Gibber comes with a variety of audio fx to employ, all of which take advantage of the sequencing abstractions and mapping abstractions described in earlier chapters. The included FX are:
All oscillator and synthesizer unit generators contain an array of fx that you can freely add to / remove from. In addition, Gibber allows you to create dedicated busses for hosting effects, so that multiple synthesis units can send their signal to be summed into the same effect; this is especially useful for relatively expensive effects like reverb. The Group command can be used to group a selection of unit generators into a single bus with a single fx chain.
Every synthesis unit generator has an array named fx with both add and remove methods. add simply adds a fx argument to the end of an fx chain, while remove removes a argument from the chain, or, if the argument is a string that names an effect, searches the fx chain for the type of effect identified and removes it.
a = Synth().note.seq( 0, 1/2 )
b = Crush({ bitDepth:4 })
a.fx.add( b, Reverb() )
// fx can use Gibber's sequencing abstractions
b.sampleRate.seq( [.1,.2,.3,.4], 1/2 )
// fx can also use Gibber's mapping abstractions
b.bitDepth = Mouse.X
a.fx.remove( b )
a.fx.remove( 'Reverb' )
a.fx.add( b, Delay() )
// shortcut to remove all fx
a.fx.remove()
Although the fx property is in fact an array, it's probably best to not think of it that way; you need to call the add or remove methods (which are added to the array) to actually affect the signal processing chain. For example, setting the fx array length to 0, which deletes all items in the array, will have no effect on the signal processing graph. Similarly, standard javascript array methods like push and pop will also not affect the audio graph when called on an fx array.
a = Drums('x*ox*xo-')
a.fx.add( Distortion(10), Flanger() )
// no effect
a.fx.length = 0
The Bus object allows us to route signals from any unit generator (either a synthesis ugen or an fx ugen) to a dedicated output object. The Bus object only has two properties of any interest: amp and pan. For expensive fx, it often makes sense to create a single instance and assign it to a Bus object, and then route all ugens that want to use the effect to the dedicated Bus. In the example below, we create two busses, each with a Schizo effect added and panned hard left and hard right. We then route a Drums object to feed the busses using the send method.
drums = Drums('x*o*x*o-')
busRight = Bus().fx.add( Schizo('paranoid') ).pan( 1 ) // right
busLeft = Bus().fx.add( Schizo('paranoid') ).pan( -1 ) // left
a.send( busLeft, .75 ) // send 75% to busLeft
a.send( busRight, .75 ) // send 75% to busRight
Note that if you call send and pass 0 for the amount to send, this will override any previous calls to send and remove the connection to the bus. For example, to sequence sending a synth to an FX bus and then removing the connection:
a = Synth().note.seq( Rndi(0,12), 1/8 )
b = Bus().fx.add( Delay() )
var toggle = 0
c = Seq( function() {
toggle = !toggle // switch between 0 and 1
a.send( b, toggle )
}, 2 )
Bus objects can be disconnected from the Master output in Gibber the same way as any other Gibber unit generator:
a = Bus() // connected
a._ // same as a.disconnect()
a.connect( Master ) // reconnected
The Group command creates a new Bus object, and then disconnects every synthesis unit generator passed as an argument and connects it to itself. In effect, it removes connections to the Master output and instead patches them into a new bus. This makes it easy, for example, to quickly route a number of ugens into an effect.
a = Drums('x*ox*xo-')
b = Pluck().note.seq( Rndi(0,12), 1/8 )
c = FM('bass').note.seq( Rndi(0,12), [1/8,1/16].rnd(1/16,2) )
// add fx to drums and synth but note fm
d = Group( a, b ).fx.add( Distortion(100) )
// reconnect drums to their previous bus
d.free( a )