Audio Ronin User Manual

Ronin User’s Guide

Audio Damage, Inc. Release 1.5

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Audio Damage, Inc. The software described by this document is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior

written permission by Audio Damage, Inc.

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License Agreement

BY INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ARE CONSENTING TO BE BOUND BY THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, THEN RETURN THE PRODUCT TO THE PLACE OF PURCHASE FOR A FULL REFUND.

Single User License Grant: Audio Damage, Inc. ("Audio Damage") and its suppliers grant to Customer ("Customer") a nonexclusive and nontransferable license to use the Audio Damage software ("Software") in object code form solely on a single central processing unit owned or leased by Customer.

Customer may make one (1) archival copy of the Software provided Customer affixes to such copy all copyright, confidentiality, and proprietary notices that appear on the original.

EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED ABOVE, CUSTOMER SHALL NOT: COPY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, SOFTWARE OR DOCUMENTATION; MODIFY THE SOFTWARE; REVERSE COMPILE OR REVERSE ASSEMBLE ALL OR ANY PORTION OF THE SOFTWARE; OR RENT, LEASE, DISTRIBUTE, SELL, OR CREATE DERIVATIVE WORKS OF THE SOFTWARE.

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This warranty does not apply if the software (a) has been altered, except by Audio Damage, (b) has not been installed, operated, repaired, or maintained in accordance with instructions supplied by Audio Damage, (c) has

been subjected to abnormal physical or electrical stress, misuse, negligence, or accident, or (d) is used in ultrahazardous activities.

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This License shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Illinois, United States of America, as if performed wholly within the state and without giving effect to the principles of conflict of law. If any portion hereof is found to be void or unenforceable, the remaining provisions of this License shall remain in full force and effect. This License constitutes the entire License between the parties with respect to the use of the Software.

Credits

Software Design and Construction, Documentation

Chris Randall Adam Schabtach

Field Testing

Wade Alin Carl Downing Mike Fisher Steve Hamann Jeff Laity

Made Possible By

Tracie Lisa

Fuzzy Logic

Alex Chica Edwin Fatty Madeline Pablo Widget Zed

Welcome

Thank you for purchasing Ronin, Audio Damage’s modular multi-effects plug-in. While Ronin was built primarily for delay-based effects and looping, its modular architecture and complement of filters and lowfrequency oscillators allows it to create a wide range of sounds.

This manual provides a brief overview of Ronin, followed by detailed descriptions of all of its modules. You’re entirely welcome to plunge ahead, install Ronin, and flip through its presets without reading any further. However, to make full use of Ronin’s extensive capabilities, you will find it helpful to return to this document for a thorough reading. This manual provides detailed descriptions of all of the modules, information about using MIDI hardware to control Ronin, and in-depth explanations of four example presets to illustrate how Ronin patches are created and used.

Warning

Ronin is a powerful and flexible plug-in which allows you to connect signal processing modules together in almost endless ways. There is nothing that will stop you from creating feedback loops, howling oscillations, and badly distorted signals. This power comes with a price: Ronin can generate extremely loud sounds, suddenly and without warning. Please be cautious and use moderate volume levels with your speakers or headphones. As with any new audio toy, you should be particularly careful when you are first learning to use Ronin.

Throughout this manual, we use this symbol to call attention to feedback configurations that are particularly likely to create loud sounds. Remember, though, that the health and safety of your ears (and your speakers) is your responsibility.

System Requirements

To use Ronin, you'll need a Steinberg VST-compatible host application which conforms to the VST 2.0 specifications, and a computer capable of running it. For the Audio Unit version of Ronin, you’ll need an application capable of hosting AudioUnit plug-ins, and a computer capable of running it. The following specifications represent minimum requirements.

We support the use of Ronin under Microsoft Windows XP or Vista and Apple OS X version 10.4 or newer.

In addition, your VST host must be able to route MIDI messages to effects plug-ins if you wish to use Ronin’s MIDI features.

Installation

Installation is straightforward: Double-click the Ronin Installer icon and follow the instructions. During the installation process the installer will ask you to enter your registration code. Your registration code uniquely identifies your purchase, and you will need it if you need to reinstall your plug-in (for example, after upgrading to a new computer). Keep a copy of the code in a safe location and please don’t share it with your friends. We’re delighted if you like our products so much that you want to share them, but please ask your friends to buy their own copy so that we can keep making cool new products.

To un-install from OS X, simply delete the plug-in from your VST folder, which is usually located at

/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/Audio Damage, and your Audio Units folder, which is located at /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/. To un-install from Windows, delete the plug-in from your VST

folder, which is usually at C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VstPlugins\Audio Damage.

Note for MacOS X users: you must be logged in to a user account with administration privileges to run the Ronin installer.

What’s New in 1.5

For users of the earlier version of Ronin, here is what’s new and different in this version:

 New User Interface: We’ve given Ronin a complete visual makeover. All controls have numeric

displays of their values, replacing the single status-display area of the old version.

 Relocated Modulation Controls: The modulation depth controls now appear next to the Control

Routing Matrix, making their use and position within Ronin’s signal flow more apparent.

 It’s an AU, Too: OS X users will find that Ronin now shows up in the plug-in list of their favorite

Audio Unit-hosting applications.

Ronin’s signal-processing internals have not changed, nor has its preset-data format. You can use the new version of Ronin in any existing DAW sessions without a hitch.

Overview

Here is a picture of Ronin’s editor window, followed by brief descriptions of its modules and their controls:

1. Delays – two delay modules, each up to 12 seconds long, with coarse and fine time controls, looping,

reverse playback, time sync to your VST host’s current tempo, and bypass switches.

2. Filters – two resonant multi-mode filters, with morphing between low pass, band pass, high pass, and

notch frequency response modes.

3. Saturators – two saturation stages for creating tube-like distortion.

4. Output and Panning – two sets of output level and stereo panning controls.

5. Master Level Controls – gain controls for the input signal and the processed and unprocessed output

signals, switches to mix the input signals to mono and to silence the input signal altogether.

6. LFOs – two low-frequency oscillators for modulating the signal-processing modules, or each other,

with four basic wave shapes, a shape control which warps the wave shapes in different ways, and a sync button which causes the LFO to follow the tempo of your VST host.

7. Envelope Follower – a modulator that measures the loudness of the incoming sound and generates a

modulation signal for creating effects such as automatic filter sweeps, triggered flanging, and ducked delays.

8. Routing Matrix – two sets of switching matrixes for connecting the inputs and outputs of all signal -

processing modules, and for connecting the modulators to parameters of the signal-processing modules.

Each of these modules operates completely independently. For example, you can use one delay module looping several seconds of audio while using the second delay module to add a slapback echo.

Routing Matrix

Ronin has two arrays of switches, together called the routing matrix, for making connections between audio modules and modulators. There are two arrays, one for connecting modulators to the audio modules that they control, and one for connecting audio modules to each other. This is because Ronin treats audio data and modulation data differently. You cannot use audio data as a source of modulation data, and you cannot listen to modulation data.

The switch arrays allow the audio modules to be connected to each other in any order or combination. Signals from one module can be connected to several other modules, and the signals from several modules can be mixed together and fed to one or more other modules.

The audio routing matrix is the most dangerous part of Ronin. Because you may patch the audio inputs or outputs of any module to any other, you can create signal chains that would not be useful under normal circumstances, such as routing filters back in to themselves, a practice that will almost certainly result in banshee wails of feedback. If you find that a patch has gotten away from you, you may hold down the CTRL key on your computer’s keyboard and click on the routing matrix, and all switches will go to their “off” position, effectively removing the patch entirely.

Amount Controls

Each parameter in Ronin that can be modulated (that is, controlled by a modulator) has a small slider next to its name in the control routing matrix. This slider is the modulation amount control. It determines how much the modulator affects the parameter. Thus you can make a modulator affect an audio module only slightly, such as to create a subtle vibrato by modulating the delay time of one of the delay lines. Or a modulator can vary a parameter over a wide range, such as creating dramatic timbral sweeps by moving the frequency of a filter up and down.

The amount controls are also bidirectional, in that moving them to the right makes the modulator increase the value of the parameter it controls, and moving them to the left make the modulator decrease the value of the controlled parameter. This affects different parameters in different ways; the detailed descriptions of each module found later in this manual explain specifically how their amount controls work.

Audio Modules

Ronin is made up of several independent audio-processing modules. Like a modular synthesizer, the connections between these modules are not permanently fixed. You can connect the modules in any order you desire. This flexibility presents a wide range of signal processing configurations that aren’t available with other delay-based plug-ins. The connections between modules are made with a switching matrix similar to the ones found on EMS analogue synthesizers.

Delays

The two delay modules in Ronin are the main audio processors. The delay modules accurately emulate the behavior of older digital delays and tape delays, recreating their characteristic interdependence of pitch and time. If you lengthen the delay time while an audio signal re-circulates in the delay, you will hear its pitch drop. If you shorten the delay time, the pitch goes up. Most contemporary digital delays—both hardware and software—do not exhibit this behavior and cannot create the range of weird and wonderful sounds of their

older counterparts. On the other hand, older digital delays usually had limited dynamic range and undesirable distortion. Ronin’s delays use 32-bit floating-point samples to create a full-bandwidth, noise-free delay.

Each delay has a maximum delay time of 12 seconds. The delay times are freely adjustable across their entire range, and can be locked to the tempo of your VST host sequencer. The delays can be used as loop recorders, letting you record new audio over a repeating phrase. The loops can also play backwards, even during recording. With just one of the two delay modules, you can record a phrase as a loop, transpose it down an octave by slowing it down to half its original speed, record a new phrase over the top, turn the whole loop around and play it backwards, transpose it up by speeding it up, record another phrase on top, and so on—all in real time, without stopping. Of course you can also use the delay modules for all standard delay-based effects such as echo, ping-pong delay, flanging, chorusing, etc.

There are three main controls in the delay module: Time, Fine, and the multiplier switches. These three controls together determine the delay time of the module. The Time slider and the multiplier switches can be thought of as the coarse controls. The range of the time slider is zero1 to a number of seconds equal to the value of the multiplier switch, which can be one, two, four, or eight. For example, if you set the time slider to its halfway point and the multiplier switch to 4x, the coarse delay time is two seconds, because half of four is two seconds.

The Fine slider multiplies the coarse time determined by the settings of the time slider and multiplier switches. The range of the time fine slider is 0.5 to 1.5. At its halfway setting, its value is 1.0. The total delay time of the delay module is determined by multiplying the coarse delay time by the value of the time fine slider. Continuing our example, if you set the time fine slider to its maximum value (1.5), the total delay time would be three seconds, because two seconds times 1.5 is three seconds.

Usually we don’t think about delay times in terms of seconds and milliseconds when we’re writing music. We think in terms of rhythmic units, like an eighth note. Ronin can follow the tempo of your VST host sequencer and automatically calculate delay times to match rhythmic units, thus saving you from having to pull out your calculator in the middle of a recording session. Simply turn on the Sync switch in the delay module. Now, as

Because of the emulation of older delay lines, the minimum delay time is actually not quite zero. It’s a few samples more

than zero, but less than one millisecond.

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