Expert Sleepers Augustus Loop v1.8.
Copyright 2008 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 Installation 8 10 Mac OS X, Audio Unit (AU) 10 Mac OS X, VST 10 Windows (VST) 10 System Requirements 10 Mac OS X 10 Windows 10 Registration 11 Quickstart 12 Using Augustus Loop 13 Using the controls 13 Knobs 13 Sliders 13 Dropdown menus 13 Value edit boxes 13 Name/value display 13 Overview 14 Delay Time 15 Max Delay 15 Delay Time 15 Min 15
Max 15 Current delay time 15 Delay Slider 15 Delay Taps 16 Delay Time 16 Delay Level 16 Master 16 Pitch 17 Pitch 17 Pitch Slider 17 'Piano Keys' 17 Reverse 17 Stop 18 LFO Speed 18 LFO Depth 18 Filter 19 Cutoff 19 Q 19 Type 19 LFO Speed 19 LFO Depth 19 Saturate 19 Saturation 19 Shape 20 Host Sync 20
Host Tempo 20 Beat Divisor & Triplet 20 Beats 20 Clock Out 20 PingPong 21 Mono-ize & Init Pan 21 Levels 21 Dry 21 Effect 21 Input 21 Loop 21 Tap Rec 21 Hold Rec 22 Tap Length & Hold Length 22 Freeze Loop 22 Clear Loop 22 Misc 22 Fix Delay 22 Trigger Arm 23 Fade 23 Punch In/Out 23 Punch In Quantize (menu) 24 Punch Out Quantize (menus) 24 Punch In and Out (buttons) 24 Inertia 24
Pitch Inertia 24 Delay Inertia 24 Digital Mode 25 Augustus Loop Fx Loop 26 Introduction 26 Using the Fx Loops 26 Setting up your DAW for Fx Loops 27 Ableton Live Current Limitations Preferences 27 27 28 MIDI In 28 MIDI output 28 Rounded tempos (for Live) 28 Legacy filter behaviour 29 MIDI control 30 CC messages 30 NRPN messages 30 Version History 31 v1.8.0 5th June 2008 31 v1.7.3, 24th March 2008 31 v1.7.2, 18th March 2008 31 v1.7.1, 17th March 2008 31 v1.7.
v1.6.3, 31st October 2006 31 v1.6.2, 2nd July 2006 32 v1.6.1, 20th March 2006 32 v1.6.0, 9th January 2006 32 v1.5.1, 5th October 2005 32 v1.5.0, 29th August 2005 32 v1.4.3, 13th July 2005 32 v1.4.2, 11th June 2005 32 v1.4.1, 13th March 2005 32 v1.4.0, 27th February 2005 32 v1.2.0, 3rd January 2005 33 v1.1.0, 30th August 2004 33 v1.
Introduction Augustus Loop is an emulation of a tape-based delay effect, with some extra features to facilitate its use as a looping device. (If you're unfamiliar with the concept/genre of looping, pay a visit to www.loopers-delight.com). The key features of Augustus Loop that make it more than just a big delay effect are: • • • • • • • • • Really long maximum delay (3600 seconds - that's one hour). Tap length/tap record. You can set the loop time while recording your first phrase. Virtual tape.
• • • Host transport-sync’d punch in and out when recording. ‘Inertia free’ mode suppresses the tape-like behaviour when changing delay times to allow seamless transitions between loop lengths. (This is also the route to the popular ‘multiply’ and ‘divide’ features found on some popular looping devices.) The ‘Fx Loop’ plug-in configuration allows you to route audio through other plug-ins either side of the ‘virtual tape’, allowing you to insert your own effects in the delay loop.
Installation Mac OS X, Audio Unit (AU) One file (ExSlAugustusLoop.component) contains all variants of the plug-in. Simply copy the file to the folder: Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components Mac OS X, VST There is one file per plug-in configuration, named ExSlAugustusLoop.vst and ExSlAugustusLoopFxLoop.vst. Simply copy the files to the folder: Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST Windows (VST) There is one file per plug-in configuration, named augustusloop.dll and augustusloop_fxloop.dll.
Registration The downloadable version of Augustus Loop 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 on Windows you need at least version 1.0.10 of the Licence Manager. The e-commerce side of things is handled by eSellerate.
Quickstart Augustus Loop is designed to be used as an insert effect, but you can use it as a send effect if you wish. By default, the effect produces a straightforward one second delay, with fairly high feedback. Play a note through it - you should hear it echo once a second for quite some time. The GUI consists of two sliders, a number of knobs and a smaller number of buttons. The shorter of the two sliders and the cluster of edit boxes around it control the delay time.
Using Augustus Loop 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. Sliders Sliders behave similarly. • • Shift : Values change more slowly as you move the mouse. Command : The slider assumes its default position.
Overview Here's a block diagram of the 'circuitry' of Augustus Loop. It can help to visualise this when understanding the effect of some settings, particularly the delay time settings.
Delay Time The delay time controls consist of a slider and four text boxes. Max Delay This field sets the maximum delay time the plug-in is capable of using. The highest value that you can enter here is '3600', which is an hour (60 minutes times 60 seconds). NB Changing this value causes the plug-in to reallocate its delay buffers. This can be a slow operation, especially if the value entered is large.
Delay Taps A total of nine knobs make up this section. Eight of these are in pairs, giving you control of delay time and feedback level for each of the four taps. Delay Time Sets the delay time for the tap, expressed as a percentage of the master delay time set in the delay time section. Delay Level Sets the feedback level for the tap. This is the same as the actual output level of the tap in our architecture. The four taps let you feedback sound between the two stereo channels.
Pitch Pitch This text field simply reflects the current pitch value. You can type numbers directly in here. The values represent semitones (12 semitones is an octave). Pitch Slider The slider controls the speed of the virtual tape, over a range of two octaves i.e. you can go from half-speed up to double-speed. If you hold the Option (Mac OS X)/Ctrl (Windows) key while dragging the slider, it will only move to whole number values.
In a more complex example, say the tap times are set to 100%, 75%, 50% and 25%. When the tape is reversed, the tap times become 100%, 125%, 150% and 175%. Note that the display of the tap times values does not change, only their internal interpretation. Because in reverse delay times can reach 200%, you should try to make sure that the maximum (allocated) delay time is set to at least twice the actual delay time. Note that the speed at which the tape reverses is controlled by the inertia setting (below).
Filter Cutoff Controls the filter cut-off frequency (in Hz). Q Controls the filter resonance. Type Allows you to smoothly change between the following filter types: • • • • Thru - no filtering Low - lowpass filter Band - bandpass filter High - highpass filter LFO Speed Controls the speed of the filter LFO (in Hz), which modulates the cutoff frequency. LFO Depth Controls the depth of the filter LFO. The value is a number of octaves to sweep the cutoff frequency by.
Shape Controls the shape of the saturation. At '1.0' the effect is that of soft saturation and clipping. At '0.0' the effect is of hard digital clipping. Note that at shape settings other than '0.0', some alteration is applied to the signal even if the Saturation level is zero. Host Sync The 4 controls to the right of the delay slider controls allow you to sync the delay time to the tempo of the host application. (NB not all plug-in hosts provide tempo information.
PingPong Mono-ize & Init Pan These controls let you convert a stereo input signal into a mono one, which is useful when you have the delay taps configured as a ping-pong effect. 'Mono-ize' controls the degree to which the signal is converted to mono (from 0.0 meaning no conversion to 1.0 meaning fully mono). 'Init Pan' controls the position in the stereo field of the mono signal. Levels Dry Controls the amount of the input signal that is fed directly to the plug-in's output.
When clicked again, sets the delay time to the interval between the two clicks, and immediately begins playback of the signal recorded in that time. Hold Rec Same as 'Tap Rec', except the delay time is set by the length of time the button is held down. Tap Length & Hold Length Similar to 'Tap Rec' and 'Hold Rec' except that the only effect is to change the delay time.
Trigger Arm Arms the auto-record trigger. In this mode the plug-in will watch for an input signal, and when it detects one it will effectively press 'Tap Rec' on your behalf. You can adjust the trigger level using the small slider to the left of the input level meter. The small button below and to the right of the input level meter controls the sensitivity of the meter. When pressed, the range of the trigger level slider matches that of the meter.
Note that most of these features rely on the host application's concept of tempo and meter. Some hosts may support none or only some of these features. The indicator in the centre of the group turns red when a punch in or out is pending. Punch In Quantize (menu) When set to 'None', tap recording starts immediately you press the 'Tap Rec' button. Otherwise, the start of recording is delayed until a time quantized by the setting of this menu. E.g.
When the button is turned off, the behaviour is most like a tape delay, in that the play heads slide along the tape to their new positions. This will inevitably produce some odd sounds if the tape is not empty (which may of course be exactly what you want). With the button on, the play heads move instantly, which is not how a physical tape delay works, but allows you to change the delay time without the unusual sounds.
Augustus Loop Fx Loop Introduction The normal Augustus Loop configuration is a stereo or mono-to-stereo plug-in. As of version 1.8.0, another configuration is also available; known as Augustus Loop Fx Loop, it’s a 6-in 6-out plug-in. The 6 inputs and output are arranged as 3 stereo pairs. (At this point it may help to refer to the overview diagram earlier in this manual.) The first stereo pairs (inputs 1&2 and outputs 1&2) are the regular inputs and outputs that the stereo plug-in configuration has.
leaves it - i.e. it affects the delay time. The compensation controls allow you to make up for this, so the delay time you specify is the one you actually get. Note this is not the same as the latency usually meant by “plug-in latency” in DAWs, which refers to the internal latency introduced by a given plug-in. In the case of Augustus Loop’s fx loops, the latency is introduced by the host’s buffering of plug-in inputs and outputs.
Preferences Pressing the ‘Prefs’ button brings up a dialogue where various preferences are set. These global settings are shared by all instances of Augustus Loop, and are not stored with presets. The top section shows the product version. The Windows version also shows which SSE variant has been detected (there are optimised versions of the core processing routines for systems with SSE2). The central section will show your serial number once you’ve bought a registration.
This is a problem if you are using multiple instances of Augustus Loop in a Live song, with one AL set to generate MIDI clock, Live synced to that clock, and the other ALs set to 'Host Tempo' mode. When you use Tap Record to record your loop in the master AL, the other ALs will be given a slightly wrong tempo by Live and the loops will be out of sync. Turning on 'rounded tempo' in AL solves this problem by only ever generating MIDI clock at rounded values.
MIDI control NB this section applies to the Audio Unit version only. Most of Augustus Loop's controls can be controlled via MIDI. There is a preference setting in the 'Prefs' dialog that controls whether Augustus Loop responds to MIDI events on all channels, or just on channels 1&2. In the latter case, the plug-in responds to MIDI controller messages on channel 1 (see table below) and to note on messages (to alter the pitch setting) on channel 2.
Version History v1.8.0 5th June 2008 • • New 6-in 6-out configuration of the plug-in, allowing audio to be routed through external processing either side of the virtual tape. Fixed an issue that could cause a crash in Logic 8 when opening a song containing multiple instances of Augustus Loop with their GUIs open. v1.7.3, 24th March 2008 • (Windows version only updated) Plug-in no longer requires SSE2, though it is still optimised for systems that have it. v1.7.
v1.6.2, 2nd July 2006 • Fixed a GUI issue with certain hosts (notably Plogue Bidule on Intel). v1.6.1, 20th March 2006 • First 'Universal Binary' version for Intel and PowerPC Macs. v1.6.0, 9th January 2006 • • Added 'digital mode'. Fixed bug which could result in orphaned threads being created. v1.5.1, 5th October 2005 • Added wider range of values for punch in/out drop-down menus. v1.5.0, 29th August 2005 • Added new 'delay intertia-free' mode. v1.4.
• • • Fixed potential crash when using Freeze Loop and Host Tempo. Improved behaviour of Freeze Loop in conjunction with Reverse. Maximum delay time is now limited according to installed system RAM. v1.2.0, 3rd January 2005 • • • • • • MIDI output ports now uniquely named. Added option to disable MIDI output ports. Added option for MIDI receive channel. Added display of current loop length (when sync'd) and while using 'tap record'. Added saturation shape control. CPU efficiency improvements. v1.1.
Release Notes Issues with keyboard input There are known issues with some hosts, in particular Ableton Live, and all plug-ins that require keyboard input. (Augustus Loop is such a plug-in.) Ableton have done something to address this issue in Live 7.0.2. See • • http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=84434 http://www.ableton.com/pages/faq/options_text Basically you can enable keyboard presses in plug-ins by creating or editing a file called Options.
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.
