Playback engine 9 of 15

Wavesets

Wavesets divides a recording at rising zero crossings and plays those measured cycles in small groups. Repetition turns a fragment of recorded sound into a stable pitched tone; stride, order, source advance, and real-time processes can then pull that tone back toward the changing source.

Controls edit the focused instrument. Instrument mode sets its lane and voice budget: eight voices in Single, four per part in either dual mode, or two per part in Quad. Quad omits stack controls because each part has one lane.

Good for: extracting playable pitches from speech or noise, microscopic rhythmic loops, animated drones, crossing-level rearrangement, and transformations that retain the timing and contour of the recording.

Pages and navigation

Set Algorithm to Wavesets. Up opens the shared Pads & Scale and Amp Envelope pages, followed by Stack Path and Wavesets. Choose DRAW to add the editable Path Editor.

Wavesets parameter page — One page sets the group structure, source progression, cycle order, transformation, and crossing detail.

The controls common to every playback engine are documented in the shared Engine page table. In Keys mode, pads transpose the recorded cycles relative to Root: one octave up doubles their playback rate, and one octave down halves it. On the waveform page, SPD sets the base rate and combines with this independent keyboard transposition. Higher notes keep transposing when SPD is at 4×. This preserves the source’s tuning rather than tuning arbitrary material to concert pitch. Extremely high cycle rates reach a safety ceiling below Nyquist. Slices, Cues, and Rolls pad modes keep their separate Root-pitch behavior.

Position and Field choose the source area in which groups are found, while Join increases endpoint correction across each complete cycle. At Join 0, ordinary contiguous playback preserves the recorded waveform; at Join 100%, a straight endpoint line is removed so both ends meet at zero. Very short repeated or rearranged cycles retain automatic endpoint protection at low Join to prevent clicks and DC buildup. Protection rises and falls continuously as Speed or Field changes.

Reading the Wavesets cursor

Wavesets waveform display with physical source cursors and an ordered cycle rail — The waveforms show source positions within the current Position/Field zoom. In Single, the segmented rail below them shows positions inside the currently measured cycle group.

Solid lines show primary or reference source positions for active voices. They span all four lanes in Single and Shared Dual, or only their part’s two lanes in Split. Both dual modes use these source cursors without the group rail. A sparse line is a secondary source being blended by Process or the outgoing reader during a safe transition. On Single’s group rail, each segment is one measured cycle in source order. The newest voice has a capped marker; other voices use narrow markers. Reverse therefore steps from the rightmost cycle toward the left, Pendulum changes direction on alternate groups, and Shuffle jumps among slots. Individual cycles still run forward unless PROC is Cycle Reverse or Group Reverse.

The footer reads WS direction Ccycle/group Rrepeat/total. >, <, <>, and SH mean Forward, Reverse, Pendulum, and Shuffle. An asterisk means the selected Order is queued and the displayed direction is still active; a tilde means the old and new readers are overlap-adding. Processes that read several sources at once add small source dots across the rail instead of claiming that one cursor represents the complete result.

Wavesets — every parameter

Knob	Display	Range	What it controls
1	GRUP	1 / 2 / 4 / 8 / 16 / 32 cycles	Number of consecutive crossing-to-crossing cycles in one group. Small groups make a focused oscillator-like tone; larger groups retain more of the source phrase and rhythm.
2	REPT	1–16	Number of complete passes through the group before a new source group is selected.
3	STRD	1–16	Distance between successive source groups, counted as multiples of Group in measured cycles. Higher values skip farther through the active Field.
4	ADVN	Stretch / Preserve / Hold	Stretch slows source progression as Repeat rises. Preserve skips proportionally farther so the source timeline keeps moving. Hold retains the same measured group while stack motion can continue changing its lane blend.
5	ORDR	Forward / Reverse / Pendulum / Shuffle	Changes the order of complete cycles inside the group; it does not reverse the samples inside each cycle. Pendulum alternates order on each new group; Shuffle uses a repeatable shuffled order. Use Cycle Reverse or Group Reverse when backward sample motion is wanted.
6	PROC	10 processes	Selects the real-time operation described below. Repeat is unprocessed grouped playback.
7	DPTH	0–100%	Blends from the original cycle to the selected process. Omit also uses Depth as its probability and attenuation.
8	DTAL	Raw / 8 kHz / 4 kHz / 1 kHz / 250 Hz	Sets the low-pass frequency used only for crossing analysis. Lower settings ignore fine high-frequency crossings and favor broader, steadier waveform cycles; playback still reads the original recording.

Process choices

Process	What it does
Repeat	Plays the measured cycles without an additional transformation.
Omit	Removes selected cycles with a repeatable probability set by Depth.
Replace	Moves each cycle toward the strongest cycle in the current group.
Envelope	Applies a rounded rise and fall inside every cycle.
Multiply	Folds each cycle through progressively higher integer phase multiples, smoothly blending neighboring multiples as Depth moves.
Interpolate	Morphs the current cycle toward the next source cycle across the repeats.
Fractal	Adds successively smaller power-of-two copies inside the cycle.
Harmonic	Adds integer-ratio copies; Depth smoothly introduces the highest included harmonic.
Group Reverse	Reverses both cycle order and the samples inside each selected cycle.
Cycle Reverse	Reverses the samples inside each cycle without reversing group order.

Cycle safety

Each lane is analyzed once after recording, loading, or editing. The five Detail maps share continuous analysis-filter state and are reused by every note. Cycles begin at rising zero crossings at least four source frames apart. The left channel is the stable timing reference; a silent left channel uses the right channel instead. Playback retains the unfiltered stereo recording. While new maps are being prepared, the footer reads WS PREPARING and a temporary endpoint-corrected fragment keeps playback available.

Join and Depth glide with a 20 ms response while the current phase, cycle, and repeat counters continue. Multiply morphs between neighboring integer copies, Harmonic fades additional copies in and out, and Omit smooths its level changes. Small encoder moves do not restart the group.

Changes to Group, Repeat, Stride, Advance, Order, Process, and Detail wait for a cycle boundary or quiet point. A 20 ms maximum wait keeps long cycles responsive. The old and new readers then crossfade over 15–30 ms, with longer transitions for longer cycles. Both readers keep their stereo seam protection, and the outgoing reader continues its original source progression. Each transition finishes before the next structural edit is adopted; rapid edits keep the newest requested value.

Source progression counts measured cycles exactly. Stretch advances Group × Stride cycles after the repeats; Preserve also multiplies that advance by Repeat. Fractional sample time carries into the next cycle without dropping or duplicating a sample when cycle lengths differ. Contiguous Repeat playback needs no overlap or extra reader. Cycle joins match both level and waveform slope using a bounded correction curve. Long cycles allow gentler 1.5–5 ms repairs; shorter cycles limit the repair to fit their timing and retain endpoint protection. Corrections follow crossings between output samples accurately. Ordinary contiguous playback keeps its original timing and waveform. If the active Field contains no complete cycle, playback uses a temporary endpoint-corrected fragment; a short Field with fewer cycles uses the available smaller group.

Multiply, Fractal, and Harmonic also match the endpoints of their internal repeated copies, including when the main Join control is low. Added copies fade away as they approach ultrasonic rates, reducing foldback at high keyboard notes.

Stack and polyphony

Every note owns its own pitch, repeat counters, order state, and stack path. Neighboring audible lanes use independent cycle readers and their own prepared source maps. Pressure and Stack Path crossfade their stereo outputs, rather than changing the crossing boundaries of a mixed waveform. Plain Loop freezes each voice at its current stack position; Hold on the Wavesets page freezes source-group progression instead. The two holds can be used independently.

Starting points

Result	Settings to try
Playable source tone	8 cycles, 4 repeats, Stride 1, Stretch, Forward, Repeat, Raw detail.
Slow spectral drift	16 cycles, 8 repeats, Stride 2, Stretch, Pendulum, Interpolate at 55%, 4 kHz detail.
Held stack oscillator	4 cycles, 8 repeats, Hold, Shuffle, Interpolate at 70%; use a slow Stack Path to blend the independently repeating lane readers.
Bright recursive edge	2 cycles, 3 repeats, Stride 3, Preserve, Fractal or Harmonic at 35–60%, 8 kHz detail.