u-he Twangström -

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Shake, Rattle, and Roll

u-he Twangström is a spring reverberator that is truly a flexible spring reverb box-of-tricks. If you’re familiar with Bazille, you might already have come across its built-in spring unit. We took that one, then modeled two more reverb tanks, paired it with drive section, filter stage, envelope, and mod matrix. It emulates a hand-picked selection of the most popular units found in classic guitar and instrument amplifiers, recreating the odd character of real springs.

Twangström Highlights

shakeable springs
3 different reverberation tanks, inspired by the most popular ones built in the guitar & instrument amps that made rock ‘n roll
tasty drive & tone stage for heating-up and colouring the sound
multi-mode filter, with variable type blend
four-flavours envelope stage, picking up the signal from either input, output or external sidechain
LFO module, 8 different types & waveforms, variable time base & syncable
comprehensive modulation matrix, for realtime control of all the parameters
independent input and feedback routing options allow all possible stereo or mono combinations
76 factory presets, NKS-compatible
UI instantly resizable from 70% to 200%
custom remote control via MIDI CC, 14-bit resolution option

As a faithful emulation of a mechanical device, Twangström needs to be handled well. Many of the technical parameters are user-adjustable in real time, and these can be controlled via MIDI or using the internal LFO and envelope generator. With its multimode resonant filter, Twangström is a unique and powerful tool which can deliver highly unusual, evolving textures… especially when the signal is tossed around using the modulation matrix!

Features

Shakeable springs

Hitting your computer won’t make Twangström shatter, so we added a twang control. This is used to shake the springs, either manually or through modulation and automation. You might think this is a gimmick for which you have no further use (apart from waking up the neighbours), but if you modulate it slightly, everything comes to life!

Tank controls

Twangström’s reverb is based on physical modelling. As opposed to plug-ins based on impulse responses (IR), our approach mimics the physics of mechanical reverberation. By simulating the wavefront travelling through a medium, we can include all the aspects of excitation, reflection, dispersion, interference, and other audio properties. Twangström does not mimic the sonic result, but simulates the physical device. This means that all dimensions of the device are controllable in realtime, on a per-sample-basis – which all boils down to quite some power at your fingertips!

Envelope

The envelope in Twangström features 4 different modes and can pick up the signal from either input, output or external sidechain. You can select between Envelope Follower, Attack and Decay, Attack and Release, or Cyclic modes. The last one is similar to a 2-stage LFO. Shown controls will adapt to the selected mode, with Threshold not appearing while in Envelope Follower mode.

Modulation Matrix

The modulation matrix has three general purpose modulation slots, and yes, you can select shake as one of many targets to modulate the Twang control!

Low Frequency Oscillator

The LFO features different time bases, including a non-synchronized one measured in seconds. Synchronized options include both dotted times and triplets. There are 8 different waveforms to choose from, with 2 of them being stepped or glide random shapes.

USER GUIDE

Springs? What’s that?

The Reverb Tank

Often referred to as a tank, spring-reverberation devices typically incorporate several metal springs suspended in a metal case. The springs are excited using electromagnetic transducers. The principle is similar to a loudspeaker, except with a spring instead of the membrane. Sound waves travel across the spring to the opposite end, where another transducer converts the mechanical energy back into an electronic signal. A lot of the energy is reflected at both ends, but mechanical damping inherent in the system means that the the sound fades away naturally.

Several springs often share a transducer pair. In such cases, the transducer houses each spring’s cylindrical end-stop magnets, distributed evenly within the air gap (and enclosed by the laminated core, a stack of thin magnetic iron plates). Sharing a transducer pair minimizes mechanical and electric complexity, but the signals can only be treated as a whole. Tanks that can be operated in stereo require multiple transducers, and are therefore quite rare Of course you have them in Twangström! Some stereo systems had two complete tanks.

A transmission spring follows a principle physicists call the spring-mass system, and you might recall classroom experiments in which a weight was attached to a hanging spring, making it oscillate at a certain frequency. Apart from the external mass, the physical properties of the spring (material, length, wire gauge, number & diameter of coils) have a great effect on the vibration and transmission of sound. The longer the spring, the lower the frequency at which it oscillates. Longer springs also decay more slowly than short ones, as more windings result in more kinetic energy potentially stored.

Typically, reverb tanks with multiple springs are chosen for unequal delay times. Ratios based on prime numbers help in achieving dense reverb by strictly avoiding repetitive echo pattens. In a reverberation tank, the rigid suspension mounts at both ends act as a constant mass, thus damping the spring’s energy. But upon vibration, some of the energy is transferred to the other parts. In a multiple-spring arrangement, all springs share a common mounting plate, so vibration becomes an interactive process. As a result, springs interchange their wave fronts and the sound becomes more washy with each reflection.

If there were no mechanical coupling involved, a minimum (static) density could be achieved by choosing suitable delay times, but there would be no buildup of echoic complexity. In real tanks a certain degree of coupling is always present, so we made it switchable in Twangström. In certain setups the echo-density buildup has another cause: the division of the spring into shorter segments. For instance, at first glance the popular Accutronics Type 4 tank appears to be two springs, but is actually four: Each sub-system comprises two springs with a small joint in between. What happens there is pretty much the same as at the suspension end of normal systems: Waves are partially reflected while most of the wavefront is passed on to the next spring. These joints seldom divide the two springs perfectly, and this fact helps spread the echos around, making the reverb tail more diffuse.

At the time we released our current plugin versions, Avid could not provide an AAX SDK that would let us build Universal Binary AAX plugins. For this reason, we currently cannot support Pro Tools for Mac. Pro Tools for Windows is still supported.

For the time being, macOS Pro Tools users who are not running the native Silicon version should use the previous versions of our plugins, available from the Release Archive.

We hope to start work on native Silicon AAX support this year, as soon as our tight schedule allows. No ETA can be quoted yet.

Requirements

Mac OS X 10.10 or newer (including M1)
Windows 7 or newer
Linux
1GB RAM, more recommended
30-90 MB free disk space
1000 × 600 or larger display
Modern CPU required:
Windows/Linux: Intel Nehalem or newer, AMD Bulldozer or newer
Mac: Intel Nehalem or newer, Apple M1
Linux: glibc version 2.28 or newer
Host software/DAW

Formats

Twangström is not a standalone product, it requires host software. Twangström is compatible with nearly all DAWs.
Available as Audio Units (AU), VST2, VST3, AAX (Pro Tools 10.3.7 or later) NKS, plug-ins with 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

*AAX Mac is temporarily unavailable until native AAX support for Big Sur/Apple Silicon arrives. Pro Tools users should continue working with the previous versions until further notice. (Read more)

NKS supportTwangström supports Native Instruments’ NKS format and is compatible with Maschine and Komplete Kontrol hardware.

Twangström 1.0.1 (revision 12092)

August 10, 2021

Native M1 ARM support

Improvements:

Native support for Apple Silicon chips (M1)
macOS Big Sur compatibility
Improved GUI performance on Mac
Improved handling of junction links on Windows
Improved soundset installation
Preset browser bank name support

Fixed Bugs:

Fixed crash when loading script presets (e.g. Randomizer)
Fixed rare crash on project reload
Fixed crash in Bandlab Cakewalk when reloading a project using VST3
Fixed Cakewalk setting instance parameters to default on project reload
Fixed audio clicks when switching presets
Various framework fixes and improvements

Known Issues:

Context menus need plugin focus to work (Apple issue)

Special Notes:

AAX support on Mac removed temporarily (will come back in next update)
Updated minimum requirements, CPU needs to support SSE4.2 instruction set
Linux: minimum required glibc version is 2.28 (otherwise plugins won’t show up)
macOS 32-bit support discontinued

What’s new in the Performance Update?

Native support for Apple Silicon M1

We saw Apple’s switch to their own CPU architecture as a welcome opportunity to up our game and “go native”, so to speak. After several months of hard work, we have new plug-in versions, all refactored to offer a massive performance boost on recent Macs with Apple Silicon CPUs, especially if your host application has also gone M1-native. This means more instances of your favourite u-he plug-ins!
Users of other computer systems are not left out in the cold: We improved multicore support for Intel-based Macs, and the GUI response is generally smoother on all Mac models. Windows and Linux users also benefit from the following:
Improved browsers, easy drag & drop soundset installation
New resource management in Hive means that most presets will use even less CPU
Support for MTS , a new project-wide microtuning standard
New designs for Triple Cheese (freeware) and ZebraCM (magware)
Better overall performance for all plug-ins on all platforms

u-he Twangström