I just released my first Unity asset to the Asset Store and I’m really excited to see what other people think. All the effects are MonoBehaviour components that you can drag-and-drop onto any AudioSource game object, so it’s incredibly quick and easy to get effects processing working with your current audio. Additionally, every parameter for every component is ready for in-game modification through simple methods.
The asset package is completely compatible with the free version of Unity but also adds several effects that aren’t available in the pro version - there’s something for everybody. Check it out and let me know what you think!
Manipulators (with full source code) include:
Compressor - Squash the dynamic range of your audio and even out your sound.
Bit Crusher - Get that retro feel instantly.
Delay - Give space to your audio stems and, with the wet-signal panning, make your mono tracks feel like stereo.
Distortion (standard and foldback) - Whether you want to give your audio some warmth or some bite, these will make it happen.
Fader - Nothing more exciting than volume control!
Pan Control - And pan control!
Reverb - Make your audio sound more organic with a touch of reverb.
Saturator - Compression/distortion/hard limiting all in one.
State Variable Filter (Low/Hi/Band Pass, Low/Hi Shelf, Band Add) - Completely change the impact of your audio in significant ways, from natural rolloff of high frequencies to extreme filter sweeping, this component does it all.
Stereo Widener - Take your audio from mono to stereo and beyond.
Webplayer Demos (asset package includes scenes and source code) Song Mixer
UPDATE September 1, 2014
Audial Manipulators 1.5 is now live! This is a substantial update that includes numerous improvements.
5 new components (Phaser, Flanger, Ring Modulator, Gate, and Tremolo)
New UI controls for all components (including tooltips)
Volume readouts, including Gain Reduction meter for the Compressor
New Audial Utils, including Envelope and LFO, that can control Audio and non-Audio code (documentation and demos not currently available, but will arrive shortly).
All around performance improvements.
UPDATE May 14, 2014
Audial Manipulators are now able to be utilized directly in the G-Audio interface.
A free demo version of the package is now available (Unity Asset Store - The Best Assets for Game Making)
UPDATE April 23, 2014
Just uploaded a new web-player demo to give people a chance to interact directly with the effects. Check it out: All Effects Demo
Extremely cool! We make the Master Audio plugin and some of our customers have asked how to get more filters (or ANY filters if they don’t have pro). I will definitely point them to this package next time they ask and sticky it on our forum!
I assume you just add one or more of your manipulators to a GameObject that has an Audio Source component. Is that correct?
Thanks a lot! With how frequently I’ve seen people ask about audio effects I’m surprise that there aren’t more packages of this type in asset store.
Yeah, all you have to do is add the components to any game object with an Audio Source (or Audio Listener) and they execute in the order they appear in inspector. Basic usage is very straightforward.
Thanks a lot for making the info available to your users, I really appreciate it. If you hear of any specific effect requests from your users, let me know. I’m planning on developing this package further over time and would love to know what people are looking for.
By the way, Master Audio was one of the assets that really opened my eyes to what’s possible with audio in Unity, so thanks for (unintentionally) giving me a push to work on project.
Sure, they can come on this thread and ask you directly. I linked to this thread instead of the Asset Store page on my sticky. Cool to know we had some influence on you
Keep up the good work. We will pick up your plugin ourselves if we ever need some extra effects. So far our sound man has it handled.
I’m interested in these effects, though I do have Unity Pro. I’d like to hear the quality of the compressor. The demo, i’m guessing that the master has the compressor on it? The effects don’t seem to be labeled.
Also, is it possible to make a demo where the effect parameters can be modified?
Correct, in the demo I just grouped the whole effect chain for GUI purposes. I’ll put a demo together tomorrow that allows for parametric controlling of the components so you can see the impact for yourself. I’ll let you know when it’s up.
Another question: any possibility that you could create G-Audio versions of the effects, and include them in the package too? G-Audio has an open architecture for effects, and I’m guessing it shouldn’t be too difficult to adapt yours. I might end up doing it my self if you don’t, if I buy your package, but I just thought I’d ask. G-Audio has some effects already, so it would mainly be for your Reverb, Compressor, Bit Crusher, Delay, Stereo Widener, Saturator, and maybe Distortion (since G-Audio has foldback only I think).
I’m actually talking with G-Audio about compatibility with their system at the moment. I’m very confident that compatibility with their system will be happening in the very near future. I’ll make sure to let you know when I have any news to report.
Jacob,
I just uploaded a web-player demo that gives direct control over all of the effect components. Try it out and let me know what you think! – All Effects Demo
Very nice! Thanks for making the demo. I thought all of the effects sounded decent to very good. The saturator sounded a little bit more like hard clipping than I was expecting (I was expecting a more gradual soft rounding at lower volumes). The filters are very nice. Impressive that it’s all in Unity C#. I really like that the source code is included.
Do you have any idea what kind of CPU performance you get on Mobile with these?
Thanks for the feedback, glad to hear things are sounding good to you! I’m still trying to tweak the Saturator so that it’s a bit less abrasive and I’m hoping to get that smoothed out in one of the first updates to the package.
As far as mobile usage is concerned, I don’t have consistent access to mobile hardware (other than my personal phone) so I haven’t been able to do much testing in regard to performance, just basic confirmation that the components work.
Unity automatically processes audio at a lower sample rate on mobile devices, and the components in this pack process in tandem with Unity’s buffer. Because of this, CPU utilization is inherently reduced for any mobile devices. Given the performance testing I’ve done on my computer, I have a hard time imagining performance being an issue with many of the effects. The possible exceptions would be the components with extra buffers (Delay and Reverb), although I’ve had very smooth results with both on my Nexus 4.
Sorry I can’t answer more directly, but I hope that gives you a good feel for what to expect.
Great work! Looking forward to collaborating on compatibility.
A few things:
On mobile, Unity defaults at 24 kHz, but you can force 44.1 kHz mixing. It requires setting AudioSettings.outputSampleRate in an init dummy scene, and then loading your real first scene. G-Audio has a script and template scene that does just that, and allows per platform settings.
Relates to 1: Unity automatically resamples audio if the clip doesn’t match the runtime output sample rate. This is handy, but degrades audio and messes with dspTime ( essentially breaking it - bye bye sample accurate timing ). It also creates significant overhead, as every audio source is resampled independently in realtime. For any kind of involved audio, we strongly advise matching audio clip ant target platform sample rates. G-Audio uses a Sound Bank custom asset to make this process easier.
Inlining processing in filters which call a “Process” method on every single PCM sample might help reducing overhead. Not always practical, but the minute overhead of a method call quickly builds up when it’s not one, but 2048 method calls per audio buffer ( default stereo buffer size ).
Thanks for the info, gregzo! I’m looking to improve performance as much as possible as time goes on so understanding a bit more about how audio gets processed cross-platform is incredibly helpful. I would have guessed that resampling would have been at compilation instead of runtime, but I guess that would be non-ideal in a lot of circumstances.
Man, I just checked out your portfolio and I’m really impressed. If you end up getting Audial Manipulators and using them in a project, definitely let me know!
