Modulr Wave

Sixty-four waves in each of thirty-two tables, a knob to sweep them, and a resonant low-pass with envelopes of its own.

Modulr Wave is a one-voice wavetable synthesizer after the grammar of a 1989 wavetable instrument: thirty-two tables of sixty-four waves swept by one large knob and moved by an envelope and an LFO, a detuned second oscillator, a sub oscillator an octave below and noise, a resonant low-pass with its own envelope, and a data wheel with a two-line display. It is a VST3 and Audio Unit for Apple silicon.

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37 controlsevery one can be automated from your music software

17 patcheseach one loads the whole sound from the drawer; they hold three distinct sounds

VST3 · AUApple silicon, macOS 11 or later

Hear it

Three sounds, played as they ship.

Each clip is the plug-in itself: a patch is picked in the drawer and loaded, then a played chord or line sounds on it, the way it is played into the plug-in from a keyboard. The seventeen patches hold three distinct sounds, one for each clip here: the three starting points are this product’s reading of a pad, a lead and a bass, and the artist-named patches reuse them. No source documents a setting on the instrument, so none of these is any record’s own.

Pad · starting pointPad · starting pointThe wave swept slowly through the table by a long wave envelope, a slow attack and a long release, a wide spread and a gently opened filter: a pad. The settings are this product’s reading of the pad role, not any record’s.

Lead · starting pointLead · starting pointA bright wave, a quick attack, a filter that follows the key so high notes stay open, a little glide and a vibrato that fades in after the note starts: a lead. The settings are this product’s reading of the lead role, not any record’s.

Bass · starting pointBass · starting pointThe sub oscillator brought up under the key, a low cutoff opened sharply by the filter envelope, a little resonance and drive, short envelopes and no spread: a bass. The settings are this product’s reading of the bass role, not any record’s.

How it plays

Sixty-four waves, one knob.

Thirty-two tables of sixty-four waves.The Wave knob picks one of the sixty-four, a wave envelope moves it over the note and the wave LFO sweeps it; the Table knob chooses the table, and the data wheel and the select keys step the wave and the table.
Three oscillators and noise.One on the key, a second detuned from it by up to a semitone, a sub an octave below, and white noise, spread across the stereo field. The voice is one voice.
A low-pass filter.Cutoff, resonance, an envelope amount that can be inverted, key follow and a drive, with a choice of a twelve or a twenty-four decibel slope.
Three envelopes and an LFO.A filter, an amplifier and a wave envelope, each with attack, decay, sustain and release; an LFO of four shapes with a rate, a depth and a delay, restarting at each key or running free.
What is drawn and does nothing.The page, bank and patch keys, the LFO’s sync key and the velocity knob are drawn on the editor and do nothing, and the envelope drawings show the shape without being draggable: the drawer holds the patches.
Patches that load the whole sound.Pick a patch and every control moves to it at once; the drawer closes and the keys are ready. Hold to preview plays a patch’s tone on your own MIDI, and when you let go the instrument is exactly as it was.
Services.Choose whether the instrument answers your host’s MIDI and clock, set its output level, and age it.

Requirements

What it needs.

Format	Systems	Licence
VST3 · Audio Unit	macOS 11 or later, on Apple silicon	$25. A licence file for each machine is needed to make sound; without one the editor opens and the output is silent, and there is no automatic way yet to receive one.

The drawings

The editor, and the module it becomes.

The first drawing is the plug-in editor as it opens. The second is the Eurorack module the study is also drawn as; the module is a design study and is not built.

The Modulr Wave plug-in editor, as it opens — The Modulr Wave editor as it opens: a violet and blue front with an ice-cyan display and a data wheel, the wavetable, filter and envelope menus below.

The Modulr Wave Eurorack module, 22 HP, in its case — The Modulr Wave module, 22 HP: a violet and blue panel, eight macro knobs with a control jack under each, and five jacks in one dark tray.

The editor is the plug-in’s own, as it opens. The module is drawn by the specification’s own kit, and its values are illustrative, not measured. The design is the Microwave’s grammar, redrawn in Modulr’s own words, and nothing on it is measured against the instrument.

The instrument it studies

Microwave, 1989.

The instrument’s own grammar, as the catalogue recalls it: the sections, the controls and the look the study borrows.

The wavetable rack grammar: one position through a table of waves chosen by a single Wave knob and swept by its own envelope, a resonant low-pass, and a front of few controls where a two-line LCD, a row of small page keys and one data wheel carry the menus.

A compact violet and blue front with white lettering: a bright ice-cyan 2 x 16 character LCD, four small grey keys and a knurled data wheel up top, eight pale knobs on one printed plate each with a CV jack under it (Wave and Cutoff ringed), the five jacks in one dark tray.

A wavetable oscillator with wave and table select
A 24 dB low-pass filter: cutoff, resonance, envelope amount and keyboard tracking
Two ADSR envelopes, for the filter and the amplifier, and a wave envelope
An LFO
A small two-line LCD
A data knob, edit buttons and bank buttons

The spec sheet

The module, knob by knob.

The module is a design study and is not built. Its macros are the signature controls a player reaches for; in the plug-in every one of them is a knob or a key on the editor.

Macro	Key	Range	Default
Wave	osc.wave	wave 1 – 64	wave 1
Table	osc.table	table 1 – 32	table 1
W Env	wave.env	±100%	0%
Rate	lfo.rate	0.05 Hz – 40 Hz	1 Hz
Cutoff	vcf.cut	20 Hz – 20 kHz	20 kHz
Reso	vcf.res	0–100%	0%
F Env	vcf.env	±100%	0%
Release	env.release	0 ms – 20.0 s	200 ms

Side	Jacks
In	Note (MIDI), V/Oct (CV), Gate (CV)
Out	Out (Audio), Env (CV)

The plug-in is built. The module is not.On saleModulr Wave is a working VST3 and Audio Unit, $25, ad hoc signed and not notarized, so macOS will warn before it opens. A downloaded copy stays silent until it is licensed, and there is no automatic way yet for a customer to receive a licence file. It is not a copy of any instrument: no maker’s name or logo is drawn on a panel, and nothing is measured against the original. The Eurorack module drawn on this page is a design study and is not built.

Legendary is the catalogue of the Modulr Synths project: 43 design studies drawn with the specification’s own kit, 33 after the synthesizers of all time and 10 after the drum machines. The makers and years named here are the instrument’s; the names, the layouts and every value are Modulr’s own.