on left channel now appears on the right channel and vice versa (hence the name 'cross delay').
A "chorus" effect is nothing but a delay whose speed can be controlled used in conjunction with a low-frequency oscillator that permanently keeps changing that speed. This gives rise to a doppler effect inside the delay: As long as the delay speed increases the pitch of the delayed signal appears to be higher because the vibrations are compressed, as long as it decreases, it appears to be lower, because the vibrations are stretched. When used with a suitable modulation depth this combination of original and detuned copies tends to widen the sound as if many voices were playing instead of one. When used with only minute pitch changes a "flanger" effect will appear instead - a kind of hissing sound caused by the extinction of harmonic spectra produced by phase interferences among the different signals.
The "Stereo Chorus" consists of 2 chorus effects in parallel for left and right channel:
The larger the value the more detuned the output,
The speed of the LFO.
Zero means no chorus, 100 % means chorus only.
How much of the output is fed back into the delay input. High settings can produce a lot of strange artefacts.
"Quadrature Chorus", "Harmonic Chorus" & "Spread Chorus" are chorus units that utilize more than one delay line for an even wider sound. The "Quadrature Chorus" uses 8 delays in parallel arranged at evenly distributed phases. The "Harmonic Chorus" has 4 lines each with an LFO at half the speed of the previous. The "Spread Chorus" consists of 8 lines with LFOs whose speeds are distributed between the "Speed A" and "Speed B" value. Unlike the other ones which keep the LFO speeds at a constant ratio, this last variety may create a lot of strange effects caused by random LFO phase interferences which makes this effect quite unpredictable (but also quite interesting for long drawn sounds), especially when used with a high feedback setting.
The sound of this effect resembles the "cloud of sound" generated by a granular synthesis module although it does not perform granulation in the terms strictest sense. Basically it is an ultra-large chorus delay with 32 delay taps that have controllable amplitude, pitch & pan position. Instead of 32 separate LFOs a cellular automaton with life span counting is used for controlling purposes:
Chooses an algorithm (or rule set) for the cellular automaton. Generations are displayed from left to right. Blue cells denote positive, cyan-ish cells extremely positive, red cells negative and yellow cells extremely negative values. Green or purple sections means that the automaton is oscillating between different kinds of values at this point. Black spaces are empty (do not contain cells) and have zero value.
This only influences the display of the automaton, not the sound. Change this to scroll through different possible stages of the automaton.
The probability of a cell being generated randomly outside the rule set. Some automata will remain static when this is zero.
The number of time units (100 ms) that have to elapse until a new generation is created (only useful for the automaton governing the amplitude).
An inertia factor used for reading out a row. The higher this value is, the slower the parameter will move (only useful for the pitch & pan automata). At 100 % the parameter will be conpletely stuck.
The amount of modation of the given parameter.
Depended on the chosen rule set the panned output may be out-of-balance (much more positive cells than negative or the other way round). Use this control to correct this.
Due to the extreme size of the delay (nearly 12 seconds) this effect may take some time to get going. Try to feed it with heterogeneous material mixed with silence.
By combining two chorus delays a "constant" pitch shift is effected:
The playback speed of the delays determines the pitch of the output.
Zero means no effect, 100 % means effect only.
A "phaser" effect is quite similar to a "flanger", but produces its effect by phase shifting the signal through filtering rather by detuning it.
The number of filters involved. The more filters the less subtle is the effect.
The amount of phasing.
The bottom of the affected frequency window.
The height of the affected frequency window.
The speed of the harmonic shifts.
How much of the output is fed back into the input.
Zero means no effect, 100 % means effect only.
The "Automated Phaser" is a 42-stage phaser, where all filters are individually controlled by a cellular automaton instead of one global LFO (see above).
A very simple overdrive simulator.
The effect amount.
How much high frequencies will be damped before entering.
Zero means no effect, 100 % means effect only.
A distortion unit which applies filtering before entering and after leaving the effect.
Choose between a lowpass (removing high frequencies) and a highpass (removes low frequencies).
The cutoff frequency of the first filter.
Zero means no distortion, 100 % means full distortion.
Choose between a lowpass (removing high frequencies) and a highpass (removes low frequencies).
The cutoff frequency of the second filter.
Zero means no effect, 100 % means effect only.
Makes everything sound as if it rendered by a vintage soundcard. Filtering is applied before entering and after leaving the effect.
Choose between a lowpass (removing high frequencies) and a highpass (removes low frequencies).
The cutoff frequency of the first filter.
Makes it sound as if your soundcard had only this amount of bits.
Makes it sound as if your soundcard had this maximum samplerate.
Choose between a lowpass (removing high frequencies) and a highpass (removes low frequencies).
The cutoff frequency of the second filter.
Zero means no effect, 100 % means effect only.
A simple, but effective device for creating a phony stereo image for a mono signal by running the input through a 3-band filter and then providing a seperate pan position and delay for each of the 3 bands.
The boundaries dividing the three regions.