SkidderSkidder turns the sound on and off. You could also call it an auto-gate. Except that it also can randomly pan your choppy chunks of sound all about, which is why it's a skidder, like how a rock skids across a frozen lake when you throw it out there, bouncing here and there lopsided-style. There is also a MIDI trigger mode for Skidder. When this is on, the effect is triggered by MIDI notes. This mode will only work in host applications that support sending MIDI notes to effect plugins. rate: The rate parameter controls the speed at which the sound goes on and off. The values are in cycles per second (Hertz). When tempo sync is on, you can control Skidder's rate according to the tempo of your song instead of Hz, so then the values are in cycles per beat (note: I mean per single beat, not per measure, so this is independent of time signature). This parameter can be set to use a randomized range. If the two slider handles are not right next to each other, then Skidder will, for each cycle, randomly choose a value for the rate that is within the range of the minimum and maximum points. tempo sync: This switches between the "free" rate control and the tempo-synced rate control. pulsewidth: The pulsewidth parameter controls how much of each cycle is "on." If you set it to 90%, then your source sound will be output during the first 90% of each cycle and the last 10% of each cycle will be silent. This parameter can be set to use a randomized range. If the two slider handles are not right next to each other, then Skidder will, for each cycle, randomly choose a value for the pulsewidth that is within the range of the minimum and maximum points. slope: The slope parameter sets the length of the volume-smoothing slopes that are at the beginning (fade-in) and end (fade-out) of each pulse. The values are in milliseconds and that's how long each volume fade will be. Slope can be set to 0 ms if you want, but you are likely to get irritating popping sounds at the start and end of each pulse if you do that. If you set the slopes to be longer than the pulse, then your slope setting gets overridden to be one third of the pulse length. floor: This controls how quiet the sound gets between skids, i.e. during the "off" period of each cycle. If you set this to -∞ dB, then Skidder turns the sound completely off between skids. If you set it to 0.0 dB, then the volume never changes. If you set this parameter somewhere in between, then Skidder will get quieter between skids, but not completely silent. In a sense, it functions like a dry/wet mix control. This parameter can be set to use a randomized range. If the two slider handles are not right next to each other, then Skidder will, for each cycle, randomly choose a value for the floor that is within the range of the minimum and maximum points. crossover mode: You can limit the skidding effect to only part of the frequency spectrum. When set to "all", Skidder effects the full spectrum. When set to "low", the effect is only applied to audio below the crossover cutoff frequency. When set to "high", the effect is only applied to audio above the crossover cutoff frequency. crossover frequency: This adjusts the crossover cutoff frequency used when operating in "low" or "high" crossover mode. stereo spread: The stereo spread parameter controls the amount of random panning to which your outputted sound chunks will be subjected. When it's set to 0%, all of your audio will come out centered. When it's set to 100%, each pulse will be randomly panned to a different position within the full stereo field. Lowering the stereo spread value will limit how far from center the random panning is allowed to stray. While panning, Skidder preserves the original audio signal's total amplitude, which means that it is possible to clip when the sound is panned off-center. If you have an input signal that never peaks above half amplitude (-6 dB), then there's no risk, but otherwise, adjust the gain in your host application to accommodate for however much panning you are going to allow, or follow Skidder with dynamics processing. Skidder pans to the left by moving some of the right signal into the left channel and pans to the right by moving some of the left signal into the right channel, so the overall volume of each channel is always preserved. note: The stereo spread parameter is only functional when Skidder is processing stereo output. When Skidder is processing mono output or more than two channels of output, the parameter is ineffectual. rupture: blurps of noise betwixt your skids tempo: The tempo parameter is used to tell Skidder what the tempo of your song is, unless syncing to host tempo. host tempo: When enabled, Skidder tries to get the tempo and beat position from the host application. This is only possible if the host application supports sending tempo information to plugins, otherwise Skidder falls back to its tempo parameter. MIDI mode: This button lets you choose how Skidder responds to MIDI notes. In MIDI trigger mode, Skidder gets triggered by MIDI notes. The effect is active while you play a note and sound is muted when you're not playing any notes. MIDI apply mode is similar except that the sound stays on, unprocessed, between notes. "Nothing" mode means that notes are ignored. velocity: If you enable this and you are using a MIDI note control mode, then the floor level will be controlled by note velocity. The floor is lower when the note velocity is higher, and vice versa. parameter adjustment tricks: You can make fine adjustments by holding the shift key while adjusting a parameter with your mouse. You can also reset a parameter to its default value by holding the command ⌘ key (control on Windows) when clicking on it. You can move both points of a range slider together by holding the control key. You can move both points of a range slider, preserving their relationship, by holding the option key (alt on Windows), or clicking and dragging from a point between the two handles. You can make the two points of a range slider converge or diverge by holding the option (alt) and control keys while dragging up or down. |