ACE Compressor

The job of this filter is to make an audio recording perceivably louder by reducing the dynamic range, that is, the difference between the loudest and the quietest parts. ACE compressor lowers the volume of loud sounds above a user-defined threshold measured in dB, then the gain of all the sound gets increased to make up for lost loudness.

ACE Compressor
ACE Compressor

Available settings are:

The plugin also provides an opt-out inline display that shows input signal, threshold, and resulting gain reduction:

Inline ACE Compressor display
Inline display

ACE Expander

Contrary to compressors, expanders increase the dynamic range either by making quite sounds quieter (downward expanders) or by making loud sounds louder (upward expanders). ACE Expander is a downward expander. It reduces the level of a signal below a user-defined threshold by user-defined ratio, then optionally increases the overall gain to make up for lost loudness.

ACE Expander
ACE Expander

Available settings are:

ACE Expander also comes with an inline widget for mixer channels that displays the input signal level, the threshold, and the amount of reduced signal.

Inline ACE Expander display
Inline display

ACE Delay

Delay effects repeat original signal after a user-defined interval. In ACE Delay, the interval is calculated from the tempo and the divisor — a musical time unit like a 1/4th note or a dotted 1/16th note. When using a delay in music production, it's usually best to sync to project's tempo, especially if there are tempo ramps in a song.

ACE Delay
ACE Delay

Available settings are:

ACE Reverb

A reverb effect emulates sound waves reflecting off the walls in a closed space which could be a a small room or a cathedral. The effect is usually applied to a "dry" audio recording, that is, one typically made in a very small room with acoustic absorption treatment so that there are little-to-no reflections. That way, a reverb effect makes the most sense as it gives you a clean slate and more freedom to shape your sound.

The ACE Reverb effect is a very simple one, based on early research to artificial reverberation by Manfred Schroeder and Ben Logan (see here for technical details). There are just two controls:

ACE High/Low Pass Filter

High-pass and low-pass filters reduce the signal below and above a certain frequency respectively. The ACE High/Low Pass filter combines the two filters in one.

Inline ACE High/Low Pass Filter display
ACE High/Low Pass Filter

Each of the two bandpass filters has three controls:

The plugin also comes with an inline display visualizing the effect that the filters have.

Inline ACE High/Low Pass Filter display
Inline display

ACE EQ

Equalizers are commonly used to shape the sound, change timbre of an instrument and generally help it sit better in a mix.

ACE EQ is a simple 4-band equalizer with a low and a high shelves. All bands and shelves are optional and can be disabled by clicking on the outer border of respective parameters boxes.

For each band it's possible to set the base frequency, the gain level, and the bandwidth. The latter defines how much frequencies around the base frequency are affected by the gain adjustment. In an example below, the first band has the narrowest bandwidth of 0.1, and the third band has the default banwidth of 1.0. While both bands have a gain of +10dB, the first one is very narrow, but the third one is wide enough so that changes begin affecting frequencies that belong to neighboring frequency bands.

ACE EQ bandwidths
ACE EQ bandwidths

There are three ways to adjust both frequency, gain, and bandwidth:

  1. Directly on the diagram. Dragging the band mark (1 through 4) left and right changes the frequency, dragging it up and down changes the gain. Scrolling the mouse wheel over the band mark changes the bandwidth.

  2. In the bottom parameters boxes. Scrolling the mouse wheel over a setting changes its value. This is also where and how the master output can be adjusted.

  3. Numerically via the generic plugin UI. This user interface can be displayed by right-clicking on the plugin in the mixer channel and choosing the Edit with generic controls… option.

ACE EQ also provides an inline display for mixer channels:

Inline ACE EQ display
Inline display