SFXEngine Bolt-on: Special Engines

The Special Engines Bolt-on contains 6 new special effect engines to boost capabilities of SFXEngine.

Derez will lower the resolution of the sound in the same way that block-pixelisation lowers the quality of an image. Samples are duplicated to effectively downsample the wave without affecting the sample rate. Derez can be used to emulate the effect of playing the sound through outdated or poor quality equipment.

Engram Store stores the current signal in a temporary buffer (called an Engram) for later recall in the signal chain. Engrams can be used to create parallel audio effects in the otherwise linear signal path, or to save data to be re-used or duplicated later in a sound. The signal chain runs through each instrument engine then each environment engine, and engrams can be used at any stage.

Engram Recall recalls a stored engram. Engrams can be used to create parallel audio effects in the otherwise linear signal path, or to save data to be re-used or duplicated later in a future sound. The signal chain runs through each instrument engine then each environment engine, and engrams can be used at any stage.

Monotone Derez is an alternative, newer and more functional version of the Derez engine. Monotone Derez uses millisecs rather than raw sample value, and has optional Noise (modulated) and Smooth parameter. This engine will reduce the resolution of a wave to degrade it.

Oscillator Synchronisation is a classic analogue-synth effect. Oscillator synchronisation works only on analogue waves, not samples, and produces a sweeping robotic effect used in many 1980s-era pop songs. To use the effect, modulate the pitch of an analogue wave such as the Pulse Wave. Change the pitch quite strongly, try a sine wave modulator with a large depth to create a sound like a slow police siren. Put the Oscillator Synchronisation engine into any available slot, the location does not matter, and the effect will be applied. This engine will apply its effect to all analogue waves present.

Positor is a wave shaping effect. Positor will flip any wave values below zero, then expands the wave to once again fill the whole signal. When the Positor is applied to a sine wave the wave will resembling rolling hills, and a saw wave becomes a triangle wave. When applied to samples the effect is often distortion. Apply the effect after a filter sweep for some interesting sounds. Note that due to the sample by sample nature of this effect, anti-aliased engines may sound quite different to non-anti-aliased engines when fed through this effect. Applying this engine after a saw wave in particular can produce noisy results when the engines are anti-aliased. This effect can upset the DC-offset of resulting samples.