Shape the sound

Turn a rough recording into something you want to hear again, from a small tone change to a full sound chain. Effects work during playback, so the original recording is never changed.

Open a recording and find FX Chain below the waveform. Move a card's sliders while listening, or tap its name or controls icon to open every control. Changes are saved with that recording automatically.

On iPad, the same chain sits in the recording's detail view with larger cards. Shape Watch recordings here on your iPhone or iPad after they arrive in the library.

Tap the plus button at the end of the chain and choose an effect. Each effect can appear once; effects already in the chain are left out of the picker.

Sound passes through the cards from left to right. With Pro, drag a card by its grip to change the order: reverb before distortion, for example, distorts the space as well as the recording. New effects are added at the end, just ahead of Master, so Master still finishes the sound; drag one after Master only if you mean to.

The free chain is EQ, Compressor, Reverb set to PLATE, then Master. You can adjust their main controls, switch them off, remove them and add a removed effect back in its original position. Other effects, other reverb spaces, Advanced controls and reordering need Pro.

Tap ON on a card to switch that effect OFF without losing its settings. Tap the active count beside FX Chain to bypass the whole chain; it reads BYPASSED until you tap it again.

The whole-chain switch is for listening comparisons. Sharing still uses the saved chain and each card's ON or OFF state. See Send recordings out.

Tap an effect's name or controls icon. Its main controls appear first, followed by Advanced where the effect has extra controls; changing Advanced controls needs Pro.

Tap RESET to return that effect's controls to their starting settings. Without Pro, these are the free sound's settings.

Tap the preset name above FX Chain to open Presets, then tap a preset to replace this recording's chain. Singer-Songwriter is the free starting sound; presets marked Pro need Pro to apply.

A star beside the preset name means you have changed its chain. Custom means no preset is identified for the chain.

With Pro, tap SAVE, name the chain and tap the checkmark to keep it under My presets. If you changed one of your own presets, you can update it or choose SAVE AS NEW. Updating or deleting a saved preset does not rewrite the chains already stored on your recordings.

In Presets, tap the star beside a preset to make it the default for new recordings. You can also open this list through Default Preset in Settings. Choosing another default needs Pro; returning to Singer-Songwriter is free.

The default is copied onto each new recording and each imported recording. Changing it leaves existing recordings as they are. To replace their sound too, open Presets from a recording, choose APPLY THIS CHAIN TO ALL RECORDINGS and confirm Replace All. This replaces existing effects on all recordings outside Recently Deleted, while keeping their original audio.

Tap a card's close icon to remove it. Tap UNDO in the brief removal message to restore that effect, its settings and its place in the chain. This undo applies to removal, rather than slider changes or applying a preset.

The picker offers Clean, Monitor, EQ, Surgical, Compressor, Opto, De-Esser, Tube, Tape, Distortion, Bitcrusher, Chorus, Delay, Stage, Reverb and Master. Open a page for what to listen for and how its controls shape the sound.