Audio Units
On the Mac, play each track through your own instrument and effect plug-ins, with send buses and a master chain.
Available on Mac.
Included with the unlock · What the unlock adds
Reflow plays a score with its own instruments. On the Mac, the Studio Rack plays it through Audio Units instead, the instrument and effect plug-ins installed on your Mac: an amp simulator on the guitar, a sampled kit on the drums, a reverb shared by the whole band. It is part of the unlock, and the Mac’s alone: on iPad and iPhone the same score plays with Reflow’s own instruments.
The Studio Rack
- Widen the tracks with the button at the top of their column.
- Turn on the Studio switch beside Rack, at the top.
Each track then shows more: under its name, the instrument it plays (TinySoundFont, Reflow’s own, until you choose an Audio Unit), its effects (FX), its sends (SENDS) and, while the score plays, a level meter. Under the tracks are the send buses and the MASTER section.
The Studio Rack is a setting of Reflow, not of the score: turn it off and every score plays with Reflow’s own instruments again; the plug-ins each track had are kept in the score and come back when you turn it on.
A track's Audio Unit
A track’s instrument is chosen in its Track Settings (the gear), under Instrument:
- Choose… lists the instrument plug-ins on your Mac, with their makers; type in the search field to find one. TinySoundFont (Default), at the top of the list, goes back to Reflow’s own sound.
- Open UI opens the plug-in’s own window, to change its sound. In the tracks, the sliders button beside its name opens it too. What you set there is saved with the score when you close the window.
- Change chooses another plug-in, Remove takes it away.
- Preset chooses one of the plug-in’s own presets, when it has some.
Effects
Each track has a chain of effects, played in order after its instrument: an amp, then a delay, say. Add one with + in the track’s FX row, or Add Effect in its Track Settings, and choose it in the list. Each effect in the chain has three buttons: the sliders open its window, the power button bypasses it (its name is struck through, and it is skipped until you turn it back on), and × removes it.
Send buses
A send bus is an effect the tracks share: one reverb for the whole band rather than one per track. Add Send Bus, under the tracks, adds one, up to four. Each bus has its gain, M to mute it, and its own chain of effects. In each track’s SENDS, a slider per bus sets how much of the track goes to it.
The master
MASTER, at the bottom, is what everything goes through last: its gain, its meter and its chain of effects, an equaliser and a limiter, for example. Its ⋯ menu sets up two starting points in one click:
- Default Mastering Chain: an equaliser and a limiter, the ones that come with macOS, while the master has no effect yet.
- Default Send Buses: two buses, Reverb and Delay, while there is no bus yet.