McDSP Chrome Tone HD: Performance Effects

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Chrome Tone Overview

The Chrome Tone collection of effects includes distortion, compression, gating, chorus, flange, EQ, wah, tremolo, spring reverb and tape delay effect. These are all designed with sonic flexibility for a myriad of applications from guitar, keyboards, drums and even voice. Chrome Tone brings the world of custom guitar amps, boutique outboard gear and pedal effects inside your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).

Use Chrome Tone on Every Track in your Session!

Interactive Session Link

A Look at the Chrome Tone Amp Configuration

Chrome Tone Features

A Look at the Chrome Tone Wah

The Chrome Tone Wah has much more than the standard wah pedal offers. Three types of band pass (wah) filters are included, plus multiple low pass, high pass, and phasor filter configurations are available with 12, 24, and 36 dB/oct slopes. All filter configurations have selectable frequency and Q values. Using the Chrome Tone as a Wah, the wah-effect can be created in one of three ways:

1. Move the frequency control itself (manual wah)
2. Modulate the frequency control from a base setting with the Dynamic section (enveloped wah)
3. Modulate the frequency control from a base setting with the Auto section (auto wah). These three techniques can be extended to any of the other filter types in the Wah configuration.

The Q, or resonance, control, provides emphasis at the selected frequency, or at the currently modulated frequency. This can create filter effects commonly associated with synthesizers. The selections, bandpass, low pass, and high pass all come in 1/2/3 modes, corresponding to 12/24/36 dB per octave slopes. The intensity of the resonance increases with steeper filter slopes.

A Look at the Chrome Tone Tremolo

The Tremolo effect is the modulation of the volume (gain) of a signal path. This effect is common in guitar and keyboards, and a variety of other instruments. The beating, or volume movements can add life to an otherwise dull performance.

The Chrome Tone Tremolo uses the same Dynamic and Auto sections found in the Wah configuration to modulate the gain in its tremolo circuit.

The Chrome Tone Tremolo section has two controls to adjust the Tremolo effect.

• Mix - the amount of dry (unaffected) signal and wet (tremolo'd) signal.
• Range - the overall modulation range from both the Dynamic and Auto sections.

A Look at the Chrome Tone Chorus

The Chrome Tone Chorus section contains five controls to adjust the Chorus effect.

• Chorus Type - selects between Flange, Chorus 1, and Chorus 2 modes. In the Stack configuration, an Analog Delay mode is also available for up to 1 second of analog delay.
• Delay - the total delay line lengths used to create the delay modulated effect.
• Feedback - the amount of delayed signal feed back into the input of the delay line/s.
• Mix - the balance between the dry (un-delayed) and wet (delayed) signals.
• Range - the overall modulation range from both the Dynamic and Auto sections.

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The Dynamics and Auto Section

The Chrome Tone Wah is a full featured modulated filter, configured as a Wah in default mode, and as a variety of other filters as per the 14 selectable types available. The Wah, like the Tremolo and Chorus configurations, has a Dynamics and Auto section for triggering modulation of the Wah filter, Tremolo gain, or Chorus delay length.

The Dynamic section acts as an envelope follower with adjustable attack and decay times. A threshold determines the triggering level of the envelope follower. The amount of effect the envelope follower has on the Wah, Tremolo or Chorus is determined by the Depth control. The amount of affect the envelope follower has on the Auto section's LFO Rate, Shape, or Depth is determined by the Mod control. Inputs to the Dynamic section are not limited to audio - side chain audio, MIDI note or velocity, and any of the 128 MIDI controllers can be used as the modulation source.

The Auto section is a configurable LFO (low frequency oscillator) used to modulate the Wah Tremolo or Chorus with a periodic waveform. There are two waveform shapes that can be mixed in realtime, and the second shape can be a multiple of the first. MIDI beat clock syncing is available along with a groove control.

Performance Effects

As with other McDSP plug-ins, Chrome Tone is very efficient. DSP performance and usage is an important consideration whether you are running on the host or a dedicated DSP chip.

Performance also refers to how these plug-ins respond dynamically to a musical performance. Chrome Tone effects can take their cues from a number of sources - the original audio, side chain, an external controller or any MIDI track in the session. These signals can adjust the depth, speed and shape of the LFO, as well as modulate the original audio.

Modulation Effects

Chorus, Tremolo and Wah all have a Dynamic section that controls a modulation envelope with selectable triggering (input, sidechain, MIDI data). An Auto section includes a syncable LFO with selectable/mixable waveforms. The LFO shape, rate, and depth can be further modulated from the Dynamics section's envelope output.

The wah includes 3 different band pass filter configurations, which can create stronger Q and tighter response and 3 different high pass and low pass filter configurations offered in series. Additional Wah modes includes 3 different phasors, and phasor/filter combinations.

Modes offered within the Chorus are flange, two different chorus modes and a tape delay.

The Stack

Another way Chrome Tone offers flexibility is in the configurations of the effects themselves. There is an all-in-one mode called the "stack" (shown on the left as the Wah page) which contains all the elements of the Amp, Tremolo, Wah, and Chorus effects, plus a tape delay mode in the Chorus section. Chrome Tone also comes with individual plug-ins of Amp, Chorus, Tremolo, and Wah with Phasor. All of these configurations are made available in mono, mono to stereo and true stereo.

Presets for Chrome Tone

Presets are the life-blood for many musicians. Artists will often keep thier sound close to heart and never let go of their secrets. Luckily for you, we have conviced some of our professional endorsees to give a little back and here we present new Chrome Tone Presets.

Matthew Sweet Presets
How to Install Presets

Matthew Sweet Presets:

If modern melodic power-pop has a face, it belongs to Matthew Sweet. From his breakthrough 1991 album "Girlfriend" to the bliss of last year's "Kimi Ga Suki * Raifu," Matthew's work can be easily identified by the melodic songwriting and beautiful vocal harmonies that have become the cornerstone of his sound. Mr Sweet jumped on Chrome Tone early and fell in love with what it can do. In his words "...love the reverb and amp room sounds...the input low cut kicks ass...the wahs are great, the choruses that actually make me like chorus, trem to die for...the sound tailoring potential seems endless with all the controls. again, wow!"

After spending some quality time with Chrome Tone, Mr. Sweet sent a few of his personal settings:

(requires Chrome Tone 1.1 or greater)

CHROME TONE AMP (on all of these it is worth checking out what swapping the phase, as well as trying different cabinets (i love the roomy ones) and compression. maybe i'm crazy, but i also admit to turning off the noise gate pretty often for added amp realism--buzzzzzz!) Half-Speed Direct -used this preset as a direct clean line to record a half-speed electric guitar a-la lindsey buckingham (ends up an octave higher and sped up on normal playback). I used this with a low output 60's italian electric guitar (you may want to adjust your input/output levels for whatever guitar you use--try playing with the phase as well!) VINTAGE12glory -this is another clean direct preset i've used a lot with my epiphone riviera 12-string for a vintage Byrds-y direct 12 sound! lespaulHeaven -a nice fat vintage distorted tone that i use with my p-90 les paul goldtop. inspiring! rawroomAMP -a trashy roomy semi-distorted tone (play with your input levels) that seems to work well with cheesier bright electric guitars in particular--a good-bad sound! big clean neck pkup -this is a clean fat lead sound i used with the neck p-90 pickup on my Les Paul CHROME TONE CHORUS VocalFlange -I used this on some background vocals--a nice flanger! CHROME TONE TREMOLO apVintageTrem -an all purpose vintage tremolo CHROME TONE WAH Phase It! -an all purpose phasor

Installing Chrome Tone Presets

To install these presets or other additional presets for the Chrome Tone
Plug-In manually:

• Go to the plug-ins folder:
• Root-> Library-> Application Support-> Digidesign-> plug-ins on OS X, or
• Root-> SystemFolder-> DAE Folder-> plug-ins on OS 9
• Simply place a copy of the Chrome Tone presets you wish to add in the relevant sub folder in the plug-ins folder.

To make and save your own presets, see the "Plug-In Librarian Functions" section of Digidesign™'s DigiRack plug-ins Guide.

To share those presets with us here at McDSP or other Chrome Tone users navigate back to your plug-ins folder, duplicate the preset file you wish to share and remove it for emailing.

A Word on Preset Compatibility

Presets for the Amp, Wah, Tremolo, Chorus, and Stack configurations of the Chrome Tone plug-In are NOT interchangeable. McDSP will be adding the ability for each configuration to read the relevant portion of another configuration's settings in a later release.

In the interim, when an incompatible preset is used, such as a Amp preset into a Stack plug-In, the Chrome Tone plug-In will display a warning message accompanied by a system beep and retain the control settings before the preset was applied.