There is a Unison effect in Reason which duplicates the incoming audio 4,8 or 16 times , then detune and pan each one of them . Obviously we don’t have such effect in Renoise but can I replicate that?
I know i could duplicate the sample and detune ,pan each one , but how could i do this by using the effects? Unfortunatly we don’t have any pitchshifter in renoise , so is there any native way to do this?
I would like to have a doofer or a patch to save and load that to any sample of my choice .
Why not just stack multiple chorus effects with different delay/depth/speed settings?
Not bad idea, but how is it possible to control detuning? As i don’t know how chorus accomplishes that
There are two parameters that control detune, and that depend on each other. Depth and Rate.
The chorus applies no fixed detune, but will instead “waver” a delay of the sound forth and back with an LFO, first consecutively delaying/lagging it and thus slowing it down, then speeding it up again to catch up. While it is lagged, it will detune lower than the original sound, yet while it is then catching up again, it will detune the sound to have higher pitch than original. So it is not like a pitch shifter, it can only detune down to then detune up again, always alternating these states with the speed of the LFO.
So it will alternate between detune up and down. The depth is the amount of maximum delay and thus the strength of the detune up/down, and also the detune will depend on the speed, i.e. if the sound is wavered faster, it will have stronger detune as a result.
stacking the chorus devices can make them sound a bit like an ensemble effect. A bit different, but it is possible to emulate. Each chorus device will add a detuned voice so to say. Even more, because it will detune not only the dry signal, but also the wet of the previous chorus devices, so take care not to end up in a big mud too soon.
You should choose a dry/wet ratio like only 25-50% wet, so the next chorus device will also manipulate the dry signal.
Also the rate can get tricky to choose so the detune is always spread nicely and not generate hickups. I.e. choose one rate, then for the next chorus divide the LFO frequency by 15 and mul by 14, then every 15 cycles of the first chorus the second will make 14 cycles in the same time. Generally try to give the chorus devices different rates to get an ensemble like sound, if the rates all match the sound will be too much in sync to sound like a multiplication of voices.
You can also try to use the chorus filters to make it affect different bands of the sound, so the mids get different wavering than the highs.
Using the “delay” parameter you can offset the wavering sound in time, thus also creating a stronger illusion of multiple voices. For a stack of chorus devices you could use different delay for each stage (like with 15ms steps for each instance), so each chorus voice has a different phase in comparison to the original sound.
3 Likes
Thanks for clearing things up
Ofcourse It’s possible to do all these in paralell
In instrument effecfs .
Is there anyway to do pitch shifting in renoise? An effect?
New renoise 3.2 has a pitch shifter builtin into the sampler. Sounds like a nice idea to layer pitch shifted samples detuned against each other in there…
But renoise has no pitch shifter effect device. You will need to use a VST for that.
Unison for sample-based instruments can also be achieved by using a phrase, giving you a lot of control.
Insert the basenote (let’s say C-4) in a couple of note columns and detune them using the Uxx and Dxx command.
Use the note delay column to offset the voices / shift the phases and the pan column to distribute them in the stereo field.
Also, the phrase editor has sliders for those parameters, making fine tuning easier.
Yes right , but Uxx and Dxx don’t act instantly .
How do i solve that?
Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think chorus and unison are the same thing. Chorus modulates the detuned effect against the source, while unison creates multiple copies that are slightly tuned a few cents above or below the source. Unison doesn’t wiggle the same way chorus does.
I’ve done something similar by dropping multiple copies of a sample into the sampler, detuning each by a few cents up or down, lowering the volume, and stretching each sample across all keyzones so they all play whenever you hit a key. (That’s why you have to lower the volume of each sample, because with 8 or 16 going at once, it can get loud).
I think I figured out how to create true Unison, though it’s a bit of a hack. The TL;DR here is that you render one sample out of multiple copies of the same sample detuned against each other, then you can use that rendered sample as a true Unison waveform to build an instrument up from there. Here, I created a supersaw out of five identical saw waves detuned against each other.
I took the same sample, repeated it 5 times as different instruments with each one slightly detuned against the central tone. That is…
- Instrument 1: No detune
- Instrument 2: -3 cents
- Instrument 3: +3 cents
- Instrument 4: -6 cents
- Instrument 5: +6 cents
Then I put each different instrument on its own track, played the same note in each track, and rendered each pattern as its own sample – C4, F4, G4, C3.
The result is a nicely swirly supersaw sample that can serve as the basis of a nice instrument. From there you can dress it up with whatever modulation or effects you like.
Here’s the XRNS if you want to see how I did it or to make your own.
Of course, it sure would be cool if there was a single knob that did this like in other synths. And of course, you could do this by just sampling a synth that does all this with one knob, but this at least shows that it can be done in Renoise’s own native tools.
1 Like
The difference between chorus and unison is: the original signal will be split up to multiple copies. On these the chorus will be created by multiple, very short (some ms) delay/echos, where the delay times will be slightly modulated by sine or triangle lfos (similar to a flanger fx). This creates some kind of “pseudo” rising and falling pitch shifts in the copies of the signal. This means, if the delay time goes longer, the pitch rises slightly down, if the delay time goes shorter, the pitch rises.
In an audio unison fx (like the UN-16 Unison device of Reason) the signal also will be split up to multiple copies. But these copies will be modulated by real pitch shifter algorithms (similar to Autotune or Melodyne for vocals) instead of delays.
Here is a native synth I made which has a unison effect (bloom), maybe it can give you an idea:
https://files.renoise.com/forum/downloads/Instruments/Thebellows-Big_Bloomer/
1 Like
Yeah stacking detuned oscillators is one way to achive “unison” effect.
However there are special effects, that turn any sound into unison like texture.
My idea about the chorus was just to make a similar sound, not to work exactly like those vsts. So if the VST is no option, you could achive something as a replacement. I did not meant to say that the chorus will sound exactly like the unison. Traditionally chorus was invented to make a “unison” like sound, thats why it is called “chorus”, it was thought to let voice or instrument sound like a “choir” of such sounds was playing.
Very nice! Thanks for sharing!
1 Like