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User guide

Getting started

  1. Install it (make plugin-install, or the release zip's install.sh; both restart MPC).
  2. On a track, a pad, or wherever MPC offers insert effects, add EffectForce from the insert effects.
  3. Open its screen. The CHAIN page shows the ten modules in their order; everything starts off.
  4. Pick a factory preset (PRESETS page, or the preset stepper at the top of CHAIN), or tap a module's tile, press ON / OFF, and set it up on its own page.

The screen

Five tabs; a tab with several pages shows dots under it, and a tap on it again shows the next page. Every page has its own Q-Link set (MPC shows its name in the tab strip): the Force's 8 knobs reach the page's top card, the next bank its bottom card. The PRESETS page has no knobs of its own; there the Q-Links keep the preset stepper, the macros and the levels.

Every control's name says what it belongs to ("Comp Attack", "EQ Low Gain"), because MPC's Q-Link overlay shows the name without the page.

Tab Pages
CHAIN CHAIN: the order, MOVE and ON / OFF, Input, Output, Mix, the macros, the preset stepper. PERFORM: the scenes, the crossfader, the FX library and the scene's move. LOOPER: REC, the loop and how it plays. PRESETS: the browser
TONE DRIVE+FILTER, EQ, COMP
MOTION CHORUS+PHASE, PULSE
SPACE DELAY, GRAIN, REVERB
MOD LFO+ENV (both LFOs, the envelope follower, the macros), MATRIX (8 slots)

The status line at the top of every page: how many modules run, and the CPU EffectForce takes (the average and the peak of the last half second, in percent of MPC's audio block).

Some of the pages, rendered offline from the skin (on the device MPC fills in the names, values and lines):
CHAIN CHAIN PERFORM PERFORM
LOOPER LOOPER DELAY DELAY
REVERB REVERB MATRIX MATRIX

The chain

The input goes through Rack Input gain, then the ten modules in order (the first row of tiles left to right, then the second), then Rack Output gain; Rack Mix blends the result with the dry input (100% for an insert; lower to use the whole chain in parallel).

  • The tiles show the order. A lit tile is a module that is on; the selected one is in brackets.
  • Tap a tile to select it, ON / OFF to switch it, < MOVE / MOVE > to swap it with its neighbour. A module's own page has the same On switch.
  • Switching fades over 10 ms; a module that is off costs no CPU. A module switched on again starts fresh (no echo of what played minutes ago).
  • Moving a module dips the sound for a few milliseconds while the order changes: no click.

Some orders worth knowing: Drive before Filter is the classic synth path; Filter before Drive makes the drive react to the filter's resonance. Comp before Delay and Reverb keeps the tails free; Comp after them pumps the tails with the beat. EQ last shapes everything.

The modules

Every module has an On switch and, where it makes sense, its own Mix.

Drive

Six characters, 2x oversampled (Crush on purpose isn't): Soft (round, tape-like), Tube (asymmetric, warm), Hard (clipping with a rounded corner), Fold and Sine (wavefolders: bright, synthetic), Crush (fewer bits and a lower sample rate as Drive goes up).

Drive Amount is the gain into the shaper (0..36 dB); the level is compensated, so it changes the character more than the loudness. Tone tilts the result darker or brighter. Bias makes it asymmetric (even harmonics: warmer, thicker). Out trims the level.

Filter

A state-variable filter: LP 12 / LP 24, HP 12 / HP 24, BP, Notch. Filter Cutoff, Filter Res, Filter Drive (saturation before the filter) and Filter Spread, which moves the left and right cutoffs apart (up to an octave each way) for a wide, moving stereo sound.

EQ

EQ Low Cut and EQ High Cut (12 dB/oct; at the end of their range they are off), a low shelf, a bell (Mid Freq, Gain, Q) and a high shelf, ±18 dB. At 0 dB a band is out of the signal entirely.

Comp

Two modes; the selector at the top right shows the mode's card:

  • Comp: Thresh, Ratio, Attack, Release, Knee, Comp SC Cut (the detector ignores the lows, so a bass doesn't pump everything), Comp Mix (parallel compression).
  • OTT: three bands (split at 88 Hz and 2.5 kHz), each compressed down when loud and lifted up when quiet: dense, bright, in-your-face. OTT Depth is the amount, OTT Time scales the attack and release, OTT Up / OTT Down the two directions, OTT Low / Mid / High each band's level. Comp Makeup (the OUTPUT card) applies in both modes.

Chorus

Chorus (two voices a side), Ensemble (three voices with a slow and a fast wobble, string machine style) and Dimension (Juno-60 style: subtle, wide). Chorus Delay sets the voices' base delay, Chorus Lo Cut keeps the lows out of the effect (they stay centred and solid), Chorus Width the stereo spread.

Phaser

Phaser 4 / 8 / 12 (more stages: more notches, a deeper sweep) or Flanger. Free runs at Phaser Rate; Sync locks the sweep to MPC's beat (Phaser Div from 1/16 to 16 bars, in the same place on screen; while MPC plays the sweep follows the song position, so it is on the beat every time). Phaser Center is the centre of the sweep (Hz for a phaser, the base delay in ms for the flanger), Phaser FB the resonance (negative values put the notches elsewhere), Phaser Stereo the phase between left and right.

Pulse

Tremolo (the level), Auto-Pan (the place in the stereo field, at constant power) or Gate (a rhythmic 16-step pattern). Sync runs it on MPC's beat (Pulse Div; for the gate, the length of a step, and the pattern's first step on the bar's downbeat), Free at Pulse Rate. Pulse Depth, Pulse Shape (sine, triangle, square for tremolo and pan; for the gate, hard steps to swells), Pulse Stereo (the tremolo's right side ahead of the left). The GATE card: Gate Pattern (1/16, 1/8, 1/4, Offbeat, Off 16ths, Dotted, Tresillo, Gallop, Rev Gallop, three Trance patterns, Pump, Stutter, Half Bar, Build), Gate Length (how long each step stays open) and Gate Smooth (its edges, so it never clicks). The patterns are named for Pulse Div 1/16, a bar each (Offbeat: the eighths between the beats); at 1/8 a pattern takes two bars and plays twice as slow.

Delay

Stereo, Ping-Pong (repeats bounce left, right, left) or Mono. Sync takes the time from MPC's tempo (Delay Div, 1/64 to a bar, with triplets and dotted values), Free from Delay Time in ms; the knob or the list shows in the same place, whichever the mode uses. Delay FB at 100% never runs away; the repeats hold as long as the cuts let them (with Lo Cut and Hi Cut open, for ever). Delay Spread offsets the right side's time. The feedback path has Lo Cut and Hi Cut (each repeat a little thinner and darker), Drive (each repeat a little dirtier) and Wow (tape speed wobble). Delay Duck keeps the repeats down while you play and lets them bloom in the gaps.

Delay Glide decides what a change of time does (a new tempo, another division, a turn of Delay Time, modulation): Tape glides the time like a tape delay's motor, so repeats in flight bend in pitch; Fade crossfades to the new time over about 50 ms, no pitch bend at all.

Grain

The last few seconds you played, replayed as grains and slices on MPC's beat (in the spirit of granular pedals such as the Microcosm). Five modes on the TEXTURE card:

  • Cloud: many short grains from all around the recent past: a shimmering haze.
  • Stretch: long grains that crawl through the recording far slower than it played: drones.
  • Mosaic: slices of the beat replayed in a new order, some reversed, some an octave away.
  • Stutter: the latest slice repeated, glitch style, then back to what you play.
  • Arp: grains on the beat stepping through intervals.

Grain Size (Free, ms) or Grain Div (Sync, a note value) sets the grain or slice length; Grain Density how many grains overlap (Cloud, Stretch) or how much varies (Mosaic, Stutter, Arp); Grain Pitch in semitones; Grain Reverse the chance a grain plays backwards; Grain Spread how far back grains reach and how wide they sit; Grain FB feeds the output back into the recording, so textures evolve; Grain Hold freezes the recording and keeps playing it.

Reverb

Room, Hall, Plate and Space (very long, slowly moving). Reverb Size, Reverb Decay (0.1 to 30 s), Reverb Pre (the pre-delay), Reverb Damp (above it the tail dies faster, as in a real room), Reverb Lo Cut (keeps the lows out of the tail), Reverb Mod (gentle movement in the tail: lusher, never metallic), Reverb Width and Reverb Freeze (the tail holds for ever, new sound stays out). Changing the mode clears the tail, as a hardware reverb's program change does. Shimmer sends the tail through a pitch shifter as it circulates, so it blooms upward with every pass (Shimmer Pitch: +12, +7, +19, or -12 for a sub shimmer). The climbing energy leaves the audible band in the end, so with a lot of shimmer a long tail ends a little sooner than its Decay (a very short one rings a little past it: the pitched echoes take a moment to come back). Freeze with shimmer doesn't hold still: the tail keeps climbing and drains away over tens of seconds (faster at +19 and with more shimmer); set Shimmer to 0 for a freeze that holds for good.

Modulation

Sources

  • Macro 1-4: knobs on the CHAIN and LFO+ENV pages, for the Q-Links. A macro does nothing on its own: give it targets in the matrix.
  • LFO 1, LFO 2: Sine, Triangle, Saw Up, Saw Down, Square, S&H, Smooth (random glides). Free (Rate, 0.01..20 Hz) or Sync (Div, 1/16 to 16 bars, locked to MPC's beat while it plays; Div shows where Rate was); Phase shifts the cycle against the bar.
  • Envelope: the input's level (Attack, Release, Gain: more gain reaches the top sooner).

The matrix

Eight slots of Source → Target × Amount. A target is one of 54 knobs: the levels, every module's main controls and both LFO rates. The amount moves the knob's value by up to its whole range (±100%), so modulation follows the knob's own curve (a cutoff sweeps evenly through octaves). Slots on the same target add up. A delay synced to the tempo has no time of its own: Delay Time as a target scales the synced time instead. A rate (Phaser Rate, Pulse Rate, LFO 1 / 2 Rate) moves only while its owner runs free.

Ideas: Macro 1 → Filter Cutoff + Reverb Mix + Delay FB (a build-up on one knob); Envelope → Filter Cutoff (an auto wah); Envelope → Reverb Mix with a negative amount (the reverb ducks while you play); LFO 1 synced to 1/8 → Filter Cutoff (a rhythmic filter).

Performance: scenes and the looper

The Octatrack's performance-mixer setup in one insert: put EffectForce on the master (or on a drum submix and a melodic submix, one each), and the Force's crossfader moves between two scenes: a clean one at A and an effect at B, picked from a library of 64. The looper records the next 4 or 8 bars on the grid (or keeps the bar just played) and you crossfade into it, roll it, stop it, reverse it. Two pages, both in the CHAIN tab: PERFORM (scenes, crossfader, the FX library) and LOOPER.

Playing it, the Octatrack way

  1. Load a Perform preset (say Perform Mixer, or Loop Mixer 4 Bar) and learn the crossfader (below).
  2. Pick an effect: on PERFORM, tap a tile of the FX library: it goes into scene B. Push the fader: the effect fades in; pull back: it fades out, a delay's or reverb's tail ringing on.
  3. Loop: on LOOPER, set Length (4 bars, 8 bars, ...) and press REC. It records the next 4 bars from the next 4-bar line (the line shows "REC 4 BARS IN 3 BEATS", then the bars as they record) and keeps them. Push Loop (or the fader into a scene that turns Loop up, like the Loop Mixer presets' scene 2): the loop plays, in time. Press REC again whenever you like: the next 4 bars replace the loop when they are done, without a gap.
  4. Mix: Blend Swap crossfades the live input with the loop; Layer keeps the live input and plays the loop on top. Rolls, a tape stop, half speed and reverse are effects of the Loop bank: pick one into scene B and the fader does it.

The crossfader

Crossfader (Q-Link 1 on the PERFORM page) runs from scene A (0%) to scene B (100%); the bar under it shows where it is. To play it with the Force's own crossfader, assign it there: MPC can learn any of a plugin's automatable parameters to the crossfader (hold ASSIGN A or ASSIGN B and move the parameter, here Crossfader). One crossfader can drive several EffectForce instances that way (a drum bus and a melodic bus, each with its own effects). EffectForce glides after the fader over 15 ms, so a fast flick is smooth and a Q-Link's steps don't click.

The FX library

64 effects in four banks of 16: Filter (sweeps, resonant and band filters, wobbles, flangers, a comb riser, kills), Space (washes, freezes, shimmer, dub and tape echoes, an echo freeze, grain clouds), Loop (rolls from 1/2 to 1/32, loops of a bar or half, tape stop, half and double speed, reverse, beat repeat, a build roll, stutter, a layered loop) and Rhythm (a sidechain-style pump, trance and offbeat gates, tremolo, auto-pan, bit crush, drive, fold, OTT, destroy).

  • < BANK and BANK > page through the banks. A tap on a tile puts the effect into the scene at the B end (or into the scene you are editing), replacing what was there; its tile lights while scene B holds it as it came. The scenes' line shows each end's effect by name.
  • An effect is a scene: it switches its modules on and sets them, and leaves everything else to the knobs. Effects that need an LFO or the matrix use LFO 2 and matrix slot 8, so LFO 1 and slots 1-7 stay yours. Effects of the Loop bank switch the looper on.
  • Change a picked effect like any scene (EDIT B, turn knobs): its name gets a *.

Moves

Some effects move by themselves once you bring them in: LP Sweep closes from wide open to 150 Hz over 8 bars, Build Roll rolls 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 over 4 bars as its high-pass rises, Tape Stop winds down over a beat. Push the fader and the move starts on the next bar line (the next beat for a move shorter than a bar). Until then the effect sits at its starting point, so a push in the middle of a bar lines the move up with the music.

  • Once moves play to their end and stay there; Loop moves start again; Ping-pong moves go there and back (Notch Sweep, Phaser Sweep).
  • Pull the fader all the way back to A and the move resets: the next push starts it over on the bar. With the fader in between you hear part of it, as with any scene.
  • MOVE on the PERFORM page shows and sets the move of the scene at B (or the one you are editing): how long (Off, 1 or 2 beats, 1 to 16 bars) and what it does at the end (Once, Loop, Ping-pong). Off keeps the effect still at its end point.
  • The scenes' line follows it: MOVES ON THE BAR, then BAR 3 OF 8, then HELD.
  • The moving effects: LP Sweep, HP Sweep, Notch Sweep, Phaser Sweep, Comb Riser, Hall Wash, Shimmer Wash, Echo Throw, Tape Stop, Build Roll, Build Gate. Turning one of their moving settings while you edit the scene fixes it where you put it.
  • The tempo can change under a move (it bends with it), and a sequence looping back doesn't restart it.

Scenes

There are eight scenes. The two rows of tiles pick the one at each end: A (top) and B (bottom). A tile shows how many settings its scene locks, in brackets. Changing the scene at the end the fader is away from changes nothing you hear: line up the next move, then bring the fader over.

  • Making a scene yourself: tap EDIT B (or EDIT A). Every page now shows scene B, and you hear it in full. Whatever you move, on any page, is locked in the scene: a filter's cutoff, a delay's feedback, a module switched on, the looper's Loop, a macro. Tap EDIT B again when done: the knobs come back as they were. Tapping another tile in the edited row switches the edit to that scene.
  • CLEAR (while editing) removes every lock of the scene being edited.
  • While editing, every change locks, recorded automation playing back too: stop the sequence (or edit on a part without automation) while you set up a scene.
  • What the fader does with a lock: knobs move smoothly between the two ends (along their own curve: a cutoff sweeps evenly through octaves), choices like a division or the loop's length step through the values in between (a roll speeds up as you push), and other choices (a filter type, a reverb mode, freeze) switch at the middle. Settings neither scene locks stay where the knobs are.
  • A module switched on by a scene fades in with the fader, and when you pull back its tail rings out: push the fader into a delay or reverb scene and pull back, and the echoes carry on (a dub throw). A module at the Off end costs no CPU once its tail has died away.
  • Modulation (LFOs, the envelope, the macros) still works on top of whatever the fader sets.
  • Scenes (with their names) are saved with the project and in presets. Loading a preset ends an edit.

The looper

The LOOPER page; its line says what it is doing.

  • On arms it: from then on it records all the time (the first time, it takes 24 MB of memory, only in that instance). Place: Pre loops the input and sends the loop through every module, Post loops what the rack plays.
  • Length: 1/16 to 8 bars. REC takes a loop of that length and keeps it (Hold turns on): Capture Next (the default) records the coming one from the grid's next line of that length, as the Octatrack does: a 4-bar loop starts on a 4-bar line. A press up to a beat late still takes the bars that have just begun (the recorder already has their start). Capture Last keeps the bars just played, at once. Press REC again while it waits to cancel.
  • Loop plays the kept loop, in time with the beat (Swap: crossfading the live input; Layer: on top of it). Without a kept loop, pushing Loop grabs the last bars on the spot (a quick roll). Back at 0 it stops; a kept loop stays for the next push. Hold off forgets it.
  • Repeat (1/2 to 1/32) repeats the part of the loop that was playing, on the grid: a roll. Lock Repeat 1/32 in scene B and the fader rolls in 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 as it moves. A Length shorter than the kept loop plays that much of it.
  • Speed: 1.00x as recorded, 0.50x half speed (an octave down), 0 stops it (lock 0 in scene B: the fader is a tape stop), below 0 backwards.
  • Right after arming, a loop waits until its bars have been recorded. A loop longer than 20 seconds at the tempo is halved (8 bars fit from 96 BPM up).

The Perform presets

Ready-made mixers: scene 1 clean at A, scenes 2 to 8 effects of the library (pick one in the B row). Perform Mixer (a low-pass sweep, a resonant high-pass, an echo throw, a 1/16 roll, a tape stop, a hall wash, a pump), Loop Mixer 4 Bar and Loop Mixer 8 Bar (REC records 4 or 8 bars; scene 2 plays the loop; rolls, half speed, reverse, a build roll, a layered loop), DJ Mixer (filters and kills), Dub Mixer, Build and Drop, Glitch Mixer, Rhythm Mixer, Space Mixer, Crush Mixer.

More than one EffectForce

Load as many as you like: one on a drum submix and one on a melodic submix with the same crossfader (the Octatrack template's two buses), one on a synth track for its own sound and one on the master for the performance. Each has its own scenes and looper; a module that is off costs nothing, and the looper's memory is only taken where it is armed.

Presets

  • Factory presets in twelve categories: Utility, Synth, Pads, Bass, Drums, Lo-Fi, Space, Creative, Texture (Grain), Rhythm (Pulse), Perform (scenes and the looper), Melodic.

  • Melodic holds chains for melodic techno and house, made for SubForce's melodic set but fine after any synth. They follow what that genre's synth presets do with their effects, measured over several hundred of them: the delay before the reverb, its repeats darkened and fed back moderately, plates and halls with no pre-delay at low mixes, a low cut on everything but the bass, a slow chorus and an auto-pan on pads.

    Preset For
    Melodic Bass Basslines: glue compression, a short 1/8 ping-pong and a small plate, both low
    Lead Delay Plate Leads: a dotted 1/8 delay into a long plate
    Lead Throw Leads with space between phrases: a ducked dotted 1/4 ping-pong (the echoes rise when you stop), a hall
    Pluck Space Plucks: a dotted 1/8 ping-pong, then a hall at a low mix
    Arp Dotted Arpeggios: more delay, a wobble on the repeats, a plate
    Stab Echo Stabs: light compression, a 1/4 echo, a short plate
    Sequence Pump Sequences: a sidechain-like pump on every beat, a 1/16. ping-pong, a short plate
    Pad Wash Pads: ensemble chorus, an auto-pan over a bar, a long hall
    Drone Space Drones: slow chorus, a dark dotted 1/4 delay, a 15 s space
    Riser Wash Risers and transitions: a long ping-pong into a 10 s space
    Each is level-matched on reference material at a track's usual level (chords for Synth, Pads,
    Texture and Rhythm, a bass line for Bass, drums for Drums, all of it for the rest): it comes out about as loud as it went
    in, so you compare sounds, not levels. Delay and reverb presets make up for the dry signal their Mix
    takes away. Band-pass sounds (Radio, Auto Wah) stay a little quieter: their Output stops at +9 dB.

  • PRESETS page: categories on the left (FAVORITES and RECENT first), presets on the right; tap to load. FAV marks the loaded preset, RND loads a random one of the category, SAVE writes User NNN.efp (there is no text entry on the device), INIT loads Init (everything off).

  • The preset stepper (CHAIN page, top right) walks all presets, one per Q-Link detent.

  • Preset files live in the plugin's folder under Presets/ and on the SSD under EffectForce Presets/; folders become categories. MPC's own preset save (the disk icon in its header) works too: it stores the whole state.

How it behaves in MPC

  • Zero latency. Nothing looks ahead, so nothing needs compensating.
  • Tails ring on through Stop. MPC briefly suspends an insert when the transport stops; EffectForce keeps its delay lines and reverb through that. Switching the insert's slot off for longer clears them, so switching it back on never replays old echoes.
  • Projects save the whole rack (every module, the order, the matrix, the scenes) and the preset it came from. The looper's recording isn't saved: it starts again when the project loads.