The Plugin Chain Builder lets you patch together audio processors into a signal path, reorder them, and listen to the way it change the sound. Interact with the widget either via your mouse (clicking on controls) or via dedicated keys on your computer keyboard. This is designed to help explain the concept of signal flow and why effect order make a difference.
First thing: Pick a test source from the dropdown in the transport bar. You can pick something that sounds like a bass figure, a drum bus loop, or a vocal phrase. When you power up the rack, each will play a short loop of music for you to hear as your starting audio bed. This allows you to hear how each module change the sound as you add it to the rack.
How to Use the Plugin Chain Builder
Click modules in the left-side bin to add processors. Load a chorus, room reverb, delay, saturation, compressor and even a high-pass filter. These appear as insert slots within the main rack area. Only one instance of each module type can be loaded at any given time. By default, they is added to the end of the chain when you click on the bin item.
Moving inserts around makes a huge difference in sound. Each module has a number on the handle. Grab that number and drag it up and down the rack. Alternatively use the directional arrows on each module which will nudge it forwards or backwards along the rack.
Experiment with putting saturation before compression. For instance, does it increase the amount of gain reduction? Put it behind and keep feeding a clean signal into your compressor.
The module includes an output display and a slider to adjust parameters right on the device itself. There’s just one main control per module. It is a cutoff frequency in hertz for the high-pass filter. It is a threshold in decibels for the compressor. It is a drive multiplier for saturation. It is a percent of feedback for delay. It is a wet blend for room. It is a depth in milliseconds for chorus.
The bypass button allows you to turn individual modules on and off, leaving them in place but without their effect in the chain. This is useful when A/B testing the contribution of one module. There’s also a master bypass button in the transport area that lets you skip the whole rack, sending the source signal straight through to the output as a dry reference.
Click the energize button to power up the rack. That engages the signal path and kicks off the audio loop. While the rack is live, the signal flow indicator animate. Before and after meters show the RMS level of your signal coming in and out of the system. Keep an eye on those as a good way to avoid clipping the master output.
Compare two different chain configurations. Capture the current order of parameters, their values, and bypass states using the snapshot feature. Once captured you can click that same button again to swap the live rack back into the saved state. You have an instant comparison and don’t need to rebuild the chain by hand. Great if you want to hear slight differences in signal order.
The recipe buttons offer presets that load recommended chains for drum impact, ambient depth, or vocal polish. Experiment with them to see what makes sense; they can teach you how to order processors effectively. For example, a vocal chain goes clean up in the low end, then controls dynamics, adds color, then tacks on a room tail at the end. With drums, it pushes its way into harmonics first then compresses peaks.
For example, there is a calibration bay that gives auditory and visual feedback. The trace graph displays the predicted frequency response of the active high-pass filter. The sweep button sends a sine wave through the whole chain. That way, you can also hear what’s happening to the tonal balance over the spectrum due to delay, for instance, or saturation. The audit button checks the chain order and informs about possible signal flow issues.
The slider on the transport bar controls the master volume. The source trim adjusts the input level going into the rack. If you lower this, then it won’t clip in the first few units (saturators, compressors). The higher will be able to push harder on compressors. Play around with that to determine where your chain’s sweet spot is.
It streamlines your workflow with keyboard shortcuts. Press Space to turn the whole rack on, off, energized, or muted. Press B to toggle a hard bypass of all modules in the rack. Press C to swap or capture a snapshot. Add individual modules from bin using their corresponding number keys 1-6. To reorder a focused module, press Up or Down arrows. Keyboard shortcuts enable you to adjust the chain without having to take your hands away from the keyboard.
For those with a small monitor, or if you’re using this on an external screen and want to share your screen, there’s also a fullscreen option that increases the size of the widget so you can work with more room. To enter fullscreen, just click the fullscreen button. To return to normal, either click the fullscreen button again or press Escape. It will automatically adjust the layout to fill all available screen space.
The help panel appears when you click on the How To Play button, which explains the controls including keyboard mappings. It’s a handy place for reviewing the audit suggestions or reminding yourself of any shortcuts you might have forgotten. You can leave this panel open at all times or just turn it back on as needed.
Mix things up, Use some of our presets as a starting point but feel free to change the order of signals in your chain. Put reverb into delay for a washed out echo effect. Feed saturation into compression to smooth out any harsh harmonics. You’ll see how each change affects the signal in realtime using the meters and audit tool. Don’t be afraid to put something in backwards or forwards, it’s going to sound different but not necessarily wrong. Begin building chains now and see for yourself.