Chain Shaper v3

User Manual
1 Introduction
1.1 About Chain Shaper

Side-chaining audio has always been a contentious method to me. In

theory it’s a fantastic idea of getting elements of a mix to sit together in a subtle
way, but in actuality, it has always created more problems for me. A number of
tools have come out over the past decade that supposedly solve the idea of
side-chaining in a simple way, but in all instances they fail at accomplishing
transparency and simplicity. My solution for years was to fade and automate
volume by hand, but despite its accuracy, it’s tedious and time consuming.

I set out to create a tool that would solve the problems I have with all the
other methods, and simplify the process of ducking audio into a tool that’s
simultaneously easy to use and doesn’t require wasting time making midi
triggers. The biggest function missing in all side-chaining plugins is the use of a
lookahead function. This is incredibly important in maintaining accurate ducking
every time. The reason this is important is that ducking the audio out of the way
of transients quickly is what translates to sonic clarity. Without a lookahead
function built in, all ducking begins milliseconds after the sound hits causing the
plugins to essentially play “catch-up” in attempt to try to duck the transients out
in time.

Secondly, almost all side-chain specific plugins restrict the user to various
rhythmic pumping effects. While a lot of electronic music might adhere to “four
on the floor” pumping, it’s effectively useless in any sort of rhythmic situation
that isn’t statically rhythmic. Chain Shaper is triggered by audio, and thus isn’t
restricted to any sort of rhythmic preset. This allows for simple mixing of various
degrees of rhythmically complex music easier than any other tool out there.
Furthermore, without the necessity to create a midi “dummy track” to trigger the
ducking, setting it up is extremely quick.

Lastly, zero sonic processing occurs. Chain Shaper is the equivalent to a

quick volume fade. When any signal compression with normal side-chain
occurs, the quicker the attack and release are, the greater the degree of signal
distortion will be. While the distorted audio might be quiet, it’s still audible and
in attempt to solve one problem creates new problems. Chain Shaper has no
distortion at extremely quick ducking rates, and doesn’t affect the audio in
anyway. It’s extremely transparent, flexible and easy to use. It’s by far the most



precise side chain out and I’m confident once you use it, you’ll be as excited as I
am about it.
Also a very special thanks to Metrik for helping immensely in the
testing and refinement of Version 3!

Check him out here:

Metrik

Soundcloud

Twitter

Facebook

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1.2 System Requirements

Ableton 10 is required. Ableton 9 is not supported due to the inability

to use the new routing systems built into Ableton 10 that makes
Chain Shaper work.

1.3 Installation

Place the .axmd file into the Max Audio Effect folder.

Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10

\Users\[username]\Documents\Ableton\ User Library\ Presets\Audio

Effects\Max Audio Effect

Mac OS X

Macintosh HD/Users/[username]/Music/ Ableton/User Library/

Presets/Audio Effects/ Max Audio Effect

 2 Chain Shaper UI
2.1 Overview of Main Screen

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
2.

9.

10.
1.

11.
13. 12.
1. The main Chain Shaper curve. Adjust the curve of the ducking with this. Clicking anywhere in
the envelope will create a new point. Holding the option key will dragging a line will change the
curve of the line. Holding shift and clicking on a point will delete the point

2. The bypass button. When off, the ducking is bypassed while maintaining proper latency
compensation.

3. The curve mode select. Change between Fine, Medium, Wide and Sync mode. Fine, Medium
and Wide adjust the range over time that the curve accounts for. Fine allows for the tightest
control of the release, while Medium and Wide allow for more broad release curves. Essentially it
adjusts the amount of release the curve represents.

4. A/B toggle. Allows the user to audition different changes while still being able to revert back to
original setting.

5. Opens the setting panel.

6. The threshold knob. Disabled in Transient mode.

7. Select the side chain input you wish to trigger the ducking.

8. The Multiband panel. See below for more details.

9. Select the crossover points for the multi band splitter.

10. Turn on the ducking for each band with the power button. Solo that band with the headphone
icon.

11. Clicking the frequency band name will change between each frequency band curve.

12. Opens the pop out oscilloscope view.

13. The Eye icon allows the user to select which channel is shown in the oscilloscope. The Arrow
icon allows for the size of the signal to be adjusted and to adjust the zoom on the oscilloscope.
Clicking the arrow icon when the oscilloscope adjust sliders are open will close the sliders.

TIP: Hold shift over the reset button to reset Chain Shaper to its default setting
2 Chain Shaper UI
2.2 Overview of Settings Panel

Input Lowpass and Highpass (Only in Threshold Mode)

Allows the adjustment of a high and low pass filter on the input signal. This does not
effect that actual signal in anyway, but it makes it easier for Chain Shaper to detect
audio smoothly.

Headphone Icon

When clicked Chain Shaper will solo the input signal hear how it’s being effected by the
filtering and tightening. When Solo is active, the oscilloscope will show changes made
to the input signal in real time.

Tighten (Only in Threshold Mode)

This reduces the sustain of the input signal. For example, if a kick drum is the input
sound and the decay is causing too much ducking, lowering the Tighten knob
“clarifies” the attack of the sample for Chain Shaper to more easily register. This also
works across dynamic sounds as well as static signals.

Input Gain

This boosts the input signal if Chain Shaper isn’t registering all the hits in Transient
mode or Threshold.

Smooth Clicks

Controls the smoothing of the ducking to reduce clicks. This usually can be left at 0
adjusted as clicks, for the most part, are entirely removed when ducking occurs.
Sounds with less high end information (sub bass for example) can have audible clicks
when soloed, but in context with the track they’ll be inaudible.

When raising the smooth click amount, sometimes the sound will bleed over onto the
transients. Raising the lookahead very slightly will offset this bleed over.

Transient Sensitivity (Only in Transient Mode)

This reduces the sensitivity to transient changes while in Transient Mode. For example,
if too many hits are ducking out, or if samples are causing double triggering, reduce the
percentage. Sometimes false triggers will occur and lowering the percentage will
reduce those. Most of the time it won’t be necessary to adjust, but the option is
available if need be.

Show Tooltips

Toggles the pop-up windows that appear over all the controls explaining each function.

2 Chain Shaper UI
2.3 Multiband Mode

Multiband Mode allows you to split the signal into three adjustable frequency
bands each with a Chain Shaper curve. Each band is individually adjustable for
maximum transparency. For example, one might only want the low end of a
bass to duck out when a kick drum plays, but leave the high end information in
tact. By only turning on the Low Band curve you can duck the low end signal
out without having any effect on the rest of the sound. Each band can also be
soloed to dial in and hear how the ducking is effecting just that frequency range.
All three bands can be linked with each other by pressing the chain icons
between each band to make each curve stay in sync with each other, but on
separate bands. This opens up new mixing and creative possibilities in an
extremely simple way. When Link is active, the reset button will reset the linked
bands together. When Link is off, reset clears the selected band.

2 Chain Shaper UI
2.4 Overview of Pop-Out Oscilloscope View

Overview

The oscilloscope view is a unique feature allowing the user to view how both the input
signal and the post signal interact with each other. This gives a visual representation of
what the ducking looks like and is useful for viewing the accuracy of the ducking.
Transients are marked by the yellow lines and are only displayed while in transient
mode.

Oscilloscope Sync

Syncs the oscilloscope to a beat grid, or allows for Free Sync giving the user control
over the zooming of the oscilloscope.

Grid Subdivision

Changes the grid subdivision amount while in sync mode.

Latency Compensation

The oscilloscope is not latency compensated when viewing another channel so in sync
mode, it will look like the audio is off, but really latency is causing the misalignment
with the grid. By adjusting the knob to the amount of latency on the target channel the
oscilloscope will realign. For example, if a channel has a Glue Compressor on it, the
oscilloscope might be slightly off. Inputting the amount of latency in ms introduced by
the glue compressor (it will vary based on the set sample rate), the waveform will be
realigned with the grid. NOTE: The latency compensation has no effect on the
actual ducking in Chain Shaper, that is already latency compensated. It only
affects the drawing of the waveform in the oscilloscope.

Opacity

Changes the opacity of the post signal to see how the signal is ducking in relation to
the input audio.

3 Transient vs Threshold Mode

Transient mode automatically detects transients and ducks
them out without any input from the user. Chain Shaper is the first
audio ducking utility to use automatic transient detection in real time.
Upon setting the input channel in Chain Shaper, the ducking will
immediately begin without any threshold needing to be dragged. It
also isn’t volume dependent, so quiet sounds will trigger ducking as
well as loud sounds, and it won’t be effected by volume change. It
makes the process of audio ducking extremely quick and efficient.
Transient mode works best with percussive sounds and drum like
sounds as they have more defined transients. It’s also immensely
useful when writing music with clashing sounds because you can
experiment with different drums and sounds without having to worry
about adjusting thresholds, volumes or other settings.

Another useful benefit of Transient Mode is finally a solution for

sidechaining an entire drum bus or group to another group. For
example, it might only be necessary to have a synth group being
triggered by the entire drum channel instead of multiple instances of
Chain Shaper for each individual drum sound. In Threshold mode it
would be too finicky and difficult to maintain accurate and precise
ducking on a whole group, but Transient Mode handles it with no
problem!

Threshold mode works with more sustained sounds, vocals

and things with more ambiguous transient information. The threshold
slider is activated when this mode is on. One thing to note is that the
threshold slider works similar to how a gate threshold works than a
compressor threshold. As you lower the threshold slider, it starts
letting more of the signal into Chain Shaper to start triggering the
ducking. The default setting is 500hz, but for some sounds like
basses, it will be necessary to lower the amount. Raising it to higher
amounts (even as high as 1khz) can help the input circuit and make it
easier for the threshold mode to work more efficiently.

4 Sync Mode
Sync mode can be activated by selecting the curve mode in the top
bar. Sync mode will match the ducking curve to a beat division of the
current project tempo. The unique thing about sync mode in Chain
Shaper is that it’s not linked to the actual transport in Ableton like
other side chain utilities are. It takes the BPM and then calculates the
beat subdivisions and applies them in milliseconds to the curve in
Chain Shaper. By being independent of the Ableton transport, any
latency introduced by plugins preceding the instance of Chain Shaper
won’t cause the BPM sync to become off since it’s essentially just
delaying the input sound with the lookahead. The other unique thing
about the sync mode is that instead of being a constant rhythmic
ducking amount, it syncs the “release” amount to the BPM. For
example, when set to 1/8, it won’t constantly duck out at 1/8 intervals
whether something is playing or not. It will trigger the envelope with
an 1/8 equivalent release in milliseconds. This makes the ducking
sound more musical and easier to dial in quicker. Also when
selecting a sync amount, the curve changes to a width identical to
the selected interval.

5 Support
For any bugs, questions, feature requests please email support
at [email protected]. Thank you!