Contraband

You choose what sits in each of the twelve slots, or leave it empty. Nine are in the sound's path, in a fixed order, and the other three move things around.

1 Keys

2 CLATTERMOOR

Every note has its own copy

3 Sources

4 Input

-24 to +12 dB

5 Shaper

6 Filters

Serial

Parallel

7 Amp

Notes added together

8 Effects

9 Output

Silence to +6 dB

ModulatorsCables

1. Keys. Poly plays chords, with Voices setting how many notes can sound at once, up to 16, while Mono and Legato play one note at a time. Glide slides between notes for up to two seconds, and Bend sets the pitch wheel's range, up to 24 semitones.
2. CLATTERMOOR, the sequencer. Up to 16 steps run across the top of the rack. With it on, holding a key plays the pattern from that note, and with it off your keys play the rack directly. A step can be a rest or a note, a note can be accented or slide into the next, and each step has its own pitch, up to 24 semitones either side of the key. It follows your host's tempo from 1/4 down to 1/32, triplets included, with Swing and Gate on top, and Latch keeps it going after you let go. The arp lives in here too and plays the keys you hold one per step, in the order you played them, up, down, up and down, or at random. Leave it off in Poly and a held chord plays on every step.
3. Sources. Up to three can play at once, each with its own Level.
   • GRUBWELL is an oscillator that morphs from saw to square to triangle, with up to seven copies across the stereo field and a sine an octave down.
   • MOTHPANE is the wavetable, with eight families of eight waves and three ways to bend them.
   • SPROCKLE does two-operator FM, from a plain sine to bright and metallic, and some ratios ring in tune while others clang like bells.
   • With TWANGERY you pluck, bow or blow a string and blend in a wooden body.
   • SOOTBIN makes noise from a brown rumble to a bright fizz, with record crackle and a resonance that gives it the note's pitch.
4. Input. The sources are mixed, and the Input knob sets how hard they hit the shaper and filters, from -24 to +12 dB. There's no audio input, so this is only the level inside the rack.
5. Shaper. Only one of these fits.
   • MALLARDENT is a drive that pushes the sound into a soft curve.
   • CREASEMONGER folds the wave back on itself, and every fold adds harmonics.
   With one oscillator, both hold the level as you turn them up, so the tone changes and the volume stays about the same, but other sources can get louder, TWANGERY most of all.
6. Filters. The two slots have a switch beside them. Serial runs the sound through one filter then the other, whereas Parallel feeds both the same sound and mixes them. Leave one empty and you only hear the other, or leave both and the sound goes straight through.
   • SLURRIDGE is a 12 dB low-pass, band-pass, high-pass or notch.
   • SOGBOTTOM is a ladder filter at 12 or 24 dB an octave, and turned right up it sings at its cutoff.
   • For vowels there's GOBMOUTH, which morphs through A, E, I, O and U with a throat you can resize.
   • COMBWALLOP is a comb filter that rings at the note you play. Positive Feedback rings every harmonic and negative only the odd ones, which sounds hollow, and moving Tune with a modulator sweeps it like a flanger.
7. Amp. This fixed unit is where Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release shape every note, and Vel sets how much velocity changes the level. Up to here every note has its own copy of the rack, and then they're added together.
8. Effects. These three run once, on all the notes together, left to right.
   • PADDLEWAKE makes a stereo chorus from two moving delay lines.
   • DRIPPLE is a delay you set by time or lock to your tempo, with a tape-style Wobble.
   • The reverb is CAVEPUDDING, which goes from a small damp room to a big cave.
9. Output. The knob runs from silence up to +6 dB.

Moving things

Modulators. These last three slots make no sound and only move other things, through cables.

• TICKLEBACK is an LFO with sine, triangle, saw, square or random steps, at a speed you set or lock to your tempo, and it can fade in.
• EIDERSAG adds a second envelope, with a Curve from sagging to snapping.
• DICEMOLD throws random values, as hard steps or a smooth wander.
• STOOPHOP loops four values, locked to your tempo, and Glide slides between them.

Cables. You've got 16. Drag one from a jack to a knob and set how far it moves, up or down. Every modulator has a jack, and six more run along the bottom for Amp Env, Vel, Key, Wheel, Aftertouch and Random.

A cable can reach any knob on a source, shaper, filter or modulator, so modulators can move each other. It can also reach a note's Pitch, up to an octave at full depth, or its Volume. The effects run once, so only Wheel and Aftertouch can reach their knobs.

Jacks

• TICKLEBACK
• EIDERSAG
• DICEMOLD
• STOOPHOP

↻ Modulators can move each other

• Amp Env
• Vel
• Key
• Random

What they reach

• Knobs on sources, the shaper, filters and modulators
• A note's Pitch, up to an octave
• A note's Volume

• Wheel
• Aftertouch

• All of the above
• Effect knobs, which only these two reach

Amp Env

Wheel

1. TICKLEBACK on SOGBOTTOM's Cutoff, so the filter sweeps by itself.
2. Amp Env on a filter's Cutoff, and each note's filter follows that note's own envelope.
3. DICEMOLD on TICKLEBACK's Rate, with its Sync off, so one modulator keeps changing how fast the other runs.
4. Wheel on DRIPPLE's Mix, so you can ride the delay by hand, which only Wheel and Aftertouch can do.

Swapping modules. Each slot only takes its own kind, so a filter won't go in a source slot. Drag a plate onto another slot of its kind and the two trade places, each keeping its knobs, though the cables stay with the slot. Drop it anywhere else and it goes back. To change a module, drag it to the bin, then click the empty slot and pick another. The IN switch on each plate takes it out of the sound but leaves it in place.