Tektonic

Quick start

Five minutes from install to wobble.

The window

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

Header

On the left, the Robotic Audio RA mark in Tektonic's lava, beside ROBOTIC AUDIO over TEKTONIC; click the name for the version and credits. It takes the colours of whichever look you choose. On the right, the preset bar (previous, next, the list, SAVE), the power button (bypass) and the menu with this manual. With an AI key, a >_ beside the preset bar opens the designer. Until Tektonic is licensed, a DEMO or TRIAL chip beside the menu opens the licence.

Look

Menu (three lines) > Look dresses the window: Theme picks Magma (the default: dark basalt lit from its cracks, stone knobs in molten arcs), Seismograph (chart paper in an instrument's case, black lab dials and a red recording pen), Modern, Alien, Professional, Cyberpunk, Retro or Vintage, each with its own knobs; Colour keeps the theme's own colour or picks any other; Background and Foreground lighten the surfaces or the text, labels and lit parts in three steps, for anyone who finds the window too dark. The look is kept with the session, never with presets.

Generators

Tabs Gen 1 to Gen 4: 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 Env 1–4, and the Matrix that routes them (and MIDI and the macros) to almost anything.

Aggressor · Filter · Voice

Three drive stages (18 algorithms), two 14-type filters per voice, and the voice: how many notes play at once, portamento, transpose, bend and level.

Effects

Four effect slots in series and, beside them, two tabs: the four 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.

Each note is a voice with its own generators, envelopes and modulation, and its own Volume envelope sets its level; each also has its own Aggressor and filters, which follow that note's modulation; the voices then share one effects rack, which follows the newest note's. The Aggressor card holds the drive (three stages run in order, left to right, each only when its power button is lit and each with its own algorithm: Overdrive, Distortion and Fuzz to begin with) and the two filters, behind its tabs DRIVE, FILTER 1 and FILTER 2. The tabs stand in the order the sound runs through them, an arrow between: drag a tab past another to change it, to any of the six orders. Filtering first and then distorting gives the classic growl; Filter, Drive, Filter puts a clean filter into the distortion and a second one after it to tame what it adds.

Generators

Four generators, each any of twelve types. Generator 1 plays the note; 2, 3 and 4 layer with it or modulate any generator.

The card's tabs Gen 1 to Gen 4 switch between them. Every generator has the same set of types, its own table, wave or drawing, its own Position, Shape, unison and detune, a Level and a DIRECT switch. Generator 1 is always on and sets the note's pitch; Generators 2–4 have a power button, their own tuning against it, and a mode.

Types

Choose the type in the first menu: Wavetable, Waveform, Phase Dist, Shaper, Harmonic, String, Formant, Supersaw, Granular, Sampler, Noise, Chip or Virtual Analog. The Position knob is what each type moves (it takes the type's name for it: Amount, Drive, Morph, Decay, Vowel, Mix, Colour, Wave), so a matrix route to a generator's Position sweeps whichever type is playing. Some types have a second control, the Shape knob (Tone, Size, Release, Drift); it is greyed out for the others, as are the knobs a type doesn't use.

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 Env 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). Every generator set to Harmonic plays 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 Gen 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.

Virtual Analog

An analog synth's oscillator, clean all the way up the keyboard. Wave morphs from a triangle (0 %) through a saw (33 %) and a square (67 %) to a pulse narrowing to 4 % (100 %), staying level as it goes: route an LFO or envelope to Gen Position over the last third for pulse-width modulation. Drift ages it: at 0 it's exact and every note starts the same; turned up, each unison copy wanders a little in pitch and pulse width, has its own slight tuning, and the phase runs freely, like an old polysynth (20–40 % is vintage, more is a tired one). Its hard sync is band-limited: aim another generator at it in Sync mode for a screaming sync lead or bass without the fizz.

Granular

Short overlapping grains of the generator's Wavetable, or of its Sample Map (the second menu): each note reads the take the Sampler would play for its key and velocity, between that take's start and end, at its own pitch on its root. Position is where the grains 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). The map is the same one the Sampler type plays: switch between the two and it stays.

Noise

Noise that follows the volume envelope like the rest. The menu picks 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 (Position): under 50 % a low-pass darkens it, over 50 % a high-pass thins it, 50 % leaves it as it is. Through the drive for grit, through the filter for sweeps, or DIRECT for a clean breath on top.

Chip

A channel of a classic sound chip, computed as the hardware did it (the same models Bitstorm plays). The second menu picks the chip: the C64's SID, the NES, the Game Boy, the AY (Spectrum, Atari ST), Atari's POKEY, the Amiga's Paula or the Mega Drive's YM2612 FM. Position is the chip's main control: the SID's pulse Width, the NES and Game Boy pulses' Duty, the YM2612's Brightness (its modulators' levels); sweep it from the matrix. EDIT opens the chip's own editor over the window: its channel, waveform, hardware envelopes and sweeps, the machine every Chip generator plays in (PAL or NTSC clock, 50 or 60 frames a second, Chip Limits for the chips' real steps, the AY's and Amiga's models, the FM LFO), and its tracker macros: Volume, Arp, Pitch and Duty/Wave, a step per frame (a looped 0 4 7 on Arp is the chip-tune chord; a noise frame then a falling pitch is a chip drum), with the Game Boy's wave table and the YM2612's four operators on tabs of their own. The chips' envelopes play inside Tektonic's Volume envelope, and Unison, Detune, FM (it bends the chip's pitch) and Ring work as with the other types; Sync restarts the SID's oscillator.

The newer types show a preview: a moment of the generator 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 Tektonic, 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. For the classic sub, a Sine with Octave −1 (and DIRECT to keep it clean under a driven bass).

Random

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

Save (disk)

Saves the playing table as a WAV in your wavetable folder; it appears under Yours in every generator's list.

Position

Where in the table to play, first frame to last, or what the type moves. Sweep it with Env 1 in the matrix for moving tones. 0–100 %

Unison

Copies of the generator 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

On Gen 1: how wide every generator's copies sit in the stereo field. 0–100 %

Level

The generator's level in the mix. 0–100 %

Shape

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

DIRECT

Lit: the generator skips the drive stages and the filter, so it stays clean however gnarly the rest gets (a sub under a driven bass, a click on a filtered pluck). Off, it goes through them with the others.

Sampler

The generator plays its sample map: a sample per key, or one stretched over many, on four velocity layers, with round robin and choke groups. The card shows the map, keys across and layers up (the hardest on top). LOAD brings in audio files or a folder (WAV, AIFF, FLAC, OGG or MP3), or drop files on a key: one file becomes a take on that key, more on the same key take turns; files named by note (C3, F#4) and velocity (v1–v4, pp–ff) place themselves, files without notes go one per key, like a kit. Files are copied into your Samples folder next to Tektonic's presets, so sessions and presets find them again.

Each note starts the take its key and velocity pick, and it rings on under the next notes until its own key or its choke group cuts it. The voice's pitch (portamento, the pitch wheel, the matrix, FM from another generator) bends every take that sounds. Position, Unison and Detune are greyed out; Release (the Shape knob) is how long Gate takes and loops fade out after they are let go, 5 ms to 2 s.

EDIT MAP (or a double-click on the map) opens the whole map over the window, large. Click a key for its takes; the take's waveform shows its START and END markers and its loop to drag. ADD TAKE, REMOVE and CLEAR edit the map, Cmd+Z undoes, CLOSE goes back.

Root · Low · High

The note the take sounds at its own pitch, and the keys it covers.

Choke

Off, or a group 1–8: a note in the group cuts whatever the group still plays (an open hi-hat cut by the closed one).

Mode

One Shot plays to the end whatever the key does; Gate fades out (over Release) when the key is let go.

Tune · Gain · Pan

The take's own pitch, level and place.

Loop

Off, forward or back and forth between the loop markers, for as long as the note sounds.

Track

On: the take follows the keys from its root. Off: it plays at its own pitch on every key it covers: for kicks, clicks and noises.

Vel 2 · 3 · 4

Where each velocity layer starts. A layer without takes borrows the nearest one.

Cycle · Random

How the takes on one key and layer take turns: in order, or at random (never the same one twice running).

Samples from words

With an ElevenLabs key (Menu > AI...), the map's >_ opens a terminal: describe the sound and press Return. Its Layout menu picks what you get:

One sample, all keys

The default: one sample from your words as they are, played on every key from where its pitch measures.

Auto layout · Separate files · One file, cut up

With an Anthropic key too, Claude plans a whole map: a kit, an instrument across the keys, velocity layers, round robins and choke groups. Separate files makes each take on its own (best for instruments and long sounds); One file, cut up asks for every sound in one generation and cuts it apart (one go, sounds that belong together, such as a kit); Auto lets Claude choose. Takes join the map as they arrive.

Length · Takes

How long each sound is asked to be, and how many versions: for a map, the most round-robin takes per key.

Generators 2, 3 and 4

Switch one on with its power button. Beside it are its mode and its target, the generator the mode acts on (Into Gen 1 to Into Gen 4; Generator 1 to begin with):

Generators can modulate generators that modulate others: Gen 4 into Gen 3 into Gen 2 into Gen 1 makes an FM stack, and several can aim at the same one. Two that modulate each other (Gen 2 into Gen 3 and Gen 3 into Gen 2) work too: one hears the other a sample late. A generator aimed at itself, or at one that is off, just plays, as in Layer.

Octave · Semi · Fine

The generator's pitch against Generator 1. ±3 oct · ±12 st · ±100 ct

Amount

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

Level

The generator in the mix. In FM, Ring and Sync, turn it down to hear only what it does to its target.

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 Tektonic: shapes you draw, played on every note.

The Modulation card's tabs are VOL, ENV 1–4, the patterns PAT 1 and PAT 2, LFO, ADSR, ARP, SEQ (the sequencer) and MATRIX. Five of them are envelopes, each a drawing you make with the mouse:

Env 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 (Env 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

Click to put down points joined by straight lines, one click per point, like a pen; double-click, Esc or Return to finish (or right-click, or pick another tool). Cmd+Z takes the whole run of lines back at once. Or drag one straight line (points and ends snap to the grid; 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

As in the sequencer (and Ableton Live): drag down in the ruler along the top of the drawing (bars and beats numbered) to zoom in, up to zoom out, round where you grabbed it, and sideways to move along; double-click it to see it all. Cmd+scroll or pinch zooms around the mouse, scroll pans, Cmd+= / Cmd+- zoom and Cmd+0 shows it all.

Grid

The GRID button works as the sequencer's: Adaptive (the default: the note value follows the zoom, so zooming in gives a finer grid; Widest to Narrowest, and the button shows the value in use, ADAPT 1/16), Triplet Grid, Fixed (one note value) or Off; Cmd 1 narrower, Cmd 2 wider, Cmd 3 triplets, Cmd 4 off, Cmd 5 fixed or adaptive. Line points, the edit region, the loop handles and Move snap to it (hold Cmd for free). Synced, the grid falls on the drawing's note values; free, the drawing counts as one bar. The five envelopes share one grid, kept with your session.

Modulation matrix

Up to 32 rows: 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.

The matrix shows the rows in use and one empty row after them. + ADD ROW adds more, up to 32, and a scroll bar appears when they don't fit. Right-click a row to insert a row above it, remove it (the rows below move up) or clear it.

Quicker still: right-click a knob the matrix can move (a generator's Position, Level, Shape or Amount, the drives, the filter...) and pick a source. It takes a free row at 25 %; the menu ticks the sources already routed there and has Remove All and Edit in the Matrix....

Source

Envelopes: Volume, Env 1–4, ADSR. LFOs: LFO 1 and 2. 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

Generator 1: Position, Detune, Spread, Level, Shape. Generators 2–4: Position, Level, Pitch, Mod Amount, Shape. Voice: Pitch, Level, Pitch Drop, Portamento. Aggressor: Drive 1, Drive 2, Drive 3. Filter: Cutoff, Resonance, Morph, Drive. Filter 2: Cutoff, Resonance, Morph, Drive, Balance. LFOs: LFO 1 Rate, LFO 2 Rate. Macros 1–4.

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. Gen 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

Every voice's drive and its two filters, in the order you choose.

The card's tabs show the drive (DRIVE) or a filter (FILTER 1, FILTER 2, below). They stand in the order the sound runs through them, with an arrow between: drag a tab sideways past another to change the order, to any of the six. Every voice has its own drive and filters, so in a chord each note is distorted and filtered by itself, without the other notes muddying it.

The drive has three stages, from warm to wrecked, each running any of eighteen algorithms. Each stage has a menu with its algorithm, a power button and a knob for how hard it's driven. They start as Overdrive, Distortion and Fuzz and run left to right, so stages can be stacked: Tube into Wavefolder into Bitcrush, say. Changing a stage's algorithm while it plays fades the old one out and the new one in.

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 clippers. up to 48 dB

Soft Clip

A smooth, symmetric clip with a rounder knee than Overdrive. up to 30 dB

Hard Clip

Flat-topped clipping: square and buzzy when pushed. up to 30 dB

Tube

Lopsided like a pushed valve: one half rounds off later than the other, adding even harmonics. up to 30 dB

Tape

Gentle: squeezes the peaks before it clips. up to 24 dB

Diode

One half clips early and softly, the other late and hard. up to 30 dB

Half Wave

A half-wave rectifier: the bottom half cut away. Hollow and reedy. up to 24 dB

Rectify

A full-wave rectifier: the bottom half folded up, so the note jumps an octave. up to 24 dB

Sine Fold

A sine waveshaper: the wave folds over and over as it's pushed, glassy and bright. up to 24 dB

Wavefolder

Triangle folding, the West Coast way: sweep the knob for moving harmonics. up to 24 dB

Wrap

Past the edge, the wave wraps round to the other side: digital and nasty. up to 18 dB

Bitcrush

Fewer and fewer levels. 12 bits down to 3

Downsample

Sample and hold: the sample rate drops, folding metallic tones back down. down to 1/64 of the rate

Harmonics

A soft clip that turns into the third harmonic (a Chebyshev shaper): an octave and a fifth up. up to 12 dB

Crossover

A dead band round zero, like a starved amplifier: quiet parts sputter and gate. up to 12 dB

Slew

The wave can only move so fast: sharp edges turn into ramps, high notes dull and thin out.

For Bitcrush the knob sets how few levels remain, for Downsample how low the rate falls, for Crossover how wide the dead band is and for Slew how slowly the edges may move. The drive runs at four times the sample rate, so clipping and folding don't alias.

Filter

Two filters in every voice, each with fourteen characters. The knobs' names follow the type.

Every note has its own filters, moved by its own envelopes and modulation, so in a chord each note plucks and sweeps by itself. The Aggressor card's FILTER 1 and FILTER 2 tabs show them. Filter 2 is off until you light its power switch.

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. SID: its mode.

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.

Filter 2

A second filter with the same types and knobs, switched on by its power button. Serial runs it after Filter 1 (a low-pass then a high-pass makes a band-pass you can shape); Parallel runs both on the same sound, side by side. Parallel needs the two filters next to each other: with the drive between them they run one after the other, and the menu greys out.

Balance

Parallel only: Filter 1 alone at 0 %, half of each at 50 %, Filter 2 alone at 100 %. Route an envelope to it to sweep from one filter's character to the other's.

Order

The Aggressor card's tabs run left to right. Drag one past another to change the order: filter first, then distort, for the classic growl; drive first for a smoother sound; or a filter on each side of the drive.

LFOs & ADSR

Ready-made modulation beside the drawn envelopes: no drawing needed.

The Modulation card's LFO tab shows LFO 1 and LFO 2 side by side, each drawn as two cycles of its shape with a dot where it is while it plays; its ADSR tab shows the envelope you can drag. Like the drawn envelopes they do nothing until something is routed from them: in the matrix, or by right-clicking a knob and picking LFO 1, LFO 2 or ADSR.

Rate

How fast an LFO cycles, with Sync on Free. The matrix can move it (LFO 1 Rate, LFO 2 Rate). 0.01–20 Hz

Shape

Sine, Triangle, Saw Up, Saw Down, Square, Random (a new step every cycle) or Drift (a smooth random wander).

Sync

Free (the Rate knob), or a note value at the song's tempo.

Trigger

Trig: every note starts the LFO afresh, each note its own (vibrato that begins the same way on every note). Free: one LFO for every note, running on; synced, it follows the song.

ADSR

A classic envelope per note: Attack (0.5 ms–10 s), Decay to the Sustain level while the key is held, Release after it's let go. Route it to Filter Cutoff for plucks and swells.

Curves

Each moving segment bends: A Curve, D Curve, R Curve. 0 is a straight line; up, the segment moves fast at first and settles (as an analogue envelope charges and discharges: the decay and release start there); down, it starts slowly and rushes at the end. ±100 %

Dragging

On the ADSR's picture, drag the peak sideways for the attack, the corner for the decay (sideways) and the sustain (up and down), the end for the release, and the small dot in a segment's middle up or down to bend it. Shift drags finer; double-click a handle to reset it.

Voice

How notes connect, and how loud.

Voices

Mono (1, the default): one note at a time, the last one played, with legato and portamento between notes. More: chords, each note its own voice with its own envelopes and modulation; the newest note steers the drive, filter and macros, and when every voice is busy the oldest gives way. Mono – 16

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.

In Mono, the last note wins and each new note restarts the envelopes (unless their trigger is Legato or Tempo). With more voices each note starts its own envelopes.

Arpeggiator

Hold a chord, hear a pattern.

Switch it on with ARP on the Voice card, or the power button on the Modulation card's Arp tab. The keys you hold then play one after another as a pattern instead of as a chord, before anything else in Tektonic hears them, so every note still gets its own envelopes, glide and modulation. While the host plays, the steps lock to the song's grid (a key played a moment late still lands on the step it was meant for); stopped, the pattern starts the moment you play.

Mode

The order the notes play in. Up, Down; Up-Down and Down-Up turn round without repeating the top and bottom notes, Up & Down repeats them; Converge goes from the outside in, Diverge from the middle out; Pinky climbs with the highest note between every other, Thumb with the lowest; As Played keeps the order your keys went down; Random never plays the same note twice running; Walk moves a step up or down at random; Chord plays every key at once on every step.

Rate · Feel

How long each step is, as a note value at the song's tempo (120 BPM without a host), Even, Dotted or Triplet. 1/64 – 1/1

Octaves

The pattern runs through the notes, then again an octave up, and so on, before it starts over. 1 – 4

Gate

How long each note lasts, as a share of its step (times the step's own Gate). Over 100 % the notes overlap: legato, and in Mono the voice slides from note to note at the Portamento speed. 5 – 200 %

Swing

Every second step comes late, up to a hard 3:1 shuffle; about 33 % is a triplet swing. 0 – 100 %

Steps

How many of the sixteen steps play before the pattern repeats; or drag the bar after the last step. An odd number of steps against three or four notes makes a pattern that shifts against itself. 1 – 16

Key Vel

How much your playing counts. 100 %: as hard as you play, shaped by the steps' Velocity; 0 %: the steps' Velocity alone. 0 – 100 %

Humanize

Each step a little late (up to 12 ms) and a little softer or louder, at random. 0 – 100 %

Latch

The pattern keeps playing after you let go, until you play a new chord; keys added while others are held join it.

Restart

Where the steps count from. Song: the song's bars, so step 1 always falls on the bar while the host plays. New Chord (default): a chord played after every key was let go starts the steps and the notes from the beginning. Every Key: every key does.

The steps

Each step has a value in six lanes; the list on the left picks the lane shown (a dot marks the lanes you've changed). Drag across the lane to draw it, double-click a step for its default.

VEL

How hard the step plays: accents and ghost notes.

GATE

How much of the step its note lasts (times the Gate knob): short for plucks and stabs.

OCT · PITCH

Move the step's note up or down by octaves (±2) or semitones (±12; the faint lines mark fifths and octaves).

RATCH

The step plays 1 to 4 times, evenly across it: rolls and stutters.

CHANCE

The probability the step plays at all. Under 100 % it skips now and then, so no two bars are alike.

Above the lane, click a step's number to make it rest (or play again), or drag along the numbers to do several; while the pattern plays each step shows the note it played. Under the lane, click below a step to tie it into the next: the next note starts before this one ends, so a mono voice slides into it, and a tie onto the same note simply holds it. PATTERNS loads a ready-made set of steps (Accents, Gallop, Trance Gate, Acid Slides, Ratchet Roll, Euclid 5 and more), RANDOM rolls new ones, and … or a right-click resets, shifts, reverses or rolls a single lane or the whole pattern. Cmd Z undoes. The steps are saved with presets and sessions.

Sequencer

Fault Lines: a bass line made of lanes that drift against each other.

The Modulation card's Seq tab is a mono sequencer that plays Tektonic in place of your keys. Each pattern is seven lanes you write like a note editor: notes and spans anywhere, as long as you paint them. Every lane loops over its own length: a one-bar bass line against a filter lane of five 8ths and a sound lane of seven 16ths only lines up again after many bars, so a short pattern keeps changing. Each lane's loop is shown again, dimmed, after its end. When every lane is back at its start together, a line of lava runs down the editor. EXPAND opens it over the whole upper window, the place to edit.

Mode

Off: your keys play Tektonic as usual. Host: the pattern plays while the song does, on the song's bars (in the standalone, while PLAY is on); a held key transposes it from C3. Key: a held key starts the pattern from its first step, transposed from C3; Latch keeps it going after you let go, until a new key starts it again.

Patterns 1 – 16

Click one to play it (it switches at the next bar while playing); a dot marks the ones with something in them. The lowest sixteen MIDI notes (0 – 15) pick patterns too, so a clip in your DAW can switch them. Right-click a pattern to copy, paste, copy it into another or clear it, or for Generate with AI (with your Anthropic key): Describe It... opens Claude's designer for that pattern alone, A Variation of This Pattern rewrites it, A Variation into Pattern N writes its next section into the next empty pattern, and the styles (Neuro, Dubstep, Growl, Wobble, Rolling Drum and Bass, Half-Time Riddim, Acid Line, Techno Rumble, Garage Bounce, Sparse Sub, Build-Up, Fill, Breakdown) write one at once. Only that pattern changes.

Swing

Drag up and down: notes on every second 16th come late, up to half a 16th. Double-click resets. 0 – 100 %

LOOP

The pattern's own loop, the anchor for the polyrhythm: every lane starts again with it, so lanes of their own lengths drift against each other inside it but always meet at its start (a lane longer than the loop is cut at its end). Pick Off, 1 to 16 bars, as long as the longest lane or as long as the region, or drag its flag in the ruler for any length (on the grid; Cmd: anywhere). Off, each lane just goes round on its own length and the pattern changes over many bars.

GRID

What painting, moving and lengths snap to, as in Ableton Live. Adaptive (the default): the grid follows the zoom, so zooming in gives finer values; its width, from Widest to Narrowest, sets how close its lines may come, and the button shows the value in use (ADAPT 1/16). Triplet Grid makes it triplets. Fixed: one note value, 1/4 to 1/64 and their triplets. Off: no snapping. Shortcuts: Cmd 1 narrower, Cmd 2 wider, Cmd 3 triplets, Cmd 4 off, Cmd 5 fixed or adaptive. Hold Cmd while you drag to place anything anywhere, whatever the grid.

>_

Claude for the sequence alone (with your Anthropic key): describe a line, a groove or a change ("a rolling halftime line with slides", "busier in the second bar") and Claude writes the patterns; the sound, the instruments and everything else stay as they are.

MUTATE

Changes a few notes and spans at random: a note a step or an octave away, an accent, a slide, a roll, a lock's value, a mute. Press again for more; Cmd Z takes it back.

The lanes

In every lane: click and drag where there's nothing to paint a new element as long as you drag (a click alone paints one as long as the last); drag an element to move it (Alt-drag to copy it, as in Ableton: the copy stays, the one you drag moves); Legato (Cmd L, or the note's, region's and NOTE lane's menus) stretches each note to the next one's start (the last to the lane's end) and sets it to play Legato: the region's notes, else the selected note, else every note; its right edge to change its length; double-click it or press Delete to remove it; right-click it for its menu (and Duplicate After It, Delete). An element painted or moved over others cuts them short. The arrow keys move the selected one along the grid (up and down: its note or value). Drag down in the bars ruler along the top to zoom in, up to zoom out, round where you grabbed it, and sideways to move along (as in Ableton Live); double-click it to see every lane whole again. The NOTE lane's keys work the same way for the notes: drag right for taller notes, left for shorter, up and down to scroll through them; double-click them to fit the notes again. Cmd-scroll zooms and Shift-scroll moves along too, and Cmd Z undoes. Shift-drag marks a region, over one lane or several: as in the envelope editor, the pill on each edge stretches or squeezes what's in it (notes, spans and their lengths), and the round button repeats it into the space you pull it over. Cmd C, X, V and D copy, cut, paste and duplicate it (paste goes into the region, or where you last clicked; right-click an empty spot for Paste Here; switch patterns in between to copy from one to another), Delete empties it and Esc lets it go. Right-click a region for the same. Each lane's name and length are on its left: click them for its Length, Double It, Generate, Zoom to Fit and Clear; drag the lit bar at a lane's end to change its length (any length, on the grid). The element playing is outlined. The square in front of a lane's name bypasses it (lit: it plays; dark: bypassed): a bypassed lane plays nothing (its lock lets go, its mutes lift, the sound goes back to the instrument you're editing), with the NOTE lane bypassed your keys play Tektonic instead (over the other lanes still running), and Generate, MUTATE and Claude leave it exactly as it is, so a lane you've made by hand stays yours. Each pattern keeps its own.

NOTE

The bass line, a piano roll: paint a note at its pitch, drag it up and down for another (the wheel scrolls the notes). A note lasts as long as it's drawn. Shift-click accents it, Alt-click makes it slide in from the note before (legato, gliding even with Glide at zero, when the note before reaches it). Right-click for a ratchet (2 to 4 hits across the note), its chance and its Trigger: Trig (a new attack: each envelope restarts as its own Trigger says), Legato (as a key played legato: the ADSR, LFOs and Legato envelopes run on; a slide is Legato unless you set Trig, which strikes it again as it glides), or Pitch Only (only the sounding note's pitch moves, nothing new starts: a melody riding one held note; with nothing sounding it plays nothing). A note that isn't Trig shows it: a bridge from the left for Legato, hollow for Pitch Only, a white bar for a slide that strikes.

SOUND

Spans of an instrument (A – H, below): it plays for as long as the span lasts, and between spans the sound is the instrument you're editing. Drag a span up and down for another instrument; right-click for a glide: over part of the span the sound morphs into the instrument, its knobs moving smoothly and its choices (a wavetable, a filter type) changing halfway, and back out the same way. Its Trigger: Legato (switches under the note, as always), Trig (switches and strikes the sounding note again, so the change is heard as a hit; a white bar at its start; with a note's own attack at the same moment, it strikes once), or On Next Note (waits and switches at the next note's attack, never under a note; a dashed start). Every switch morphs for at least 10 ms and the generators dip out for a moment while the choices change, so switching never clicks. Click the lane's name for Interpolate Between Instruments (the name then reads MORPH): each instrument morphs into the next one all the way to it, gaps included, so A then B then C is one continuous movement.

LOCK 1 – 4

Each holds one destination of your choosing (click its name: anything the matrix can reach, an effect's controls included) at a value for as long as a span lasts. Paint a span at the height of its value, drag it up and down for another (or use the wheel); right-click for a glide into it. Where there's no span the knob has its own way again: at once, or, if the lock glided in, gliding back over the same time. The matrix still moves a locked control from there, so an LFO on the cutoff keeps wobbling round the locked value.

MUTE

Spans silencing generators: each has four squares, Generators 1 to 4 from the top. Paint a span at a generator's height to mute it for as long as it lasts; click a span's squares to mute or unmute the others in it. Muting the sub or the FM generator on the off-beats is an instant groove.

Instruments

Eight sounds, A – H, that the SOUND lane switches between. Their buttons run along the top of the window, under the header, since they rule almost everything below (the one you're editing lit, the one the sequence plays outlined); ← and → step through the instruments you've made (after a click anywhere in the window, so it has the keyboard). ↑ and ↓ load the previous and next preset, and a preset load can be undone: Cmd Z right after it brings back the sound you had (again for the one before), Cmd Shift Z loads it again. Click one in the Instrument row to edit it: every knob, envelope drawing and wavetable in the window is then that instrument's sound, and the others are kept as they were. A new instrument starts as a copy of the sound you're on, so make B by clicking it and changing what should be different. Right-click an instrument for its menu: Edit; Load Preset, any preset's sound (your own included) into this instrument, only what an instrument is, so the sequence, matrix, effects and macros stay as they are (the instrument is named after the preset); Generate with AI (with your Anthropic key): Describe It... opens Claude's designer for this instrument alone, A Variation of This Sound, or a starting point (Neuro, Dubstep, Growl, Wobble, Reese Sub, Metal Screech, Acid Squelch, Neuro Foghorn, Talking Growl Lead, Soft Pluck, Sub Thump, Glitch Stab); Copy To another instrument; Clear (on the one you're editing too: editing moves to the nearest other instrument; if it's the only one, its sound starts over from Default). While the sequencer plays another instrument than the one you're editing, the Vol and Env 1 – 4 drawings show its envelopes faintly behind yours, named in the corner (PLAYING B), so you can see what the sequence is doing as you draw. An instrument is the generators and their tables, the Aggressor's drive stages and both filters, the drawn envelopes and their shapes, the pitch drop, glide, level, the ADSR and the patterns; the matrix, the LFOs, the effects, the macros and the chips' channel settings are shared by all of them.

Generate

Every lane's menu has Generate, a starting point in a style to edit from: NOTE Acid, Euclid, Offbeat, Rolling, Sparse and Neuro (round the lane's first note); SOUND alternations; LOCK ramps, random values, random glides and a sine; MUTE patterns. Each time is different, and Cmd Z takes it back. The patterns and instruments are saved with presets and sessions, and Claude can write them too (Designing with Claude).

Effects

Four slots in series, twenty-six effects (four of them whole Robotic Audio plugins), each with its own editor.

Each slot has a menu (which effect, in alphabetical order), 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…).

Overkill

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.

Drive

Four drive stages, stacked

The Aggressor's four stages as an effect: Saturation, Overdrive, Distortion and Fuzz, each with its own amount (0 % is off), at four times the sample rate, then Tone and Output. The display runs a sine through it and names the stages that are on; drag the handle up for overdrive and sideways for the tone, scroll it for fuzz.

Crusher · Ring Mod · Freq Shift · Tape Stop · Pan

Strange machines

Crusher: fewer bits and a lower sample rate, both gliding smoothly. Ring Mod: the sound times a carrier from a tremolo to clangy bells, sine to square. Freq Shift: every frequency moved by the same number of Hz, with a feedback spiral. Tape Stop: a tape that slows (the pitch falls and the sound drags) and catches up afterwards. Pan: the sound moved between the speakers, narrowed first by Width. Map them to a macro and the matrix moves them.

OTT

The classic three-band squash

A simpler, brasher cousin of Overkill: low, mid and high bands, each pushed down when loud and pulled up when quiet. Depth sets how hard, Time how fast, Upward and Downward each direction, then each band's level (Low, Mid, High), the two splits and Output; drag the bands' levels and the splits on the display. It brings up noise and reverb tails too, so put it before the reverbs.

Vibrato

The pitch wobbled, in cents, free or in time

A pure pitch vibrato. Depth is how far the pitch swings either way in cents (100 is a semitone; 10–40 sounds natural), at Rate in Hz, or a Note value in time with the song with Sync. Shape: Sine (smooth, like a singer), Triangle (straight lines) or Random (wandering like worn tape). Stereo puts the right side ahead of the left for a wide swirl. It starts fully wet; mixed with the dry sound it turns into a chorus.

Event Horizon · CyberPump · Crossfire · Scorch

Whole plugins in a slot

Four Robotic Audio plugins play inside a slot, each with its own window in the editor, exactly as on their own. Event Horizon: the flagship reverb. CyberPump: tempo-synced pumping with drawn lanes. Crossfire: the sound split into low, mid and high bands with two effect slots of their own each. Scorch: distortion, compression and EQ in one chain. Their controls can be mapped to the macros like any other effect's.

Macros

Four knobs that can move many things at once.

Macros are sources in the matrix: right-click any knob, effect control or a slot's Mix and choose a macro, or pick it as a Source in the Matrix tab. Each route has its own Amount, so one macro can drive any number of things, each over its own range (set the control where the range starts, the Amount to how far it goes).

Macros are targets too: route an envelope or an LFO into a macro and everything that macro drives moves with it. They're automatable in your DAW 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/Tektonic (macOS) or Documents/Presets/Robotic Audio/Tektonic (Windows): easy to back up and share. Saved wavetables are in a Wavetables folder beside them.

Designing with Claude

Describe a sound; Claude sets Tektonic to make it.

With your own Anthropic key, the >_ beside the presets opens a designer: describe what you want in your own words, such as "a growling dubstep bass that wobbles in eighths", and Claude sets the four generators, the Aggressor and filter, the voice, the Volume and Env 1-4 envelopes, the matrix and the macros, the effects with all their settings and macro mappings, and the sequencer: its patterns, lane by lane, and instruments made from the sound ("a rolling neuro bass that switches to a screech on the off-beats"). It is told what every part does and how it is set now, so it can design from scratch or change only what you ask for.

Keys

Menu (three lines) > AI...: an Anthropic key for Claude, and an ElevenLabs key for new samples. They are your own, shared by every Robotic Audio plugin and kept on this computer, never in sessions or presets; each design uses your credits with the service. Without a key nothing of this shows.

>_

Left of the preset bar, while a key works: opens the designer over the window. Type a description and press Return (or EXECUTE); ESC closes it, and what is running carries on.

PATCH

Claude sets the patch, as a NEW SOUND from your words or EDIT THIS: the patch as it is, changed as you ask ("darker", "slower attack"), keeping the rest.

SAMPLES

A new sample too, for the first generator playing a sample map (Sampler, or Granular reading the map): it goes on every key. Claude writes its prompt and ElevenLabs makes it, in up to four TAKES; the first plays as soon as it arrives, the TAKE buttons switch between them, and all are kept with your samples. With PATCH on, a sample is made only if the patch Claude designs plays one (Claude is told whether it does); SAMPLES alone makes one to fit the patch as it is and changes nothing else. With only the ElevenLabs key, your words are the sample's prompt as written.

REVERT

Puts the patch back as it was before Claude's last design.

SAVE AS PRESET

Keeps the design as one of your presets, named after your words.

The log

What Claude made, and what it changed, part by part.

>_ and AI...

The designer and its keys: see Designing with Claude.

Licence

Try it, activate it, move it to another computer.

Without a licence, Tektonic runs as a demo: the sound drops out for 3 seconds every 45 seconds. Everything else works, saving included, so you can try it properly and keep what you made when you buy it. While it isn't licensed, the header shows DEMO (or TRIAL with the days left); click it, or choose Licence... in the menu, for the licence panel. It also opens by itself when the window opens in demo.

ACTIVATE

Opens the shop in your browser. Sign in, choose your licence for this computer, and Tektonic unlocks a few seconds later.

START TRIAL

Everything, free, for 14 days, once per computer. The header counts the days down. Activate a licence at any time; your sounds and sessions stay as they are.

BUY

The plugin's page on roboticaudio.com, with its Buy button.

SAVE DEVICE FILE / LOAD LICENCE FILE

For a computer without the internet. Save the device file, take it to the shop's activation page on a computer that is online, and load the licence file it gives you back.

DEACTIVATE

Frees this computer's seat, so you can activate the licence on another one. CHECK NOW confirms the licence with the shop straight away.

Shortcuts

On Windows and Linux, read Ctrl for Cmd.

Sound recipes

Starting points; then draw your own.