Mercury 6 includes five simultaneous effects: Distortion, Phaser, Flanger/Chorus, Delay, and Reverb. These can be used in any combination. When in Layer or Split mode, effects settings are independent for each layer, so it's like having... ten effects. There's also a Global tab for easy control over all effects.
Each of the four effects resides in its own tab. To select an effect for editing, click on the blue section with the effect name.
Primarily, the Global tab allows all effects to be enabled or disabled at once, which is very useful when programming. It also contains a few other handy functions.
Enable- Enables or bypasses all effects for both layers.
Effects Mode- When set to the Lyr (Layer) position, an entirely independent effects section is available for the upper and lower layers. When set to the Glbl (Global) position, both layers run through a single set of effects. This is useful when creating patches that combine the upper and lower layers into one overall sound, or when creating a split sound and you'd like the same effects settings for both layers.
Enable- Enables and disables distortion effect. The LED in the tab additionally indicates current enabled or disabled status.
Mode buttons-
Tube- This is the mellowest distortion mode. Use it to add just little bit of vintage hair to sounds.
Fuzz- Aggressive and raunchy vintage fuzz tone.
Drive- Amount of distortion.
Tone- Relative brightness of tone.
Level- Overall volume; this doesn't affect the amount of distortion. Increasing drive will cause an overall volume increase, Level can be used to balance things out.
Enable- Enables and disables phaser effect. The LED in the tab additionally indicates current enabled or disabled status.
Stages- Mercury-6's phaser includes up to 12 all-pass filter stages. As a general rule, more stages = lusher phase, but there are plenty of interesting tones to be had using the 4- or 8-stage settings.
If all stages are disabled, the unaffected dry signal is fed through - the equivalent of a bypass button.
Rate- Sets the phaser's internal LFO speed. The LED will flash to indicate the current rate. The phaser LFO is independent of LFO-1 and LFO-2.
Mod Source- The phaser's sweep can be modulated from a few sources:
Int (Internal)- The phaser includes its own independent mod source, with its speed set using the Rate knob.
LFO-1- Uses Mercury-6's LFO-1. Some really unique effects can be achieved when the different mod waveforms are combined with the LFO Sync button.
LFO-2- Just like above, but uses Mercury-6's LFO-2 instead of LFO-1.
Depth- Sets the effect depth - essentially an amount control.
Feedback- Increasing the amount of feedback intensifies the phasing effect.
We've included a thick and warm flanger/chorus effect. Flanging and Chorus are closely related - the general difference being that flangers use a shorter time range and some amount of feedback (this intensifies the "jet-flyby" whoosh), whereas choruses utilize a slightly longer delay time, and no feedback.
Enable- Enables and disables flanger/chorus effect. The LED in the tab additionally indicates current enabled or disabled status.
Flanger/Chorus buttons- Chooses between flanging and chorusing.
Rate- Sets the modulation from 0.01-8 Hz speed. The adjacent LED flashes at the current mod rate.
Depth- Sets effect depth, i.e. the amount of modulation.
Delay Time- Sets the amount of delay time when in Flanger mode, from 1-13ms.
Feedback- Sets the amount of internal feedback when in Flange mode.
The Delay Time and Feedback controls are disabled when in Chorus mode.
Mix- Sets the ratio of clean to effected sound. Flanging and chorusing is usually optimal at a 50/50 setting, but we've added the Mix control by popular demand to allow more subtle (or modulated) tones.
Enable- Enables and disables delay effect. The LED in the tab additionally indicates current enabled or disabled status.
Digital (Digi) / Tape / Ping-Pong mode buttons- Selects effect mode.
Digital- A pristine sounding digital delay.
Tape- Reproduces the effect of a vintage "space echo" tape delay.
Ping-Pong- Echoes alternate between audio channels.
Sync- Engaging the Sync button locks the delay time to master tempo. When engaged, the Time knob snaps to note values ranging from 1/64th note triplet to 8 beats. Sync mode locks to the tempo in the top toolbar when using the Mercury-6 standalone version or the current project tempo when the plug-in version is used in a DAW.
Time- Sets delay time, from 1 to 2000 ms. If the Sync button is enabled, time settings snap to synchronized note values.
Feedback- Routes the output to the input for additional repeats. Be careful at high settings as this can result in runaway feedback madness.
Damping- Attenuates high-frequencies as the knob amount is increased. Not only does this create more natural sounding decays, it also reduces the "stacking" effect that occurs with high feedback levels.
Spread- Alters the left and right channel delay times creating a stereoizing effect. Greater amounts of spread increase the delay time differential and thus the stereo separation.
Mix- Sets the ratio of clean to effected sound.
Enable- Enables and disables reverb effect. The LED in the tab additionally indicates current enabled or disabled status.
Room / Plate (Plt) / Hall / Galactic (Glct) mode buttons- Selects the reverb type.
Room- Recreates a vintage algorithmic-style medium room verb.
Plate- A medium-to-large studio plate-style algorithm.
Hall- A large, hall-style reverb.
Galactic (Glct)- Cherry Audio's exclusive, giant, spacey reverb.
Decay- Sets the length of reverb release time/size of room.
EQ- These allow tailoring of the wet reverb signal tone. They have no effect on dry signal.
HP- A highpass filter. Low frequencies are increasingly attenuated as the knob setting is increased.
LP- A lowpass filter. High frequencies are increasingly attenuated as the knob setting is decreased.
Mix- Sets the ratio of clean to effected sound.