Ambi Encoder Water

s3g Ambi Encoder Water is a zero-input procedural instrument for currents, rain, cascades, surges, vortices, sloshes, drips, bubble plumes, breakers, backwash, hail, sleet, and freezing rain. As many as 64 moving parcels combine flow noise with discrete droplet, splash, bubble, foam, and shoreline-contact events, then encode the result directly to first-through-seventh-order ACN/SN3D.

Procedural water synthesis combines a continuous noise body with short modeled events. Droplets and splashes supply impacts, while bubble size controls resonant pitch and decay; no water recordings are played.

Workflow

1. Insert the plugin on a 64-channel REAPER track, choose a factory preset, and select the ambisonic ORDER.
2. Follow it with an ambisonic decoder.
3. Set VOICES for the desired field density.
4. Select a water regime and contact environment.
5. Balance continuous flow against drops, splashes, and bubbles.
6. Shape parcel motion and the encoded environment.

Water Source

WATER REGIME selects CURRENT, RAIN, CASCADE, SURGE, VORTEX, SLOSH, DRIP, BUBBLE PLUME, BREAKER, BACKWASH, HAIL, SLEET, or FREEZING RAIN. ENVIRONMENT adds ICE to the open, rock, vegetation, mud, concrete, metal, glass, pipe, and cave contact responses.

WATER, FLOW, SCALE, TURBULENCE, and AERATION establish the continuous body and the conditions from which discrete events emerge.

Events and Body

• DROPS, SPLASH, and BUBBLES set the three event layers; EVENT DENSITY, EVENT SIZE, and EVENT LIFE control their population and duration.
• The event model uses radius-dependent bubble resonance, damping, rise, and impact scaling as synthesis constraints rather than playing water recordings.
• DEPTH, BRIGHTNESS, BUBBLE RISE, DAMPING, and IMPACT TEXTURE balance submerged body, surface detail, and contact response.
• FOAM adds aerated high-frequency surface noise; SHORE CONTACT adds granular impacts and scraping at a boundary. Breaker and backwash regimes emphasize these layers automatically.

Parcel Motion

PARCEL RATE, CURRENT, SLOPE, EDDY, CONVERGENCE, and WIDTH define the large-scale trajectory. SPREAD and DEVIATION separate the voices. DIRECTION, ELEVATION, RANGE, and INERTIA place and smooth the resulting field.

Environment Field

PLACE selects OPEN, SUBMERGED, CAVE, CISTERN, CHANNEL, or PIPE. ENV RETURN, ENV SIZE, ENV DECAY, and ENV DAMPING mix and shape the encoded environment response independently of the contact material.

LISTEN lets the generated ambisonic environment affect what happens next. Eight virtual directional pickups decode the combined direct water field and Environment Field return. In addition to slow energy, they track fast energy, novelty, roughness, spectral tilt, habituation, charge, and directional gradients. FOLLOW draws current and eddies toward accumulated energy, COUNTER steers toward its opposite, and BALANCE favors less occupied directions. LISTEN AMOUNT continuously scales the closed-loop influence. LEGACY applies turbulence and shared event-density response; ACCRETE turns novel charged regions into smaller, denser events; SETTLE lets sustained regions become slower, darker, and larger; and IMPRINT transfers heard roughness and spectral balance into event material and size. Motion is interpolated continuously rather than jumping between pickup directions. OFF—the factory-preset default—uses open-loop behavior while the pickups continue warming their memory.

Presets

The field viewport’s SURF page turns complete presets or captured states into cells on a two-dimensional parameter surface. PLAY moves the automatable Surface X/Surface Y cursor; EDIT moves cells. Continuous controls interpolate, circular direction takes the shortest route, and discrete modes follow the nearest cell. CURVE, FOCUS, and GLIDE shape the transition. Surface cells are saved in project state.

The 16 factory presets include creeks, rain surfaces, spillways, drips, slosh, vortices, waterfalls, bubbles, rapids, runoff, storms, and still water. SAVE and LOAD write portable .s3gwater presets, including listener mode, amount, and response, with the default folder at ~/Music/s3g/Presets/Ambi Water Encoder/. RANDOM also chooses a complete listener configuration, so a randomized scene may immediately become self-steering and adaptive.

Parameter Surface

SURF arranges as many as 24 captured or factory states in a two-dimensional performance space. CURVE and FOCUS shape the spatial blend. GLIDE makes the active crosshair and participating toolbox controls move toward the target diamond over time, rather than switching at the dragged or automated cursor position. When the nearest cell changes, water regime and environment layers crossfade through the selected glide time, so their field geometry and sound do not jump even though the menu names change decisively. Although VOICES remains an integer readout, surplus parcels fade continuously in synthesis and in the field view as cell influence changes. POP opens the synchronized surface in an attached utility panel. OUT, ORDER, and the cursor remain live outside the surface. See Parameter Surface for the shared editing and automation rules.

Order and Routing

The output bus remains 64 channels wide. ORDER activates the corresponding ACN channels and clears the rest.

Realtime Use

The strict maximum-density release profile covers 48 kHz at 32, 64, 128, and 256 frames. At 96 kHz the full 64-parcel, seventh-order engine is measured for reference but is not claimed as a realtime-safe maximum-load configuration. For 96 kHz sessions, begin with fewer VOICES, a lower ambisonic ORDER, and a larger device buffer, then verify the complete REAPER project on the intended computer. The output bus remains 64 channels wide even when fewer orders are active.