Robotic Audio

Synth · Coming soon

Tektonic

A gnarly wobble-bass synth where you draw the movement.

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Tektonic's window in its Magma look: the RA logo and the preset bar in the header, the instruments A to H, the four generators and the pitch drop, the drawn Volume envelope, then the Aggressor, the voice and the effects rack with its macros
  • Mono, or up to 16 voices
  • 4 generators, 12 types
  • Sampler with velocity layers and round robin
  • 7 sound chips
  • 5 drawn envelopes
  • Mod matrix, up to 32 rows
  • 14 filter types
  • 26 effects in 4 slots
  • 4 macros
  • XY performance pad
  • Step arpeggiator, 13 modes
  • Sequencer, 16 patterns of 7 drifting lanes
  • 8 instruments to switch between

What it does

Paint how each note’s volume, pitch and tone change over time, loop the part you like, and push it through a drive section, fourteen filters and a full effects rack. Twelve generator types, from wavetables and sound chips to plucked strings, vowels and grains, give it plenty to chew on. Tektonic is built for bass, one note at a time or in chords: wobbles, growls, dive-bombs and talking tones.

Draw the movement

Five drawn envelopes, Volume and Env 1–4. Draw freehand, lay down lines and curves or press RANDOM, then loop the part you like and lock it to the song's tempo.

Four generators, twelve types

Wavetable, Waveform, Phase Dist, Shaper, Harmonic, String, Formant, Supersaw, Granular, Sampler, Noise and Chip, each with the same knobs, its own unison and detune. Any generator can layer with another or bend it with FM, Ring or Sync.

Seven sound chips

Chip plays a channel of the C64's SID, the NES, the Game Boy, the AY, the POKEY, the Amiga's Paula or the Mega Drive's FM chip, with its tracker macros and its own editor, the same chips as Bitstorm, inside a bass synth.

Draw the sound too

Harmonic adds up 64 partials whose levels you draw, twice, and morphs between the two spectra. The Shaper runs a sine through a curve you draw.

Strings, voices and grains

String is a plucked string that can ring for ever, Formant sings the vowels A to U, Supersaw stacks seven detuned saws and Granular plays grains of a wavetable or of your own samples.

A sampler inside

The Sampler type plays your own samples mapped across the keys, with four velocity layers, round robin and choke groups. Drop files on the map, or, with your own ElevenLabs key, describe a sound and it makes the samples for you.

Clean where it counts

Any generator can take the DIRECT path past the drive and the filter, so a sub or a transient stays clean however nasty the rest gets.

Aggressor

Three drive stages in a row, each with any of eighteen algorithms. Drag the filter before or after them; filtering first and then distorting gives the classic growl.

Fourteen filters

Ladder, state-variable morph and notch, diode, MS-20, formant, comb and phaser types, all open to modulation.

Modulation matrix

Up to 32 rows route the envelopes, MIDI and the macros to almost anything, pitch included. Right-click a knob to modulate it straight away; knobs show what is moving them.

Mono or polyphonic

One voice with legato and portamento for basses and leads, or up to 16 for chords, each note with its own envelopes and modulation.

Effects rack

Four slots in series and twenty-six effects, from Overkill, OTT, distortion and a stacked drive to delays, reverbs, a gate, a vibrato, a frequency shifter, a tape stop, and the whole of Event Horizon, CyberPump, Crossfire and Scorch, each with its own editor and live display.

Step arpeggiator

Hold a chord and it plays as a pattern before the voices hear it, in thirteen modes over up to four octaves, with sixteen steps of velocity, gate, octave, pitch, ratchets and chance, ties and rests, locked to the song's grid.

Sequencer of drifting lanes

Fault Lines plays a bass line in time with the song in seven lanes (notes, the sound, four held parameters and mutes), each looping over its own length so they drift apart and come back round. Eight instruments, A to H, that the sound lane switches or morphs between, and sixteen patterns.

Macros and XY pad

Four macro knobs and an XY pad for playing a patch with one hand. Right-click any control to route a macro to it.

Your look

Its own look, Magma, dark basalt lit from its cracks, or seven others, Seismograph, Modern, Alien, Professional, Cyberpunk, Retro or Vintage, in any colour, with the background and the text a step brighter if you like.

Presets with everything in them

Over two hundred factory presets in folders, basses, wobbles, Reese and neuro, leads, pads, FX and textures, chip and trance, and your own saved with every setting and every drawing.

Listen

Audio demos

Audio demos are on their way.

Look

Screenshots

The whole instrument in one window
The whole instrument in one window
A generator playing a chip, the NES's pulse
A generator playing a chip, the NES's pulse
The Harmonic oscillator, its partials drawn by hand
The Harmonic oscillator, its partials drawn by hand
Reverb 2's full editor over the window, with its live display
Reverb 2's full editor over the window, with its live display
String
String
Formant
Formant
Granular
Granular
Sampler
Sampler
Overkill
Overkill
EQ
EQ
Compressor
Compressor
Delay
Delay
Reverb
Reverb

Details

Specs & requirements

Read the Tektonic manual

Type
Synthesizer, mono or up to 16 voices (instrument plugin)
Formats
AU, VST3 and Standalone
macOS
macOS 11 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel
Windows and Linux
VST3 and Standalone
Sound design with Claude
Optional, with your own Anthropic key: describe a sound and Claude sets Tektonic to make it, and with an ElevenLabs key makes a new sample for it (macOS and Windows)
Status
In development, version 0.1
Price
To be announced