C O N T E N T S CONTENTS 2 THANKS! 4 INTRO About FilterFreak What and Who is SoundToys? 5 5 5 GETTING STARTED System Requirements Installing FilterFreak Registration 6 6 6 7 USING FILTERFREAK What’s a Filter 8 8 Basics Knobs Toggle Switches LED Displays 8 8 9 9 Accessing FilterFreak Real-Time Processing (RTAS or HTDM) Non-Real Time Processing (AudioSuite) 10 10 11 Using FilterFreak Within Pro Tools The FilterFreak Preset Library Compare Button Bypass Using Parameter Automation Locking FilterF
C O N T E N T S (continued) Modulation Controls Choosing a Modulation Mode LFO Mode Rhythm Mode Envelope Mode Random S/H Mode Random Step Mode ADSR Mode Tweak Page 24 24 25 27 30 31 32 33 35 FilterFreak 2 Serial/Parallel Mode Link Tweak Page 36 36 37 37 Summary 38 FINAL PAGE Getting Help More SoundToys Products The Wave Mechanics Product Line Trademark Info 39 39 40 41 41 3
T H A N K S ! First off we’d like to give you a loud THANK YOU for purchasing FilterFreak! We know there are an awful lot of plug-ins for you to choose from and we are truly grateful that you have chosen to spend your hard earned scratch (old school for "cash") on our product. We take a lot of pride in our work and we sincerely hope that you find Filter Freak inspirational and musically useful.
I N T R O (the one that comes before the sequel!) About Filter Freak FilterFreak is the first in a series of totally cool new plug-ins to come out of the Wave Mechanics / Sound Toys plug-in development lab. A ridiculous amount of programming time, head scratching, listening and tweaking has gone into the development and design of FilterFreak in order to provide you with a wealth of incredibly realistic, powerful and truly "analog sounding" filters.
G E T T I N G S T A R T E D System Requirements FilterFreak is a software plug-in for the Digidesign ProTools system. You’ll need to have at least one decent Macintosh computer running OS 9.1 or later and of course you’ll need a copy of ProTools version 5.0 or later.
Registration Please register your product by going to http://www.soundtoys.com/register If you chose not to register your product during the FilterFreak installation, please take a moment to register FilterFreak by going to http://www.soundtoys.com/register. We also strongly recommend that you go to http://www.iLok.com, set up an iLok.com account, and register your FilterFreak authorization.
U S I N G F I LT E R F R E A K What’s a Filter? (For those in the know you can skip this section) Filtering got its start in the world of music with analog synths, and the filter is really the key to what makes those old beasts so cool. Simple put, filters are used to remove parts of the audio signal, and when done well are one of the most useful tools available to shape your sound.
Adjusting a Knob with Fine Control To get finer control over knob values, hold down the apple ð key while dragging the mouse. Toggle Switches In an effort to provide the feeling of real analog gear our toggle switches “switch” when clicked. To change the “state” of a toggle switch (like the analog/digital control), simply click on the switch – it will change from where it was to the “other” setting. Click again to change it back.
Pop-Up Menus & Changing Values: For most text-based readouts (meaning things that aren’t a number), like LFO Wave Shape etc, clicking on the readout with the mouse will display a popup menu. To change a value in the popup, hold down the mouse button and drag to select the desired value and let go. The selected entry will show up in the filed, or a new pop-up window may appear depending on what you have selected.
You can insert as many versions of FilterFreak as you’d like, just keep in mind that each one gobbles up certain amount of CPU cycles and can make your computer start to sweat in terms of what’s left over for other tasks. Non-Real Time Processing (AudioSuite) If you want to save computer power, FilterFreak can also be used to process a specific region of audio destructively. This is done in ProTools using the AudioSuite version of FilterFreak.
Using FilterFreak Within ProTools FilterFreak is designed to be very integrated with Pro Tools, supporting all of the ‘standard’ Pro Tools plug-in features and controls including parameter automation, MIDI control, etc. Access to these functions can be found in the gray bar that Pro Tools attaches to the top of FilterFreak. The display below shows the real-time version of FilterFreak.
Saving a Preset: Saving a preset is just as simple. Click on the small button to the left of the preset name and choose ‘Save’ to update the current preset, or ‘Save As’ to create a new preset. Compare Button The compare button (often called the compare ‘light’ by Pro Tools pros) is a great way to audition the effect of any changes you’ve made to one of the FilterFreak presets. As soon as you change any parameter in FilterFreak, the compare light will come on.
To record automation data, you’ll first need to do a few things within ProTools. First, bring up the Pro Tools automation window (by pressing ð - 4) and make sure ‘plug-in’ is enabled. Next, in the track you’re working on, select ‘auto-write’ to enable the real-time recording of automation data. Now, press play and fiddle with the FilterFreak controls. Pro Tools should now record any control changes you make. When the transport is stopped, the automation will automatically switch to ‘auto-touch’.
Now you’ll see the automation control superimposed on the audio waveform. From this you can click and drag to your hearts content, creating all sorts of wild and crazy filter sweeps! Locking FilterFreak to Tempo and Down Beat (or How to Give FilterFreak a Real Beating) One of the coolest features of FilterFreak is its ability to synchronize its sweep to the tempo (BPM) and downbeat (the ‘1’ of 1, 2, 3, and 4) in your music.
1. Select ‘MIDI Beat Clock’ from the ProTools MIDI menu. 2. From the dialog box, make sure ‘enable MIDI Beat Clock for…’ is checked and that FilterFreak (and any other SoundToys plug-in) are also checked. You will need to repeat this step every time you insert a new FilterFreak plug-in. 3. Select ‘OK’ to lock to the ProTools tempo and beat clock. 4. But WAIT! There are still a few things to note before this will all work.
the correct tempo based on this. If the tempo of your music varies (which it probably does if it wasn’t recorded to a click), then you may need to repeat this procedure at various points in your song to keep the beat locations lined up correctly. Hint: It is very, very useful to use a drum track along with the tab to transient feature within Pro Tools to help with this.
IMPORTANT: Digidesign has a special low-latency version of the “StreamManager” driver for ProTools. This can reduce the latency from 1024 audio samples to 256 audio samples – (from 21 milliseconds to 5 milliseconds at 48 kHz sample rate!) For the latest and greatest info on optimizing HTDM for your system and to download the low latency StreamManager, please visit the HTDM Q&A page on the Digidesign website. The link to it is: http://www.digidesign.com/support/faq/htdm.
T H E F I LT E R F R E A K Frequency Knob Mix Knob Resonance Knob Mod Knob Shape Knob Poles Knob C O N T R O L P A N E L Input/Output Levels Analog Switch Modulation Mode Analog Flavor Button Button Analog Mode Switch (Distortion / Overload Characteristics) The analog mode toggle switch and flavor button allow you to choose how FilterFreak will distort or “saturate” as the signal input increases, which is more noticeable at high signal levels.
Analog Flavor The analog flavor control is used to adjust how the input and output behaves (or doesn’t behave) when it is overdriven. To access this control, click on the small button to the left of the Analog switch to see the analog flavor pop-up menu. For best results, experiment with different sources when tweaking this control: Clean: Maximum non-distorted range, with fairly hard clipping. Fat: Smooth low-frequency distortion. Squash: Similar to above but more compressed.
Mix The Mix control is used to set the balance between the filtered sound created by FilterFreak’s filters and Input / Output control settings, and the dry signal. Because FilterFreak can mangle your sound in radical ways, it’s sometimes useful to be able to mix in some of the original signal. A setting of 100 percent will give you pure filtered sound, and a setting of 0 percent will give you only unfiltered sound.
Resonance The Resonance control works in conjunction with the Frequency knob and greatly enhances the effect of the filter by “boosting” the harmonics that are located close to the Frequency setting. So as you change the frequency of the filter those harmonics right around the cutoff frequency are exaggerated, “picked out” and are more pronounced. This gives the filter that squeaky, wheezy sound.
HPF – Highpass Filter The High Pass shape is the exact opposite of the Lowpass shape and works in reverse; it passes the harmonics in the sound above the frequency setting and attenuates and removes the harmonics that are below the frequency setting. A highpass filter is useful in removing the bass from a sound etc.
Mod As we mentioned earlier the real action starts when you pump audio through FilterFreak and tweak the knobs. But what is even more cool is when you “modulate” the filter automatically with various control sources so you don’t have to sit there and turn the knobs up, down, up, down…which is kind of silly and gets really tedious really fast.
LFO Mode LFO” mode stands for Low Frequency Oscillator. An LFO creates a repeating The “L waveform (usually with a selection of various wave shapes) that oscillates at a rate between 0 and 20Hz. This is why it is referred to as a “Low” frequency oscillator as 20Hz is still considered pretty slow in comparison to an audio signal. However, the FilterFreak LFO has a slightly wider range and can go as fast as 100 Hz.
Select the Custom LFO Shape Screen: To create a custom LFO shape, you first need to get to the LFO Edit screen. Click on Edit” at the the LFO shape LED display to display the shape pop-up menu. Select “E top of the popup menu. This will launch a screen where you can create custom LFO shapes. Creating a New LFO Shape / Adding “Points” to the Waveform: Creating a new shape is really pretty easy.
ing the “Smoothing” control you can decrease the abrupt changes between the points and smooth out the transitions between points by varying amounts. When set to its maximum value the waveform will be completely smooth. Smoothing Mode: The Smoothing Mode determines the “shape” of the smoothing that will be used to connect the points. This further increases the variety of waveforms you can create within FilterFreak’s Mod section.
Tempo You can use Tempo in one of two ways; “Lock to Midi Beat Clock” or “Tap Tempo”. To lock Filter Freak to Midi Beat Clock, follow the procedure on page 15. Locking the LFO to Midi Beat Clock insures that the sweeps will lock in march-step to your songs tempo and not waiver. If you’re not using MIDI beat clock to lock FilterFreak’s tempo, you can simply tap in a tempo by clicking on the “Tap Tempo” button.
Changing Event Level and Duration: To change event level or duration, option-click and drag on any existing event. Dragging up/down will change the level, and dragging left/right will change the duration. Adjusting Grid Length and Spacing: You can further adjust the grid spacing and length of any new events using the Grid control. Pattern Length / Number of Beats per Bar: Increasing the length of a pattern is easy.
Envelope Mode The Envelope Mode employs an “envelope follower” that “follows” the volume level of the input signal and dynamically controls the amount of filter modulation based on volume changes in the input signal. The Envelope Mode works great on dynamic signals that dynamically change in volume in rhythmic ways like guitar or drums. Classic effects like the Mutron® used an envelope controlled filter to create its effect.
turning ‘off’ when the signal goes below. At lower gain settings the envelope follower will be more touch sensitive and dynamic. Attack The Attack knob controls the how fast the filter will react to an increase in signal level. A fast setting will cause the envelope follower react very quickly to transients, and will produce a very dynamic, staccato-like filtering effect. Setting the Attack knob to a slower setting will smooth out and lengthen the attack response the envelope follower.
Rhythm The Rhythm pop-up allows you to set the speed or rate at which the sample and hold will jump to a new value. Smoothing The Smoothing knob works much the same as it does in the Rhythm Editor and can be used to smooth out transitions between the random values. A setting of zero equals no smoothing and the values will jump from one to the next. The maximum setting will give you a smooth, constantly changing random filter variation sometimes referred to as the “drunken walk” for obvious reasons.
Smoothing The Smoothing knob controls how fast the filter will move from the previous value to the new random value once the input has passed the Threshold. The minimum setting will cause abrupt transitions to the new random value and at higher settings the filter will smoothly “ramp” to the new value. ADSR Mode ADSR Mode is a recreation of the standard envelope generator found on most synthesizers.
Trigger Press and hold the Trigger button to trigger the ADSR envelope. As long as you hold the button the envelope will move through the Attack, Decay and Sustain portions of the envelope. The modulation envelope will increase the filter frequency and attack to its maximum value, then decay to the sustain value based on the settings of the individual Attack, Decay and Sustain knobs. When the trigger button is released, the envelope will decrease to zero (release) based on the setting of the Release knob.
Tweak Page Tweak”. Also included in the Modulation pop-up menu is a unique feature called “T Selecting the Tweak option will open, you guessed it, the Tweak page. This page is where you can tweak and individually adjust the depth and direction of modulation applied to the filter’s Frequency, Resonance and Output Level. It’s important to note that with these controls you can define either positive or negative modulation for Frequency, Resonance and Output.
F I LT E R F R E A K 2 : We should probably mention that there is a second plug-in included with FilterFreak called interestingly enough: “FilterFreak2”. FilterFreak 2 is identical to FilterFreak 1 except that it provides TWO separate filters that can be used together to create an even greater set of filtering effects! All of the previously discussed parameters also apply to FilterFreak2. The filters themselves are identical but can be set totally independently of each other.
Link Switching on the Link switch “links” the Frequency, Resonance and Gain controls of the two filters together. Once the “Link” is turned on, moving any of the knobs on either filter will move the corresponding knob on the other, in the same direction and by the same amount. Also note that depending on where a particular knob is set it is possible that nothing will change on one of the filters.
Summary Hopefully this manual has provided enough of the information you need to have a basic understanding of how FilterFreak works. We could go on and on providing LOTS of picayune details but you probably would get bored, throw the manual down and start tweaking anyway. Which in all honesty is what you should do. FilterFreak and the whole series of SoundToys plug-ins were MADE for tweaking. There’s nothing to break, no parts to rust or replace and you really can’t screw it up.
F I N A L P A G E Getting Help We offer free technical support for all registered users. We love to hear from you, but if you are having problems, first try to look in the manual or on the support page of our web site for an answer. If you are still stumped, please e-mail us with the following info: • The product version and serial number. • The version number of your Pro Tools system, and type of hardware (e.g. Mix, HD, Digi-001, etc.) • Your computer type and operating system version number (e.g.
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