Retroactor (Stereo)

Description

Warning

Please be careful when using high resonance-levels of the filter or high feedback-levels.**

As typical for a diode-ladder filter and feedback-experiments the sound can become quite nasty, so be sure to try with low volumes first! Please note: Retroactor does not offer real stereo processing but the feedback processing needs many resources, so it still takes up both slots of the TBD. Here is a little demo-track done only with Retroactor with quite a bit of reverb added in the DAW: https://soundcloud.com/taitekatto/retroactor-for-tbd

The idea of Retroactor is to have a simple yet flexible to control feedback / drone-noise generator.The plugin uses a wavefolder, as diode-ladder filter and a resonant combfilter by Carlos Laguna Ruiz implemented in his VULT language, for more details on the topic please look here: https://github.com/modlfo/vult Retroactor’s signal-flow is visualized downwards from the top to the bottom of the GUI. Because of the feedback structure this yet may be not entirely obvious. Here is a screenshot of a very similar patch, also using VULT-technology, done in VCV Rack to make it more obvious:

../_images/retraktor.png

Parameters

Section 1: Global

  • Master Pitch (map CV here if desired)

  • Master Tune +- 1200 Cent

  • Master Volume

Section 2: Voice

  • Pitch smooth Sine A (Sine A is a pure Sine, very smooth - for

    overtones consider Sine B)

  • Smooth Sine A +-1 Octave

  • Distort Sine B n/y (This will give you a Sine wave with more

    overtones due to aliasing)

  • Pitch variable Sine B (Sine B can be rougher, beware of

    unwanted scratchy sounds, though)

  • Variable Sine B +-1 Octave

Section 3: Feedback Loop

  • ResetFeedbackLoop (Click here, if the feedback has stopped and

    you want to restart it)

  • Combfilter Cutoff

  • Combfilter Resonance

  • Combfilter Tone

  • Diode Ladder Cutoff

  • Diode Ladder Resonance

  • Vintage Resonance pitching n/y

  • Wavefolder Amount

  • Isolate Feedback-Loop n/y (Sinewaves will be excluded from the

    feedback-line)

Section 4: Mixer

  • Disable Sinus Waves n/y (Shut off sinewaves)

  • VolSineBoost (Decrease or up to triple loudness increase the

    volume of the waves)

  • Vol smooth Sine A (Sine A is a pure Sine, very smooth - for

    overtones distort Sine B)

  • Vol variable Sine B (Sine B can be rougher, beware of unwanted

    scratchy sounds, though)

  • Sinewaves Mix

  • Vol Feedback Loop

  • Vol Wavefolder

Usage / Patch Ideas

Please note that if you want to make use of Retroactor’s feedback capabilities you have to feed the feedback-loop with some kind of signal (sine waves and/or filter-feedback) first.

The general idea here is, then to find some “sweet spots” where the feedback and the distortion sounds interesting and then play around with some parameters in a way that makes sense in the (musical) context you want to use it. It’s a good idea to use lots of reverb and maybe also echo and/or some kind of modulation like a phaser. In the VCV Rack screenshot above for instance, the module Plateau got used.