Basics

Getting started

Install WaveStack, find your way around the window, and make, hear and save your first wavetable.

WaveStack is a wavetable builder. You draw, build, import and morph single-cycle waves into tables, listen to them as you work, and export them in the format your synth or module reads. It runs on the Mac and Windows, inside your DAW as a plugin, and on the iPad.

If wavetables are new to you, How wavetables work explains frames, frame sizes, grids and volumes with figures you can play.

Install

Mac. Download the DMG from the download section, open it and drag WaveStack to Applications. The app is signed and notarized, so it opens normally. It needs macOS 12 or later and runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel Macs.

Windows. Download the installer and run it. It isn’t code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen shows a warning the first time: choose More info, then Run anyway.

Updating. Install the new version over the old one. Your library folders, settings and license stay where they are. WaveStack doesn’t update itself, so check the news page for new releases.

The plugin and the iPad app have their own pages: Plugin mode and WaveStack on the iPad.

A tour of the window

From left to right and top to bottom:

  • Header. Undo and Redo, the New menu, Save, Export, a ? menu (help, the newsletter and About) and the Settings gear. On the Mac the header doubles as the title bar, so you can drag the window by any empty part of it.
  • Library (left). Your wavetable folders and the files in them. See Library, files and saving.
  • Table panel (center, top). The whole table: a 3D view of a single row of frames, or a grid or 3D view for larger tables. Below a single-row table sits the frame strip, one tile per frame. See Tables, views and selecting.
  • Frame editor (center, bottom). The selected frame, large, with the Pencil, Line, Curve and Harmonics tools. See Drawing and shaping frames.
  • Edit and Sound tabs (right). Edit holds shapes, processing and table settings. Sound holds the envelopes, filter, LFOs, modulation and MIDI input. See Sound and playing.
  • Audition bar (bottom). Play and stop, octave, the position in the table, and Scan.

Drag the dividers between panels to resize them (double-click a divider to reset it). The library, the right panel, the table and the frame editor can each be minimized to a slim rail or a header with the button in their corner. WaveStack remembers the layout.

Your first table

  1. Start a table. WaveStack opens with a starter table you can play right away. For a fresh one, choose New › Empty table, which makes the classic 64-frame morph from sine through triangle, saw and square to pulse, or New › Build table to sweep a shape into a row or grid.
  2. Listen. Press Space (or the play button in the audition bar) to hold a note, then drag the Position slider to move through the table. Play notes on your computer keyboard with the bottom letter row: Z is C, S is C♯, X is D and so on. − and = change the octave. A MIDI keyboard works too.
  3. Scan. Press Scan in the audition bar to sweep through the table automatically. The slider beside it sets the speed.
  4. Edit a frame. Click a frame in the frame strip, pick Pencil in the frame editor and draw. You hear the change right away.
  5. Shape several at once. Shift-click another frame to select a range. Shapes, processing and drawing now apply to every selected frame. ⌘A (Ctrl+A on Windows) selects them all; Esc goes back to one.
  6. Save. Press ⌘S. The first time, WaveStack asks you to add a library folder if you haven’t; after that, new tables save into it.
  7. Export. Press ⌘E, pick the synth or device the table is for, and choose where to save it. WaveStack writes the format, frame size and frame count that target expects. See Exporting.

Undo

Almost everything can be undone with ⌘Z and redone with ⇧⌘Z (Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z on Windows). A whole drag, stroke or slider move counts as one step. Each table keeps its own history of up to 100 steps.

Where to go next