Guide

How Torsion works

Every control on the panel. Not how the engines are built.

1. What Torsion is (and is not)

Pitch vs frequency

A pitch shift is musical. +12 semitones is an octave. The gaps between harmonics stay in ratio, so a saw still sounds like a saw, just higher.

A frequency shift is linear. Every partial moves by the same number of Hertz. A 50 Hz fundamental plus 50 Hz becomes 100 Hz; its 100 Hz harmonic becomes 150 Hz. The ratios break. The result is bells, metal, “wrong” tuning, growls.

Most plugins give you one or the other. Torsion gives you both on the same signal, plus Morph — a continuous blend from musical to inharmonic.

What Torsion is for

• Bass: lock the kick-sub, shift the mid body, spray the air
• In-key interval lines (Diatonic): a fifth that stays in the song
• Hats, snares, and clicks that still snap after a shift (Perc + HPSS + Transient boost)
• Inharmonic bells and metallic FX from harmonic sources
• Formant-aware transposition (the “throat” stays put while the note moves)
• Tempo-locked wobble on pitch, freq, or morph
• Live tracking with low latency, then a Quality render for the mix
• Character grain: scatter, freeze, cascading pitch delays
• Bounce-down grit without leaving the session (Degrade)

What Torsion is not

• Not a vocal tuner or autotune.
• Not a harmonizer / choir (Diatonic can snap one monophonic line to an interval; it will not voice chords).
• Not a vowel morpher. Formants here mean keep or move the body size, not IPA vowels.
• Not a clip-based Elastique/Warp replacement. It is an insert effect with latency in Quality mode.

2. Install and the first session

macOS

Quit the DAW first. Rescan. In Ableton, type Tor. The device list shows Torsion. The header says TORSION / HEXANT DSP.

Type Tor in the browser. Enable VST3 system folders on Windows.

Delay compensation

Quality reports latency to the host so the rest of the session stays lined up. Leave Delay Compensation (Ableton) / PDC on. If you turn it off, Torsion will sit late against the kick.

Live is the low-latency path for recording and monitoring.

Resize

Drag a corner. The whole interface scales. It does not reflow. If a host opens it tiny, pull it back out.

Info

The Info toggle in the header opens a help strip. Hover any control. Turn it off when you know the board.

3. Signal path in one page

Think of Torsion as four decisions, in this order:

1. Engine — Quality (mix) or Live (monitor).
2. How it is split — one global shifter, or three bands, and whether the sub is held out (Sub-Anchor / Natural Low).
3. What the shifter does — Pitch, Freq, Morph, Tension, Formant.
4. Motion and colour — LFOs, Character grain, Degrade, M/S width.

Dry/Wet sits at the end of the wet path. Degrade is on the wet path only, so you can blend crushed wet against clean dry.

Bypass passes the input through. The host may still see the reported latency.

4. Header

Factory presets

Init, Bass Protect, Neuro Reese, Octave Up, Octave Down, Fifth Harmony, Inharmonic Metal, Freq Shift Bell, Live Monitor, Character Pad, Character Scatter, Multiband Split, Wide Phase-Safe, Diatonic 5th, LFO Wobble, HPSS Punch, Vocal Quality, Perc Live, Degrade Light / Crunch / Crush, Octave Down Crush, Reese Degrade.

Treat them as starting points, not finished records.

User presets

Default folder:

~/Library/Application Support/AudioPlugins/Shifter/UserPresets

The .shifterpreset extension is the file type (legacy name). The file stores the current sound and LFO routing. Hosts may also expose the factory bank as programs.

5. Engine and profile

Quality vs Live

Switching to Live is not “the same algorithm, faster”. It is a different path. A sound you love in Quality may need a small retweak in Live, and the other way around.

Content profile

Profile retunes the engine for the material. It is not an EQ.

Full and Vocal assume one main pitch. Chords, stacked basses, and wide unison stacks will confuse Diatonic and can make the pitch tracker wander. That is expected.

A banner appears when the current profile is making that monophonic assumption.

6. The shifter: Pitch, Freq, Morph, Tension, Formant

These six knobs are the instrument. In Multiband Off they are global. In Multiband On each band has its own set — select LOW / MID / HIGH (or click the analyzer zone).

Pitch (−24 … +24 st)

Musical transposition. Harmonics stay in ratio. A fifth stays a fifth.

Drag an LFO handle onto this knob for vibrato or a tempo wobble.

Freq (−2000 … +2000 Hz)

Linear shift in Hertz. Small values (5–40 Hz) are “out of tune / beating”. Larger values become metallic or bell-like. Combined with Morph, this is the growl knob.

Morph (0 … 1)

• 0 — pure pitch shift.
• 1 — pure frequency shift.
• In between — harmonics bend from musical toward inharmonic. You can still sit the fundamental where you want it with Pitch while the overtones tear.

This is the control other shifters do not have. Learn it on a static saw: Pitch +7, Morph 0 → a clean fifth. Raise Morph and the fifth becomes a weapon.

Tension (0 … 1)

Extra stretch on the upper partials. More bite, more tear. It fades out as Morph approaches 1, because frequency shift is already warping the spacing.

Formant amount (0 … 1)

How hard the spectral envelope is held in place (or moved — see Formant shift) while pitch moves.

• 0 — formants ride with pitch (classic chipmunk / helium).
• Higher — the “body size” stays put. A +12 vocal still sounds like the same mouth.

Formant shift (−12 … +12 st)

Moves that preserved envelope up or down. Independent of Pitch. Negative = bigger / darker throat. Positive = smaller / brighter. Useful on vocals and on mid-basses that need to stay “the same instrument” at a new note.

7. Sub-Anchor and the mono fold

Sub-Anchor

Splits the signal around a frequency (default 80 Hz). Everything below that split does not go through the shifter. The kick fundamental and the sub stay where they were. Everything above can move.

• On for Bass work, almost always.
• Off for Full-range FX if you want the whole spectrum to move.
• Forced off while Character is on (the grain engine has a variable delay; a locked sub would drift).

Sub-Anchor Fc (40–200 Hz): ~80 Hz protects a typical kick fundamental. Raise it if more of the bass body should stay dry. Lower it if you want the shifter to eat further down.

This is independent of Multiband. You can Sub-Anchor a global shifter, or combine it with Natural Low for a belt-and-suspenders sub.

Mono Below

Forces the signal to mono under Mono Hz (default 120 Hz, 40–2000 Hz). This is not the Low crossover. Use it so the phone / PA / mono fold does not cancel.

Typical: 80–200 Hz for kick/sub. Higher if you want a tighter fold into the low-mids.

8. Multiband

Multiband On splits into Low / Mid / High. Off is one global shifter.

The first time you turn it on, Torsion copies the global pitch onto Mid and sets Low to Natural so you do not accidentally pitch the sub.

Crossovers

Two white bars on the analyzer:

• Low | Mid — default 150 Hz (40–1000 Hz)
• Mid | High — default 2500 Hz (400–12000 Hz)

Drag them. They will not cross. Click a zone to select that band’s knobs.

Low Mode

High Mode

Band select, link, copy

• LOW / MID / HIGH buttons (or analyzer click) choose which knobs you see. All three bands exist all the time. Selecting a band never rebinds automation.
• Link Bands copies the current band’s shift knobs and LFO assigns to the others, then keeps values mirrored as you tweak.
• Copy to L / M / H / All is a one-shot copy. It also sets Pitch Low / Pitch Top so the destination band is audible.

Band gains

Low / Mid / High dB after processing (−24 … +12). Rebalance after a big Mid shift.

Solo

Listen to one band. The analyzer dims the others. Solo Off = full mix.

HPSS and Multiband

HPSS is off while Multiband is on. The split already gives you a place to park transients (Natural Low, Perc profile, or Mute Top). Use HPSS on the global (multiband off) Quality path.

9. Analyzer

Always drawn. Not a separate plugin.

Hover a bin for Hz and dB. Tilt +3 dB/oct is display only — a pink-noise tilt so bass and air read more evenly. It does not change audio.

10. Advanced (Quality extras)

HPSS (0 … 1)

Harmonic / percussive split inside Quality, multiband off. This is the hat / snare / click control. Higher values send more of the transient around the smeary shifter so the attack stays a hit, not a wash. Adds latency when above 0 (the host should compensate).

If you came here because every other shifter ruined a hat bus: Profile Perc, Multiband off, raise HPSS, then Transient boost. That is the intended patch.

Transient boost (0 … 1)

Pushes the percussive path back up after the shift so hits stay present. Pair it with HPSS — boost alone has nothing extra to push if the split is at 0.

Degrade (0 … 1)

Down-up resample grit on the wet path. 0 is clean. Higher is cheaper sample-and-hold at a lower rate, then back to the host rate. 1 is a hard crush (on the order of a 32× downsample). Blend with Dry/Wet.

This is the “bounce it down and up to add dirt” trick as a knob.

Dry/Wet (0 … 1)

0 input, 1 fully processed.

11. Character (grain)

Character switches pitch to a time-domain grain engine. Punchier, looser, different artefacts than Quality. It is a colour, not a “better Quality”.

Rules:

• Sub-Anchor is forced off.
• Morph / formant / HPSS stay on the Quality path — Character is the pitch engine, not a second copy of the whole plugin.

Grain Freeze

Holds the grain buffer (a looper on the current texture). Character must be on. Stops when the DAW transport stops so it does not drone after you hit Stop.

Scatter (0 … 1)

Randomizes grain positions / micro-shifts. Low = slight tear. High = busy, shredded.

Grain pitch delay

A delay in the grain path that pitches with each repeat.

• FB — how much feeds back (cascading rise/fall).
• Time — 1–200 ms.

12. Modulation (LFO 1 and LFO 2)

Two identical LFOs. LFO 1 is cyan. LFO 2 is yellow.

Assign

1. Turn the LFO On.
2. Click its handle to focus it.
3. Drag the handle onto a highlighted knob (Pitch, Freq, Morph, and the matching per-band knobs).
4. Drag the coloured ring around that knob for amount. Clockwise and counterclockwise are signed (up or down from the knob).

Right-click a modulatable knob for an assign menu.

The small Depth slider on the LFO is only the starting amount at drop time. After that, the ring is the real amount.

Sync

• Off — free rate in Hz (0.05–20).
• On — note division, locked to song position. Divisions: 2 bars … 1/32, plus triplets and dotted.

Bipolar

• Off (unipolar, default) — Serum-style: the LFO moves from the knob value toward the ring peak only.
• On — swings both above and below the knob.

Shape

Sine, triangle, square, saw. No freehand drawing in this version.

Retrig both

Global. Stop → Play resets both LFO phases to the start of the cycle (at the knob, then toward the ring). With Sync on they still follow tempo after that.

LFOs freeze while the DAW is stopped. They should not crawl when you are parked on a bar.

13. Diatonic

Tracks the incoming pitch and snaps the shift onto a scale + interval.

Needs a clear monophonic note. Weak on chords, stacks, and noise. If it hunts, turn it off or switch to a simpler source.

This is the “stay in key” mode. A normal Pitch knob at +7 is always seven semitones, even when that lands off-scale. Diatonic tracks the note and aims the output at the chosen interval inside the scale.

Example: C minor, interval 5th — a C input aims for G, a D input aims for A (not A♭), always in the scale.

14. Spatial

L/R vs M/S

• L/R — left and right processed as a stereo pair.
• M/S — encoded to Mid/Side first. Then you can treat the sides differently from the centre.

Center Lock (phase-safe width)

Only meaningful in M/S. How much the Mid (centre) stays un-shifted while the Sides take the shift.

High = wide image, mono-safe bass. This is how you get a huge low end in headphones that does not vanish when summed to mono.

Side HPF (0–400 Hz)

High-pass on the Side channel so super-low stereo junk does not cancel in mono. Typical 120–250 Hz. 0 is off.

15. Recipes

These assume factory defaults unless noted. Load the named preset if you want a head start.

A. Bass that still kicks

1. Profile Bass. Engine Quality. PDC on.
2. Multiband On. Low Mode Natural. High Mode Pitch Top.
3. Sub-Anchor On, ~80 Hz. Optional Mono Below ~120 Hz.
4. Select MID. Pitch +7, Morph 0.2–0.3, Tension 0.3, Formant 0.4.
5. Select HIGH. Pitch +12, Freq +20–40.
6. Sit the Low|Mid bar just above the kick fundamental.

The sub should not move. The body should snarl. The air should go slightly wrong.

B. Octave up without helium

Global (multiband off). Pitch +12. Formant amount 0.7–0.8. Formant shift 0 or slightly negative. Profile Vocal or Full.

C. Metallic bell from a saw

Morph 1. Freq +60–80. Formant amount low. A little Tension if Morph is not fully 1.

D. Tempo wobble

Load LFO Wobble, or: LFO 1 On, Sync On, 1/8, unipolar, drag onto Morph. Ring to taste. LFO 2 onto Pitch at a slower division if you want a two-axis move.

E. Tracking while you play

Engine Live. Profile to match the source. Do not expect Quality’s smear/clarity. Print Quality later if you want.

F. Frozen pad from a bass hit

Character On. Play a note. Freeze. Raise Scatter a little. Add pitch-delay FB for motion. Transport Stop kills the drone.

G. Wide but mono-safe

Stereo M/S. Center Lock up (~0.6). Side HPF ~180 Hz. A little Freq on the whole path, or only on High in multiband.

H. Diatonic fifth line

Diatonic On. Root of the track. Scale Minor or Major. Interval 5th. Monophonic source. Formant amount ~0.5 so it still sounds like the same instrument. Walk the notes — if a step goes sour, Diatonic is off or the source is a chord.

I. Hats that still click

1. Engine Quality. Profile Perc. Multiband Off (HPSS only runs here).
2. HPSS 0.5–0.7. Transient boost 0.3–0.5.
3. Pitch or Freq to taste — small values first.
4. Compare HPSS at 0: that wash is why the knobs exist.

Same idea on a snare or an 808 click. For a bass + hats in one clip, split them; do not expect Perc+HPSS and a 3-band bass patch on the same insert.

16. Troubleshooting

17. Control reference

Ranges are the panel ranges.

Some host-automated parameters exist for compatibility (output gain, glide, and similar) that are not on the main panel. If your DAW lists extra parameters, leave them at default unless you know why you are touching them.

18. Good practice

• One instance per job. A bass, a vocal, and a hat each want their own Profile and split.
• Print Quality for the mix. Live is a performance tool.
• Automate Morph and Freq more than Pitch if you want motion without changing the arrangement’s key.
• Keep the sub dry. Almost every “this plugin ruined my drop” report is a shifted fundamental.
• Save user presets for your chain (same synth, same key). Factory is a tour, not a genre.

© Hexant DSP. Torsion is a trademark of Hexant DSP.
Manual edition for Torsion. The engines will change; this book describes the current store build.