The TAPS Spread knob controls how the delay taps are spread out in time. This value can be viewed as a percentage of the overall delay time:coops2 wrote: The tooltips are useful to say what a knob does but they don't replace a manual. For example, the tooltip for the spread knob in the taps tab doesn't fully explain what it is doing. The knob's units are percent but percent of what? I presume the time of the delay but that is just an educated guess.
- A Spread value of 0% means that all of the delay taps have the same delay time, where the delay of all the taps is determined by the DELAY slider. The taps are right on top of each other. This seems like a bad idea, but the modulation oscillators work independently on each delay taps. A Spread value of 0% + modulation DEPTH set to greater than 0% = through-zero flanging.
- A Spread value of 100% will result in the taps being evenly distributed in time. For example, using the 8 Tap mode, a spread of 100%, DELAY at 800 msec, and Skew and Random at 0%, will result in the following tap distribution for each output channel:
Tap1: 200 msec
Tap2: 400 msec
Tap3: 600 msec
Tap4: 800 msec
- Spread values in between will control how much of the space is filled between the maximum delay setting (set by DELAY) and the input to the delay. So a Spread value of 50% in the 8 tap mode as detailed above will result in the following tap delays:
Tap1: 500 msec
Tap2: 600 msec
Tap3: 700 msec
Tap4: 800 msec
I'll figure out the math so people can dial in polyrhythms as one of my Tips & Tricks blog posts.
Diffusion controls the allpass coefficients of the diffusion section. It is a separate block, and affects all the delay taps (it sits in series before the delay taps are read out).What about the diffusion knob? Again it is in percent but percent of what? If it set it to 50% am I adding half of whatever a full diffusion is? Am I diffusing 50% of my taps?
A Diffusion setting of 0% results in no diffusion. In this case, this is like adding a straight delay to the main DELAY time, where the extra length is determined by DiffSize.
A Diffusion setting greater than 0% turns up the allpass coefficients. This results in a "smearing" of the sound, as extra echos are added to the signal. With higher Diffusion settings and larger settings of DiffSize, various reverb sounds can be dialed in. For shorter DiffSize settings, the result is a thickening of the sound produced by the main delay taps.
It is worth noting that, as Diffusion is turned up, the amount of delay provided by DiffSize increases. To be more precise, the sound transforms to a straight delay to a decaying sound.
There will be more of this type of documentation posted on the blog in the next few weeks.
Sean Costello
