Clone Ensemble

Clone Ensemble - The plug-in for making solo voices and instruments sound like an ensemble. Clone Ensemble is the plug-in for making solo voices and instruments sound like an ensemble.

Whatever line you play or sing, Clone Ensemble will generate a room full of up to 32 of you in unison or octaves. For vocals, you can change the sex of some or all of the voices. You can dial up a classical choir, a tight jazz chorus or an incredibly realistic ADT effect.

The Clones dial controls how many clones are generated in the ensemble. The range is 1 to 32, and the more you have, the more CPU is used. On a 2GHz P4, 32 clones with a 3-way Sex Machine split (Bass:Natural:Alto) uses a little over 30% of the CPU. For a natural choir sound, the more clones you can afford to run, the better the results. For ADT (automatic double-tracking) a single clone (along with some of the dry signal using the Mix control, below) may suffice.

The Timing dial scales the small delays between each of the clones. The ratios are fixed, this dial merely stretches them all. Tight values are best for thickening synth sounds, middle values are usually appropriate for realistic vocal ensembles and acoustic instruments, and loose is a kind of chaotic delay effect.

If you are creating a multi-part harmony, the Section control provides four variations in the way the clones are organised - each clone has a different vibrato, timing delay, comb filter and position in the stereo image. The A, B, C and D sections shuffle these attributes, so that if you process each harmony part separately, they won't all end up sounding the same.

The next two controls determine how the clones are positioned in the stereo image. Focus controls the spread - they can fill the stereo image evenly from left to right, or you can group them closer together. Balance is similar to a pan control, except that it is controlling the panning of each individual clone rather than the entire mix. Together with the Section control, these two are very useful when processing harmony parts separately.

The Mix control lets you balance the dry unprocessed sound with the wet ensemble sound. For a realistic choir, this should be set close to the maximum. For ADT (automatic double-tracking) try somewhere in the middle. The Dry Delay control let you appy a delay to the unprocessed signal, to help it sit in the middle better with all the clones (which of course have varying delays).

Finally, the Gain control adjusts the final output volume. Some synth sounds get very loud when lots of clones are active the peaks add up fast. Vocal however tend to "pack together", and the volume does not build as clones are added so you might need to boost the levels.