WaveStack plays your table with a small synth, so you can hear every edit as you make it. The synth reads the whole table: a grid or volume plays through every frame, not one row at a time. The settings live in the Sound tab on the right and are remembered between sessions. Reset puts them back to their defaults.
The synth is for listening while you build. What you export is the table itself; the sound settings don’t go into the file.
Playing notes
- Space starts and stops a held note (C at the current octave), from anywhere in the window.
- Computer keyboard: the bottom row plays a chromatic octave, Z for C, S for C♯, X for D, D for D♯ and so on up to , for the next C. − and = move the octave down and up. Chords work.
- MIDI: any connected keyboard or controller, with velocity. See MIDI input.
- On-screen keyboard: on a touch screen, the keyboard button in the audition bar opens a two-octave keyboard. Play chords with several fingers, or slide across the keys.
There are 8 voices. Velocity sets each note’s level, and pitch bend reaches ±2 semitones.
The audition bar
- Play and the octave buttons.
- Position: where in the table you’re listening. Grids have X and Y sliders, and volumes add Z.
- follow selection: keeps the position and the selected frame together. Selecting a frame moves the position to it, and moving the position selects the nearest frame.
- Scan: sweeps through the table and back. The slider beside it sets the speed, from about 8 minutes per sweep up to 4 Hz. Grids and volumes have a slider per axis; all the way left holds that axis still.
- with transport: starts and stops Scan together with Play.
In a grid, you can also drag across the grid view to move the position like an X/Y pad.
Envelopes
Env 1 shapes each note’s level and can also modulate other things. Env 2 is a free envelope for modulation. Drag the handles to set them: the peak sets attack, the next corner sets decay and sustain, the flat line sets sustain, and the end point sets release. Hold Shift for fine moves, or nudge a focused handle with the arrow keys.
| Attack | Decay | Sustain | Release | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Range | 1 ms–4 s | 5 ms–6 s | 0–100% | 5 ms–8 s |
| Env 1 default | 5 ms | 200 ms | 80% | 250 ms |
| Env 2 default | 300 ms | 800 ms | 30% | 600 ms |
Filter
A resonant filter on every voice: Off, Low, High or Band. The editor draws the filter’s curve over the selected frame’s harmonics, with a cycle of the wave before and after the filter underneath.
Drag the handle sideways for cutoff (20 Hz to 20 kHz) and up and down for resonance. Dragging while the filter is off turns it on as a low-pass. With the handle focused, the arrow keys move cutoff and resonance; hold Shift for finer steps. When something modulates the cutoff, a second curve shows where it is right now.
LFOs
Three LFOs sit above the route list. Click one to set it up:
- Shape: sine, triangle, saw, square or random (sample and hold).
- ± Bipolar swings both ways around the position. + Unipolar sweeps forward from the position and back, which is what you want when the position is at the start of the table.
- Free runs at a Rate from 0.01 to 20 Hz. Tempo sync runs at a note Length: 8 bars down to 1/32, including dotted and triplet values. Synced LFOs follow the Tempo field (20 to 999 BPM). In a DAW they follow the host’s tempo instead; see Plugin mode.
The defaults are LFO 1 sine at 0.5 Hz, LFO 2 triangle at 2 Hz and LFO 3 sine at 0.1 Hz, all bipolar and free.
Modulation
Position sliders
The Modulation section has an X slider (plus Y and Z for grids and volumes) for the playing position, the same as the audition bar. A band on each slider shows how far the modulation moves the sound from that position, and a marker shows where it is while a note plays.
If the swing runs past the end of the table, where it just holds still, the band changes color and WaveStack suggests moving the position in or switching the LFO to unipolar. While Scan is sweeping an axis, that slider has no effect until you stop Scan.
Routes
Each route sends a source to a target by an amount. Add route adds one, the dropdowns change it, and × removes it.
- Sources: LFO 1, LFO 2, LFO 3, Env 1, Env 2, Velocity, Mod wheel (CC 1), Pressure (channel or polyphonic aftertouch) and Key (how far the note is from middle C).
- Targets: X, Y, Z, Cutoff, Resonance, Pitch and Amp.
Drag across a route’s bar to set its amount, from −100% to +100%; hold Shift for fine moves and double-click to reset it to zero. A white mark shows the live amount as you play. X, Y and Z amounts are a share of the table, Cutoff reaches ±6 octaves and Pitch ±2 octaves.
Env 1 → Amp is there from the start and runs from 0 to 100%. At 0, notes simply switch on and off.
Some ideas:
- LFO 1 → X, unipolar, tempo synced: a rhythmic sweep through the table.
- Velocity → X: harder notes play further into the table.
- Key → Cutoff at 100%: the filter follows the pitch.
- Env 2 → Z: each note travels through a volume’s layers.
MIDI input
The MIDI input section at the bottom of the Sound tab chooses where notes come from: All devices, one device or Off. Press refresh after plugging something in. Notes arrive on any channel.
MIDI learn for position
To drive X, Y or Z from a knob, fader or the pitch bend wheel, click MIDI next to that slider under Modulation (it reads Move…) and move the control. The button then shows what’s mapped, such as CC 74. Mappings are listed under MIDI input, where × removes them.
A mapped control only drives the position: a mapped mod wheel stops acting as a mod wheel, and a mapped pitch bend stops bending pitch. Controls that send high-resolution (14-bit) values move the position smoothly.
Previews in dialogs
Build, Sample, Image and Morph each have a Preview button (or Space) that plays the result at C3 while scanning across it, without touching your table.