Effects

Every track has its own insert effects and two sends; the sends feed two buses (delay and reverb), and everything leaves through the master EQ, compressor and tape saturation.

engine → DRIVE → CRUSH → FILTER → CHORUS → track fader ─┬─→ out
                                                       ├─ DELAY send ─→ master delay ─┐
                                                       └─ REVERB send → master reverb ┴→ EQ → COMP → TAPE → out

Three places to set effects:

01

1 INSTR FX: the track's inserts and its two sends.

02

3 TAPE SENDS: all four tracks' FILTER, CHORUS and two sends on one screen.

03

3 TAPE FX: master delay, reverb, EQ, compressor, tape.

Track effects (inserts)

On each engine's FX page (see FX page: the track's effects); FILTER and CHORUS of all four tracks are also on TAPE's SENDS page:

The screen and the key lights at that moment

1. 1DRIVE: soft saturation, higher is dirtier
2. 2CRUSH: sample-rate and bit reduction
3. 3FILTER: 64 is off, low-pass below, high-pass above
4. 4RESO: filter resonance
5. 5CHORUS: Juno-style I / II / I+II
6. 6DELAY / REVERB sends
7. 7Signal chain: active effects light up

The FX page: effect parameters on top, the track's signal chain below.

They are sound parameters (fx.*), saved with the sound and the project; changing engine or sound resets them (Juno sounds bring their own chorus).

Sends: delay and reverb

Each track has two send amounts, DELAY and REVERB. Once sent to the buses, their RETURN levels set how much comes back overall.

The screen and the key lights at that moment

1. 1FILTER (FLT)
2. 2CHORUS (CHO)
3. 3DELAY send (DLY)
4. 4REVERB send (REV)
5. 5Focus: fully lit · on: half lit · off: off

SENDS: one column per track. While a track sounds with a send on, that cell's right edge glows.

Master effects

TAPE's FX page, part of the project (saved since project format v4):

The screen and the key lights at that moment

1. 1DELAY: tempo-synced tape delay
2. 2REVERB: 4-line FDN, on the dark side
3. 3COMP: bus compressor
4. 4EQ: low / high shelf ±12 dB
5. 5TAPE: tape saturation
6. 6Echoes at the current tempo, reverb decay

Master FX.

• DELAY: TIME is a note value from 1/32 to 1/2 (default 1/8D), synced to the BPM. Its feedback loop has a TONE low-pass and an 80 Hz high-pass; changing the note value glides like tape. Echoes up to 743 ms use a 16 KB line; a longer time takes a 32 KB line (up to 1.49 s), and if that does not fit the time is halved until it does.
• REVERB: about 4.5 kHz wide, on the dark side.
• Both sends are decimated to 11.025 kHz before processing, so delay and reverb sound warm and a little lo-fi.

Memory and CPU

Effect buffers are taken the first time an effect is used and given back when it is not: the delay line 16 KB (32 KB for echoes longer than 743 ms) and the reverb about 8.8 KB, both in the device's 2 MB PSRAM, and 1 KB per track for its chorus.

• If the delay or reverb cannot get memory, that bus is silent and the FX page and the signal chain show NO MEM. With every effect off, the output is bit-identical to having no effects.
• Each track plays a few notes at once: DX7 4, JUNO and DRUMS 6, SAMPLER 4. When all are busy, a new note takes the voice of an older one, a released one first.
• Audio has a budget of 5.8 ms per 256 frames, shared by both of the chip's cores. When a block would not fit, the device fades out the notes that matter least: always on the track with the most notes sounding, its released tails first, then its quietest held note. A track only ever gives way to itself, and the beat never slows or stops.

warning

Very dense chords with many effects can crackle: play fewer notes at once, or turn an effect or two off.