Wavetable Granular Spectral v0.2.3

Stratus

Your flagship VST. Free.

Three oscillators that each run as a wavetable, a grain cloud or a spectral resynthesis. Drag-and-drop modulation, an eight-module FX rack and 101 presets, drawn in black ink on white paper.

Download free See what's inside

Apple Silicon / macOS 11+ / VST3 / AU / Standalone

Stratus in the Ink skin, the synth page: Osc A in Table mode, Osc B in Grain mode and Osc C in Spectral mode, with sub, noise, filter, envelopes, LFOs, macros and voicing below.

The real interface. Two skins, Ink and Tron: switch from the header and every open Stratus window follows.

01 Oscillators

Three oscillators, three ways to make sound.

Osc A, B and C each run in one of three modes. Table sweeps a wavetable through up to 256 frames. Grain throws a cloud of up to 24 grains per voice from a sound source. Spectral rebuilds the table as free partials you can shift, stretch and blur.

  • Unison 1 to 8 on every oscillator, with detune, blend and stereo width
  • Table warps: Sync, Bend, PWM, Mirror and FM from another oscillator
  • Grain: density, length, spray, scan, random pitch, window shape and reverse. Drop in any audio file
  • Spectral: shift, stretch into bells, formant, tilt, cuts and blur, with no aliasing at any pitch
Osc A
Harmonic Sweep
Frame 1 / 64

12 wavetables and 16 grain sources, all generated from maths. Pick one, or drag across the display to scrub.

Sub

Sine, triangle, saw or square, band-limited with PolyBLEP, with its own octave, level and pan.

Noise

20 stereo loops, from vinyl and tape hiss to rain, Geiger and crowd murmur, with pitch, keytracking and colour.

Presets

101: Init plus ten each of bass, lead, pad, pluck, keys, bell, atmosphere, texture, FX and sequence.

Voicing

1 to 16 voices, mono and legato, glide, pitch-bend range and sustain pedal.

02 Filter

One filter, six shapes.

Low and high pass at 12 or 24 dB, band and notch. Add drive, keytracking and a dry/wet mix, and choose which sources pass through it: Osc A, B and C, the sub and the noise.

  • State-variable design that stays stable under fast modulation
  • Cutoff, resonance, drive and mix are all modulation destinations
Filter ABCSN
Cutoff 3.5 kHz

03 Modulation

Drag it onto a knob.

Grab an envelope, LFO or macro chip and drop it on any knob. A cyan ring shows the range and a magenta dot shows the live value. Alt-drag the knob to change the depth, right-click it to remove the route.

3
envelopes
4
LFOs, 7 shapes, tempo sync
4
macros
32
routes to 59 destinations, grain, spectral and FX included

Velocity, note, mod wheel, aftertouch and per-note random are sources too. The Matrix page lists every route, and routes are saved with your project and presets.

Drag to a knob
SourceDestinationDepth

    Tip: tap a chip, then tap a knob. Works with the keyboard too.

    04 FX rack

    Eight effects, in any order.

    Drag the modules into the order you want, switch them on and off, and every one draws what it's doing. Drive, feedback and the mix controls take modulation like any other knob, and a safety limiter sits at the end of the chain.

    FX rack Drag to reorder

      Limiter

      Convolve Small Room

      05 Measured

      Clean, light and tested.

      Measured on the 0.2.2 build, which has the same sound engine as 0.2.3. The tests and pluginval run on every build.

      −68 to −78 dB
      non-harmonic energy on a wavetable saw or square at C6, C7 and C8
      −90 dB
      non-harmonic energy in Spectral mode, even at C8
      ~1%
      of one Apple Silicon core for a 4-note chord with the sub, noise, filter and FX
      Level 10
      pluginval strictness passed on the VST3: editor open and close while processing, state restore, automation, parameter fuzzing

      Stratus 0.2.3 macOS Apple Silicon

      Your flagship VST. Free.

      VST3, AU and the standalone app, 101 presets, Ink and Tron skins. Leave your email and the download starts.

      Requires an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or newer) and macOS 11 or later.

      How installing works
      1. 1
        Open the installer. This build isn't signed with an Apple Developer ID yet, so macOS says it can't verify the developer. Click Done, then go to System Settings › Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway. On macOS 14 and older you can right-click the .pkg and choose Open.
      2. 2
        Follow the installer. It installs Stratus.vst3 and Stratus.component in /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins, and Stratus.app in Applications.
      3. 3
        Rescan your plug-ins. Stratus is an instrument: add it to a new instrument track or channel. In the standalone app, play notes with A to K and change octave with Z and X.