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User Guide for soundtoys models including: SuperPlate, Five Classic Electromechanical Plate Reverb, SuperPlate Five Classic Electromechanical Plate Reverb, Electromechanical Plate Reverb, Plate Reverb, Reverb
16 mai 2023 — We've focused on providing what we believe are some of the most realistic and varied plate reverbs, and also a user-friendly design that greatly expands the ...17 pages
16 mag 2023 — User's Guide. Version 5.4 : For Mac and Windows. An Expansive Reverb Experience ... user interface clean we've put these parameters in this drop-down dis-.
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DocumentDocumentSuperPlate An Expansive Reverb Experience User's Guide Version 5.4 : For Mac and Windows CONTENTS SuperPlate THE BASICS / Pg. 3 About SuperPlate ........................................................................................ pg. 3 What's a Plate Reverb?................................................................................ pg. 3 THE CONTROL PANEL / Pg. 4 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION / Pg. 16 Support / Contact ........................................................................................ pg. 16 Trademark Information .............................................................................. pg. 16 Decay .............................................................................................................. pg. 4 Infinite Decay ................................................................................................ pg. 5 Low (Low Cut Filter)..................................................................................... pg. 5 High (High Cut Filter) .................................................................................. pg. 6 Pre-Delay ........................................................................................................ pg. 7 Modulation...................................................................................................... pg. 7 Mix .................................................................................................................... pg. 8 Input................................................................................................................. pg. 9 Output ............................................................................................................. pg. 9 Plate Styles..................................................................................................... pg. 9 Analog Styles ................................................................................................. pg. 10 Tweak Button & Tweak Parameters .......................................................... pg. 11 Modulation Rate............................................................................................ pg. 11 Auto-Decay..................................................................................................... pg. 12 Stereo Width & Balance............................................................................... pg. 13 Parametric Two Band EQ............................................................................. pg. 14 Preset Management ..................................................................................... pg. 15 Summary......................................................................................................... pg. 15 soundtoys.com 2 THE BASICS SuperPlate ABOUT SUPERPLATE WHAT'S A PLATE REVERB? Thank you for purchasing SuperPlate! We sincerely appreciate your support. SuperPlate is the result of years of research, analysis and development that builds on the work done to create our Little Plate plug-in. However, SuperPlate goes way beyond what we achieved with Little Plate and takes plate reverb emulation to another level with significantly increased features, flexibility, control and sonic capabilities. We've expanded the number of modeled plates from the single EMT 140 on Little Plate to five different and unique plates in SuperPlate. These include Little Plate's EMT 140, an EMT 240 Goldfoil, the Audicon plate, the EchoPlate III and the Stocktronics RX4000 plate. We spent a ton of effort to find the functioning plate reverbs that the models were derived from (they're all big and heavy!). We then went to work tuning, tweaking and refurbishing the plates to get the best possible sources to analyze. The five plate styles are not simple convolution impulse responses, they are modeled plates based on the actual sources. They provide for significantly increased ability to modify the reverb parameters in ways that are not possible with convolution or in the natural environment, like having infinite decay, modulation, dynamic decay changes and more. The plate reverb is one of the most unlikely heroes in recording history. Simultaneously enormous and understated, the huge wood-clad EMT 140 the original plate reverb and the first of five plates included in SuperPlate weighs in at about 600 pounds. It's not pretty. It's a piece of equipment that's made to be hidden away in a utility closet far from the studio's live room. Despite its humble, boxy exterior, the EMT 140 is undoubtedly the most iconic example of plate reverb, and remains a truly ingenious invention. Before the plate, when engineers wanted to add realistic reverberation to a recording, they had to pipe sound into physical rooms or echo chambers. Instead, the EMT 140 uses a magnetic transducer to vibrate a massive sheet of metal, sending the resulting reverberation back to the engineer via a pickup. The plate is capable of dense and smooth reverberation which has a beauty of its own. That is why plate reverb is still such a sought-after sound. EMT 140s and other original plate reverbs are getting hard to find and replacement parts even harder. Plus, their sheer size and weight keep them out of reach of the average studio. But don't worry, we've done all the heavy lifting for you. SuperPlate faithfully recreates five of the most sought after plates right inside of your favorite DAW giving you reverbs that would be virtually impossible to access even in the best professional recording studio. soundtoys.com 3 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate Figure 1: SuperPlate's Control Panel DECAY The large Decay Time kob is the most important control in SuperPlate. It affects how long it takes for a sound to fade away after entering the reverb. Changing the decay time will have a huge effect on how the reverb sounds, with short settings producing tighter, room-like sounds, and very long settings producing huge, cavernous sounds In the hardware EMT 140 plate, and other mechanical plates, decay time is controlled by a damper, which has the effect of shortening reverberation time the closer it is moved to the vibrating metal plate. Even with the damper at its maximum distance from the plate, the physical EMT 140 for example is only capable of about five seconds of reverberation time (at 500 Hz). In SuperPlate we've made it possible to get much longer extended decay times when you move into the red section of the Decay control range on each of the Plate Styles. The maximum (non-infinite) decay time setting is about one minute in length. The decay times listed on the Decay knob are more specifically measurements of RT60 at 500 Hz. RT60 is a standard way of measuring reverberation time, and it indicates how long it takes a sound to decay by 60 decibels. We chose 500 Hz for our measurements because this is how decay time is listed on the EMT 140's control panel. The reason we need to specify a frequency is that decay times are frequency dependent in a plate reverb. This frequency-dependent decay also depends on the damper (or decay knob on the plug-in) position, giving each decay time its own unique soundtoys.com 4 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate tone. At all decay time settings, high frequencies fade away faster than everything else. The low end varies drastically with decay time though, with shorter decay times creating a tight, controlled sound and longer decay times (four to five seconds) creating a warm, boomy sound that can be reined in with the Low Cut control. TIPS: · Experiment with automating the Decay control in your host appli- cation to smoothly turn infinite mode on and off to "hold" certain passages of audio in the reverb. · Try playing into SuperPlate live using infinite decay as a composi- tional tool. LOW (LOW CUT FILTER) INFINITE DECAY Figure 2: Decay Knob With Decay set to infinity (decay knob turned fully clockwise), the reverberating signal will not fade away. This allows sounds to reverberate for an indefinite amount of time. The sound of the reverberating audio will continue to change and darken over time, and new sound that enters the reverb will continue to influence its sound. Each plate style will significantly affect the overall sound providing many variations of tonalities. CAUTION: Be sure to watch your levels when using infinite decay. Playing sustained loud passages into the reverb can build up a large amount of energy inside the virtual plate. It might get loud! soundtoys.com The Low Cut control will filter out low frequencies from the audio signal pre-reverb. The range of the Low Cut is 20 Hz to 1 kHz so it can significantly reduce not only bass, but most of the midrange as well leaving only the high frequencies above 1 kHz entering the reverb which can be a cool effect. TIP: Because low frequency signals can decay slower than high frequency signals in a plate reverb, there will tend to be a natural buildup of bass energy in the reverb tail. If you find the result of the reverb too muddy or boomy, increase the Low Cut amount to reduce the amount of bass being fed to the reverb. LOW CUT SLOPE (TWEAK MENU): We'll cover the features and parameters in the Tweak Menu in a bit, but it's worth mentioning that the Low Cut filter has three selectable slopes including 6dB, 12dB and 24db. The Slope setting controls how much low frequency content, below the 5 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate LOW (CONTINUED) Low Cut frequency setting, is decreased going into the reverb. The 6dB setting provides a gentle slope and the least drastic cutoff of low frequencies, while the 24dB setting gives you a steeper slope and more significant reduction of the low end as you increase, or turn up the frequency setting. The 12dB setting is obviously in the middle and is a common setting on many reverb filters. The Low Cut slopes can be selected by clicking on the orange round (L) icon at the far left of the EQ display which will show the three numerical settings: 6, 12, 24. Clicking on the desired slope number will select the slope and the graphic display will change to show the selected filter slope type. By clicking the Low Cut icon and dragging left/right you can quickly change the Low Cut's frequency setting, which will also change the Low Cut knob setting on the main menu in kind. So you can change the Low Cut frequency from either the front panel or the Tweak menu graphic display. HIGH (HIGH CUT FILTER) The High Cut filter control will filter out high frequencies from the reverb signal's input. High Cut will not affect the dry, unprocessed audio signal. The High Cut control covers a frequency range from 20kHz down to 1 kHz, and like the Low Cut soundtoys.com has a significant impact on the reverb sound and presence beyond just cutting off some sizzle. TIPS: · A common technique is to filter out some high frequencies to avoid brighter parts of the reverb interfering with the source signal. This can produce a smoother, darker, and more natural reverb sound. Depending on the type of source signal more or less dampening of the highs will prove beneficial and result in a better overall tonal balance. Cutting the high frequencies can also help the separation of the source input from the reverb signal increasing overall clarity of the composite sound. · The combination of the Low Cut and High Cut provide a lot of con- trol allowing you to get an almost infinite number of different reverb tones. HIGH CUT SLOPE (TWEAK MENU): As mentioned above, we'll cover the features in the Tweak Menu in a bit. Like the Low Cut filter, the High Cut filter also has three selectable slopes including 6dB, 12dB and 24db. The Slope settings provide you with significantly increased control over how much of the high frequency content in the reverb signal is reduced starting at the selected High Cut frequency setting. The 6dB slope provides a gentle roll off and the least drastic cutoff of higher frequencies, reducing them 6dB each octave above the selected cutoff frequency. The 24dB gives you a steeper slope and more significant decrease 6 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate HIGH (CONTINUED) of the high end as you turn down the frequency setting. The 12dB setting is obviously in the middle and a common setting on many reverb filters. The slopes can be selected by clicking on the round orange (H) High Cut icon at the far right of the EQ display which will show the three numerical settings: 6, 12, 24. Clicking on the desired slope number will select it and the graphic display will change to display the selected filter slope which is very handy. Clicking the High Cut icon and dragging left/right allows you to change the High Cut's frequency setting, which will also change the knob setting on the main menu in kind. You can change the High Cut frequency from either the front panel or the Tweak menu graphic display. PRE-DELAY Pre-Delay delays the source signal before it enters the reverb as measured in milliseconds with a range from 0 ms to 250ms. Pre-Delay helps give a sense of the perceived size of the reverb space and generally mimics the time it takes for a sound to initially reflect off the walls before reverberation occurs in a natural room. Increasing the delay time can help provide some clarity by separating the source signal from the reverb as well as increasing the perceived size of the space. soundtoys.com The maximum Pre-Delay time available is 250 milliseconds which is quite long. Really long Pre-Delay times are somewhat unnatural but can be useful in creating special effect reverbs or for long ambient type sounds. TIP: Short delay times are useful for many dynamic and rhythmic sounds and as you increase the delay time you can create the impression of different sized spaces. Really long delay times are generally great for slower sounds and large, ambient, spacious reverbs. MODULATION The Modulation knob on the main interface controls the depth of modulation in the reverb signal. This can create subtle to drastic pitch shifts in the reverb signal that simply aren't possible in a physical plate. In small amounts, modulation creates subtle pitch variations in the reverb decay which can help add smoothness to the reverb tail and reduce resonances that can build up in a reverb. While modulation can be used on any sound, it's generally most useful for pitched instruments like keys, guitar and voice as opposed to percussive instruments like drums. Using modulation can in some cases sound a bit unnatural so if you're looking for the most realistic and natural plate reverb for things like vocals and acoustic instruments, you'll likely want to keep the modulation low or off. Modulation at higher amount settings can have a very cool effect on 7 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate MODULATION (CONTINUED) electronic and synth sounds and may be just what you need for more ambient types of music. Modulation Rate (Tweak Menu): There is an additional Modulation Rate control in the Tweak menu that defines the speed of the modulation. While there are no rules, in general you'll likely find that slower rates work better with higher depth settings. At the same time you can get some really interesting vibrato-like effected reverbs using higher speeds and depths. The Rate control speed goes from a slow 0.2 Hz to 8Hz at the highest setting. TIP: Try experimenting with Mod when you are using decay times that are very long, especially when using the infinite setting, for a rich, lush sound. MIX The Mix control blends the reverb signal with the unprocessed input signal. With the knob set to "Dry" there will be no reverb signal present in the output of the effect. With the knob set to "Wet," there will only be a reverb signal in the output of the effect. There was no mix control on physical plates. Instead, signal was traditionally sent out to the plate via a mixer's auxiliary send and blended soundtoys.com back in on a return fader. This enabled engineers to send multiple sounds at differing levels into their plate simultaneously and control the overall reverb balance with a single fader. This creates the impression that all of those instruments are playing in the same space. This is how we recommend you use SuperPlate - on an aux bus with the Mix knob at 100 percent wet. However, you are obviously free to use SuperPlate however you wish, and we have included a specially-designed Mix knob for you should you wish to use SuperPlate as an insert effect. The Mix knob differs from a typical mix knob in that when you start at 0 percent and fade up, it is mostly increasing the level of the reverb, and doing very little to the level of the dry signal, similar to how you would "bring up" the reverb on an aux send. As you pass about 70 percent, the dry signal will quickly and smoothly begin to drop until it is completely gone at 100 percent wet. TIP: Use the Parameter Lock feature that is a part of all Soundtoys plug-ins to lock your Mix knob where you want it while auditioning presets. Our presets are almost all 100 percent wet. Hold Control + Option on Mac or Control + Alt on Windows to lock a parameter. It will turn red when it is locked. Parameters that are locked will not change when you switch presets. Note that Parameter Lock is not stored with a preset or session and is designed to allow you to audition different presets and keep the Mix amount at a consistent desired setting. 8 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate INPUT The Input knob controls the amount of signal sent into the selected preamp style (more on this below) and the reverberation, with the LED meter providing a visual indication of the level of the signal. In general, you'll likely want to keep the levels "in the green" with occasional peaks veering into yellow for a clean sound especially when using the "Clean" input style. However, if you have selected the "Solid- State" or "Tube" input styles the Input control also acts as a "drive" control imparting both overdrive and compression when using the Transistor style and tube saturation when using the Tube input style. This can result in significant tonal changes on the input signal as it gets clipped and/or compressed prior to entering the reverb. At high input levels you can get some significant overdrive and distortion going into the reverb, so the resultant reverb effect will have the character of the overdriven sound though the reverb signal itself will not be distorted as such. OUTPUT The Output knob controls the overall amplitude and volume of the composite effected signal post reverb. Depending on the type of source signal and if you are using the reverb in-line or from an Aux effect send, you may need to either increase or decrease the final signal coming from SuperPlate to get the right balance in your mix. The Output knob provides control over the total output level from SuperPlate. soundtoys.com PLATE STYLES Our renowned and award-winning Little Plate offered a single plate style based on the popular EMT 140 reverb plate. Little Plate employed a unique and proprietary approach to create not only an incredibly realistic plate reverb, but one that could do things no physical plate could achieve like infinite reverb. To create SuperPlate we used the same unique development approach and have added four additional rare real-world plates, greatly expanding the sonic palate and power of SuperPlate. So, you now have five completely different plates to choose from using the selector knob, or by clicking on the plate name on the left side of the main panel. Five Plate Styles: 1. Classic 140 (EMT 140): The first plate is the same EMT 140 model included in Little Plate. The 140 was the first plate reverb designed back in the 1950s and is likely the standard bearer for plate reverbs. Its sound is on the warmer side and it was originally designed to replicate a concert hall. It's a bit fuller and richer sounding than many of the plates that came after including the Audicon and Echoplate. When people think of plate reverb, the EMT 140 is that sound. 2. Goldfoil 240 (EMT 240): This plate is based on the slightly less well known EMT 240 that was essentially a smaller and lighter version of the 140 with a darker sound and an overall shorter reverb time. It's "goldfoil" moniker is based on the fact that the plate was 9 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate PLATE STYLES (CONTINUED) thick, which makes it very bright and brings tons of character to a mix. ANALOG STYLES Figure 3: Plate Style Selector made from gold foil and was extremely thin at only 80 microns, about the same thickness as aluminum foil. 3. Audicon: The Audicon is based on what is commonly known as "The Plate II" built by Lawson in the 1970s and used quite notably in Nashville. It has a more punchy sound from its steel plate and a bit more sparkle than an EMT 140. 4. E. Plate III: The fourth plate is a model of the "ECOPLATE III" built by Jim Cunningham of Studio Technologies in Illinois back in the 1980s. The ECOPLATE III is styled after the EMT but its sound is on the brighter side that sounds good on percussion, brass and source material with high harmonic content. It was used quite a bit in the 1980s on albums by Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, George Benson and others. 5. Stocktronics: The fifth plate is modeled after the Stocktronics RX4000 plate reverb which is a Swedish Plate reverb designed by Lars "Stockis" Liljeryd. Only 250 units were made, and it has a unique sound as the cold forged, stainless-steel plate is only 0.3mm soundtoys.com Real plates have real electronic preamps driving them. These preamps have their own unique sonic characteristics, adding things like saturation and compression. We have modeled two flavors of EMT140 preamps that can be mixed and matched with any of the plate styles to add some extra spice to your sound if desired. Tube: The Tube is inspired by the EMT V54 tube preamp. It can impart harmonic warmth, slight overdrive, and can even get quite distorted (in a good way) with louder input levels. You can select this tube input style by clicking on the tube icon which is located to the far left below the Plate Styles. This allows you to impart the EMT V54 preamp input character on any of the plate styles. There will be a noticeable change in the sound of the reverb making it both more full and present. Solid State: The Solid State style is inspired by the transistor-based EMT 162 solid-state preamp that also includes a compressor that was preset and couldn't be changed. This compression was intended to protect the circuitry from overload, but can also be used creatively. The Solid State input style can be selected by clicking on the middle icon that represents a transistor (or a bug, spaceship or octopus depending on what you think!). The transistor input can be overdriven using the Input gain control but will not distort nearly as much as the tube input. 10 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate ANALOG STYLES (CONTINUED) In addition, you'll hear the compressor kick in as the input signal increases, especially on sounds with strong transients. The compression is especially useful for smoothing out and reducing transients, providing a more consistent and even input level going into the reverb. However, it sounds great on virtually any input source and gives you a bit more control over the smoothness of the reverb. Figure 4: Analog Style Selector Tube, Solid State, Clean Clean: The third input style is Clean which is the rightmost icon that represents a resistor as it is depicted in a circuit diagram. The clean input does not impart any change on the input signal providing you a clear, unaltered path into the reverb. What goes in is what comes out unchanged without coloration. Obviously, this is the style to choose if you want the cleanest and most unaltered sound. TIP: While the V54 and 162 preamps were only available on the EMT 140 we felt that extracting these unique input styles and allowing you to combine them with any of the five plate styles would really expand the soundtoys.com tonal palate of SuperPlate's core reverb styles. By combining the Plate styles with Input styles and various drive settings you can get totally unique sonics not available in any other plate reverb. TWEAK BUTTON & TWEAK PARAMETERS The Tweak button located to the left under the Decay knob provides access to an additional set of controls for SuperPlate that may not be used quite as much as those on the main panel. To keep SuperPlate's user interface clean we've put these parameters in this drop-down display. Pressing the Tweak button will turn the button white and the drop-down menu will be shown. Click the Tweak button again to hide this menu. Figure 5: SuperPlate's Control Panel with Tweak Menu 11 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate MODULATION RATE The Modulation Rate control defines the speed of modulation in the reverb tail. More than a simple LFO, SuperPlate's modulation algorithm is specially designed to produce a lush sound without excessive pitch warble. The combination of Modulation (Modulation Depth) and Modulation Rate allows you to go from a very subtle pitch shift to some fairly effected settings that can sound great and provide some unusual tonalities. If you're looking for a natural reverb sound for vocals or acoustic instruments, you'll likely want to use minimal modulation and keep the rate fairly low. But as always there are no rules and experimentation can lead to some interesting happy accidents. AUTO-DECAY soundtoys.com Figure 6: Auto-Decay Panel Auto-Decay is a totally new and unique feature of SuperPlate that gives you dynamic control over the decay time, based on the changes in input signal's amplitude. Conceptually, it's very similar to the common "Ducking" control that reduces the volume of the reverb signal based on the dynamics of the input signal. Auto-Decay works in a similar way to ducking but instead of reducing the volume of the reverb, it dynamically reduces the decay time providing the ability to automatically shorten the reverb time based on the input signal's volume and dynamics. This lets you play into long reverbs while avoiding excessive reverb buildup. Threshold: The Threshold knob is similar to a compressor's threshold, used to set the point where the auto-decay will engage and shorten the reverb decay. The Threshold setting can significantly impact how often and how much the auto-detection will affect the reverb. Setting the threshold very low can cause the circuit to impart a constant reduction in the decay, essentially keeping it at a lower time, while setting the Threshold too high will keep the detection circuit from engaging thus having no impact. The general rule of thumb and most common approach is to set the Threshold to react to a range around the peak level, maybe slightly below, so there's a decrease in the reverb time when the input signal is around or past the threshold. This provides a very dynamic and noticeable change in the reverb time. The setting of the Threshold can vary pretty significantly based on the 12 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate AUTO-DECAY (CONTINUED) type of sound, in general, it reacts best with dynamic sounds like drums, plucked or strummed instruments and vocals. This can shorten the reverb moving it "out of the way" of the source sound at its peaks. The Threshold knob also has a red outer ring that displays the volume changes and dynamics of the input signal much like a VU meter. This provides a visual indication of how the incoming signal is changing and where its peak levels are occurring which can be very helpful in determining where to set the Threshold. Target: The Target knob defines how much of a reduction in reverb time you'll get when the signal passes the Threshold level and the maximum target point for the reduction in decay time. Threshold and Target are very interactive and careful setting of the Threshold level and Target amount can result in a highly variable decay time where the shorter target time is only achieved at the loudest peaks of the sound. While this may sound complicated, it should be clear once you start turning the knobs. In addition to the volume display around the Threshold knob, there's a similar visual display around the Decay knob showing you how the Decay time is being affected. Just keep in mind that this is effectively a one way street; the decay time is always reduced, never increased. Recovery: This one is pretty simple but also has a big impact on how soundtoys.com the dynamic decay works. Once a sound reaches the threshold level the decay is reduced quickly as there is a very short "attack time" on the detection circuit. The Recovery knob sets how fast or slow the decay returns to its normal setting. The Recovery speed is set in milliseconds, from 1 ms (very fast), to 500 ms (quite slow). In some instances, you'll likely want the decay to "jump back" to its normal setting very quickly to get the most dynamic change especially on highly dynamic and fast changing sounds. In other instances, you may want the response to be slower and return to the normal decay time more smoothly. This can be extremely useful when a sound is less dynamic with more sparse notes that are farther apart. In this scenario you'll likely want to get to the target decay time at the peak volume of a note and want the reverb to ring out with a longer reverb decay as the note fades thus using a slower recovery time. STEREO WIDTH & BALANCE Width: Unlike Little Plate which has a summed-to-mono input like the original hardware, SuperPlate is a true stereo in, stereo out device where the left/right placement of sounds in the stereo field will have the reverb occurring in the corresponding location in the stereo field. This helps improve the overall clarity of the reverb especially with complex signals or full mixes. SuperPlate will still create a nice wide stereo reverb with a mono input when the Width control is at maximum like most reverb plug-ins. 13 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate STEREO WIDTH & BALANCE (CONTINUED) There are times when you may not want a wide reverb that fills the whole stereo spectrum and the Width control allows you to compress the stereo field all the way down to mono. Shrinking the width of the reverb and placing it in the same location as the source sound can move a sound "back" in the mix and keep its location intact. It can also help get a more vintage vibe and sounds when closer to mono. Say you want the guitar to appear panned midway between center and far right, and also have it sound like it's somewhere back in a room and not close. By panning the source signal to the desired location, collapsing the reverb and panning it to the same location will help preserve the perception of the guitar being in that specific location (within a room) and if you add some pre-delay, you can increase the perceived depth of the sound moving it even farther back in the room. To achieve this, you need to have the ability to pan the reverb which is why there's the corresponding "Balance" knob on SuperPlate. Balance: The Balance knob is essentially a pan control that can be used in a number of ways. The first is to bias the whole stereo reverb from wide and centered to either more to the right or left, and at extreme settings actually force the reverb to collapse to mono. If you've decreased the width of the reverb as discussed above, the Balance control allows you to pan and focus the reverb to a specific location in the stereo field. Mono reverbs can be incredibly effective in soundtoys.com placing a sound in a specific location in your mix, both left and right and front to back. The Width and Balance gives you a lot of power to control the stereo spectrum of the reverb in unique ways and you'll likely find it a very useful feature without having to modify settings on your mixer. PARAMETRIC TWO BAND EQ It's pretty common to use an outboard EQ following a plate reverb to tweak and adjust the reverb sound to fit better as reverb can really fill a lot of the sonic spectrum. In many cases you may want to adjust the reverb and either remove or boost certain frequency regions to obtain greater clarity, or enhance a specific sound. On SuperPlate we've added a powerful two band parametric EQ that is post reverb. This EQ is controlled via the graphic display or via automation and is extremely easy to use. There are two EQs, and a typical usage is to use (1) to control lows/mids and (2) to control mids/highs, but each one has full range frequency control so they can be used interchangeably across the frequency spectrum. Figure 7: EQ Display 14 THE CONTROL PANEL SuperPlate PARAMETRIC TWO BAND EQ (CONTINUED) It's not uncommon to use two EQs within the same frequency range, one with a wide subtle cut or boost, with a second with a sharper focused EQ to perform a more surgical removal or boost of a small frequency spectrum. EQ Frequency Setting: Simply click and hold one of the EQs and drag it right or left to define the center frequency of the EQ, and move the icon up or down to boost or cut the selected frequency. EQ Bandwidth Setting: By default, each EQ filter has a wide bandwidth affecting a large part of the frequency spectrum. Each of the EQs bandwidth is fully adjustable from very wide to extremely thin. · ON A MAC: To reduce or increase the EQ's bandwidth (or Q), press and hold the (Control) key and use the mouse scroll function to adjust the EQ's bandwidth. The display will dynamically change to reflect the change in the EQ's bandwidth. · ON WINDOWS: On a Windows machine, press and hold the (Alt) key and use the mouse scroll function to increase or decrease the EQ's bandwidth. Output EQ On/Off Switch: Located in the upper right of the EQ display is a small white toggle switch that allows you to turn off and bypass the two parametric EQ bands, which are post EQ, but leaves the Low Cut and High Cut filters on. This can be handy in comparing the non-EQ'd soundtoys.com reverb sound with the EQ settings. Between the parametric EQs and the High and Low Cut filters, you have a lot of control to tweak the reverb tone for any situation. Just keep in mind that all the EQs are post-reverb, while the Low and High Cut filters are pre-reverb. TIP: Note that while the title above the EQ display says "Output", this is referring to parametric EQs 1 and 2 only. The Low and High Cut filters, which are on the input, are included as part of this display for convenience. This provides complete tonal control in one place. PRESET MANAGER: See the Preset Manager section of the Soundtoys User's Guide. SUMMARY As mentioned, SuperPlate is the culmination of years of effort by our team here at Soundtoys and we've tried to push the envelope beyond what's found on most plate reverb plug-ins. We've focused on providing what we believe are some of the most realistic and varied plate reverbs, and also a user-friendly design that greatly expands the variety and power of a plate reverb plug-in. Thanks again for purchasing SuperPlate. We hope it helps you find new and exciting sounds that are useful, inspiring and fun. Mix on! 15 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SuperPlate SUPPORT INFORMATION Now that you've taken the time to learn all about SuperPlate, have fun, experiment, and make greatness! If our plug-ins helped you take your production to the next level, let us know, we'd love to hear from you and what you were able to create with our software. If along the way however you should run into any hiccups or anything unexpected, we offer free technical support for all registered users. Our FAQ contains many helpful answers. You can find it and our contat form at: https://support.soundtoys.com/ You can also reach our support staff by e-mail at: support@soundtoys.com If neither of those options work for you, our office can be reached via telephone at: 1-802-951-9700 Please have the following information available to help assist our support team: · The product version and serial number or activation code · The version number of your audio system (e.g ProTools 12, Cubase 9.5, Logic 10.7, Ableton Live 9.2.2 ) · Your interface/hardware (e.g. Apogee Quartet, RME Fireface, etc.) · Your computer and operating system info (e.g. Mac OS X 10.9.5, Windows 10, etc.) · A detailed description of the problem soundtoys.com 16 SuperPlate Wave Mechanics, Soundtoys, SuperPlate, Little Plate, Crystallizer, EchoBoy, EchoBoy Jr., FilterFreak, PhaseMistress, PitchDoctor, PurePitch, SoundBlender, Speed, Decapitator, PanMan, Tremolator, Devil-Loc, Radiator, MicroShift, PrimalTap, Sie-Q and their respective logos are all trademarks of Soundtoys, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Soundtoys. These trademarks are used only for historical reference or to identify products whose sounds or tone were studied in the development of our plug-ins. © 2023 Soundtoys Inc. All rights reserved.