Effects
Effects for one instrument or the master bus, and the master limiter.
Effect
Effect()A sound effect: put it in synth.fx or kiln.master.fx.
The subclasses are the effects: Delay, Reverb, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Drive and Bitcrush. Their attributes are parameters: set them at any time, and the sound glides to the new value over about 20 ms. Numbers outside a parameter’s range are clamped. Every effect has mix, from 0 (dry: the sound passes unchanged, bit for bit) to 1 (only the effect).
An effect is in one list at a time. It keeps its state (an echo still ringing, a reverb tail) while it stays in a list; a new effect starts silent.
Raises
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ImportError | The “sound” extra is not installed. | |
| RuntimeError | Too many effects at once (64), or no effect memory left. |
Delay
Delay(time=0.375, feedback=0.4, tone=0.6, ping_pong=False, mix=0.3)Echoes: the sound repeats after time, each repeat feedback times quieter.
Ported from STK’s DelayL and Echo (Perry Cook and Gary Scavone). For echoes in time with a tempo, give time in beats: 60 / bpm * 0.75 is a dotted eighth. Gliding time bends the repeats, like a tape echo.
echo = kiln.Delay(time=60 / 122 * 0.75, feedback=0.45, ping_pong=True)
synth.fx = [echo]Parameters
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| time | float | Seconds between repeats, 0.001 to 2.5. The line holds 131,072 samples, so above 52 kHz the longest is shorter: 1.36 s at 96 kHz. | 0.375 |
| feedback | float | How much of each repeat comes back, 0 to 0.98. | 0.4 |
| tone | float | Brightness of the repeats, 0 (each repeat darker) to 1 (unchanged). | 0.6 |
| ping_pong | bool | True bounces the repeats between left and right. | False |
| mix | float | Dry 0 to wet 1. | 0.3 |
Reverb
Reverb(size=0.7, decay=2.0, damping=0.3, mix=0.25)A plate reverb: the sound blooms into a room-like tail.
Jon Dattorro’s plate (1997), the classic studio-plate algorithm, not FreeVerb.
synth.fx = [kiln.Reverb(size=0.8, decay=3.0, mix=0.3)]Parameters
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| size | float | How big the plate is, 0 to 1: small and dense to large and spacious. | 0.7 |
| decay | float | Seconds the tail takes to fall by 60 dB (RT60), 0.1 to 20; within about 10 % from 1 s up. Shorter settings come out a little longer, since the plate’s own loop sets a floor (0.5 s measures about 0.64 s at size 0.7). | 2.0 |
| damping | float | 0 (bright tail) to 1 (highs die out quickly, a darker room). | 0.3 |
| mix | float | Dry 0 to wet 1. | 0.25 |
Chorus
Chorus(rate=0.513, depth=1.0, mix=0.5)The Roland Juno-60’s chorus: a slow shimmer that spreads the sound wide.
A bucket-brigade-style delay swept by a triangle, read in opposite phase on left and right.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| rate | float | LFO speed, Hz, 0.05 to 10 (0.513 is the Juno’s mode I, 0.863 mode II). | 0.513 |
| depth | float | Sweep depth, 0 to 1 (1 is the Juno’s, 1.7 to 5.4 ms). | 1.0 |
| mix | float | Dry 0 to wet 1 (0.5, half and half, is the Juno’s). | 0.5 |
Flanger
Flanger(rate=0.2, depth=0.7, feedback=0.5, mix=0.5)A flanger: a jet-plane whoosh from a very short, sweeping delay.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| rate | float | LFO speed, Hz, 0.01 to 10. | 0.2 |
| depth | float | Sweep depth, 0 to 1 (the delay sweeps from 0.3 ms up to 4.3 ms). | 0.7 |
| feedback | float | Resonance, -0.95 to 0.95 (negative sounds hollow). | 0.5 |
| mix | float | Dry 0 to wet 1 (0.5 gives the deepest notches). | 0.5 |
Phaser
Phaser(rate=0.4, depth=0.7, feedback=0.3, mix=0.5)A phaser: notches that sweep up and down the spectrum.
Four swept all-pass stages, as in the MXR Phase 90.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| rate | float | LFO speed, Hz, 0.01 to 10. | 0.4 |
| depth | float | Sweep width, 0 to 1 (1 sweeps 3 octaves either side of 700 Hz). | 0.7 |
| feedback | float | Resonance, -0.9 to 0.9. | 0.3 |
| mix | float | Dry 0 to wet 1 (0.5 gives the deepest notches). | 0.5 |
Drive
Drive(drive=0.5, mix=1.0)Saturation: from warm to fuzzy, adding odd harmonics.
A tanh waveshaper, oversampled four times and anti-aliased, so loud driven highs do not fold back as grit.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| drive | float | 0 (gentle) to 1 (36 dB into the curve: fuzz). | 0.5 |
| mix | float | Dry 0 to wet 1. | 1.0 |
Bitcrush
Bitcrush(bits=8.0, rate=11025.0, mix=1.0)Lo-fi: fewer bits and a lower sample rate, like old samplers and game consoles.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| bits | float | Bit depth, 1 to 16 (4 bits is 16 levels); fractions blend smoothly. | 8.0 |
| rate | float | Sample rate it holds the sound at, Hz, 100 to 48000 (no filter: it aliases). | 11025.0 |
| mix | float | Dry 0 to wet 1. | 1.0 |
Instrument.fx
Instrument.fx
This instrument’s effects, in order (a copy: assign a list to change them).
Instrument.pan
Instrument.pan
Instrument.bind
Instrument.bind(name, param)Makes a control follow a kiln.Gui Parameter.
The control takes the Parameter’s value now, then follows it: every slider move, and every preset load, reaches the sound through the control’s usual write, so it glides over the same few milliseconds as a write from code. A choice Parameter drives a control that picks an option (a Synth’s osc1_wave or filter_type); a number Parameter (a slider or a knob) drives a numeric control, clamped to the control’s range. Binding a control again replaces its earlier binding.
Bind once, for example in setup(), not every frame. Binding again, or unbind, removes the earlier listener from the Parameter, so none pile up.
The binding lasts as long as the Parameter and this object do: when this object goes away the Parameter is let go. unbind ends it sooner. Hiding a panel does not: its Parameters keep working.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| name | str | A control of this object, such as "cutoff". |
required |
| param | A Parameter from Gui.slider, Gui.choice and the like. |
required |
Raises
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ValueError | name is not a control, or a choice Parameter offers an option the control doesn’t have (checked for every option, so a later move or preset load can’t fail). |
|
| TypeError | The Parameter’s kind doesn’t fit the control (an xy pad on a numeric control, a slider on a waveform choice). |
Instrument.unbind
Instrument.unbind(name)Stops a control following its Parameter; it keeps its last value (no-op if unbound).
Effect.bind
Effect.bind(name, param)Makes a control follow a kiln.Gui Parameter.
The control takes the Parameter’s value now, then follows it: every slider move, and every preset load, reaches the sound through the control’s usual write, so it glides over the same few milliseconds as a write from code. A choice Parameter drives a control that picks an option (a Synth’s osc1_wave or filter_type); a number Parameter (a slider or a knob) drives a numeric control, clamped to the control’s range. Binding a control again replaces its earlier binding.
Bind once, for example in setup(), not every frame. Binding again, or unbind, removes the earlier listener from the Parameter, so none pile up.
The binding lasts as long as the Parameter and this object do: when this object goes away the Parameter is let go. unbind ends it sooner. Hiding a panel does not: its Parameters keep working.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| name | str | A control of this object, such as "cutoff". |
required |
| param | A Parameter from Gui.slider, Gui.choice and the like. |
required |
Raises
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ValueError | name is not a control, or a choice Parameter offers an option the control doesn’t have (checked for every option, so a later move or preset load can’t fail). |
|
| TypeError | The Parameter’s kind doesn’t fit the control (an xy pad on a numeric control, a slider on a waveform choice). |
Effect.unbind
Effect.unbind(name)Stops a control following its Parameter; it keeps its last value (no-op if unbound).
Limiter
Limiter()The master limiter: always on, it keeps the output at or under ceiling.
A lookahead brickwall limiter on the master bus, after kiln.master.fx. It sees each peak lookahead seconds before it plays and turns the gain down smoothly just enough, so no sample goes over the ceiling and nothing clips; below the ceiling it changes nothing. The price is lookahead seconds of latency (2 ms by default). Reach it as kiln.master.limiter.
Attributes
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ceiling | float | The highest output level, dBFS, -40 to 0 (default -1). |
| release | float | How fast the gain comes back after a peak, seconds, 0.05 to 2 (default 0.1). It starts 20 ms after the peak, so a held note or chord is turned down evenly, without distortion. |
| lookahead | float | How far ahead it looks, seconds, 0 to 0.005 (default 0.002). It is also the latency it adds; changing it restarts the limiter (a click). |
| reduction | float | The most the limiter has turned the gain down since you last read it, dB (0 or negative); reading it starts over, so read it once a frame for a meter. Read-only. |
Master
Master()The master bus: everything you hear passes through it.
Reach it as kiln.master.
kiln.master.fx = [kiln.Reverb(mix=0.2)] # every instrument, one room
kiln.master.limiter.ceiling = -3.0
kiln.master.gain = 12 # push the mix into the limiter
kiln.master.volume = 0.5 # half as loud at the speakers
size = 100 * kiln.master.level() # how loud it is now, 0 to 1level(), spectrum() and waveform() read the mix back to drive visuals; kiln.mic reads the microphone the same way.
Attributes
| Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| fx | list | The effects every instrument goes through, in order (a list; empty by default). Assign a new list to change them: effects that leave fade out and new ones fade in, over 20 ms, so it never clicks. When a sketch’s window closes, the list is emptied. |
| gain | float | Gain in dB applied to the whole mix just before the limiter, -24 to +24 (default 0). Raise it to push a mix into the limiter, which holds the peaks at its ceiling. It glides over 20 ms, so changing it never clicks. |
| limiter | The always-on output Limiter. |
|
| volume | float | The level sent to the speakers, 0 (mute) to 1 (full, the default), after the limiter. The analysis is taken before it, so muting does not blank level(), spectrum() or waveform(). |
When a sketch’s window closes, fx, gain, volume and the limiter’s settings go back to their defaults, so every run starts from the same sound. Set them in setup (or before kiln.run, for the first run).
master
master