Fettkraft
User's guide
Table of contents
The dispersion effect
Acoustic dispersion is a phenomenon where the speed of a sound wave depends on its frequency as it passes through a material. In a non-dispersive medium (like air under ideal conditions), all frequencies travel at the same constant speed. However, in a dispersive medium, this relationship changes, causing complex signals to "spread out" over time and distance.
This is the same way how an "oomph" gets coaxed out from even the briefest of kicks.
The plugin's dispersion model
Fettkraft can apply different levels of dispersion, that could be interpeted as various snapshots of the time evolution of waveforms as they would pass through a dispersive medium.
This means instantaneous access is provided to these various degrees of frequency spread, in essence bending the rules of time (or simulating extreme dispersive media).
As an ideal disperser, the plugin doesn't boost or diminish any frequencies (within tolerances). In other words, it's a near-ideal phase shifter.
Selective spread / bandlimited operation
Fettkraft is designed to preserve frequencies below 30Hz and above 600Hz (please note that non-linear-phase filters in the plugin may add additional phase shifts).
The effect is transparent in the upper-midrange and above, as well as in the lower sub-bass range.
This means Fettkraft is designed to avoid both prolonged sub-bass tails and "zappy" or "raygun" effects in the kilohertz range, so it can be more safely and widely used in a number of different production settings.
Important usage information
Dry / Wet mixing and phase cancellation
By their very definition, dispersion effects are highly non-linear phase. For the best results, avoid mixing dry/wet signals (e.g. via setting up a bus, or using parallel copies). Effects that result from such combinations could not fully be relied upon (suboptimal consistency across different sampling rates, sensitivity to DSP updates/fixes, etc.).
Bass instruments with portamento
When paired with bass instruments, pitch bends over large intervals may result in amplitude jumps in some cases (like an energetic bass pluck). Avoid heavy portamento effects when using Fettkraft specifically on a bass.