Basilica Audio

Triptych — user manual

Three panels, one altarpiece — a 3-band multiband compressor for dense mixes.

What it is

Triptych is a 3-band multiband compressor built on JUCE 8. It splits the signal into Low, Mid, and High bands with two cascaded 4th-order Linkwitz-Riley (LR4) crossovers, compresses each band independently, and sums them back together with a final output trim. Because the LR4 crossover's low+high sum is magnitude-flat, Triptych is an exact, bit-identical passthrough of the input with every band's compressor disabled (ratio 1:1, makeup 0 dB) - the crossover split itself never colours the sound.

Unlike a single-band compressor, Triptych lets you control dynamics differently per register: squeeze the low end tight without touching cymbal transients, tame a harsh pick-attack band without softening the low-end punch, or duck sibilance in the highs while the low end stays untouched.

Where it sits in a heavy production chain

Triptych is a mastering/mix-bus dynamics tool, not a per-instrument effect. A typical use:

Full mix (guitars + orchestra + choir + drums/bass) -> Triptych (multiband glue/control) -> brickwall limiter -> master out

Reach for it when a single-band compressor either over-squashes the low end to control high-frequency peaks, or leaves the low end loose while the highs are already well-controlled - the classic symphony-metal problem of a dense wall of distorted guitars, orchestral hits, and choir all competing for the same headroom. It also works well as a "glue" stage on a drum bus or a full guitar stack, independent of the full mix.

Signal flow

                    +-> BandComp (Low)  --------------------------------+
Input --> LR4 @ Low/Mid Split             |                             |
                    \-> LR4 @ Mid/High Split                            |
                              +-> BandComp (Mid)  ----------------------+--> Mute/Solo gate --> Sum --> Output --> Out
                              \-> BandComp (High) + optional Limiter ---+

Each band's own compressor (Knee → Threshold/Ratio → Attack/Release + Makeup) runs first; the High band can additionally engage a brickwall-style Limiter after its compressor. Every band's contribution is then gated by its own Mute/Solo state before the three bands are summed and trimmed by the master Output control. See docs/architecture.md for the full engineering breakdown (flat-sum crossover property, the v0.2.0 soft-knee gain computer, compressor bypass identity, limiter behaviour, parameter smoothing).

A note on v0.2.0's voicing. The per-band defaults below (and the factory presets in docs/presets.md) are research-derived, sourced from published manufacturer manuals and mastering-engineer technique articles for the multiband-compression reference class - not measured against reference hardware. See docs/research-notes.md for the sourced quotes/URLs and docs/design-brief.md for the full rationale and confidence notes behind every changed default.

Parameter reference

Crossover

Parameter Range Default Unit What it does
Low/Mid Split 40 – 1000 200 Hz The crossover point between the Low and Mid bands. Everything below this frequency is the Low band; everything above feeds the second crossover. A minimum separation from Mid/High Split is enforced at all times, so automation can never invert band order.
Mid/High Split 400 – 12000 3000 Hz The crossover point between the Mid and High bands.

Per-band controls (Low, Mid, High - identical ranges on every band; defaults now differ per band as of v0.2.0 - see the note above)

Parameter Range Low default Mid default High default Unit What it does musically
Threshold -60 – 0 -24 -30 -20 dB The level above which the band's compressor starts reducing gain. Lower it to catch more of the signal; raise it toward 0 dB to only catch the loudest peaks. Mid's lower default leans toward the "density/knit-together" mastering philosophy; Low/High lean toward "peak control" (see the research-derived note above).
Ratio 1:1 – 20:1 2.5:1 1.8:1 2:1 : 1 How hard the band compresses once above Threshold. 1:1 is an exact bypass of that band's compressor (useful for A/B-ing one band's effect against the others), independent of Knee. Higher ratios (10:1+) approach limiting.
Knee (new in v0.2.0) 0 – 100 50 50 50 % How gradually the compressor transitions into gain reduction around Threshold. 0% is a hard knee (compression starts abruptly right at Threshold); 100% is the widest soft-knee transition, scaled to span from Threshold down to twice its distance from 0 dBFS - so the knee's width in dB adapts sensibly whether Threshold sits near 0 dB or near -50 dB.
Attack 0.1 – 100 25 10 5 ms How quickly the compressor reacts once the signal crosses Threshold. Low's slower default lets low-frequency transients (which "lack fast transients" in the first place) through before gain reduction kicks in; High's faster default catches fast transient material. Fast attack (under ~5 ms) catches transients hard but can dull pick/mallet attack; slower attack preserves punch.
Release 10 – 1000 180 100 55 ms How quickly gain reduction recovers once the signal drops back below Threshold. Low's longer default (~1.8x Mid) accounts for low-frequency decay characteristics; High's shorter default (~0.5x Mid) suits faster transient material. Fast release can pump audibly with sustained material; slow release smooths gain reduction out but can "duck" the following transient if set too slow relative to the material's tempo.
Makeup -12 – +24 0 0 0 dB Output trim applied to that band alone, after compression, before the Mute/Solo gate and the sum. Use it to restore the level lost to gain reduction, or to deliberately rebalance a band's contribution to the mix.

Per-band Mute / Solo (Low, Mid, High)

Parameter Values Default What it does
Mute Off / On Off Silences that band's contribution to the sum. Its compressor keeps running underneath (so there's no re-attack pop when you unmute mid-playback), it just doesn't reach the output. Mute always wins over Solo - a band that is both muted and soloed stays silent.
Solo Off / On Off Isolates that band: when any band is soloed, only soloed (and unmuted) bands reach the sum. Soloing more than one band at once solos all of them together. Use this to audition one band's compression settings in isolation, or to check what a band actually contains before deciding how hard to compress it.

High-band limiter

Parameter Range Default Unit What it does
Limiter (enable) Off / On Off Engages an additional brickwall-style limiter after the High band's own compressor + makeup gain, for catching sharp cymbal/harmonic-overtone peaks that a musically-set compressor (long enough attack to preserve transient character) would otherwise let through. Guarantees the High band's output never exceeds 0 dBFS once engaged, regardless of Threshold or upstream Makeup.
Lim. Thresh. (High Limiter Threshold) -24 – 0 -3 dB The limiter's threshold. Lower values squash harder and apply proportionally more internal makeup gain to compensate (a "loudness" style limiter, not a simple peak-catcher) - the ceiling itself is always exactly 0 dBFS regardless of this setting; what changes is how much of the High band gets pulled down to make room under it.

Output

Parameter Range Default Unit What it does
Output -24 – +24 0 dB Master trim applied after the three bands are summed - the final gain stage in the plugin. Use it to match Triptych's output level to whatever follows it in the chain (typically a brickwall limiter on the master bus).

Presets

Triptych ships with eight factory presets (Default, Density Glue, Peak Control, Low-End Tighten, De-Harsh Highs, Mastering Safety Ceiling, Parallel-Style Density, Hard Limiter Ceiling) covering both the peak-control and density mastering philosophies documented in docs/research-notes.md, plus single-band-focused workflow presets. See docs/presets.md for what each one is for. The preset bar at the top of the plugin window lets you browse factory and user presets, save/rename/delete your own, set a default that loads on every fresh instance, and import/export single presets or whole preset banks (.basilicapreset/.zip). User presets are stored per-plugin under ~/Library/Audio/Presets/Yves Vogl/Triptych/ on macOS (%APPDATA%\Yves Vogl\Triptych\Presets\ on Windows).

Localisation

The preset bar's labels, menus, and dialogs follow your system language automatically - German if your system language starts with "de", English otherwise. This covers only the preset bar's own interface text; parameter names, units, and every other technical term in this manual stay in English regardless of system language, matching every other plugin in the suite.

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