The Envelopes tab (per-control automation)

The Envelopes tab turns the note editor into a per-control automation lane. Pick a destination, draw a contour over the pattern timeline, and that contour modulates the chosen control every time the pattern plays. It is the same drawing tool as the LFO and curve editor, but instead of feeding a shared source it is pre-bound to one destination, so drawing the shape is wiring the modulation. It works in both Grid and Free mode, and it saves with the preset.

You can add as many as you like (up to 32), each on its own target, each with its own loop timing and polarity. This is the complement to the shared, user-routed sources in the modulation matrix: there is no matrix row to fill in, you choose the target here and the curve you draw drives it directly.

Adding one

1. Pick a destination. The Device → Control picker is built from the real modulation destination table, grouped exactly as the Master Matrix groups its destinations: Pitch, Oscillator, Sub-Noise, Filter, Waveshaper, Amp Env, Filter Env, Rates, String, Modal, Kick, Additive, Lofi, Macros, Voice, Output. A leading dot marks the controls that already carry an envelope. Coverage is the full destination table: control-rate parameters (cutoff, resonance, drive, envelope times, model params, macros, levels, …) and audio-rate signals (PWM and wavetable position, oscillator FM, cutoff CV, pan, pitch) alike.
2. Draw the shape. Click-drag on empty space, use the Generate menu, or use the Draw Mode pencil (the B key) to paint a value one cell wide. The first touch on a fresh target creates its envelope (a flat default, so merely selecting a target never sprays a contour). The shape edits like a proper automation lane: bend a segment with Alt-drag, type an exact value with right-click → Edit Value, and hold Shift for a fine one-axis drag.
3. Set the depth. The per-envelope Depth box (0 to 100%) scales how far the envelope moves its target. Depth 0 is silent; 100% applies the drawn range at the destination’s full modulation scale.
4. Choose polarity (Uni / Bi). Uni (default) is unipolar 0 to 100%: the drawn value adds onto the target. Bi is bipolar: the drawn centre becomes no change, with signed swing above and below, for modulate-around-centre targets like pan, pitch, and offsets. In Bipolar the plot shows a dashed centre guide and reads signed (−100% … +100%), and new points default to the centre.
5. Remove deletes the selected target’s envelope.

Drawing shapes

The Generate menu seeds a contour:

• Waveforms: Sawtooth, Inverse Sawtooth, Triangle, Sine, Square, S-Curve, Random.
• Ramps and ADSR: Ramp, Ramp (curved), and an ADSR shape.
• Transforms: Invert, Reverse, Smooth, and Simplify Envelope (thins a busy curve to the fewest breakpoints that still represent it).

The generators are selection-aware. Shift-drag across empty background to select a time range (the same span the Notes tab uses, carried across tabs). With a range selected, a generated shape writes only into that span, scaled to it and leaving the rest untouched; with no range selected it fills the whole envelope.

The envelope draws as a bold filled area up to its value, a smooth top in Curve mode and a stepped staircase in Steps mode. The notes dim behind the curve for timing reference, and the expression lanes hide while you edit, returning when you switch back to Notes.

Linked, or its own loop

By default an envelope is a Linked Region: its shape spans the whole pattern. Toggle Linked Region off to unlink it and give it its own local loop, which unlocks the rest of the timing controls:

• Length (bars) sets a local loop period; the drawn shape repeats across the timeline. A slow ramp over a few bars is a fade-over-N-bars; a short contour with Loop on becomes an envelope-as-LFO, a hand-shaped, tempo-synced source that repeats every N beats.
• Start / End bound the active region: the shape tiles only inside that window, holding its first value before Start and its last after End.
• Position rotates where the shape begins within each period.
• Skew warps the phase so the same contour leans early or late without redrawing it, turning a plain triangle or ramp into a sharper, sheared shape.
• Grid (lit by default) hides the meter grid lines and frees editing from the division, so you can set an off-meter loop for polyrhythmic or drifting modulation.

On an unlinked loop the braces gain two drag handles: Stretch drags the loop length live on the ruler, and Skew (a diamond on the brace) warps the phase. The “playing” value dot rides the warped, tiled shape, so what you see on the plot is what the destination receives.

How it plays

The envelopes are evaluated at the pattern phase, the same clock that drives the step sequencer and the curve lanes, so they play in lockstep with the pattern. Under a playing host the pattern phase bar-locks to song position, so the envelopes follow host transport too. When nothing is running they rest at zero.

Each envelope folds onto its destination through the same modulation machinery a right-click route uses, so it behaves identically to any other modulation on that control. See the modulation matrix for the shared routing.

Saved with the preset

The envelope list travels with the plugin state, one entry per envelope (its drawn shape plus its timing, destination, depth, and polarity). An empty list writes nothing at all, so a patch with no envelopes is identical to one from before the feature existed. On load, a restored patch reloads its envelopes and the editor jumps the picker to the first bound target so the automation is visible.

Tip

For a tempo-synced wobble that no LFO can match: unlink an envelope to a one-bar loop, turn Loop on, draw a custom shape (steeper on the way down than the way up, say), and bind it to filter cutoff. You now have a bespoke LFO you drew by hand, locked to the bar.