The Harmonizer
®
Programmer’s Manual
©
1999-2008 Eventide, Inc.
Page 12 of 97
Release 1.3
R
ESOURCES
A resource is something that is needed for the operation of a Harmonizer program -there are several
different kinds of resources. A program cannot run if it needs more of a particular resource than is
available.
Audio memory
Modules that store audio for brief periods of time use audio memory. Modules that use audio memory
include modules in the delay, filter, pitch shift, and reverb groups. Some modules contain “
specifier
s”
(see below)
that increase or decrease the amount of audio memory used by either varying the number of
audio channels or by specifying the amount of delay explicitly.
Signal Processing
Modules that perform operations on audio use signal processing. The amount of processing performed
by a module can only be changed via
specifier
s
(see below
.
)
This is important, as the amount of signal
processing that can be done in any given period is finite. Modules that perform complex effects on
audio use more processing than those that perform simple effects. For example, the
reverb_a
module
uses more processing power than the
delay
module, even though the
delay
module might use more
audio memory.
User Interface and Control Signal Memory
Interface memory includes memory used to store text, adjustable range limits, default values, control
inputs, control outputs, and any data used by “control” modules. Modules that use text fields consume a
large amount of this kind of memory. For instance, it is possible to use up all of the user interface
memory with just two
textblock
modules if each contains enough lines of text (See the
Vsigfile Help
System
for a closer look at the
textblock
module).
Control Processing
Control processing is a resource that cannot be exhausted, though it can be strained. The Harmonizer
will repetitively process everything that comes under the control process category as often as possible.
Control operations will get slower as more operations are required. For instance, if a single menu page
has eight values displayed that are all changing rapidly, the display may appear to update slowly.
Typically, control values are updated about 100 times a second.
S
PECIFIERS
A
specifier
is a control that affects a module's behavior. For example, a
delay
module might have a
specifier
that sets the maximum delay time a user can enter. A
pitchshifter
module might have a
specifier
that sets the number of pitchshifting voices used by the module. A module may have several
specifier
s.
Specifier
s are only adjustable in the Patch Editor area or in Vsigfile (i.e.
specifier
s can never be altered
in the
PARAMETER
area). There is no input or output for
specifier
s; they reside “inside” a module
(you’ll learn how to access the “inside” of a module in the Vsigfile or Patch Editor chapters).
