Need a secret weapon in your sonic arsenal? Get to know the DynaVerb algorithm. I’ve been carving out string ensemble, space FX, gated and envelope shaping presets with it, and there’s still something new to discover each time. And, of course, it happens to also do INFINITE & FREEZE. With two-band EQ, and a complete set of tools in the OmniPressor.
Similar to the Ducked Delay preset, input notes will control the entrance & exit of frozen sound. But the process is over a full-featured reverb, which will make for a smoother drone. The ‘envelope’ of the reverb increases level gradually here, but then drops out fairly quickly when it senses the next input note. With a little tweaking, this preset could become a decent crescendo / orchestral emulation.
The HotSwitch triggers a drastic change. Gradual ‘verb buildup switches to near-instant RELEASE (from 0.250 S to 0.005 S). ATTACK is fine-tuned from 0.075 S to 0.125 S. These settings worked out best for me, at that particular THRESHOLD level, and with the input levels that I’m giving it to work with. Always tweak these 3 controls together to your own taste. OMNI-RATIO is the key to discrete effects, and a change there usually means re-tweaking THRESHOLD, ATTACK, and RELEASE.
The expression pedal adds the DECAY – INFINITE – FREEZE variations, and will default back to a meaty 15 seconds until fadeout. And a quick note: You can always use SIZE as a variable for bending the apparent pitch of these frozen sounds. A little goes a long way here. Limit the range of a SIZE sweep, after selecting your up-or-down direction. Short throws can sound just as omninous. A large, fast SIZE change freaks out the reverb, and comes across as noisy with artifacts.
That is, unless you’re actually looking for noisy artifacts …
