Ugo Audio Tunguska User's Guide

Tunguska

Version 1.1 www.ugoaudio.com

Installation

Open the zip and place the Ironhead folder in your host’s VST folder. Yup, that’s it. No annoying
copy protection, no tricky registration and no troublesome installers.

Overview of Tunguska

Tunguska is a multi effect that was designed specifically to be a companion to Ironhead. It can
be useful as a master effect for the whole kit, or on specific percussion sounds sent to Tunguska
from Ironhead’s additional outputs.

Of course while Tunguska may have been designed with Ironhead in mind, it can be great with
other sources as well.

Tunguska may be a small effect, but it can go from providing useful, subtle, tweaks to your sound,
to mutating it into something completely different from the original...and all with the same fast and
easy interface style of Ironhead.

Another element borrowed from Ironhead is the morphing. Tunguska’s two key components are
its granulator and filter, both of which can be morphed between two states, allowing you to bring
additional movement to your grooves.

Tunguska’s effects are wired in series and the order of the effect controls from left to right
indicates the signal path, starting with the Grain, then into the Dirt, the Filter, and ending with the
Delay. Turning off a section will bypass it, letting the signal flow directly to the next section.

Also, Tunguska has a stereo signal path, so the positioning of your incoming audio can be
retained.

Master Controls

Input

Adjusts the volume of the incoming audio.

Mix

Adjusts the ratio of uneffected (dry) to effected (wet) signal you will hear.

Output

Sets the output volume.

ES

This knob adjusts the sensitivity of the envelope follower.

Tunguska Users Guide

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Grain

While Tunguska can be used with any source, the granulator’s is most useful on drums because
its pitch shifting does not track incoming pitch or midi notes. The granulator can be cool with any
piece in Ironhead’s kit, but it can be particularly fun with the Thuds and Dings, and it can really do
wonders with the Bonks.

X axis

Adjusts both the speed and size of the grains. Settings further left get
looser and more choppy sounding. Settings further right become somewhat
more metallic sounding and eventually become higher pitched.

Y axis

Sets the pitch of the grains. A setting around the middle will be closest to
the pitch of the incoming audio. Higher or lower settings will raise or lower
the pitch of the grains.

Hint: Holding down CTRL while adjusting an XY knob (or a slider) will allow you to fine tune your

setting.

On

This turns the granulator on or off.

Morph

Switching this on will allow the granulator to be morphed between it’s A and B control states. (See
the Morphing section for more details.)

A/B

Clicking this lets you switch the display between the A and B control states. The “A” state is the
default for normal usage. When morphing, the A state can be thought of as the starting point of
the morph. Conversely, the “B” state can be thought of as the destination. Since the B state only
applies to the morphing, it’s controls only effect the sound during morphing.

E

Turning this on allows Tunguska’s preset envelope follower to modulate the grain pitch. The
attack and decay of the envelope have been preset to what I found to be a particularly useful
setting for percussion.

For those who are new to envelope followers, this is a type of modulation that responds to the
amplitude of the incoming audio signal, so the more dynamic the incoming audio is, the more
variety you’ll get from the modulation. In essence, quieter sounds will trigger, the less modulation
than louder sounds. This makes for a very “playable” effect.

Tunguska Users Guide

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