Expert Sleepers Little Spacey v1.0.
Copyright © 2009 Expert Sleepers. All rights reserved. This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under licence and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such licence. The content of this manual is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by Expert Sleepers. Expert Sleepers assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in this document.
Contents Introduction 6 Installation 7 Mac OS X, Audio Unit (AU) Mac OS X, VST Windows (VST) 7 7 7 System Requirements 7 Mac OS X Windows 7 7 Registration 8 Quickstart 9 Factory presets 9 Defaults With Feedback Subtle Shimmer Vibrato Oil Drum Stereo Delay Two LFOs Ducky Env Mod Depth Env Mod Speed Murky Swirl Bright Slap So Dark Hard Crush Deep Crush 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 Using Little Spacey 11 Using the controls 11 Knobs Sliders Dropdown menus Value edit boxes 11 11 11
Name/value display Delay Time Delay Spread Size Regeneration Feedback Path Colour Mix 11 12 12 12 12 13 13 13 13 13 Mix Dry Mix 13 13 Mod Depth 14 Depth Spread Mod Speed Speed Envelope Modulation Ducking Speed Depth Spread LFO 2 Speed Depth Spread Preferences 14 14 14 14 14 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 16 OSC Base Port Eye candy Constant redraw Floating tooltip 16 16 16 16 MIDI control 17 OSC Control 18
Reference MIDI & OSC Scripting 18 18 Reference 18 Script locations 18 Version History 19 Contact 20 Acknowledgements 21 Lua 21 oscpack 21 glew 22 FreeType 23 FTGL 23 libpng 23 zlib 23
Introduction Little Spacey is delay effect, inspired by classic analogue ‘bucket brigade’ delays but with refinements only possible in the digital arena - not to mention a maximum delay time that would cost a small fortune to realise in hardware. Great care has been taken to give Little Spacey the smooth, creamy sound which makes analogue delays still popular today. In common with the best analogue delays Little Spacey allows you to modulate the delay time for chorus or vibrato effects.
Installation Mac OS X, Audio Unit (AU) The plug-in file is called ExSlLittleSpacey.component. Simply copy the file to the folder: Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components Mac OS X, VST The plug-in file is called ExSlLittleSpacey.vst. Simply copy the file to the folder: Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST Windows (VST) The plug-in file is called littlespacey.dll. Simply copy the file to your VST plug-ins folder. System Requirements Mac OS X Little Spacey requires at least Mac OS X version 10.2.8. Version 10.
Registration The downloadable version of Little Spacey stops working after 15 minutes every time you use it. To stop this happening, you need to buy a registration. You can buy a registration key online using a credit card or PayPal from the Expert Sleepers Licence Manager application. See here for more information. Note that you need at least version 1.0.14 of the Licence Manager. The e-commerce side of things is handled by eSellerate.
Quickstart For a quick overview of Little Spacey, load up the plug-in in your host application of choice and try out the factory presets, which are listed below. In some cases you will probably need to set up your levels appropriately, as described below in the Envelope Modulation section, so that the envelope tracking works optimally. Factory presets Defaults In this preset all parameters are at their default value, giving a single fairly short delay.
off. This effect is typically used to let the initial note ‘cut through’ the delays, with the delays then fading up during the note’s decay tails. Env Mod Depth Negative envelope depth modulation is applied, so there is very little modulation when the sound is loud, but the modulation increases as the sound fades out. Env Mod Speed Envelope speed modulation means the modulation gets slower as the incoming sound fades out.
Using Little Spacey Using the controls Knobs Basic use of the knobs is to click on them and drag the mouse up and down. However you can obtain different results by holding keys as follows: • • • Shift : Values change more slowly as you move the mouse. Command1 (Mac OS X)/Alt (Windows) : The knob assumes its default position. Option 2 (Mac OS X)/Control (Windows): The knob assumes integer values only. Sliders Sliders behave similarly. • • Shift : Values change more slowly as you move the mouse.
Delay Time The Delay Time section controls the length of the delay. Delay Sets the length of the delay within the limits set with the Size control. The value simply goes from 0.0 to 1.0. Refer to the read-out at the bottom of the section for the actual delay time in milliseconds. Spread Sets the difference in delay times between the channels (i.e. left and right for stereo operation). At 0.0, the two channels have the same delay time.
Regeneration The Regeneration section controls how the delay repeats. Feedback Sets the amount of the delayed signal that gets routed back to the input of the delay, causing repeated echoes. Note that the control goes up to 110%. Settings above 100% cause ‘positive feedback’ i.e. the delays get louder over time. Path In common with all ‘bucket brigade’ designs, Little Spacey uses filters either side of the delay to remove aliasing and clock noise.
Mod Depth The Mod Depth section controls the depth of the delay modulation. The delay time is modulated by a simple sinusoidal LFO (low frequency oscillator). Depth Sets the amount of modulation. Spread Varies the phase of the LFO applied to each (stereo) channel. At 0.0, the LFOs are in phase i.e. the same modulation is applied to each channel. At 0.5 the LFOs are exactly out of phase i.e the LFO for channel 1 is at its maximum when the LFO for channel 2 is at its minimum.
Ducking Ducking reduces the level of the delays when the signal level is high. This is typically used to let the initial note ‘cut through’ the delays, with the delays then fading up during the note’s decay tails. Speed Sets the amount by which the envelope modifies the modulation speed. Positive settings cause the modulation to speed up when the sound is louder; negative settings cause the modulation to slow down when the sound is louder.
Preferences Pressing the ‘Prefs’ button brings up a dialog where various preferences are set. These settings are shared by all instances of Little Spacey, and are not stored with presets. The top section shows the product version. The central section will show your serial number once you’ve bought a registration. OSC Base Port Sets the base port number for OSC. See the section on OSC, below. Eye candy Enables the pretty graphics.
MIDI control All of Little Spacey’s parameters can be controlled via MIDI CC’s (Continuous Controllers) according to the table below.
OSC Control Little Spacey can be controlled via the Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol. If you’re new to OSC, start by visiting opensoundcontrol.org. Two settings control what port the plug-in uses to listen on for OSC commands. One is the base OSC port, set in the preferences. The second is the OSC Port Offset control. If the port offset is set to something other than ‘Off’, then the two numbers are added together and the result used as the port number. E.g.
Version History 1.0.0 21/5/2009 • First release.
Contact The Expert Sleepers website is here: http://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/ Or you can email info@expertsleepers.co.uk Or you can use the forum, which is here: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewforum.
Acknowledgements The software described in this manual makes use of the following open source projects. The author is greatly indebted to them for their efforts and generosity. Below are reproduced the various copyright notices and disclaimers that accompany these software projects, in accordance with their terms of use. Lua Copyright (C) 1994-2008 Lua.org, PUC-Rio.
glew The OpenGL Extension Wrangler Library Copyright (C) 2002-2007, Milan Ikits Copyright (C) 2002-2007, Marcelo E. Magallon Copyright (C) 2002, Lev Povalahev All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE MATERIALS OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE MATERIALS. FreeType The FreeType Project is copyright (C) 1996-2000 by David Turner, Robert Wilhelm, and Werner Lemberg.
