WaveStack Modulate makes movement for your synths: LFOs, random changes, shapes you draw and chaotic motion. It sends this out as MIDI CC. With an audio interface that can send DC, it also sends control voltages and gates to a modular. Sources can also change each other, so one LFO can speed up another.
Modulate runs as an app on iPad, Mac and Windows. It also runs as a plugin: AUv3 on the iPad, CLAP, VST3 and Audio Unit on the Mac, and CLAP and VST3 on Windows.
Your first patch
Modulate opens with the starter patch: two LFOs, sending CC 16 and CC 17 on MIDI channel 1.
- Open Modulate. It makes its own MIDI port, called “WaveStack Modulate”.
- In your synth app or DAW, choose “WaveStack Modulate” as a MIDI input.
- Map CC 16 and CC 17 to the controls you want to move, such as a filter cutoff. Many synths have a MIDI learn mode for this.
- Click a source on the left to change its shape and speed. The scope shows what it’s doing.
To control a hardware synth, choose your MIDI interface under Send to in the bottom bar.
To use Modulate inside a host, such as AUM on the iPad or Logic on the Mac, add the plugin instead. See The iPad and The desktop plugins.
The window
The left side lists your presets. Under the open preset are its sources. Click a source to edit it.
The scope at the top shows the selected source over the last few seconds, with a line for each of its four taps.
Below the scope are two tabs:
- Routing shows each source, its four taps, and the outputs each tap sends to. The outputs are listed along the bottom.
- Modulation shows which sources change other sources.
The right side edits whatever you selected: a source, or an output.
The top bar has Undo, Redo, New, Save, Help and Settings. The bar at the bottom has Restart, the tempo, the clock, the CV interface and the MIDI output.
Hover over a ? to see what a control does. On the iPad, tap it.