Effects

A synth sends some of its sound to an effect with one word.

const lead = makeSynth("lead")
lead.echo = 0.4          // repeats that die away
lead.reverb = 0.3        // the sound of a room
lead.chorus = 0.5        // a thicker, moving sound

function onMouseDown() {
  lead.play("E4", 0.3)
}

Each goes from 0 (none) to 1. A sample is a synth, so it has them too.

Shaping the echo, the reverb and the chorus

The echo, the reverb and the chorus are shared by every synth. Each synth says how much of itself goes to them, and setEffects shapes them for all:

setEffects({ echoTime: 0.3, echoFeedback: 0.5, echoBounce: true, reverbType: "hall", reverbSize: 0.8 })

An echo in time with the music is a number of beats:

setTempo(104)
setEffects({ echoTime: beats(0.75), echoFeedback: 0.4 })

The kinds of reverb

The reverb is a space the sound is in, and there are five to choose from:

const pad = makeSynth("pad")
pad.reverb = 0.6                      // how much of the pad goes to the reverb
setEffects({ reverbType: "hall" })

function onMouseDown() {
  pad.play("Cmaj7", 1.5)
}

The reverb is one room that every synth sends into, so its type and its shape are one setting for everything. lead.reverbType = "hall" and setEffects({ reverbType: "hall" }) do the same thing, and every synth reads the same value back. A synth's own part is how much it sends: lead.reverb.

No ready-made synth changes the type, because that would change it for all the others. The pad, the strings and the bell send to whatever room there is, and sound grander when you choose "hall".

With dials the type is a control like any other, and the knob clicks round the five names:

const lead = makeSynth("lead")
lead.reverb = 0.5

rotary("reverb", lead, "reverbType")
dial("size", lead, "reverbSize")
keyboard(lead)

Grit

Two effects belong to the synth alone:

const bass = makeSynth("bass")
bass.distortion = 0.6      // grit, from 0 to 1
bass.crush = 6             // the bits each sample keeps: 16 is clean, 4 is an old games console

Movement

A wobble is an effect too, and is a setting of the synth:

The trance gate

A trance gate turns a synth's sound up and down in a pattern of steps, in time with the tempo, so a held chord becomes a rhythm. It chops whatever the synth is playing.

setTempo(138)
const pad = makeSynth("pad", { echo: 0.3 })
pad.tranceGate = "x.x.xx.x"                // x is open, . is closed; a step is a sixteenth
let held = null

function onMouseDown() {
  if (held) held.stop()
  held = pad.start(["A3", "C4", "E4"])
}

The pattern can be given three ways, and reads back as its text:

Its settings are settings of the synth, so a dial can be tied to each:

A pattern and its settings can be said in one line with setTranceGate, which takes rate, depth, smooth, swing, stereo and sends. The rate may be a note length there:

const pad = makeSynth("pad")
pad.setTranceGate("x.x.xx.x", { rate: "eighth", depth: 0.8, smooth: 0.02 })

The steps begin at setTempo: call it where the bar begins and the gate is on the beat. pad.tranceGateStep() is the step that is sounding, for drawing it (trance_gate_step()).

The word gate alone is something else twice over: an arpeggio's gate is how long each of its notes is held, and the microphone's mic.gate is its noise gate.

Related

• Synths and their settings
• Every sound, synth and setting