Effects
Effects change how a sound sounds. Make a voice clearer and more even, put it in a room, muffle the music and open it up for a reveal, or make a line sound like it's coming down a phone.
You can put effects on three places:
- A sound: only that sound. Select it and use Effects in the Sound panel.
- A bus: every sound on that bus together, such as one reverb shared by every voice line. Use the FX chip on the bus's row in the Mixer.
- The master: the whole mix. Use the FX chip on the Master row in the Mixer.
The FX chip shows how many effects a bus or the master has, and lights up while any of them is on. Hover it to see them listed.
Note
Effects are part of Full. In Simple, they show only where a sound, bus or master already has some. Turn on View › Full to add them.
The effects
| Effect | What it does | Presets |
|---|---|---|
| EQ | Shapes the tone: a low cut, a low shelf, two bells in the middle, a high shelf and a high cut, drawn as a curve. | Voice clarity, Warm, Bright, Remove rumble, Telephone |
| Compressor | Evens out the level by turning down whatever is louder than its threshold, so quiet words and loud ones sit closer together. | Gentle, Voice, Punchy, Glue |
| Reverb | Puts the sound in a space, from a small room to a big one, with a tail that rings on. | Small room, Hall, Plate, Big space |
| Delay | Echoes, a time or a note length apart, that can bounce between the left and right speakers. | Slapback, Quarter, Dotted eighth, Ping-pong |
| Filter | Low pass, high pass or band pass, for a muffled sound, a thin one, or a sweep. | Radio, Underwater, Muffled, Rise |
| Distortion | Saturates the sound, from gentle warmth to crunch. | Warm, Crunch, Lo-fi |
| Limiter | Holds the master's loudest peaks under a ceiling. On the master only, and always last. |
Adding an effect
Click + Add effect at the bottom of a list and choose an effect, or a chain (see below). A new effect opens with settings that sound natural, ready to adjust.
A list holds up to eight effects. Its count shows next to the menu, such as 3 of 8.
The order
Effects run from the top of the list to the bottom, so their order changes the sound. A reverb after distortion is a clean space around a gritty sound; distortion after a reverb makes the space gritty too.
To move an effect, drag it by its handle on the left. You can also focus the handle and press ↑ or ↓.
On a sound, effects run after its Volume and Pan, before its bus. On a bus, they run before its fader. On the master, they run before its level and the limiter.
An effect's row
Each effect is a row:
- The handle moves it in the list.
- The power button turns it off and on. Off (bypassed), the sound goes past it and its settings wait for you. It's the quickest way to hear the difference an effect makes.
- The name opens its settings. Next to it is the preset you set it from, while its settings are still the preset's.
- × removes it.
Settings
Open an effect to see its settings.
Preset sets every setting at once. Choose one to start from, then adjust. Once you change a setting, the preset shows as Custom.
Drag a slider to change a setting. Double-click a slider to put it back to its default. Hover a setting's name to read what it does.
The EQ's curve
The EQ draws its effect as a curve, from low sounds on the left (20 Hz) to high sounds on the right (20 kHz). Above the middle line is louder, below is quieter.
Each band in use has a point on the curve:
- Drag a point across to change its frequency, and up or down to raise or lower it.
- The low cut and high cut points move across only. Turn a cut on with its setting below the curve.
- Double-click a point to put its band back to 0 dB.
- With a point focused, the arrow keys move it: left and right in small steps, up and down by half a dB. Hold Shift for bigger steps.
The curve is exactly what the sound goes through.
Delay in time with the music
Set the delay's Note to a note length, such as Dotted eighth, and the echoes land in time at the Tempo you set. Click From the beat to find the tempo in your piece's own sound.
With Note at Milliseconds, set the time between echoes yourself.
Chains
A chain is a few effects for a common job, added at once. After you add one, each effect in it is a normal effect you can change, move or remove.
| Chain | What it does |
|---|---|
| Voice polish | A low cut, a little presence and gentle compression, for a clear, even voice. |
| Radio | A narrow, squeezed band with a little grit. |
| Phone | A voice down a phone line. |
| Big room | A large, open space. |
| Lo-fi | Thin, dark and a little broken. |
| Polish | On the master: gentle glue compression, then the limiter. |
Tip
For a voiceover, add Voice polish to the voice, then a Reverb set to Small room with its Mix low, around 10 %. The voice sounds finished without sounding far away.
Changing an effect over time
On a sound, a few settings can change over time: the Filter's Cutoff and Resonance, and the Mix of a Reverb or Delay.
These settings have a lane button beside them. Click it to show the setting's lane under the sound on the timeline, and draw on it the way you draw on the Volume lane: drag across for a block, drag points, double-click to add one. Higher on the lane is more.
While a setting has points, it follows them, and its slider shows Lane. To go back to one value, clear its points under Automation in the Sound panel.
The Filter's Rise preset draws a sweep for you: the cutoff starts low at the beginning of the sound and opens all the way by its end. It's a quick way to build up to a reveal.
Tip
To muffle music under a scene and open it up for the logo, add a Filter to the music, show its Cutoff lane, and draw a low stretch that rises right where the logo appears. A cutoff sweeps evenly from low to high, so the rise sounds smooth.
Points stay with the sound. Move its clip, trim it or split it, and they stay on the same moments of the sound. Effects on a bus or the master keep one setting throughout.
Tails
A reverb or a delay rings on after its sound ends, the way a real room does. The tail plays past the end of the sound's clip, in the editor and in your export, so nothing gets cut off.
The master's limiter
The Limiter holds the loudest moments of the whole mix under its Ceiling. It's added to the master only, at most once, and it always runs last.
With a loudness target in the Mixer, the master is already limited at its Peak. A Limiter effect lets you set the Release too, and if its ceiling is lower, the lower one wins. With loudness Off, the Limiter effect is what keeps the mix under its ceiling.
Ask the assistant
The assistant can add effects and change them. Try:
- "Polish the voiceover and put it in a small room."
- "Make the line at 12 seconds sound like it's on a phone."
- "Muffle the music and sweep a filter up into the logo reveal."
- "Add a dotted-eighth delay to the whoosh, then take it off the second whoosh."
- "Glue the whole mix together and keep the peaks under -1 dB."