An envelope shaper with a curve on every step

Stepsicle is an envelope shaper that draws a unique breakpoint curve on every step, across up to 16 modulation slots, with 15 filters and per-step bitcrusher, stutter, and tape stop underneath.

Per-step shapes, not one repeating LFO

Every rhythmic modulator you already own draws one shape and loops it. LFOTool is a single repeating LFO. ShaperBox draws one curve per shaper. Effectrix and Glitch 2 switch an effect on or off per step but cannot change how it behaves inside a step. Stepsicle does the other thing: a different drawable shape on every step, for every slot. Step 3 sweeps the filter up and holds, step 5 dips once and snaps back, step 9 runs a staircase. You see all 16 shapes at once and you hear them change as the pattern plays.

Up to 16 envelopes, each on its own clock

A slot is a tab above the step strip, and you can run up to 16 of them per pattern. Each slot has its own clock: locked to the sequencer, synced to one of 30 divisions, free-running in Hz, or set to its own BPM. Run a 1/4 volume envelope against a free 3.5 Hz filter envelope against a dotted-eighth pan envelope while the bass sequence runs at 1/16, and you get four musical rates from one plugin. Each slot holds 16 per-step shapes, which is 256 drawable curves in a single pattern.

Draw a shape by clicking to add breakpoints and dragging to move them, with linear, exponential, logarithmic, or S-curve segments. Start from 24 built-in shapes (basic waveforms, ADSR-style envelopes, rhythmic staircases, and smooth curves) or save your own as reusable files.

Fifteen filters, then the dirt

Route audio through the filter and the envelope shaper sweeps its cutoff step by step. There are 15 filter types, all zero-delay-feedback:

• Ladder LP (Moog-style) at 6, 12, 18, and 24 dB per octave, warm with self-oscillation
• Diode LP (Roland-style) at 6, 12, and 18 dB, grittier with TB-303 character
• SVF low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, and notch at 12 and 24 dB, clean and precise

Drive adds anti-aliased saturation, Fatness adds parallel low end at 50 Hz, and a distortion stage offers RAT, Tube, Hard Clip, and Fuzz either before or after the filter. Oversampling runs from 2x by default up to 8x for mastering-grade aliasing rejection.

Sequence the effects, step by step

Past the filter sits a reorderable chain of insert effects, and each one can change on every step:

• Bitcrusher with variable-mu warmth, a sample-rate reducer, jitter, and dither
• Stutter, a tempo-synced buffer repeat that turns into pitched glitch tones at fast rates
• Tape Stop with wow, flutter, saturation, and a choice of stop curves
• Width, a Dimension-D-style stereo widener you can sequence

Flip any effect from global to per-step and its knobs follow the selected step. Step 3 can crush to 4 bits while step 9 stays clean at 12 bits, both saved with the pattern. Every envelope can also output as a MIDI CC, so the same per-step shapes automate an external synth.

How this envelope shaper compares

Questions

Pricing

Part of Stepsicle. Also available as a 303 MIDI sequencer and a CV sequencer. One license includes all three.