Shifter-Bank Manual

What is Shifter-Bank?:
Shifter-Bank is a plugIn for the creation of several pitch-shifted versions of the input signal. With low shift-factors (in the range between a few cents and a semitone) you will get effects which are called "unison" in some synthsizers (indeed was it a discussion about unison in the forum on www.kvraudio.com , which motivated this plugIn). The plugIn can therefore be used to create a "fatter" sound. With higher amounts of pitch-shifting, the effects remind me on effects used on TV to garble voices of persons who want to stay anonymous. This plugIn - the same as the Pitch-Shifter - works with a delayline-based granulation algorithm.

Technical parameters:
On the left side of the plugIn window are the so called technical parameters. These parameters influence the sonic result, nevertheless they are not musical parameters because their impact on the output signal is caused by the imperfections of the granular synthesis approach:

• Window: As already mentioned, there are always two grains played back simultaneously, whereas the amplitude of each grain is determined by the position of the respective read-pointer ("tapOut") relative to the write pointer ("tapIn"). The sum of both grain-amplitudes should be always equal to one, so a triangular or cos^2 function would be a possible choice. Maybe this is something for signal processing freaks. I do not hear any big difference between both windows.
• GrainSize: This parameter controls the length of the signal chunks. The unit is milliseconds. If there are audible artifacts, the gainsize can help to minimize them or modify them sonically.

Musical parameters:

• Coarse: This controls the coarse maximum detuning of the signal in semitones. If there are only two additional voices ("Voices" = 2) then one voice will be this interval below the original tuning and the second will be this interval above the original tuning. If there are more than two voices created, the other voices will fall in between the original tuning and the maximum detuning.
• Fine: This is the fine-adjustment of the maximum detuning.
• FB: The output signal is always the sum of both (with the window function multiplied) "tapOuts". A pitch shifter with this internal working provides the possibility to feed back the output signal to the input - this is exactly what can be done here - FB abbreviates "Feedback". Because the output of a pitch-shifter is a pitch shifted version of the input signal, this leads to further pitch shifted versions with even higher amounts of shifting.
• Voices: Number of voices to be created (excluding the original signal). The number of voices is always even to ensure that there are always as many downshifted voices as there are upshifted voices. The maximum number if voices is 8.
• Dry/Wet: Crossfader between the dry and wet signal.
• Stereo: This knob controls, how the different voices are distributed in the stereo field. Values of -100% and +100% will give the widest stereo image.

Have much fun in making music, Braindoc.