Pump

Quick start

From a steady pad to a pumping one in a minute.

The window

The display and Motion on top, the effects below, Output along the bottom.

Header

The preset bar (previous, next, the list, SAVE), the power button (bypass) and the menu (three lines) with this manual. Click the logo for the version and credits.

Display

One cycle of the volume, or of the lane you last clicked, with a line where the cycle is now and a dot at the value it really gives. With the volume, GAIN reads the gain now; drag up or down for Amount (down pumps harder), double-click to reset it, scroll to change the shape. /2 and X2, just after the card's title, halve or double the tempo (the Rate), or a lane's speed while a lane is shown. With a lane, the header names it (FX 1 FILTER / CUTOFF 10.9 KHZ) and the title row shows VOLUME (back to the volume), the lane's Depth and Phase, and its Shape, with its speed in the header (1/4X); see Lanes. On the right: the rate, and the mode (and WAITING FOR TRIGGER while a Trig mode waits), or with a sidechain source the source and the key's level (KEY −14 DB, (OWN INPUT) when nothing is connected to the sidechain).

Motion

Source, Mode, Rate, Feel, Amount, Threshold, and the TRIGGER, LOOP and SONG POS buttons. See Motion.

Slot tabs

FX 1 to FX 4: each its grip, power button and effect menu, and a dot while any of its lanes pump. Click a tab to show that slot below; drag it by its grip (or its background) onto another tab to move the slot there, its settings and lanes with it, the slots between shifting along.

Effect

The shown slot's effect: its live display (which moves as its lanes move it), its controls in groups, a lane under each one that can pump, and the slot's MIX with its own lane. See Effects.

Output

Color, Compress, Intensity, Output and Mix. See Output.

Tooltip strip

Along the bottom: what the control under the mouse does.

In the standalone app a keyboard strip sits under the window: its notes trigger the pump just as MIDI notes do.

Signal flow

One pump moves everything.

The pump is a value for every sample: how far the sound is ducked right now. It sets the volume (through Color), and every lane reads the same cycle, each at its own phase and shape, to move its effect setting. Lanes move their settings every 32 samples, smoothed so nothing steps or clicks; the volume's drops are softened over 1.5 ms.

The effects come after the volume's duck, in slot order, so a delay or reverb rings on into the gaps the pump leaves. Everything runs 2 ms behind the input, so Compress can see peaks coming; the plugin reports this to the host, which lines the track up again. While silence comes in and every echo and tail has died away, Pump rests and costs nothing.

Motion

When it pumps, how fast and how deep.

Source

What drives the pump. Tempo plays the shape in time with the song, by Mode, Rate, MIDI notes and TRIGGER. Sidechain plays one cycle of the shape (at Rate) on each hit on the sidechain input that rises over Threshold, then rests open until the next. Follow has no shape: it ducks by how far the sidechain goes over Threshold (24 dB over ducks all the way), letting go over half a cycle of Rate. With nothing connected to the sidechain, Pump keys from its own input. Mode, TRIGGER, LOOP and SONG POS only play the Tempo source and are greyed out for the others.

Mode

Auto pumps all the time. Trig rests low (ducked) and swells up while it's triggered, then drops back when you let go. Trig Inv rests open and ducks while it's triggered. Trigger with the TRIGGER button or any MIDI note.

Rate

How long one cycle of the shape takes, as a note value. 1/4 is one beat, 1/1 one bar. In Follow, how fast the duck lets go. 8/1 … 1/64

Feel

Straight, Dotted (one and a half times as long) or Triplet (two thirds).

Amount

How deep the volume pumps. A touch adds movement; 50 % ducks to −12 dB at the deepest point; 100 % reaches silence. Turn it to 0 to pump only the effects. 0 … 100 %

Threshold

How loud the sidechain has to get, for Sidechain and Follow. A hit counts when the key rises over it, and the next one only once it has fallen 6 dB below it and 40 ms have passed, so a flam or a ringing kick isn't two hits. Watch KEY in the display to set it. −60 … 0 dB

Trigger

Hold it to play the pump in the Trig modes. In Auto it starts the cycle again (with Song Pos or Loop off; following the song, it has nothing to restart). It isn't saved with presets or sessions.

Loop

On, the shape repeats. Off, it plays once from each start (a trigger, a note, or pressing play) and then stays where the shape ends.

Song Pos

On, the cycle follows the song's position: start playback anywhere and the pump is where it would have been from the start, and notes don't move it. Off, Pump keeps its own time, and the first note after silence (or pressing play) starts the cycle again. With Loop off it has no effect and is greyed out.

Using the sidechain

Pump has a second, stereo input for the key. In your host, send the kick (or any track) to it: in Ableton Live, open the Sidechain section of Pump's device and choose the track; in Logic, choose it from the Side Chain menu at the top of the plugin window; in other hosts, route a send or bus to Pump's sidechain input. Then set SOURCE to Sidechain or Follow and bring THRESHOLD down until each kick shows. The key only drives the pump; it is never heard.

Shapes

21 ways to move over one cycle.

Each shape says how far the sound ducks over one cycle; Amount sets how deep that is. Most drop on the beat and come back up, like a sidechained kick.

Lanes

Any effect setting, pumping.

Under every effect knob that can move (and under each slot's MIX) sits a small lane: a picture of how the pump moves that setting over one cycle, flat while it doesn't. A lane rests at the knob's own value and moves away from it with the pump: most at the top of the shape (where the volume ducks deepest), not at all at the bottom.

On a lane

Drag up or down to set its depth (up moves the setting up). Click it to show it in the big display, where it lights up. Double-click it to stop it moving.

In the display

The lane's setting over a cycle on its own scale (its values down the side), the knob's value dashed. Drag up or down for the depth, Shift-drag sideways for the phase, scroll for the shape, /2 and X2 for the speed, double-click to stop it. VOLUME takes the display back to the volume.

Depth

How far the lane moves its setting at the top of the shape, up (positive) or down (negative), as a share of the setting's whole range: +50 % moves a cutoff half of its way from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Moves stop at the ends of the range. −100 … +100 %

Phase

Moves the lane earlier (positive) or later than the volume's pump, in parts of a cycle. At ±50 % it moves on the offbeat. −50 … +50 %

Speed

How fast the lane runs against the pump, from an eighth of its speed to eight times: /2 and X2 at the start of the display's title row halve or double it (the header shows it, e.g. 1/4X). A slower lane takes several of the pump's cycles for one of its own, and the display then shows its whole cycle, a stronger line where each of the pump's starts: a filter can sweep once a bar while the volume pumps every beat. With the volume shown, the same buttons halve or double the Rate. 1/8x … 8x

Shape

Pump Shape follows the pump's shape (the one above the display); any other is this lane's own, so a filter can sweep a slow Sine while the volume pumps Classic.

Each effect keeps its own lanes, as it keeps its settings: switch a slot to another effect and back and they are still there. Choices and switches (a filter's type, a delay's sync) don't have lanes. INTENSITY scales every lane's depth and Amount at once.

Effects

Four slots, twenty effects.

The slots run in order, FX 1 first, after the volume's duck; drag a tab onto another to change the order. Each tab has a power button and the effect menu; click a tab to see that slot. Each effect has its own view: a live display (drag its handles; it moves as its lanes move it) over its controls in groups, drawn in the effect's own colours. MIX, beside it, blends the effect in; delays and reverbs keep the sound at full level and add themselves on top.

Output

Colour, density, level and blend.

Color

How the volume's pump changes the tone besides the level:
Clean: volume only.
Low Pump: below about 180 Hz ducks all the way; the rest ducks only a little. The classic kick-and-bass sidechain.
Air Pump: above about 1.8 kHz ducks all the way; the lows only a little.
Muffle: a low-pass closes as it ducks, from 18 kHz down to 280 Hz.
Thin: a high-pass opens as it ducks, from 20 Hz up to 2.4 kHz.
Telephone: both at once, narrowing to a band between 650 Hz and 2.2 kHz.
Resonant: a resonant low-pass sweeps down to 380 Hz, a wah on every pump.
Wide: the middle ducks and the sides much less, so the sound opens out on each duck.

Compress

Squeezes the sound before the pump, so the pump stands out more. As it goes up the threshold falls to −30 dB and the ratio rises to 10:1, with part of the reduction made up. It looks 2 ms ahead, so even sharp attacks are caught. 0 … 100 %

Intensity

Every depth at once: Amount and each lane's depth. Ride it to bring the whole pump in and out without losing the balance between them. 0 … 100 %

Output

The level after everything. The bottom of the range is silence. −inf … +9.5 dB

Mix

How much of the pumped sound, effects included, against the untouched one. 0 … 100 %

Presets

Starting points, and your own.

Pump comes with 74 presets, in groups:

They are starting points: each one's lanes show what moves, so open a slot, click a lane and change its depth, phase, speed or shape.

Press SAVE in the header to keep your own: presets keep the effects, their settings and every lane. The preset menu has Save As, Delete and Open Folder; an asterisk after the name means you've changed something since loading it. The pump's controls and each slot's effect, power and mix are host parameters and can be automated; ride INTENSITY to automate every lane at once. The power button bypasses Pump without clicks, with its latency kept so the track stays in time.

Recipes

Starting points; then make them yours.

Specifications

The numbers.