SuperTap User Manual
Contents
1. Each preset provides a good starting place for some fun Here are brief descriptions of the presets Full SuperTap Reset This is the default setting for all SuperTap plug in components mono stereo 2 6 taps with or without modulation It is set for fairly short delays of all available taps with increasing stereo spread on each suc cessive tap as well as switching sides between L and R on each tap You Too A simple 2 tap cloner than duplicates the input with some Feedback for an audio house of mirrors Quite good for a lead instrument although you ll probably need to lower the gain of the taps some Ping Pong Simple back and forth with some HF dulling for better effect Ska You know the mighty mighty beat The big big vocal One Step Beyond The Specials in all their glory or at least as we remember it SuperTap Manual 15 Oil Tanker Bad reflections like a cheap house of too many mirrors with closely spaced shaky reflections sounds even better with the modulation versions Chorused reflections A pleasant scattered reflection series with subtle pitch shifts By putting the Tempo mode into Pattern mode and altering the Tempo you can control the density short or long of the reflections Very nice when blended with a deep digital reverb Spring reverb Not as bad as the real thing but with just as many distracting qualities At least it s a start to getting toward the spring sound and has the added feature and adva2. of possible settings for chorusing and double triple n pling the sound Since the Rate and Depth don t have linking you ll have to 16 SuperTap Manual carefully adjust both settings to get just the right amount of pitch variation Similarly to the Pseudoflanger closely spaced delays will cause cancellation of frequencies so if you are using this on a source with a wide range of frequencies especially bass or low notes then high pass filters on each tap will help to control the unevenness of the sound Better to have a solid bass in the Direct than to have unequal bass everywhere Vocal exciter Another area with lots more to be explored This is just a start using 2 taps and some strong EQ to add an edge By no means is it a true exciter but it certainly puts an edge on the input Say what Thissiskindofhardtounderstandstandbecauseeverythingthing is runninginging togetherehter A deliberately confusing set of time delays that makes comprehension rather challenging Slap Elvis He d probably have liked it but this is really not about any physical issues just giving the rockabilly vocal slap that seems to emulate that period of history and in stereo too Swing dance needs this type of effect if you blur the line between Brian Setzer and the King 15ips delay True emulation of the Ampex 440 whose distance between the record and play heads is 2 508 inches thanks to John French of JRF Magnetic Sciences which gives 172ms delay If yo
3. the Waves S1 Stereo Imager manual has much more information about Rotation In fact it is the original pan control invented by the man who filed the original patent for stereo Alan Blumlein Suffice it to say that it is much better than a pan control Tap Delay Grid Each tap has its own slider located in the display Grid Each slider shows a value When in Beats Per Minute the slider shows how many beats that delay is set to When in Milliseconds ms it shows the value in milliseconds Keep in mind that if you have Sixteenths selected for the grid the number shown in each tap is how many sixteenths that tap is so if you have 4 that is 4 sixteenth notes which is equal to a quarter note Beats per minute always refers to the quarter note no matter the Grid setting If you are working with Snap turned off then the numbers also show whether they are slower or faster than the closest beat by the plus or minus sign in front of the number If the slider is perfectly aligned with the grid then the number has no sign When a tap is active a color coordinated light on the right of the slider illuminates A slider displays the delay value for that tap in either milliseconds or BPM depending which mode the grid is set to Click on the Grid Mode button to change between BPM or ms To adjust the delay value for a tap you can click and drag its slider from side to side inside the Grid display or use the arrow keys In addition a
4. 450ms 8 SuperTap Manual Next to the Modulator are the output gain controls and peak meters Click and drag the fader to raise or lower the output gain range is from 12 0 to 12 0dB the value is displayed below the fader There are clip lights located above the level meters click to reset Below the meters is a numerical display showing the exact value in dB of the highest peak level since the last reset for both left and right channels Direct The On Off button turns the direct tap dry on or off When you launch SuperTap the Direct tap is on by default You can change Gain and Rotation of the dry signal just as you do for each of the taps and as well you can click and drag the Direct marker in the Pan Graph Delay lines taps Each tap has its own set of controls arranged in a horizontal row as seen here On Off Gain Rotate SuperTap Manual 9 On Off This button resembling an LED can be used to switch a tap on or off When a tap is switched on a marker with a matching color appears in the Pan graph and a light on the side of a tap s marker in the Grid dis play illuminates You can adjust the Gain and Rotate parameters of each tap using the controls described below Gain Gain is adjustable from 0 to 24dB FS in 0 1dB steps Rotate Rotation is adjustable from 45 to 45 in degrees Rotation is a type of panning but works for stereo as well as mono For further information
5. Power Pack products come with a 2 tap only version of SuperTap the full version is part of either the Pro FX Plus or Gold products In your menu you ll see four different component plugs or sub plugins of SuperTap 6 taps with and without Modulation and 2 taps with and without Modulation The 2 tap takes less power and memory The Modulation versions have shorter delay times 1 2 seconds the components without modulation have the longest delay times 6 seconds Note The components without modulation are not available in native applications Maximum delay time may vary from application to application Launch one of the SuperTap components from your plug in menu It will open with the default settings The default setting of any of the components has all the taps turned on without Feedback The factory pre sets located in the Load menu are a great place to start but take a little time to read at least this page There s lots to know about this processor that will save you time 1 Each tap s controls are arranged in a row from left to right The on off button is on the left going across to the EQ section Notice that when you turn a tap on it illuminates in all three buttons the on button itself the delay slider and the Pan Graph for stereo plugins SuperTap Manual 3 3 Drag a Pan Graph marker to change Gain and stereo position rotation at the same time or adjust the Gain and Rotation controls separately fo
6. Snap to grid button lets you control the quantization of the taps 10 SuperTap Manual The grid can be displayed using the divisions selected in the popup menu below the grid Free Quarters Quarter Triplets Eighths Eighth triplets Sixteenths In order to simplify the grid and numbering schemes the grid was limited to these selections but the BPM has a very wide range of adjustment 40 to 1200bpm so if you need to work on half notes for instance you can simply cut the BPM in half and use the quarter note settings etc For complex rhythms such as 5 s 11 s etc we leave that to you and your calculator to work in the Free mode ___EQ section The filters on each tap are the same components from Waves highly acclaimed Q10 Each tap and the Feedback line has its own filter If you want to hear to the results of changing a filter s parameters on one tap turn off any other taps and the direct tap Each filter s range is from 0 1kHz 100 Hz to 20kHz and there are six different filter curves Bell 1 wider Bell 2 narrower Hi Shelf Low Shelf High Pass Low cut Low Pass High cut DO FP WY __ Tap Filter Controls On Off Click on this LED button to switch the filter on or off When it s on the button illuminates See how easy this is SuperTap Manual 11 Type This button lets you choose a filter curve Click on it to toggle through the
7. SuperTap Enigma Manual Chapter 1 ciccccccccancyesseccxteweseseeesenevaesencs Introduction 2 Chapter 2 000nunu22222u 22 255 cesses Seca seat Quick Start 3 Chapter 3 iscdsnivevsssseie o W hat is a M ulti T ap D elay 5 Chapter 4 issiisiirniuninninninunndnanniinannin Tips and Hints 6 Chapter 5 cccccseeneeeeenennes Controls and Displays 7 C hapter 6 s s 2 Factory Presets 15 Chapter 7 s Tempo Sync in V5 0 18 Enigma Manual 1 Chapter 1 Introduction Thanks for buying Waves processors SuperTap is a six tap delay plug in that can be used to produce a broad range of multi tap delay effects including analog and tape delay emulation chorusing rhythmic looping and more It also includes modu lator and feedback sections The following pages explain how to use SuperTap Be aware that this processor just like its analog equiva lents is easily capable of overmodulation and positive gain feedback loops i e increasingly louder sounds going well into distortion There s no way to give you complete freedom and protect you from getting such sounds so Be Prepared 2 SuperTap Manual Chapter 2 Quick start At the most basic there are two types of SuperTap processing one with modulation or one with longer taps You can also choose between 2 or 6 taps for either type as well as mono or stereo Please note that the TDM and Native
8. a delay line A delay line simply plays a copy of the original signal following a delay of a certain amount of time When you add this delayed copy to the original some extraordinary effects can be created When you play several such delayed signals along with the original where each signal is delayed by a different amount you have a multi tap delay Therefore a multi tap delay is a single delay with multiple outputs taps along the delay In SuperTap the delay is a maximum of 6 seconds without modulation and the taps can be placed anywhere along that delay These taps are feed forward which means they are all mixed together at the output A feedback control is also provided which routes audio back to the input for looping and complex rhythmic effects Digital reverbs operate using a similar principle By adding mirrored copies of the original signal to itself and by reducing the gain each time the effect of a disappearing echo in a large space can be reproduced However reverbs can have millions of delayed repetitions with great complexity in relationships volume phase frequency response direction Modulation gt Audio modulation is the variation of one or more aspects of a sound There are many kinds of modulation frequency amplitude phase but in SuperTap we use only Frequency modulation A low frequency oscilla tor 20Hz and below very slightly changes the delay times of each of the taps producing ch
9. ack delay to a short length and all other taps longer than it then you ll hear each tap followed by the feedback loop with each tap s sound overlaying into the short loop This creates very complex timing issues that are better heard than described Feedback on off As Bob Clearmountain is reputed to have once said if you have trouble understanding this type of button maybe you should consider a different line of work Gain Controls how much signal is fed back into the input Warning values above 50 are always delicate so start with low Feedback Gain values and change it slowly Rotation Being able to pan a stereo signal is at its coolest when used in the Feedback loop For a mono signal Rotation is very much like a pan control without a pan law no volume dip in the center but for stereo inputs Rotation provides amazing flexibility and unexpected effects They are unexpected largely because the world has little experience with Rotation which moves an entire stereo image without collapsing the image width for more info read the S1 Stereo Imager manual available at our web site if you don t own the S1 By taking a signal and rotating it all the way to 45 or 45 degrees hard left or hard right the entire stereo signal will be shifted dramatically each time it comes thru the feedback loop This creates antiphase signals and very interesting stereo placement on looped signals SuperTap Manual 13 For an example of Ro
10. anges in the pitch of each output This is ideal for chorusing and other effects where varying pitch is desired SuperTap Manual 5 Chapter 4 Tips and hints Read about WaveSystem In one sense SuperTap is very simple but can be so complex that it is best to work with it to learn what is going on However there are some tips that can help you work more effectively One is to take the time to read the WaveSystem manual this is mentioned a few times in this manual and for very good reason Waves is the world leader in software based processors and we ve developed highly intuitive and powerful inter faces But some features are unique to Waves so unless you read about them you may never find them One example you ll notice there is no wet dry control on SuperTap It is easier to control the Gain of each tap separately But what if you want to control all of them simultaneously It s quite easy Simply click and drag across all Gain controls to select them with a selection rectangle then click and drag on any one of them to change all of the Gain controls at the same time as shown here You can use the arrow keys to tweak values or enter values directly from the keypad and much more So read the WaveSystem manual for powerful control that applies to all Waves plug ins Work with the presets Each of them were developed to illustrate a specific aspect of SuperTap and although hardly exhaustive of the processor s ca
11. k you want to edit but can listen to it use tempo mode It allows you to set the tempo rate by tapping the pad with mouse clicks The tempo is calculated automatically In fact SuperTap continually calculates the average tempo while displaying it in the BPM and ms displays To get the most accurate average reading tapping for a longer period is preferable For exam ple if you tap reasonably consistently for awhile even up to two minutes the setting should reach a fixed value without changes despite the erroneous tap here and there Pattern Mode If you want to enter your own sequence of delay times for each tap use Pattern mode Click your mouse on the Tap pad using your chosen pattern You ll notice each tap takes the same delay as the sequence you tap Each tap jumps to position in the tap grid according to the sequence This takes a bit of practice but can be used to quickly set a complex rhythm while for example listening to the song you re working with To switch on the Modulator click on the On Off switch The modulator only affects the active taps not the direct You can use the Rate button to adjust the oscillation rate Its range is from 0 0 to 20Hz The oscillator sweeps the delay of each tap according to the Depth setting In other words if the Depth setting is 250ms its range is from 0 to 500ms and a particular tap s delay is 700ms the delay of that tap will sweep from a maximum of 950ms to a minimum of
12. ntage of not making a huge noise if you bang on the top of the box Analog delay Notice the filtering that heavily removes the high frequencies from the delays By playing with these filters even heavier dull emulations can become dark spiraling blurs Very nice for cloudy moody rock which always seems to be popular with youth no matter the age Reverse Reverse II By carefully setting the Gain of each tap a pseudo reverse effect is established not much unlike a reverse tape repeating echo by flipping the reels over By simply offsetting the track to the value of the last tap you can have true pre echo Close slaps Nice for lead instruments or singers as well as musicians Old joke The close spacing of the slaps can pro duce cancellation in the low frequencies so if you wish to use this setting on a bass instrument you might want to use a high pass filter on all the taps so that those frequencies don t suffer from unequal frequency response If you don t understand this just try it anyway by using High Pass filters at about 500Hz or so on all the taps The proof is in the listening Pseudoflanger Why not use the MetaFlanger It will do a better job but if you need to switch to a setup and since no DAWS allow you to automate the plugins being inserted or removed yet this gives you a nice fake start on a flanging type of sound Chorus Lots more to be explored here we ve only started you at the edge of a vast range
13. ntrols are Mode Feedback on off Gain Rotation Feedback EQ filter section except with different filters than the taps 12 SuperTap Manual Mode This is the most critical button in the Feedback section to understand In Norm al mode the feedback simply sends each tap back into the input again You ll notice that the Feedback delay slider is grayed out and can t be moved while in the Normal mode NOTE while in the Normal mode you have the greatest risk of having positive gain feedback that is a sound that increases loudness rapidly into distortion You must be careful about this but at the same time understand there are many creative areas that this allows If multiple taps align onto the same time and you also have high Feedback settings then positive gain is rather likely In other words it will get very loud very fast so keep a hand on your monitor level until you learn what will happen In Tap Feedback mode the feedback has its own delay time like a 7th tap so if you set a rhythm using a few taps and set the Feedback delay time to the length of a measure the entire rhythm will repeat A gain setting of 50 means 6dB half the energy so the loop will fade out where a setting of 100 will cycle a single input endlessly It is in this Tap Feedback mode that the EQ Filter settings give great power in making subtractive synthesis looping filtering each tap differently On the other hand if you set the feedb
14. pabilities they are great places to start and tweak By using them and simply adjusting the Tempo to match your production you can save a lot of time We encourage you to post any settings you create to our web site G SuperTap Manual Chapter 5 Controls amp Displays Pan Graph The Pan Graph shows the stereo location of each tap in a stereo field Since the SuperTap also works with stereo inputs the correct term is Rotation which applies equally to mono or stereo inputs You can click and drag each tap s marker inside this display to adjust its pan Rotation position and mix Gain values Drag a marker from side to side to change its Rotation value from 45 to 45 degrees and up and down to raise or lower its output gain from 0 0 to 24dB Tempo You can use the triangular push buttons arrows to raise or lower the tempo value or directly enter a num ber or drag on the BPM value display with the mouse One very important thing to remember about the Tempo control Beats Per Minute always refers to the quarter note No matter what Grid mode you are in i e whether sixteenths or eighths etc the BPM refers to the quarter note The tempo is displayed in two forms BPM beats per minute and ms milliseconds The Mode button changes the function of the Tap Pad between Tempo and Pattern depending on the desired mode SuperTap Manual 7 Tempo Mode If you don t know the exact tempo speed of the trac
15. r each tap Panning is only for mono signals Rotation works with mono and stereo so that is why it is here 4 On the right side is the EQ Filter section with on off control 5 filter types plus gain control for the bell and shelving filters You can filter each tap separately for a very large range of creative rhythm effects from a single sound source 5 The feedback section in the lower left corner is worthy of a warning Using feedback can produce increasingly louder sounds well into distortion just as the analog equivalents can do In order to give you great flexibility there is also the small danger of very loud feedback sounds so it is best to use low feedback values and adjust it slowly 6 Modulating the taps produces variation in the delay times which changes the pitch from each tap You can control the depth in milliseconds and the rate of variation 4 SuperTap Manual Chapter 3 What is a Multi tap Delay Audio delays have widespread use in studios and sound design and have been used for quite some time dat ing from the earliest recording devices There have been many versions including analog bucket brigade types digital acoustic tape and more each with their own flavor and character The SuperTap doesn t try to directly emulate all of them but you have a huge set of tools to work with to do exactly that or create completely new effects only available in digital software tools What is
16. six different filter curves listed above Alternatively click on the small arrow to select from a popup menu Freq This control button allows you to adjust the filter s center frequency Click and drag up and down on the Freq button or click it and type in a numerical value Each filter has a range from 0 1kHz to 20kHz Gain Use the Gain button to boost or lower the gain of the Shelf or Bell filters it does not affect the Pass filters even though you can change the value It is possible to create a little rhythm section from one percussive strike using a different filter on each tap For example you can take a single bass kick and produce 6 different tones or timbres with the 6tap processors Simply set each tap to have very different EQ settings such as High pass on Tap 1 at 1 0kHz Bell2 onTap 2 at 7 5kHz and Gain of 8dB and low shelf on Tap 3 200Hz and with Gain set to 12 for a thin sound Then simply set the pattern with the Tap pad or manually Combined with Feedback and modulation the possibilities for variations in looping are limited only by the amount of time you have to sit and work __ Feedback As you were warned earlier be careful with the Feedback It is very easy to create very loud sounds that con tinually get louder and louder and distortion is completely allowed in this plug in Otherwise we would have to make this processor so safe that many creative areas would have been eliminated The co
17. tation on Feedback Set just one tap for a 500ms delay Set Feedback in the Tap Feedback mode with 50 Gain Set Feedback delay to 1000ms Set Rotation to 45 Play a small section of sound into SuperTap and listen as the sound rotates thru the stereo field and even outside of it EQ filter section Only 3 filter types are in the Feedback EQ section Low Pass Low Shelf Low Decay The low shelf gives enough control to act as a highpass and leaving out high shelves and high pass filters eliminates the possibility of strong boosts in treble This keeps positive feedback overloads from producing huge amounts of high frequency energy In other words it was safer for us to make it this way Low pass and low shelf are self explanatory but the Low Decay is the filter type that is different from any other tap It is simply a very gentle high shelf that has only cut negative gain values so that you can make each repetition be a little duller less treble very much like tape or analog delays or vintage delays that had low sampling rates Good settings to start with are about 3dB 14 SuperTap Manual Chapter 6 Factory Presets Full Super Tap Rezet You Too i Ping porig Ska Dil tanker Chorused reflections Spring reverb Analog Delay Rewerser Reverse Close slaps Peudoflanger Chorus Vocal exciter Say what Slap Elvis 1 Sips delay Tips delay Classic single tapestap
18. tion when Sync is set to Auto the tempo control receives its value from the host application The BPM and ms controls are disabled and their values are locked to the host s tempo and the TapPad mode is fixed for pattern tapping When Sync is set to Manual the Tempo section will not be in sync with the host s tempo and will perform as it did in V4 with its parameters controlled internally In the Modulation section when the Sync button is in Manual mode the modulation section functions as it did in V4 and the Rate control determines the modulation rate in Hertz cycles per second However if the Sync button is in Tempo mode then the modulation section is locked to the tempo in the Tempo section whether set internally or in sync with the host s tempo value In this case the Rate button changes its functionality from Rate Hz to Rate x Beat indicating that the value being set in the control determines the number of modulation cycles per beat where the number of beats per minute BPM is determined and controlled by the plug in s tempo section For example if Rate is set to 3 00 and the tempo section is at 120 BPM or 2 beats per second then the modulation rate will be 3 cycles per beat which in this case will be 6 cycles per second 6Hz The Rate button has been enhanced with a new drop down menu which allows a quick selection of some predefined and commonl
19. u fed the output back to the input then you get the repeating taps we have set in this setup Changing the EQ settings can provide something you never had with the old style turn up the tape output on the board method independent EQ on each repeat This is as nice as having a holodeck Ampex 440 with a cloning subroutine 7 5ips Everything we said about the 15ips delay but at half the tape speed i e 344ms delay times Very very much a reminiscent sound to those who were there and can remember of the types of delays during the period when the Ampex 440 was found in nearly every studio Classic single tapeslap Simply a 1 tap version of the 15ips delay setup This is probably more realistic a delay setting than the Slap Elvis and is in mono SuperTap Manual 17 SuperTap Tempo Sync in V5 A new simple and perfect way of setting your digital delay tempos has been added to SuperTap in version 5 0 sync to host tempo This new function enables SuperTap to lock to the host application s tempo and tie the relevant controls to that externally controlled tempo SuperTap has two sections that apply to tempo syncing One is the Tempo section s tap tempo delay time value The other is the Modulation section A new control labeled Sync has been added to each of these sections and it has two modes in each section In the Tempo section Auto or Manual In the Modulation section Tempo or Manual In the Tempo sec
20. y used subdivisions of the beat i e quarter notes etc Create beautiful digital delays perfectly timed to your music with the new Waves SuperTap V5 0
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