Spectral Time allows us to capture and hold slices of incoming audio
and then run them through a frequency-based delay
allowing us to create anything from glitchy percussion to icy washed-out pads.
Over on this track I have a simple melody loop with a default Spectral Time preset.
I'll turn the effect off for now so we can hear the original signal, and let's take a listen.
Let's turn Spectral Time back on.
And turn the Dry/Wet to 100% so we can really hear it.
So it sounds like all Spectral Time is doing right now is adding just a bit of delay,
let's turn the delay portion of the effect off for now and focus on the Freezer.
To enable the Freezer, I'll just click the Freeze button here.
You can hear that Spectral Time has captured a slice of the incoming audio
and now is sustaining it indefinitely.
We can see all this happening over on the spectrogram
which gives us a visual representation of all the different frequencies that make up the sound over time.
In addition to triggering the Freezer manually, I can also switch to Re-trigger mode.
Let's click Freeze again.
You can hear now that Spectral Time is re-freezing the audio every time it detects a new transient.
We can control how sensitive Spectral Time is to these new transients using the Sensitivity knob here.
Notice how when I turn it all the way down, Spectral Time ceases to re-freeze.
We can see each re-trigger using the yellow LED here which blinks every time Spectral Time re-freezes.
Let's switch from 'Onsets' to 'Sync' mode here.
Which just triggers a refreeze at a fixed-time interval. I can control the interval in milliseconds here.
Or, switch over to 'Notes.'
Let's go back to 'Onsets' mode for now.
If I'd like the effect to sound a bit smoother, I can turn up X-fade, which fades between each freeze.
If I'd like a bit more control, I can switch over to the 'Envelope' mode
which allows me to control the fade-in and fade-out of each freeze independently.
Now above the spectrogram I have the option of changing the resolution of Spectral Time.
Low resolutions sound very digital and have a lot of artifacts.
Whereas high resolution sound a bit cleaner and more natural.
Keep in mind that as you turn up the resolution the latency of the effect increases.
You can double-check the latency by hovering over it next to the device title
and looking at the status bar at the bottom.
Sweet. I'm quite happy with the Freezer settings, I'll turn the Freezer off for now and switch to the delay.
Delay just takes the incoming signal and repeats it and repeats it and repeats it at a regular interval.
You can control the Dry/Wet of the effect here.
And turn up the feedback, which controls how much of the output of the delay is fed back into its input.
I can change the delay time here in milliseconds or choose to do this in Notes - let's do 16ths.
Where things start to get interesting is the Shift dial which allows me to frequency shift the output of the delay
up or down.
'Tilt', 'Spray' and 'Mask' all control how the delay effects different frequencies.
So if I turn the Tilt up, higher frequencies are delayed more than lower frequencies.
Resulting in almost like a pitch-bend effect.
If I turn Tilt to negative values, lower frequencies are delayed more.
Spray randomizes the delay time which results in a smearier more abstract sound.
I can choose which frequencies tilt and spray effects using Mask.
Positive values make Tilt and Spray only affect higher frequencies.
Whereas negative Mask values make them only effect lower frequencies.
I can also adjust the Stereo width of the delay here.
Awesome. So now let's combine that back in with the Freezer.
Now I'd like to hear this with a bit of the dry signal. So I'll turn the Dry/Wet down here.
Notice how the dry signal is represented in yellow in the spectrogram.
I'd like to turn the amount of gain down on the signal being sent into Spectral Time.
So I'll turn down the Input Send here.
Alright, I'm happy with that. Let's hear it with the rest of my beat.
Let's hear it without Spectral Time. Quite dry.
And now back on.