This FX Chain complements the Tightener FX Chain presented in the October 25, 2019 Friday Tip. Whereas the Tightener reduces the presence of the key center in a piece of audio, the Resonator enhances the key center by adding resonance. The download at the end includes twelve Resonators-one for each key.
The heart of each Resonator FX Chain is two delay lines whose period correlates to a particular key, and are tuned an octave apart from each other. Mixing the delayed, resonant sound with the dry sound imparts a sense of pitch, which can be useful with unpitched instruments (such as percussion) to blend in better with melodic instruments. It can also help create a sense of pitch for drums that aren't tuned properly, as well as emphasize any instrument's key center.
For example, suppose it's hard to get a shaker part to fit in a mix because its level is either too high and stands out, or is too low and sinks into the track. Adding a feeling of pitch may allow mixing the part a bit higher, while also having it blend into a mix more seamlessly. If taken to an extreme (and the FX Chain allows for that!), the Resonator has special effects potential for sounds like cylon voices, or tuning reverb.
The Controls
Figure 1: Each Resonator has six controls; the Resonance control is the most important one.
The controls (Fig. 1) are pretty straightforward, and cover the full travel of the Analog Delay controls. There's no need to tweak any Transform curves.
[key name] Resonance varies the mix of the resonant and dry sounds. Most of the time, mixing in even a bit of resonance may be all you need.
Sharpness adds feedback to create more intense resonance.
Width determines whether the resonance is stereo or mono. Most of the time, you'll probably want to leave this control fully clockwise.
Saturation, Low Cut, and High Cut controls are because we can controls. You may not use them much, but hey, an FX Chain allows for eight controls so why not?
Striking the Right Chord
You can also use the Resonators to impart the sense of a chord by sending a sound to FX Channels, loaded with appropriate Resonators. Fig. 2 shows a shaker part acquiring a more melodic vibe via resonators for the keys of D, F#, and A. This produces a D major chord tonality.
Figure 2: Sending the audio from a shaker to three FX Channels tunes the shaker to a D major chord.
Although I came up with this mostly to process unpitched sounds, I've found it has other uses as well. For example, with an acoustic guitar part, a Resonator can add a vibe that's not unlike the drone strings on a sitar. The best implementation I've found for this is putting the Resonator in an FX Channel, and automating a send so that the resonance is added only in certain strategic parts. And of course, if you want to get crazee, you can always turn up the resonance and sharpness, and do cylon voices. Fun stuff!
Download the 12 Resonator FX Chains Here.
North America Stories
23/07/2026
Evergent (5.A86) will showcase its Agentic Revenue Orchestration Platform for streaming services, sports leagues, pay-TV operators at IBC2026 (RAI Amsterdam, 11...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Lock in and load up the cloud. GFN Thursday brings fresh updates and new adventu...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang today visited the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to commission an NVIDIA DGX GB300 system - bringing one...
22/07/2026
Before a healthcare robot can be useful in the real world, it has to learn how the physical world pushes back. Anatomy varies. Instruments bend, press, slip and...
21/07/2026
With winners Spain having already paraded the World Cup trophy through Madrid in front of millions of fans and the dust now settling on an epic tournament of th...
21/07/2026
In a time of disarray in regional sports broadcasting, the league will provide c...
21/07/2026
When NEP designed one of its largest recurring mobile production unit fleets for PGA TOUR
coverage, the leading media services provider faced a familiar challe...
21/07/2026
Warner Bros. Discovery's unbroken lead is interrupted as sports and live mus...
21/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
21/07/2026
Across the TV and streaming ecosystem, industry players face mounting pressure to do more with less. They must simplify operations, protect premium content and ...
21/07/2026
Tuxera, a leading prover of quality-assured file systems and networking technologies, is bringing its latest advances in connectivity performance to the media w...
21/07/2026
COW Jobs: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP Rigged Graphics Package
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
HIRING: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP ...
21/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, will use its presence at IBC2026 (stand 7.A01, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) to...
21/07/2026
Calrec will be located in Hall 8, on Stand C47
Beyond bigger
For years, broadcast facilities were built around one assumption: provision for the biggest pro...
This FX Chain complements the Tightener FX Chain presented in the October 25, 2019 Friday Tip. Whereas the Tightener reduces the presence of the key center in a piece of audio, the Resonator enhances the key center by adding resonance. The download at the end includes twelve Resonators-one for each key.
