The job of this filter is to make an audio recording perceivably louder by
reducing the dynamic range, that is, the difference between the loudest and
the quietest parts. ACE compressor lowers the volume of loud sounds above a
user-defined threshold measured in dB, then the gain of all the sound gets
increased to make up for lost loudness.
ACE Compressor
Available settings are:
Threshold. This setting defines the loudness at which the compressor
will start working.
Knee. Whether the transition from uncompressed to compressed is soft
or hard. The effect is more noticeable with larger ratios.
Ratio. How much the gain is reduced above a certain threshold.
If the ratio is e.g. 5:1, 5dB will become 1dB.
Attack. How long (in ms) it takes to apply maximum compression.
Release. How long it takes to return to zero compression.
Makeup Gain. How much the overall level should be increased after
reducing loud sections.
Sidechain. Whether the effect should be activate by the loadness
of audio signal in another track passing a certain threshold.
The plugin also provides an opt-out inline display that shows input signal,
threshold, and resulting gain reduction:
Inline display
ACE Expander
Contrary to compressors, expanders increase the dynamic range either
by making quite sounds quieter (downward expanders) or by making loud
sounds louder (upward expanders). ACE Expander is a downward
expander. It reduces the level of a signal below a user-defined threshold
by user-defined ratio, then optionally increases the overall gain to make
up for lost loudness.
ACE Expander
Available settings are:
Attack. How long (in ms) it takes to apply maximum
reduction of the quiet sections.
Release. How long it takes to stop reducing the quiet
signal at all.
Knee. Whether the transition from non-reduced to
reduced signal level is soft or hard. The effect is more noticeable with
larger ratios.
Ratio. How much the gain is reduced below a certain
threshold. If the ratio is e.g. 3:1, -10dB will become -30dB.
Threshold. The loudness at which the expander will
start working.
Makeup Gain. How much the overall level should be
increased after reducing quiet sections.
Sidechain. Whether the effect should be activated by
the loudness of audio signal in another track passing a certain threshold.
ACE Expander also comes with an inline widget for mixer channels
that displays the input signal level, the threshold, and the amount of
reduced signal.
Inline display
ACE Delay
Delay effects repeat original signal after a user-defined interval.
In ACE Delay, the interval is calculated from the tempo and the
divisor — a musical time unit like a 1/4th note or a dotted 1/16th note.
When using a delay in music production, it's usually best to sync to
project's tempo, especially if there are tempo ramps in a song.
ACE Delay
Available settings are:
Tempo. Amount of beats per minute.
Sync. This toggles the syncing to project's
tempo.
Divisor. The interval between the original sound and
its delayed copy, expressed in whole or fractional notes
(1/4th, 1/8th etc.)
Dotted. When enabled, adds half the divisor unit
to the delay interval, e.g. a 1/8th note becomes a dotted 1/8th note.
Time. The final delay time expressed in milliseconds.
Feedback. How much of the processed signal goes back
into the delay effect's input.
Low-Pass Filter (LPF). This helps simulating analog
delay effects where the repeated signal gets dull.
Invert. This option inverts the polarity of the output
signal.
Output Gain. Reduces or increases the level of the
output signal.
ACE Reverb
A reverb effect emulates sound waves reflecting off the walls in a closed
space which could be a a small room or a cathedral. The effect is usually
applied to a "dry" audio recording, that is, one typically made in a
very small room with acoustic absorption treatment so that there are little-to-no
reflections. That way, a reverb effect makes the most sense as it gives you a
clean slate and more freedom to shape your sound.
The ACE Reverb effect is a very simple one, based on early research to
artificial reverberation by Manfred Schroeder and Ben Logan (see
here for technical details). There are just two controls:
Blend. This control changes the mix in favour
of either "dry" unprocessed signal that is being fed into the
effect or the "wet" processed by the effect. 0 means you only
hear the unprocessed signal, 1 mean you only hear the processed signal.
Room Size. This control changes the size of the virtual
room and therefore the amount of decay.
ACE High/Low Pass Filter
High-pass and low-pass filters reduce the signal below and above a certain
frequency respectively. The ACE High/Low Pass filter combines the
two filters in one.
ACE High/Low Pass Filter
Each of the two bandpass filters has three controls:
Steepness. How much the filter reduces the signal per
each step (12dB/oct to 48dB/oct). Setting steepness to Off
disables the filter entirely.
Cutoff frequency. The base frequency where the filter
begins cutting off the data.
Resonance. How much the signal around the cutoff
frequency is suppressed (lower values) or emphasized (higher values).
The plugins defaults to 0.707 which roughly translates to "do nothing".
The plugin also comes with an inline display visualizing the effect that
the filters have.
