Oscillato

A layer is a synth of its own. Click + to add an oscillator, a filter, an envelope or an LFO, then drag cables between them.

• Need another envelope? Click +.
• Need a modulator for one corner of the patch? Add it and cable it in.
• A bead on each mod cable sets its amount, curve and polarity. Cable another source into a bead, and one modulation controls another.
• Right-click a layer to copy, duplicate or initialize it.
• Every layer has its own volume, pan and tuning.

When a stack needs one shared filter, send layers to the master section. It holds up to four master filters, plus its own envelopes and modulation.

Oscillato’s envelopes have seven stages: delay, attack, two decays, sustain and two releases. I took the idea from the Alesis Andromeda A6, and I have not seen it in other soft synths.

Two decays and two releases let a sound swell, fall back and swell again, which suits pads.

• Use the delay stage to bring part of a sound in after the note starts.
• Give the filter one envelope, pitch another and pan a third, or give every oscillator its own.
• Switch to Points mode for a free-form envelope: click the line to add a point, and keep adding as many points as you want.
• Drag any point to reshape the curve, and loop part of the envelope when you want it to keep moving.

Every note can become its own synthesizer.

Each layer can hold a completely different sound: a sub bass, a noisy attack, a detuned pad, a shimmer that only plays on high notes.

The router decides where your notes go. A note can reach:

• One layer, or every layer at once.
• The next layer in a round robin.
• A random layer.
• A key zone or a velocity zone.
• A layer set by the note’s place in a chord: lowest note to layer 1, next to layer 2, even when the notes arrive milliseconds apart.

There are 14 routing modes, built on the same routing code as Pie Plate, my Max for Live device that turns several hardware or software synths into one polysynth.

Each oscillator plays classic waves, SuperSaw, wavetable or FM, and a single layer can mix types.

• An FM oscillator is a full six-operator, DX7-style FM synth.
• The SuperSaw stacks 7 detuned saws in one oscillator.
• On the Global page, load a Scala file to play microtonal scales across every layer.

Give a layer 6 SuperSaws and one note plays 42 saws. Stack all 16 layers on that note and it plays 672. Hold a three-note chord and that is 2,016 saws at once. Is that excessive? Yes.