Devices

In the desktop app. Devices on tracks belong to the desktop app and are arriving in its beta; the web studio has instruments but no effects yet. The examples on this page are made with reference versions of the effects, applied to sound from the studio’s engine.

What a device is

A device is anything on a track that makes sound or changes it. An instrument is a device that turns notes into sound. An effect is a device that takes the sound passing through and gives back a changed one: quieter, brighter, with an echo, in a room. Every device in Flesance looks and behaves the same way, with the same knobs, the same hints and the same pages in this manual, so learning one teaches you how to use all of them.

If the idea of changing a sound is new to you, read Sound in ten ideas first. Each device answers one of those ideas.

The chain

The devices of a track stand in a row, the chain, and the sound passes through them one after another: out of the first, into the second, and so on, until what is left reaches the track’s volume fader and the mixer. Select a track to see its chain in the inspector at the right: the devices stand one under another, and the sound passes through them from top to bottom. The master has a chain of its own, for what should happen to the whole song.

The instrument comes first

On an instrument track the instrument is the first device, because it is where the sound begins, and a track has only one. Effects follow it. On an audio track the recording takes the instrument’s place, and the chain is effects only.

Adding a device

Press Add effect at the bottom of the inspector and choose a device from the menu. It is added after the last one. A new device arrives with settings that are safe to hear at once: it changes the sound a little, never drastically, and you turn it from there.

Which one to reach for:

• The sound is muddy, harsh or dull: EQ.
• Some notes vanish and others jump out: Compressor.
• The bass and the kick get in each other’s way: Ducker.
• The sound is dry and flat: Reverb or Delay.
• The sound is too clean: Drive.
• It should move or widen: Filter or Chorus.
• There is noise between the phrases: Gate.
• It is simply too loud, too wide or on the wrong side: Utility.
• The whole song should be louder: Limiter, on the master.

Order matters

Because each device works on what the one before it gives, the same two devices in a different order sound different. Drag a device by its header, the line with its name, to move it along the chain. A useful habit: devices that clean a sound (EQ, Gate) go before devices that add to it (Drive, Delay, Reverb), so that you add to the cleaned sound and not to the problem.

Turning a device off

The lamp at the right of a device’s header switches it off without removing it; click it again to switch it back on. The sound then passes through untouched and the device keeps its settings. This is how you check whether a device is helping: listen with it, listen without it, at the same loudness. A device that only makes the sound louder will always seem better, so match the level before judging; see Louder sounds better.

Removing a device

The cross at the right of a device’s header takes it out of the chain. Like every change, it can be undone with Ctrl+Z.

Starting points

The button beside the lamp in a device’s header opens its starting points: a few settings named for what they do to the sound, such as Tighten a kick or Air on a vocal on the EQ. Choosing one sets all of the device’s controls at once, and it is a single step to undo. They are places to start from, not answers: load one, then turn the controls until it suits the sound you have.

Listening to another track

The Ducker and the Compressor can react to a track other than their own, chosen from their Listen to menu. That is all there is to what other studios call sidechaining.

Meters and curves

Some devices draw what they are doing at the top: the EQ its curve over the sound, the Compressor, Ducker, Gate and Limiter how far they are turning the sound down at this moment. A meter that never moves means the device is doing nothing yet.

More controls

Some devices keep a few rarely needed controls under More at the bottom of the device. Open it once and it stays open for every device of that kind until the studio is restarted; Fewer folds it again.

Mix

Many devices have a Mix control: the share of changed sound in the result. At 100 % you hear only what the device made; lower, the untouched sound is blended back in. It is the simple way to have a strong effect in a small amount: a heavily driven bass under the clean one, or a very compressed drum kit under the natural one.

Every device explains itself

Hover over any control of a device to see, in one sentence, what it does to the sound, with a Learn more link to its place in these pages. Each device page says what the device is for, when you would reach for it, what each control changes, and lets you hear a before and after.