Banshee Sustainer

Bowed sustain for guitar. Each note fades in with no pick attack, then holds instead of dying away. Hold it longer and it breaks into feedback: up an octave, a fifth, two octaves, or down an octave, as a snap or a slow morph. Freeze a note and play over it, or hold one note and the arpeggiator plays a chord from it in time with your song. It goes on the clean DI, before your amp or amp sim.

CODE LBnsFORMAT AU · VST3 · StandaloneCATEGORY Guitar / SustainerBUNDLE com.inotrak.levels-banshee

The interface - every control mapped

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1Presets - 44 presets in eight groups; < > step them. A changed preset shows a star after its name.

2ACTIVE / BYPASS - Takes Banshee out of the path, with the same 5 ms delay so nothing shifts in time.

3Screen - The last 6 seconds: the raw string (dim) against what comes out (lit). The gap between the two lines is the sustain. Top right says what it is doing: swelling, holding, broken to a note, arp, frozen.

4Swell - How long each note takes to fade in, and how hard a pick must be to start a new swell.

5Sustain - How far a dying note is lifted, how fast the lift may climb (HOLD), and where the note ends (GATE, FADE OUT).

6Freeze - Press it and the note carries on by itself while you play over it. LEVEL sets how loud.

7Break To - What a held note turns into: octave down, same note, fifth, octave, octave and fifth, two octaves, or CYCLE through them.

8Feedback - How far it breaks (FEEDBACK), how long it holds first (AFTER), and whether it snaps or melts across (SMOOTH).

9Tone - BLOOM grit that grows as the note holds, TONE to soften the top, WIDTH to spread the broken note, MIX against the dry guitar.

10ARP - Hold one note and it plays an arpeggio from it, in time with your song.

11Rate - How fast, from 1/2 to 1/32 of a beat at the song tempo. T is a triplet.

12Pattern - Up, Down, Up-Down, or Random.

13Chord - Power, Octaves, Major or Minor, built from the note you hold.

14Gate / Mix - How much of each step sounds, and the arpeggio against the held note.

15Input - Trim at the front. Aim for the IN meter peaking around -12 to -6 dB. Presets leave it alone.

16Meters - IN and OUT levels.

17Output fader - Output level.

18Status line - The same reading as the screen, with the note it is tracking.

Quick start

Put it first on a DI guitar track, with your amp or amp sim after it. After distortion a pick can no longer be told apart from a held note.
Play and set INPUT so the IN meter peaks around -12 to -6 dB.
Pick a preset. Every preset leaves INPUT alone, so it stays matched to your guitar.
Play single notes. The pitch tracking that drives Feedback and the arpeggiator follows one note at a time; chords still swell and sustain.
Press FREEZE on a note you like and play over it.

Swell

How each note starts.

SWELL

Fade-in time for each note, 0-3000 ms (default 600 ms). Off keeps the pick. Banshee looks 5 ms ahead, so the pick is gone before it reaches the output.

PICK SENS

How much harder than the note before a pick has to be to start a new swell, 2-24 dB (default 6). Higher lets hammer-ons and slides carry on without a new swell.

Sustain

How each note holds and how it ends.

SUSTAIN

The most a dying note may be lifted, 0-40 dB (default 24). The lift never takes the note above its own pick.

HOLD

How fast that lift may climb, 0.5-60 dB a second (default 12). Low values let the note fade gently; high values hold it level.

GATE

The level below which the note is over, -90 to -30 dB (default -60). Below it, string noise is never lifted.

FADE OUT

How long the note takes to fade once the gate closes, 10-3000 ms (default 300 ms).

Feedback

What a held note does in front of a loud amp. Single notes only.

BREAK TO

What the held note breaks to: -OCT (an octave down), SAME (the note itself, as a pure tone), 5TH (a fifth up), OCT (default), OCT+5 or 2 OCT. CYCLE walks up and down the harmonics, one step each time AFTER passes. The new note is built from the note you played, so it is at full strength even where the string's own harmonic is weak.

FEEDBACK

How far it breaks, 0-100 % (default 0). 50 % is a blend of the note and the new one; 100 % goes all the way. At 0 the other feedback controls dim.

AFTER

How long the note holds before it breaks, 100-8000 ms (default 2 s).

SMOOTH

How it breaks. 0 % snaps straight to the new note; 100 % melts into it over about 4 seconds.

Freeze

A note that carries on by itself.

FREEZE

Press it and the note you hear carries on as a seamless loop while you play over it. Press again to let it fade out. It is not saved in presets: it is something you play, like a footswitch.

LEVEL

Level of the frozen note, 0-100 % (default 100 %). The frozen note adds to what you play, so leave headroom with INPUT.

Arpeggiator

Hold one note and Banshee plays a chord from it, in time with your song.

ARP

Switches the arpeggiator on. It follows the song's tempo while it plays and counts from your pick when it is stopped. While it is on, it takes the place of the feedback break.

RATE

1/2, 1/4, 1/4T, 1/8, 1/8T, 1/16 (default), 1/16T or 1/32 of a beat at the song's tempo. T is a triplet.

PATTERN

Up, Down, Up-Down, or Random (never the same note twice in a row).

CHORD

Power (root, fifth, octave, octave and fifth), Octaves (octave down, root, octave, two octaves), Major or Minor (root, third, fifth, octave).

GATE

How much of each step sounds, 10-100 % (default 60 %). Short is staccato, 100 % is legato.

MIX

The arpeggio against the held note under it, 0-100 % (default 80 %).

Tone

Colour, width and blend.

BLOOM

Grit that grows the longer the note is held, 0-100 % (default 0). At 0 it is off.

TONE

A low-pass filter, 800 Hz to Open (default Open). Softens the top.

WIDTH

Stereo: the broken note spreads wide while the string stays in the centre, 0-100 % (default 0). It works on a stereo track; on a mono track it does nothing. It needs Feedback, so it dims when Feedback is at 0.

MIX

Banshee against the dry guitar, 0-100 % (default 100 %).

Input, output and presets

INPUT

Trim at the very front, ±24 dB. It sets what PICK SENS, GATE and the IN meter see. Aim for the IN meter peaking around -12 to -6 dB. Presets leave it alone.

OUTPUT

Output level, -24 to +12 dB.

Presets

44 presets in eight groups: Basic, Bowed, Ambient, Feedback, Deep & Wide, Freeze, Arpeggio and Half-Time. < and > step through them. A preset you have changed shows a star after its name. They are starting points.

BYPASS

Takes Banshee out of the path, with the same 5 ms delay so nothing shifts in time.