Nikolozi — Artist & Engineer

Mela 3 User Guide

Table of Contents

  1. Welcome
  2. Overview
  3. User Interface
  4. Presets
  5. Perform View
  6. Oscillators
  7. I/O
  8. Filters
  9. Envelope Generators
  10. LFOs
  11. Envelope Follower
  12. Distortion
  13. Phaser
  14. Chorus
  15. Flanger
  16. Delay
  17. Modulation Matrix
  18. Routing
  19. Compressor
  20. Metering
  21. Global Parameters
  22. Mela MIDI
  23. Virtual Musical Keyboard
  24. CPU Performance

Welcome

Hi, I’m Nikolozi and I’m the creator of Mela. I’m developing it as my primary tool for music-making and live performance. I hope Mela can play a part in your music creation process too. Tag your Mela creations with #MelaSession on social media, so I can discover them easily.

I ship updates in 4 to 8 week cycles. Each release focuses on addressing user feedback as well as the features that contribute to the long-term vision of Mela. To report bugs or make feature requests visit the Mela Feedback site. For other support queries directly get in touch.

Thank you for using Mela.

Also check out: Mela Changelog, Mela FAQ and the What's New in Mela? YouTube playlist.

Overview

Mela is an intuitive virtual analog synthesiser and multi-effects processor with a streamlined interface. It can be loaded either as an instrument, audio effect or a MIDI processor plug-in inside a host application such as AUM, BeatMaker, Cubasis, GarageBand and Logic Pro.

If you begin working on a track in GarageBand on your iPhone or iPad, and later open the project in Logic Pro on your Mac, then all instances of Mela, Mela FX and Mela MIDI audio units will load just as you left them on your iOS device.

User Interface

Most of the time you’ll want to run Mela (synth), Mela FX and Mela MIDI as AUv3 plug-ins inside your favourite hosts. But you also have the option of using Mela as a standalone synthesiser app. The app can respond to external MIDI messages as well as run in background mode.

The user interfaces of the plug-ins are highly adaptive. They make the best use of the space provided by the host’s window. Additionally, the app supports all orientations on both iPhone and iPad as well as split-screen on iPad.

The UI on the Mac works similarly to iOS, with a few minor differences. Tappable items on iOS become clickable on the Mac. Long press gives access to the context menu on iOS, while on the Mac it’s done via control-click.

The user interface consists of the top bar, view selector and scroll view.

Top Bar

The top bar consists of the preset selector as well as some global controls (if the AU window is wide enough). Global controls include parameters such as voice count, output and dry/wet levels. When the AU window is not wide enough, the global controls become part of the scroll view.

View Selector

View Selector is a collection of toggle buttons located on the sidebar:

Some of these buttons might be hidden when the AU window is not large enough.

Parameter Controls

The following describes how various controls work:

Text Input

Exact parameter values, for dials and sliders, can be entered using the virtual typing keyboard, a physical keyboard or the Apple Pencil. To do this, either triple tap the control or tap on the parameter title to access the control’s context menu and select Enter Value. Type in the desired value into the presented text field and tap OK.

Presets

Preset Selector

Preset Selector displays the title of the currently selected preset. Tap on the left or right arrow button to jump to the previous or next preset respectively.

Actions Menu

Next to the preset selector, there is a button with an ellipsis symbol. Tap it to access the actions menu:

Preset Browser

The preset browser interface consists of a grid of buttons. The top row represents preset groups. The rows below display the selected group’s presets. Tapping on a group loads containing presets, while tapping on a preset, loads it. Preset and group buttons are horizontally scrollable.

There are 3 types of preset groups: User group, custom and factory groups. You can create as many custom groups as you like, to manage your own and other artists’ presets. You can save or import presets directly into either the User or a custom group.

The custom group buttons are double in length when compared to the User or factory preset groups. Hence, they can have longer names. And unlike the User and factory presets, custom groups aren’t visible to the host.

Long press a group to access its context menu:

Long press a preset to access its context menu:

Long press a group to access its context menu:

Perform View

The Perform View is a great way to cherry-pick the AU parameters you care about most and access them all from one place. This is especially useful when you want to make Mela, Mela FX or Mela MIDI window small inside a host and still be able to tweak the parameters. You can assign up to 8 parameters to it. When there are no parameters assigned, the Perform View is hidden.

Tap on a dial or slider’s title/value text area to bring up the context menu. Via the menu, you can assign, reassign or unassign the parameter to one of the 8 slots of the Perform View.

After a parameter is assigned to a perform view it automatically gets a sensible shortened title. However, you can rename it to anything you like. Simply tap on the perform view dial’s title/value text area and from the context menu select Rename. You can also select Unassign to remove the dial from the Perform View.

Oscillators

Mela comes with 4 great-sounding oscillators. In addition to supporting standard waveform types, such as saw, sine, square and triangle, it offers a modern phase distortion algorithm and pleasing sounding noise waveform. The noise sounds warmer than pure white noise.

Shape

The following describes how the Oscillator waveform is transformed by the Shape parameter as the value goes from 0% to 100%:

I/O

This module is only part of Mela FX.

Input:

Output:

Filters

Mela and Mela FX come with a selection of great-sounding self-oscillating resonant filters:

Envelope Generators

Mela comes with 3 envelope generators (Amp, Env 2 and Env 3). They can all be used as modulation sources. The Amp envelope is hardwired to control the synth level post-filter processing. Envelopes are highly flexible and all segments have adjustable time, level and slope parameters. The Amp envelope’s Level 3 parameter is locked to 0% for obvious reasons.

LFOs

Envelope Follower

Mela FX comes with an envelope follower. It can be used as a modulation source.

Distortion

Phaser

Chorus

Flanger

Delay

Modulation Matrix

Modulation Matrix allows you to modulate almost any parameter of Mela with common MIDI sources as well as Envelopes, Envelope Follower and LFOs. The synth has 16 modulation rows, whereas the effect audio unit has 8. Use the Default preset as a starting point, it has common parameters already hooked up. For a clean slate start, load the Init preset.

For the level targets (oscillator Level), the total modulation amount is a product of all source signals. For all of the other targets, the total modulation amount is the sum of all source signals.

Modulation Row Actions

Tapping on a button with an ellipsis symbol brings up the actions menu for that row.

Routing

The diagram helps you visualize the signal flow of the synth. It will update according to the Filters and FX parameter values. The former dictates how the signal flows from the oscillators to the filters, while the latter sets where the FX section will be inserted with respect to the filters.

Filters

Only Serial and Parallel configurations are possible in Mela FX.

FX

Compressor

Mela comes with a high-quality low-distortion compressor. In synth, the compression is applied after all voices are summed. In Mela FX, it’s applied to the wet signal after filter and FX processing. When the compressor ratio is set to infinity it acts as a limiter.

You can visualize compression using the transfer function graph and gain reduction meter. Drag the transfer function pad horizontally to adjust the threshold and vertically to adjust the ratio. The gain reduction display value shows the maximum reduction level. It resets when gain reduction becomes 0 for more than 500ms.

Metering

Metering helps you visualize the output levels of Mela and Mela FX. In Mela, metering is displayed for the main output signal. In Mela FX, the dry and wet signals have meters, next to the corresponding gain dials.

The meter holds max peaks for 1s. The max peak value is displayed as text until levels drop to -inf. When the signal is clipping the metering components turn red.

Global Parameters

Mela

Mela FX

Mela MIDI

Mela MIDI AUv3 plug-in lets you create a multi-lane of MIDI processor modules. Modules can be added, removed or moved to any position on any lane. Each module can be switched on or off. The lanes can contain multiple instances of the same type of module.

Working with Modules and Lanes

To append a new module to a lane, simply press the plus button. From a module’s actions menu, which is accessible by tapping on the button with an ellipsis symbol, you can insert another module in front of it or delete the module itself. You can move a module using drag and drop: tap and hold it for a split second, then drag it to a new location before releasing it. Tapping on the sidebar of a module collapses or expands it.

To add a lane, tap on the Add Lane button. A lane will delete itself once all of its modules have been removed.

Note that when you’re editing a lane, it may sometimes automatically release held notes to prevent any stuck notes.

Lane MIDI I/O

Each lane has a configurable MIDI input and output. A host can use these virtual MIDI cables to send and receive MIDI from the Mela MIDI plug-in. Note that not all hosts support multiple I/O cables. In these hosts simply set all lanes to Input 1 and Output 1. Use AUM on iOS to fully take advantage of this feature.

You can also route MIDI between lanes using the built-in buses. The MIDI signal always flows from left to right, top to bottom.

Arpeggiator

Chord

The Chord module converts each input note into a chord consisting of up to 6 notes. Each row of parameter controls defines how the input note is transformed into one of the chord notes. The parameters are as follows:

Control Change

The Control Change module lets you use a slider to generate MIDI CC messages.

LFO

The LFO module generates a bipolar sinusoid modulator signal that can modulate any parameter in Mela MIDI. It can be inserted anywhere in the processing chain and will simply pass the MIDI signal through without altering it. The LFO module has two views: the main view and the modulation targets view. Tap the view switcher button to change the current view. The modulation targets view allows you to set the target parameters and modulation intensities. Each instance of the LFO module can modulate up to eight parameters.

On the main view, when the Sync parameter is set to “Free”, the modulator signal rate can be set in hertz using the Rate parameter. Otherwise, the rate is defined as the product of the values of the Offset and Sync parameters.

Logger

The Logger module logs incoming MIDI events, displaying the DAW position, channel number, message type, and value. It can be used to monitor all incoming MIDI data as well as to observe how your MIDI module chain transforms incoming MIDI messages. The Logger module’s Copy button lets you copy the MIDI log into the system’s pasteboard, in CSV format. You can then paste the text into a spreadsheet app for further analysis. The Clear button clears the message history.

Note Echo

The Note Echo module repeats incoming note-on and note-off messages. When the Sync parameter is set to “Free”, the delay amount can be set in seconds using the Delay parameter. Otherwise, the delay is defined as the product of values of the Offset and Sync parameters.

Note Length

The Note Length module controls the length of incoming notes. It can also be used to trigger notes from note-off events. When the Sync parameter is set to “Free”, the note length can be set in seconds using the Length parameter. Otherwise, the length is defined as the product of values of the Offset and Sync parameters.

Panic

The Panic module sends the “All Notes Off” MIDI message downstream on all channels on the lane it’s on.

Pitch

Pitch Range

The Pitch Range module ensures that its output note messages are in the given range.

Random

The Random module generates a random bipolar modulator signal that can modulate any parameter in Mela MIDI. It can be inserted anywhere in the processing chain and will simply pass the MIDI signal through without altering it. It has two views: the main and modulation targets view. Tap the view switcher button to change the current view. The modulation targets view allows you to set the target parameters and modulation intensities. Each instance of the Random module can modulate up to eight parameters.

On the main view, when the Sync parameter is set to “Free”, the modulator signal rate can be set in hertz using the Rate parameter. Otherwise, the rate is defined as the product of the values of the Offset and Sync parameters.

Scale

The Scale module ensures that its output notes are in a given scale.

Strummer

The Strummer module plays one note at a time of a chord. The interval between the notes is defined by the Sync, Time and Offset parameters. The strumming pattern can be configured using the Step buttons and Steps parameters.

Velocity

Virtual Musical Keyboard

Mela and Mela MIDI have a built-in virtual musical keyboard.

CPU Performance

Each voice has its own effect units. This allows the FX parameters to be targets in the modulation matrix. Therefore, the more voices you have enabled, the more CPU resources AU will need. Decrease the number of polyphonic voices when possible and bypass the FX units that you don’t need to run the AU more efficiently.

Most components can be turned off when not used. When the following parameters are set to Off their owning components are disabled and stop consuming CPU resources:

Decreasing the number of modulations in the Modulation Matrix will also help with the performance.