Morpheral Machines, a new plugin studio founded by Renoise creator Eduard Müller, has released The Swarm, a polyphonic wavetable synthesizer for Windows, macOS and Linux, in VST 3, CLAP and AU formats. The debut release also brings Desense, a free interference instrument.
The Swarm spawns a flock of up to 24 oscillator “boids” (simulated birds) for every note, on a 2D wavetable grid. Each boid plays the waveform it flies over. The boids follow simple rules to form flocks: each one reacts to its neighbours and the moving environment, so the sound is always in motion, and always a little different, until a seed locks it down.
Users can paint the grid’s single-cycle waves like an image, morph them or generate them from any sample: The Swarm then selects the most distinct cycles and arranges them so that similar waves become neighbours. An attractor steers the flocks: depending on its type, it pulls them in, pushes them away, swirls them or drags them along a chaotic path. Predators can break them apart. All flocks move through the same environment, so the notes of a chord drift together, but never quite the same.
Each voice also measures its own flock: its alignment, separation, distance from the attractor and position on the grid modulate the sound like any envelope or LFO. Every note follows its own flock, down to how long, dark and diffuse its echoes ring.
Features:
- Up to 24 band-limited wavetable oscillators per voice, each with optional FM.
- 12 attractor types, free or synced to the host tempo, and up to 9 predators, shared by all voices.
- A 2D grid of 3 x 3 to 13 x 13 single-cycle waves: paint, morph with 6 methods, or import wavetables (WAV, FLAC, WT).
- Generate a whole grid from any sample or recording, its most distinct cycles laid out so similar waves sit side by side.
- The flock’s alignment, separation, distance and X/Y position as modulation sources, 32 routings per voice, also back into the flock’s speed and order.
- A sub and noise oscillator, 5 filter models, and a waveshaper with wavefolding and a pitch-locked crusher.
- A tap-cloud delay that doubles as chorus and reverb, with 8 taps per voice that pan and detune with the flock.
- Seeded randomness, reset per note or with the host transport, for reproducible performances.
- Around 50 factory presets: bass, keys, leads, pads and more.
- MPE, CLAP and VST 3 note expressions, MTS-ESP microtuning.
- VST 3 and CLAP for Windows, macOS and Linux, AU on macOS.
Pricing
The Swarm costs $59 / €59 until 30 November (regular $79 / €79).
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