Sculptor

Overview

Sculptor is a spectral shaping tool that brings clarity and polish to your audio tracks. This means removing muddiness, reducing harshness, and helping shape your tracks into better versions of themselves. Spectral shaping is multiband compression taken to the extreme. Instead of compressing 4 frequency bands, spectral shaping compresses the signal in up to 32 frequency bands, allowing for a control that is more tailored for the signal. Compression thresholds can be set toward a desired spectral shape or remain adaptively adjustable to compress the signal “toward itself”, i.e. its own time-averaged spectral shape.

Sculptor will apply dynamics processing to areas within the frequency spectrum based on a threshold aimed at hitting the selected Target Curve. The target curves are the idealized spectral version of the selected instrument. When using this with multiple instrument tracks, this results in greater instrumental separation.

Upon opening Sculptor, or after pressing the Reset button, you will be prompted to select a target curve. Choose a target curve that best reflects the instrument you are working on to load it.

After selecting a target curve, you will be able to interact with the Sculptor module controls.

The Sculptor module includes the following sections:

1. Meters and Displays
2. Module Header
3. Controls

Meters and Displays

The following meters and displays are included in the Sculptor module:

1. Spectrum Displays
   • Spectrum Analyzer: displays the magnitude (amplitude vs dB) of the input and output signals across the frequency spectrum in real-time
   • Input signal spectrum: displays the dry (unprocessed) signal as a dark grey spectrum behind the output signal.
   • Output signal spectrum: displays the wet (processed) signal as a light grey spectrum, in front of the input signal.
2. Difference Meter: Displays the amount of gain that is being added or removed by dynamics processing in order to match the selected frequency range to the target curve.

Module Header

The following controls are included in the module header area of the Sculptor module:

1. LFE: This option appears when Neutron is inserted on a 5.1 or 7.1 surround track. When enabled, the LFE channel will be processed along with all other channels. When disabled, the LFE channel will not be processed by the associated module. If necessary, latency compensation is applied to the LFE channel when it is disabled, to ensure timing is maintained between all channels.
2. Reset: Returns all controls in the Sculptor module to their factory default values. If you wish to return to settings you were using before clicking the Reset button, you can use the Undo History window to revert to the settings before the Reset event.

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Controls

The Sculptor module includes the following controls:

• Range Selectors
• HUD Controls

Range Selectors

You can adjust the area of applied processing by moving the Range Selector handles.

Move the Range Selectors left or right across the display.

• With a narrow range, you can surgically apply spectral shaping to areas with too much or too little energy by limiting processing to meet target curve on a specific range.
• With a wide range, you can address coloration similar to an EQ by applying processing on the whole spectrum to adjust overall balance.

HUD Controls

The controls in the Sculptor module work together to influence the shape, speed, and target of the spectral shaping applied to the input signal. The following controls are available in the Sculptor HUD:

• Amount: Adjusts the amount of processing applied to meet your selected target.
• Target Curve Menu: Determines the baseline target curve for Sculptor to apply to your track. We designed a variety of targets curves to specifically address different instrument types. Each target curve represents an idealized version of that instrument’s spectral characteristics.
• Tone: Adjusts the timbral characteristics of the signal.
• Speed: Adjusts the ballistics of the applied compression.
• Solo: Enable to hear processing on only the range selected.