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USER MANUAL

Summary of Contents for Phaser BI-TRON

Page 1: ...USER MANUAL ...

Page 2: ...ukai Ben EGGEHORN Matthew HERBERT Guillaume HERNANDEZ Jay JANSSEN Luca LEFEVRE Terry MARSDEN Peter TOMLINSON Chuck ZWICKY ARTURIA SA 2020 All rights reserved 26 avenue Jean Kuntzmann 38330 Montbonnot Saint Martin FRANCE www arturia com Information contained in this manual is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Arturia The software described in this m...

Page 3: ...Change The information contained in this manual is believed to be correct at the time of printing However Arturia reserves the right to change or modify any of the specifications or features without notice or obligation IMPORTANT The software when used in combination with an amplifier headphones or speakers may be able to produce sound levels that could cause permanent hearing loss DO NOT operate ...

Page 4: ...luded in the FX Collection and benefits from decades of experience in recreating the most iconic tools of the past ARTURIA has a passion for excellence and accuracy This led us to conduct an extensive analysis of every aspect of one of the most sought after phaser units of the past But as has been usual and became a fundamental characteristic in all of our plug ins we didn t just model the sound a...

Page 5: ...to Stereo 13 4 2 Main Control Panel 14 4 2 1 Power 15 4 2 2 Sweep Gen 1 Sweep Gen 2 15 4 2 3 Phasor A Phasor B 16 4 2 4 Routing 18 4 3 Pedal 20 4 3 1 Manual 21 4 3 2 Envelope 22 4 4 Advanced Mode Control Panel 24 4 4 1 Hi Pass Filter 24 4 4 2 Phasor Poles A B 24 4 4 3 Mix 25 4 4 4 R INV Right Invert 1 2 25 5 USER INTERFACE 26 5 1 The Upper Toolbar 26 5 1 1 Save Preset 26 5 1 2 Save Preset As 27 5 ...

Page 6: ... the signal is usually fed back into the input producing a resonance effect The phase of the feedback signal can also be inverted to achieve further variations of the flanger effect Flangers usually make great use of feedback to receive more processing This accentuates the notches and resonances resulting in the harsh metallic timbre that is one noticeable characteristic of flangers The Phaser pha...

Page 7: ...ed through pedals or other external inputs Besides this the fact that it has 2 independent circuits allows for true stereo which was another factor that contributed to it being selected as the phaser unit to be emulated Among it s famous users we can find names like Stevie Wonder Grateful Dead Smashing Pumpkins and Lee Scratch Perry dub The unique design of this phaser adds to its appeal and today...

Page 8: ...he most but also riffs especially where the notes are more sustained can use it to enrich and give movement the sound As we said the phaser effect sounds usually more spacey than flanger but both effects are often combined Pianos mostly electric but also acoustic are other good candidates to the use of flanger Some of you may remember the great electric piano accompaniment played by Dennis DeYoung...

Page 9: ...e version of the installer that you need for your system macOS or Windows Follow the installation instructions and then Launch the Arturia Software Center ASC Log into your Arturia account Scroll down to the My Products section of the ASC Click the Activate button That s all there is to it 2 2 Working with plug ins The Arturia Phaser BI TRON can be used in all major digital audio workstations DAWs...

Page 10: ... A routing control in the lower middle of this panel is where we define how the two phaser engines interact We will explain all of these in detail in the Control Panel chapter p 13 The pedal includes two extra controls for the phasers One is a manual control and acts exactly like what should be expected from a pedal The other is an audio Envelope Follower and again acts as expected on this kind of...

Page 11: ...e part is the dry path which is routed directly to the output when bypass is activated Otherwise this part will not be output After this split another split occurs This time the dry signal is routed to the mix controls where it will be mixed with the Wet processed signal The other part of the signal is routed through the engines according to the chosen routing pictured in the diagram above Inside ...

Page 12: ... we are saying is doubled in the other circuit since this is a double circuit phaser That s why we have a Phaser B rectangle behind the Phaser A After the phasing stage the signal is filtered once more after which the processed signal can be re injected fed back in the Phaser circuit This is controlled by the feedback control in each Phasor panel Despite being fed back or not the signal travels to...

Page 13: ...in the Lower Toolbar This is the complete signal flow of the Phaser BI TRON Study the circuit spend some time with the controls and we re sure you ll gain a deep understanding of how this chorus processor works and enjoy all its amazing sonic capabilities The following section will definitely give you some help Arturia User Manual Phaser BI TRON PHASER BI TRON OVERVIEW 9 ...

Page 14: ...ting section in the lower part of the panel between the two Phasor panels The default is Stereo serial Try other options to see how the effect changes like for example Stereo Parallel Try the feedback control Depending on the music material you may notice some increase in the phasing effect Remember that feedback is not very common in a Phaser Actually the hardware unit that is emulated here was t...

Page 15: ...of the input signal by the envelope follower Turn it to the right until you listen the phaser acting as you want it to act You can also delay the action of Envelope Generator Try it and see for yourself if the results please you And that s pretty much it in what concerns standard controls This unit has a lot of potential by just using the standard controls But there s more we can do Please read be...

Page 16: ...Now try the poles control This may change drastically the phasing effect The original has a fixed 6 pole filter but here we can go from 2 up to 12 Change it while the audio is playing You ll be surprised The R INV switches invert the right side of the LFOs for each of the Phasor units When used together with for example a ramp waveform on the LFO we can obtain some very interesting stereo effects ...

Page 17: ...Mono Stereo Mono to Stereo The difference between the different configurations consists in the following When instantiated in stereo channels the plug in loads in full mode featuring four possible routing configurations two mono and two stereo When instantiated in mono channels the plug in doesn t have the stereo routing options since they only act in stereo signals It also doesn t have the Right ...

Page 18: ...ant for the use of the Arturia plug ins as it allows the Undo and Redo functions lists the editing history allows you to put the plug in in Bypass which doubles the Power button in the Main control panel and measures CPU consumption Of course the Upper Toolbar is very important as well since it is where we access the main menus perform important tasks like loading and saving presets and banks of p...

Page 19: ...musical eight note figure When turned On the button will lit If turned Off it will remain black and the rate values are expresses in Hz ranging from 0 200 Hz up to 20 0 Hz Default value is 0 653 Hz When in sync the rates are displayed in musical values ranging from 8 eight whole notes or eight 4 4 bars to 1 64 a 64th note By default the sync value is 1 2D meaning a dotted half note 4 2 2 2 Shape S...

Page 20: ...them as effect intensity controls The presence of two Depth controls is another new feature introduced by Arturia in this section The original unit had each engine controlled by just one LFO Therefore Sweep Gen 1 controlled Phasor A while Sweep Gen 2 controlled Phasor B Here we may have each engine controlled simultaneously by the two LFOs That s why we have two Depth control knobs Depth 1 control...

Page 21: ... to be controlled also by Sweep Generator 1 instead of Sweep Generator 2 But since we have the two Depth controls in each Phasor which means in practice that we already have the option to choose which Sweep Generator controls which Phasor with the added flexibility of having both Sweep Gens controlling both engines and with different intensities the Sweep Switches in the Arturia BI TRON are simila...

Page 22: ...ould be using it together with the Phasor B R INV switches in the Advanced Panel Since those switches allow to invert only the right side of the LFO by toggling the red switch in the Main panel by inverting both sides with the red switch you will end with an inverted left side instead of the right side So toggling On and Off the red switch in the Main panel while the R INV switches in the Advanced...

Page 23: ...or A and then through Phasor B therefore receiving double processing On Stereo Parallel the two signals are routed through Phasor A and through Phasor B and then cross mixed the right output signal of Phasor A is mixed with the right output signal of Phasor B and vice versa for left output signals This way the stereo signal is processed through one phaser engine and then mixed with the signal proc...

Page 24: ...n the Manual position the LFO takes control of the Sweep Gen Rate To make the Pedal control the sweep of the phase shifting of each engine the respective Sweep switch must be in the Pedal position When the switch is in the Gen position the sweep is controlled by the Depth knobs The switch that activates the Pedal controller in the Sweep Gen 1 section The switches that activate the Pedal controller...

Page 25: ...n a switch is On the red LED lights On The left switch activates the Manual switch while the right switch activates the Envelope Follower mode The manual pedal is a very simple control like the real foot pedal We drag it up to increase the modulation value drag it down to decrease the modulation value and that s it It can also be automated Arturia User Manual Phaser BI TRON PHASER BI TRON CONTROL ...

Page 26: ...of Phasor B mono is the source for the envelope follower If the input signal is stereo the source will be the right channel When Input Phasor A B is selected the input signal of both engines is selected They will be summed and the summed contour will then be applied If the plug in is instantiated in a mono channel this will have no effect since the signal will be the same anyway External Sidechain...

Page 27: ...d up to 5 00 seconds The default Attack time is 0 020 twenty milliseconds Rel changes the detection Release time of the Envelope Follower Its range goes from 0 001 second one millisecond up to 5 00 seconds The default Release time is 0 020 twenty milliseconds Delay applies a delay time to the Envelope Follower action by delaying the modulation signal Its range goes from Off no delay up to 2000 mil...

Page 28: ...This is a 12dB oct high pass filter When you re modulating an audio track with a chorus flanger phaser you may not want your low end to modulate like for example if you want to keep your bass and kick drum steady and precise That s where the Hi Pass Filter plays a role By filtering out the low regions of the sound at the input of the unit only the high frequencies will be modulated By default the ...

Page 29: ...to choose to invert the right channel polarity of each or both of the LFOs So we have these switches to right invert R INV LFO 1 and right invert R INV LFO 2 for Phasor A and Phasor B in the advanced panel By inverting one of the sides of the LFO while using for example a ramp waveform you can get interesting stereo effects This is true even if the original signal input is mono by using Phaser BI ...

Page 30: ...ed in the library After this we have the button that gives access to the Advanced Mode control panel a double arrow A dot is added next to this double arrow button whenever the Advanced Mode is active i e when there are parameters set to non default values if that panel is not visible This upper toolbar which is common to all current Arturia plug ins gives access to many important functions These ...

Page 31: ...y when you want to share a preset with someone else The default path to these files will appear in the Save window but you can create a folder at another location if you like The saved preset can be reloaded with the import preset menu option Export Bank This option can be used to export an entire bank of presets from the plug in which is useful for backing up or sharing presets 5 1 5 Resize Windo...

Page 32: ...ws the arrows at the right of the preset name field to navigate through all the presets 5 2 Advanced Mode Double Arrow Button This button opens the Advanced Mode control panel This is where the controls are located for the extra features Arturia added to expand the possibilities regularly found on these units When the Advanced Mode panel is opened the arrows point up When the panel is closed the a...

Page 33: ...indows and buttons These are very important features so let s take a closer look 5 3 1 Output Gain The Output Gain allows to boost or attenuate the overall volume output gain of the plug in By default it will be at 0 00 dB neutral position but we can attenuate the output by 12 dB or boost it up by 12 dB 5 3 2 Panic The Panic button when pressed turns off the audio to stop any stuck sound this way ...

Page 34: ...done the latest undone ones first 5 3 6 Bypass This one is obvious Activating the bypass option will completely disable the Phaser BI TRON plug in This action may also be performed by the Power switch 5 3 7 CPU meter The CPU meter is used to monitor how much of your computer s CPU is being used by the plug in If you stress your computer too much the global performance of your system and the audio ...

Page 35: ...e are two columns The first one can list the Presets by Name or by Featured The Featured presets were selected as important by Arturia The second one lists the Presets by Type or by Designer There is only one attribute visible which is the one you select by clicking the column title By default Type is the attribute selected When you select the Designer attribute the list changes and that attribute...

Page 36: ... and Drag With this technique the values change more slowly which enables you to edit the values with greater precision 5 6 Resetting your controls Double clicking a control changes it automatically to the default value And that s it We just finished describing all the controls you have at your disposal to process sound in your DAW using the Phaser BI TRON plug in We hope you ll enjoy your new plu...

Page 37: ...be used for purposes other than storage purposes You shall have no further right or interest to use the software other than the limited rights as specified in this Agreement Arturia reserves all rights not expressly granted 3 Activation of the Software Arturia may use a compulsory activation of the software and a compulsory registration of the OEM software for license control to protect the softwa...

Page 38: ...ply to you All programs and accompanying materials are provided as is without warranty of any kind The complete risk as to the quality and performance of the programs is with you Should the program prove defective you assume the entire cost of all necessary servicing repair or correction 9 Remedies Arturia s entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be at Arturia s option either a return of...

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