Contour

Quick start

Five minutes from install to wobble.

The window

Six areas, top to bottom, roughly in the order the sound flows.

Header

The preset bar (previous, next, the list, SAVE), the power button (bypass) and the menu with this manual. Click the logo for version and credits.

Oscillator

Tabs Osc 1, Osc 2 and Sub: what makes the raw tone.

Pitch Drop

A fast pitch slide at the start of every note: the classic "dive-bomb" attack.

Modulation

The drawn envelopes Volume and Mod 1–4, and the Matrix that routes them (and MIDI and the macros) to almost anything.

Aggressor · Filter · Voice

Three drive stages, a 14-type filter, and the voice: level, transpose and portamento.

Effects

Four effect slots in series and, beside them, two tabs: the eight macro knobs or the XY pad.

Using the controls

A knob that something modulates shows a thin ring around it: the range the modulation can take it over, and a dot where it is right now.

Signal flow

What happens to a note, left to right.

The Aggressor's three stages run in order: Overdrive → Distortion → Fuzz, each only when its chip is lit. The filter sits after them, or before them: drag a card by its grip (the dots at its top right) past the other to swap them; the sound runs left to right, with an arrow between. Filtering first and then distorting gives the classic growl.

Oscillators

Osc 1 is the main voice. Osc 2 layers with it or modulates it. The sub holds the floor; noise and a sample add air and attack. The card's tabs switch between the five.

Osc 1

Choose the type in the first menu: Wavetable, Waveform, Phase Dist, Shaper, Harmonic, String, Formant, Supersaw or Granular. The Position knob is what each type moves (it takes the type's name for it: Amount, Drive, Morph, Decay, Vowel, Mix), so a matrix route to Osc 1 Position sweeps whichever is playing. Some types have a second control, the Shape knob (Tone, Size); it is greyed out for the others.

Phase Dist

A cosine whose phase runs unevenly through the cycle (as in Casio's CZ synths). Amount bends it into the chosen shape: Saw, Square, Pulse, or Res Saw / Triangle / Trapezoid, a sine up to 16× the pitch under a window: a resonant-filter sweep without a filter. Clean, vocal, perfect for "yoi" wobbles. The display shows the wave as it plays.

Shaper

A sine run through a curve you draw, with the same tools as the envelopes: left to right is the sine from −1 to +1, up and down what comes out. Drive sets how much of the curve the sine sweeps: low, just the middle (soft); high, all of it. Folds, steps and kinks all become harmonics; sweep Drive with Mod 1 and the curve is the wobble. It starts as a gentle wavefolder.

Harmonic

Additive: draw the levels of the first 64 partials, the fundamental at the left (the higher you draw, the louder; quiet partials have plenty of room). There are two spectra, A and B (the buttons in the drawing's corner); Morph blends from one to the other. It starts as a saw (A) and a hollow, odd-partials tone (B). Both oscillators play the same two spectra, each with its own Morph.

String

A plucked string: every note strikes it with a burst of noise that rings round a tuned delay. Decay is how long it rings, from a short thud to many seconds; at the top it never dies away, so the volume envelope alone shapes it. Tone is how bright it is. Through the drive it becomes a snarling, clanging bass.

Formant

A voice: a pulse that restarts three vowel formants on every cycle. Vowel morphs through A, E, I, O and U; Size makes the voice bigger and darker or smaller and brighter. Route an envelope to Osc 1 Position and it talks, with no filter needed.

Supersaw

Seven saws with the classic uneven detuning. Mix goes from one saw to the six round it at full strength; Detune opens them from a gentle chorus to the wall. Always seven copies (Unison is greyed out); Spread sets their width.

Granular

Short overlapping grains of the oscillator's wavetable, or of the sample on the Sample tab (the second menu). Position is where they are taken from, Spray (the Detune knob) how far from it each may land, Grains (Unison) how many play at once and Size how long each is, from 10 ms (buzzy) to a third of a second (smooth). A sample plays at its own pitch on C1 and follows the note from there.

The newer types show a preview: a moment of the oscillator as it is set now, redrawn as you turn its knobs.

Wavetable

Which table to play: built-ins (Classic, Pulse Width, Harmonic Build, Vowels, Hard Sync, Wavefold, Growl, Crush), the tables shipped with Contour, your saved ones (Yours) and Random. The 3D view shows its frames, the playing one lit.

Wave

In Waveform mode: Sine, Triangle, Saw, Square or Random, a random single-cycle wave.

Random

Rolls a new random table (3–5 random waves morphing into each other) or, in Waveform mode, a new random wave. Kept with the session and in presets.

Save (disk)

Saves the playing table as a WAV in your wavetable folder; it appears under Yours. Osc 2 has the same button: its table joins Osc 1's list.

Position

Where in the table to play, first frame to last. Sweep it with Mod 1 in the matrix for moving tones. 0–100 %

Unison

Copies of the oscillator playing together, detuned and spread. 1–7

Detune

How far apart the copies are tuned, up to half a semitone either way. 0–100 %

Spread

How wide the copies sit in the stereo field (also Osc 2's). 0–100 %

Level

Osc 1's level in the mix. 0–100 %

Shape

The second control of String (Tone), Formant (Size) and Granular (grain Size); a matrix destination too. 0–100 %

Osc 2

Switch it on with its power button. It has the same types as Osc 1 with its own table, wave, phase-distortion shape or shaper curve, its own Position and Shape, unison and detune (Harmonic plays the same two drawn spectra as Osc 1, with its own Morph), plus a pitch and a mode:

Octave · Semi · Fine

Osc 2's pitch against Osc 1. ±3 oct · ±12 st · ±100 ct

Amount

What the mode does: FM depth, ring blend or sync's pitch rise. Sweep it with the matrix. 0–100 %

Level

Osc 2 in the mix. In FM, Ring and Sync, turn it down to hear only its effect on Osc 1.

Sub

Wave

Sine (pure), Triangle (a little brighter) or Square (hollow, punchy).

Octave

One or two octaves under the note.

Direct

On (default): the sub skips the drive stages and the filter, so it stays clean however gnarly the rest gets.

Level

The sub's level. 0–100 %

Noise

Switch it on with its power button. It follows the volume envelope like the oscillators and, unless Direct is lit, runs through the drive and the filter with them: noise into the drive for grit, through the filter for sweeps.

Type

White (bright hiss), Pink (even, softer), Brown (a low rumble) or Digital: a random value held 16 times per cycle of the note, so the noise has a lo-fi pitch that follows what you play.

Colour

Below 0 a low-pass darkens it, above 0 a high-pass thins it; 0 leaves it as it is. ±100 %

Level

The noise's level. Route an envelope to Noise Level in the matrix for a burst on each note. 0–100 %

Direct

The noise skips the drive stages and the filter.

Sample

An audio file played on every note: a click or a kick for the attack, or a tone pitched across the keyboard. Load a file (WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG or MP3, up to half a minute) or drop one on the display; it is copied into your Samples folder next to Contour's presets, so sessions and presets find it again, and the menu lists everything in that folder. The display shows the whole sample and a line where it plays. If a preset's sample is missing on another computer, the menu says so and the rest of the preset still plays.

Mode

One-shot plays it once per note; Loop goes round for as long as the note sounds.

Track

Off (default): the sample plays at its own pitch whatever the note: for clicks, kicks and noises. On: it follows the note (glide and bends included), at its own pitch on C1.

Direct

On (default): the sample skips the drive stages and the filter, so a transient stays clean.

Level

The sample's level, a matrix destination. 0–100 %

Tune

Moves its pitch (and speed). ±24 st

Start

Where in the sample each note starts. 0–100 %

Pitch drop

Every note starts somewhere else and slides home.

Pitch

Where each note starts, in semitones from its own pitch: up for a drop, down for a rise, 0 for off. ±48 st

Time

How long the slide takes. 1 ms – 2 s

Legato

Lit: only a note after silence drops; notes played while another is held go straight (or slide with Portamento). Off: every note drops.

Curve

The slide's shape: above 0 it falls fast and settles (punchy), 0 is a straight line, below 0 it hangs on and then falls. ±100 %

Drawn envelopes

The heart of Contour: shapes you draw, played on every note.

The Modulation card has five envelopes, each a drawing you make with the mouse:

Mod 1–4 have a power button (off: not calculated, nothing into the matrix) and a Bipolar switch. Bipolar, the drawing goes up and down from a centre line and sends −100 to +100 % into the matrix: right for a pitch bend up and down (Mod 1 starts bipolar). Off, it runs from the bottom, 0 to 100 %.

How an envelope plays

When a note starts, the envelope fades in over Attack and plays the drawing from the left. While you hold the key, the part between the two loop handles (the dots under the drawing) repeats. When you let go it fades out over Release, still following the shape.

Loop

The button with the arrow picture. Click to step through, right-click to choose: Off (play once, hold the end), Forward, Backward, Palindrome (back and forth).

Trigger

Trig: restart on every note. Legato: only after silence, so overlapping notes keep it running. Tempo: never restarts; it follows the song like an LFO (the whole drawing is one cycle) and notes only fade it in and out.

Sync

Free: speed set by Rate. Note, Dotted, Triplet: Rate becomes a note value: the whole drawing lasts that long at the song's tempo (120 BPM without a host), and a beat grid appears.

Rate

In Free sync: how fast the shape plays. At 1x the whole drawing takes 2 seconds. 0.1–10x

Rate (synced)

When synced: how long the whole drawing lasts, as a note value. Clockwise is shorter, so faster. 8/1 – 1/64

Attack

How long a note takes to fade into the envelope. Right-click it to disable it: the envelope starts at full level at once (the knob dims and reads Attack Off). 1 ms – 5 s

Release

How long it fades out after the key is let go. Right-click it to disable it: the envelope then holds the value it had when you let go (the knob reads Release Off) until the next note. On the Volume envelope the note keeps sounding at that level. 5 ms – 5 s

Drift

A smooth random wobble on the output, so no two passes sound quite alike. It never touches the timing: synced envelopes stay in time. Right-click it to disable it (the knob keeps its setting and reads Drift Off). 0–100 %

Drawing & editing

Five tools, edit regions, undo, copy and paste between envelopes.

Tools

Draw

Freehand: drag across the shape.

Line

Drag a straight line (its ends snap to the grid when synced; hold Cmd for free). Then drag its end dots to move them, or the ring to curve it: up or down for how much, sideways for where the bend sits. Hold Cmd on the ring for an S-curve.

Warp

Grab the shape and drag. Sideways moves that moment earlier or later, stretching the rest; up and down bends the shape smoothly around it.

Lift

Drag up or down to raise or lower the edit region (or the whole shape).

Move

Drag sideways to slide the edit region along, in grid steps when synced. Without a region it shifts the whole shape round, like a phase shift.

Buttons

Random

A new random pattern on the beat grid (16 steps when not synced). Click again for another. The menu has more generators: Rhythm, Melody, Organic and Wobble.

Smooth

Softens corners and steps. Click again to smooth more.

Normalize

Stretches the shape to the full range.

Menu (≡)

Undo and redo, copy and paste, zoom, edits (Smooth, Normalize, Flip, Reverse), random generators, Waveforms (sine, triangle, saws, square, exponentials: 1–8 cycles or one per grid step), Windows (the smooth bumps of grain and analysis windows: Hann, Hamming, Blackman, Gauss, Tukey, Kaiser, Expodec and more, one to eight or one per grid step) and ready-made shapes by category, Percussion first: single drum hits (Punch, Snap, 808 Decay, Gated, Clap, Flam), rolls, Bouncing Ball, reverses and sweeps. Right-click the drawing for the same menu.

Edit regions

Shift-drag across the drawing to mark a region. Drawing, edits, Random and shapes then only change that part.

Cmd+C / Cmd+V copy and paste a region, or the whole shape, into any envelope. Shift-click or Esc clears the region.

Zoom

Cmd+scroll or pinch to zoom around the mouse, scroll to pan, Cmd+= / Cmd+- to zoom and Cmd+0 to see it all. The bar along the top shows (and drags) the view.

Modulation matrix

Eight slots: anything moves anything.

Open the Matrix tab in the Modulation card. Each slot is one row: Source × Amount (× Via) + Offset → Destination, optionally smoothed. Click a cell for its menu; drag the Amount, Offset or Smooth cells up and down (Cmd: fine), double-click to reset.

Source

Envelopes: Volume, Mod 1–4. MIDI: Velocity, Note (key tracking, centred on C4), Mod Wheel, Aftertouch, Pitch Bend, CC A, CC B and Random (a new value on every note). XY Pad: X and Y. Macros 1–8.

Via

A second source that scales the slot, e.g. the mod wheel bringing in an envelope. None: always on.

Destination

Osc 1 Position, Detune, Spread, Level, Shape; Osc 2 Position, Level, Pitch, Mod Amount, Shape; Sub Level; Noise Level, Colour; Sample Level; Pitch, Level, Pitch Drop, Portamento; Overdrive, Distortion, Fuzz; Filter Cutoff, Resonance, Morph, Drive; Macros 1–8.

Amount

How far, either way: 100 % moves the destination across its whole range. Pitch destinations show it in semitones (100 % = 24 st). ±100 %

Offset

A fixed shift added to the slot, in the same units as the amount (a pitch: semitones). It works with no source too, e.g. Osc 2 Pitch +7 st for a fifth. ±100 %

Smooth

Glides the slot's output over this time, softening steps and jumps: a stepped shape turns into slides, a MIDI CC stops zippering. − is none (and costs nothing). 0–2000 ms

CC A and CC B learn from your controller: click Learn under the matrix, then move a knob.

Aggressor

Three drive stages, from warm to wrecked.

Overdrive

Warm, slightly asymmetric saturation. up to 30 dB

Distortion

A harder clip, for bite. up to 36 dB

Fuzz

A biased hard clip, splatty and gated: the gnarliest of the three. up to 48 dB

Click a chip to switch its stage on; the knob below sets how hard. Stages can be combined: they run in the order shown.

Filter

Fourteen characters. The knobs' names follow the type.

Cutoff

The filter's frequency (comb: its pitch; formant: tone; phaser: centre). 20 Hz – 20 kHz

Resonance

A peak at the cutoff; high values sing and squelch (comb: feedback; formant: focus).

Morph

SVF: mode. Formant: vowel. Comb: damping. Phaser: spread.

Drive

Pushes the signal into the filter: grit and a fatter resonance.

Key

How much the cutoff follows the note, from C4. At 100 % it moves an octave per octave, so the tone stays the same up the keyboard.

Order

The Aggressor and Filter cards run left to right. Drag one by its grip (the dots at the top right) past the other to swap them: filter first, then distort, for the classic growl; or drive first for a smoother sound.

Voice

How notes connect, and how loud.

Level

The output level. −48 – 0 dB

Transpose

Moves every note up or down in semitones. Everything follows it: the pitch drop, portamento, pitch modulation and the filter's key tracking. Changing it while a note plays slides there at the Portamento speed. ±24 st

Bend

How far the pitch wheel bends the note, up and down. Set it to 0 to use the wheel only through the matrix. 0–24 st

Portamento

How long the pitch slides from one note to the next, whether the notes overlap or not (only the very first note starts right on its pitch). 0: no slide. 0 – 2 s

XY pad

Beside the effect slots, switch the Macros tab to XY Pad.

XY Pad

Drag the dot to play two modulation sources at once, XY X (left to right) and XY Y (bottom to top), both −100 to +100 % with 0 in the middle. Route them in the Matrix; the pad's corners show where they go. Behind the dot runs a picture of the output's last two seconds, so you see what your moves do. Double-click to centre it. Both are automatable.

Spring

Lit (default): the dot glides back to the centre when you let go, like a joystick. Off: it stays where you leave it.

Contour is monophonic: one note at a time, the last one wins, and each new note restarts the envelopes (unless their trigger is Legato or Tempo).

Effects

Four slots in series, fourteen effects, each with its own editor.

Each slot has a menu (which effect), a power button, a Mix or Send knob and its two most useful controls. The slots run left to right; drag a slot by its number and dots to move it, and all its settings come along.

Mix

Crossfades the dry sound and the effect.

Send

On Reverb, Reverb 2 and Delay: the dry sound always passes at full level and Send adds the effect on top, nice to automate.

Edit (sliders icon)

Opens the effect's own editor over the envelopes, with a live display and every control. Click again (or CLOSE) to close it.

In the editors

The display shows what the effect does, live. Most have handles: drag them to change the effect directly, double-click one to reset it, and use the scroll wheel on it for a second setting (EQ's Q, the compressor's ratio, the filter's morph…).

OTT

Three-band upward and downward compression

Splits the sound into low, mid and high bands and pushes each one down above a threshold and up below another: everything gets louder, denser and brighter. Depth sets how hard, Time how fast, Upward/Downward each direction; the bands' levels and split points are on the display.

Distortion

Six flavours of drive

Tube (warm), Fold (wavefolder), Rectify (an octave up), Crush (fewer bits), Downsample and Hard Clip. The display runs a sine through it so you see exactly what it does. Tone tames the fizz, Bias adds uneven, buzzy harmonics.

EQ

Shelves, a bell and two cuts

Low and high shelves, a bell with adjustable Q, a low cut and a high cut. Drag the numbered nodes; the wheel on the M node sets its width.

Compressor

A clean, fast peak compressor

The curve shows input against output level, with a dot where the signal is right now, a gain-reduction meter and a scrolling history. Drag the knee for the threshold, use the wheel on it for the ratio.

Delay

Tempo-synced echoes with tape wobble

Each repeat is a bar: left above the line, right below, fading with the feedback and darkening with the damping. Drag the first repeat: sideways for the time (it snaps to note values when synced), up and down for the feedback. Spread delays one side for width, Wobble adds tape drift.

Reverb

A classic comb-and-all-pass room

The display shows the tail over time and how long each frequency rings. Size sets the feedback (a longer tail), Damping darkens it as it decays, Low Cut keeps the bass out, High Cut darkens the output.

Reverb 2

A dense, modulated feedback delay network

Decay in seconds, size, pre-delay, diffusion and early reflections, the lows and highs decaying at their own rates (Bass Mult, High Mult and their crossovers), gentle modulation against metallic ringing, width and output cuts. Drag the tail's end for the decay and the top handle for the pre-delay.

Chorus · Flanger · Phaser

Movement

Chorus: drifting copies for width and lushness. Flanger: a swept comb filter, metallic (+ feedback) or hollow (−). Phaser: sweeping notches from 2–12 all-pass stages. Their displays move with the effect's own LFO.

Width · Pitch · Filter · Gate

Utilities with attitude

Width: from mono to extra wide, the low end kept mono below a frequency, plus a Haas delay. Pitch: granular shifting two octaves either way, with fine tune and stereo spread. Filter: any of the fourteen filter types as an effect. Gate: a tempo-synced trance gate following the song.

Macros

Eight knobs that can move many things at once.

Right-click any control in an effect and choose a macro to map it. Mapped, the control shows its range as a ring (or a line): drag it to set where the range starts and Shift-drag to set where it ends. One macro can drive any number of controls, each over its own range.

Macros are automatable in your DAW, can be routed to and from the matrix, and can be renamed: right-click a macro knob.

Presets

Everything is saved: knobs, drawings, random tables, effects and macros.

Use the arrows to step through presets or click the name for the list. SAVE stores your sound as a user preset; the menu also has Save As, Delete and Open Folder. A * after the name means you've changed something since loading it.

User presets are XML files in ~/Library/Audio/Presets/Robotic Audio/Contour (macOS) or Documents/Presets/Robotic Audio/Contour (Windows): easy to back up and share. Saved wavetables are in a Wavetables folder beside them.

Shortcuts

On Windows and Linux, read Ctrl for Cmd.

Sound recipes

Starting points; then draw your own.