Spectral Processing

Spectral Resonator: modes, Frequency, Unison, Decay

Spectral Resonator imposes a resonance on the spectrum of the input. The resonance structure can be harmonic (Frequency sets the fundamental, partials are integer multiples), with Stretch pulling the partials toward or away from harmonicity, Shift moving them, and Unison adding detuned copies. Decay sets how long each resonated bin rings. The input can be anything, and the mode section decides whether the pitch comes from the Frequency knob or from MIDI.

Spectral Resonator MIDI mode: play any audio as a polyphonic instrument

Switch the mode from Internal to MIDI and the Frequency knob is replaced by incoming notes: each held note creates its own harmonic resonator, polyphonically. Route a MIDI track's output to the audio track hosting the Resonator (track output: the audio track, channel: Spectral Resonator). A drum loop, vinyl noise or a field recording becomes a playable, chord-following pad.

1. Audio track with the source (drum loop, noise, vocal). Add Spectral Resonator; set Mode to MIDI.
2. MIDI track with your chord clip. Output: the audio track; in the sub-selector choose Spectral Resonator so notes go to the device rather than the track.
3. Set Polyphony to the number of chord notes (2–6). Each extra voice costs CPU.
4. Decay 70–100% for pad behaviour, 30–50% to let the loop's rhythm through. Glide 50–200 ms for portamento between chords.
5. Velocity and MPE: the device responds to velocity (resonance amount) and pitch bend; with an MPE controller, per-note bend works.
6. Add Scale (MIDI effect) before the chords and Chord or Expressive Chords (12.2) to generate harmony from single notes.

Spectral Resonator Freeze: capture a frame, hold it forever

The Freeze button holds the current spectral state so the resonator rings on with no new input. Combined with MIDI mode it becomes an instrument where the timbre is frozen but the pitch is still played. Automate or map Freeze to capture specific moments (the snare hit, the vocal vowel) and build transitions out of them.

1. Map Freeze to a Push pad or a keyboard key. Play the source, hit Freeze on the moment you want. The spectrum of that moment holds; the input is ignored until unfrozen.
2. Play notes via MIDI mode to retune the frozen spectrum. Each note resonates the frozen frame at a new fundamental.
3. For evolving drones: automate Freeze on/off in a clip envelope every 2–4 bars so the texture re-samples itself from the source.
4. Resample the output to audio (see Resampling workflow); frozen material is CPU-heavy and better as a sample for Granulator III or Simpler.

Spectral Time: Freeze, Delay and Tilt

Spectral Time has two sections. Freezer captures and holds a spectral frame (with Fade In/Out and a retrigger that can be free, synced or onset-driven) and can crossfade between frozen frames. Delay is a spectral delay: each bin gets its own delay time and feedback, spread across frequency by the Tilt and Spray controls, so high bins can echo later than low bins (or earlier), with Mask and Stereo spread. The result is a delay that smears into a cloud instead of repeating.

Sidechain-controlled spectral freeze (Envelope Follower → Freeze)

Neither spectral device has an external sidechain, but Freeze is a switch and can be driven by anything that produces a modulation signal. Envelope Follower (M4L) listening to the kick, mapped to Spectral Time's Freeze button with a threshold-style mapping, re-freezes the pad on every kick: the pad's spectrum snaps to whatever the source was doing at that instant, locked to the beat.

1. Envelope Follower on the kick track (or on the texture track, with the sidechain input set to the kick). Rise 1 ms, Fall 50–100 ms.
2. Map its output to Spectral Time's Freeze. Set the mapping Min to 0 and Max to 100%; the button engages when the follower crosses roughly the halfway point, so a kick hit toggles Freeze on and the fall lets it release.
3. Set the Freezer's Fade In short (10–30 ms) and Fade Out long (200–600 ms): the frozen spectrum snaps in on the kick and dissolves between hits.
4. Alternative with Gate: Gate on the texture track, sidechain from the kick, Flip on; the Gate's output becomes the input to Spectral Time with the Freezer's Retrigger in Onset mode. Each gated burst re-freezes.
5. For a darker version, map the same follower inverted to Spectral Resonator's Decay: on each kick the drone drops to a short decay and blooms back.

Vocoder: carrier/modulator as a spectral filter

Vocoder analyses the modulator's spectrum in 4–40 bands and applies it to the carrier. The modulator is the track input; the carrier is external (any track), Noise, or the internal Modulator-as-carrier mode. Beyond robot voices: use a drum loop as modulator and a pad as carrier for rhythmic gating, or noise as carrier for breathy textures. Formant shifts the band mapping for pitched-up/down character; Depth and Release set how closely the carrier follows.

Corpus and Resonators: tuned resonance without FFT

Corpus is a physical resonator model (Beam, Marimba, String, Membrane, Plate, Pipe, Tube) with tuning, decay, material, brightness and an optional MIDI pitch input; it rings at the modes of the chosen body and turns clicks into mallets and noise into plates. Resonators is five tuned comb-style resonators (one root plus four offset in semitones) with Decay and Color; it is the classic Live tool for pitching a drum loop into a chord. Both are time-domain and have no FFT smear, so they keep transients that Spectral Resonator softens.

Shifter: frequency shift and ring mod for inharmonic texture

Shifter has three modes: Pitch (harmonic, ratio-based, with Window size), Frequency (adds a constant Hz to every partial, making harmonic sources inharmonic) and Ring (ring modulation, which produces sum and difference tones). Frequency shift of a few Hz with feedback is the classic barberpole phaser; Ring mode at an audio-rate frequency tuned to the source's root gives a metallic doubling that still has pitch; both are ways to make a spectrum more complex, not just higher.

Auto Shift (12.1): correction, harmonies and glitch pitch

Auto Shift is pitch correction with a formant-preserving shifter, scale awareness (follows the set's scale), LFO and envelope to pitch, vibrato, and a MIDI/sidechain input so notes can define the target pitch. On vocals it is the hard-tune effect; on everything else it is a pitch quantiser that forces noise, feedback, field recordings or a wobbly TD-3 line into the key. Its LFO to pitch, at audio rate, is a further source of ring-mod-like texture.

Recipe: pads from drums

The drum loop is the source, the chord track is the pitch, the result is a pad that breathes with the rhythm. Two flavours: the resonator version (clear pitch, rhythmic) and the freeze version (smooth, sustained).

1. Send the drum bus to a return (or duplicate the drum tracks into an audio track) at −10 dB. Put the rack there.
2. Route the chord MIDI track to the Spectral Resonator in the Resonant chain.
3. Balance Resonant and Frozen with the Cloud macro; the frozen chain fills the holes between hits.
4. Sidechain the whole return from the kick with Compressor (3–4 dB) so the pad never fights the kick it was made from.
5. Resample 8 bars to audio and use it as a Simpler pad with a slow attack; that version is lighter and can be transposed.

Recipe: tonal textures and drones from noise

White noise contains every frequency; a resonator picks the ones you want. Stack a harmonic resonance (Resonators) for pitch, Spectral Resonator for sustain and unison, and a slow Shifter for drift. Everything after is tone control.

Variations: replace the noise with a eurorack noise/feedback patch via External Audio Effect; put Spectral Resonator in MIDI mode and sequence slow chord changes with Seed and Stacks generators; feed the output back into the chain with a return send at 20% for an infinite wash. See Drones and No-input feedback.