Physical Audio Tetrad (VST3/AU/AAX Synthesizer)

[cjwseven7]

Hi, we’ve just finished work on our fourth instrument. Tetrad is a synthesizer plugin that’s not quite like any synth you’ve used before.



Tetrad is a plugin that causes you to think in fours. Its oscillators are a choice of four-tone waves or four-note chords; it has a Quad AM module and a Quad Granulator for its four voices, and of course, those four physically modelled slashed metal plates as seen on the interface.

It’s available now for $59 (£47 / €47+VAT) in VST3/AU/AAX formats. The price will rise to $99 (£79 / €80+VAT) after July 28th. A free trial is available on the product webpage: https://physicalaudio.co.uk/products/tetrad/.

Features

- 115 Presets

- Generate voices through Basic, Chords and Modal chords, Free and Flex modes

- Plus ADSR envelope, FM Frequency and FM Depth for all oscillator types

- Quad AM module to ‘pseudo-sequence’ or gently modulation voices, with control over phase

- Shape, Depth, Gain and Rate (up to 250Hz), plus Phase Displacement per voice

- Quad Granulator mangles the four voices into new textures individually or all together

- Grain Size, Feedback, Rate (up to 50Hz), or individual Grain Size and Pitch per voice

- Plate Resonators that can be driven and positioned graphically on the virtual sound stage

- Set Decay, Metal Cuts ‘amount’, Preamp Drive globally; or Drive and Decay per plate

- MPE-compatible with a glide range of +/- 48 semitones

- Sidechain input lets you access the ‘Quad’ processor modules with other signals

- Quad Output separates the four buses into DAW outputs

- Comprehensive Modulation Matrix with over ## destinations, eight LFOs and three envelope-following sources, plus MIDI and MPE parameter sources.

- Three filters (LP/BP/HP) to curtail and sculpt effects from audio-rate modulation, distortion and extreme granulation artefacts

- VST3/AU/AAX formats for Mac and PC

https://soundcloud.com/physicalaudio/se ... al_sharing

[martiu]

very nice, Richard Devine will love this, you should send him a copy to test it on his youtube channel

[Funky40]

send a NFR to @kraster

I´d like to hear his opinions.
personally, i´m not triggered enough by the audio demos.


the point is not if it´s "not" quite like any other. Not enough trallala within that.
The point is more: how quick, or how inspiring is it to take it to places ?
I wonder if it *has* some potential ?

@kraster ´d be a good man to give some more insight.

[WasteLand]

send a NFR to @kraster

I´d like to hear his opinions.
personally, i´m not triggered enough by the audio demos.


the point is not if it´s "not" quite like any other. Not enough trallala within that.
The point is more: how quick, or how inspiring is it to take it to places ?
I wonder if it *has* some potential ?

@kraster ´d be a good man to give some more insight.

why not demo it?

for me it takes me to places, i always make my own presets, so driving the thing, preferably with MPE, is making things with potential, that tickles my imagination, to build tracks with it...

i shared this already in the other thread, i know this will appeal only to certain 'crowd';

[morphex]

I can understand that the audio demos may not be as attention-grabbing as one would like. But I try to see the potential in the sound engine itself, and the ways that I could use it to make sounds that would be appealing to me. And not simply as a novelty, but something useful and at a very fair price.

They do have a free trial and I’m definitely going to try it. I’m inspired by how far outside of the box this appears to be in relation to other synths. Tetrad’s curious complexity reminds me more of a well-designed Reaktor ensemble or Max For Live device. It looks like an awesome synth by the Physical Audio crew!!

[Gribs]

The voice structure for this one looks cool. Is it polyphonic? Chords are mentioned but polyphony is not; will try the demo. I own licenses for Modus and Preparation 2.

[Ah_Dziz]

If it's stable I'll probably grab this. Seems like it would be fun.

[Gamma-UT]

I've got the other instruments but this one leaves me thinking "...but we have granulators at home".

[kraster]

send a NFR to @kraster

I´d like to hear his opinions.
personally, i´m not triggered enough by the audio demos.


the point is not if it´s "not" quite like any other. Not enough trallala within that.
The point is more: how quick, or how inspiring is it to take it to places ?
I wonder if it *has* some potential ?

@kraster ´d be a good man to give some more insight.

In short, really really cool!

Four oscillators into a 4x4 matrix (4 inputs from each oscillator into 4 output busses) and that matrix is then passed through a filter (Lp, HP and Bp) then into an amp modulator and from there into another filter. After the second filter there's a granular processor and then another filter into 4 metal plates.

Each processor has a macro page and then a quad page. The Macro page controls the main parameters of the processor and then the quad page allows you individual control of each buss within that processor.

In the quad page with the AM you can offset each bus, with the granular you can adjust grain size and pitch of each buss, with the plates you can control decay and drive.

The oscillators have 5 modes, semitone mode where each oscillator can be tuned in semitones, Free mode where you can micro tune each oscillator, flex mode where tuning is spread out from a point up to an octave or fine tuned for a more unison like effect , chord mode which is a fixed chord that doesn't follow a scale and modal mode another chord mode where it does quantise to a selected mode and key. Both chord modes have voicing and inversion settings.

The oscillator waveforms are global and you can sweep through from sine to a sort of saw. They also have FM. There's a global AMP adsr too.

There's a huge modulation matrix with eight LFOs, the ADSR, the AM wave, grain generation, Midi and MPE as sources and pretty much anything as destination.

In practice it all works very logically. As the blurb say you do kind of think in fours. Four oscillators into four busses.

The AM processor allows you to do Arp like things by offsetting each buss' phase. The offsets themselves can also be altered by Lfos so you can get really cool rhythmic patterns. Then feed that into the granulator for more shenanigans.

You can use the drive mode in the Plates without the reverb which adds even more dimension. That can be done on a buss by buss basis too.

One other cool thing is that it can be used as an audio effect by sidechaining audio into it. In this mode the left and right of the audio become the inputs for the busses. So it becomes as a quad granulator/reverb/drive multi effect.

It has a nice soundtage where you can position the four elements but also each bus can be routed to an individual channel in your daw for further fun.

It took me a minute to figure out but it's pretty easy and very flexible.

I have a few other Physical Audio VIs and this is the easiest to use and arguably the most useful

[morphex]

send a NFR to @kraster

I´d like to hear his opinions.
personally, i´m not triggered enough by the audio demos.


the point is not if it´s "not" quite like any other. Not enough trallala within that.
The point is more: how quick, or how inspiring is it to take it to places ?
I wonder if it *has* some potential ?

@kraster ´d be a good man to give some more insight.

In short, really really cool!

Four oscillators into a 4x4 matrix (4 inputs from each oscillator into 4 output busses) and that matrix is then passed through a filter (Lp, HP and Bp) then into an amp modulator and from there into another filter. After the second filter there's a granular processor and then another filter into 4 metal plates.

Each processor has a macro page and then a quad page. The Macro page controls the main parameters of the processor and then the quad page allows you individual control of each buss within that processor.

In the quad page with the AM you can offset each bus, with the granular you can adjust grain size and pitch of each buss, with the plates you can control decay and drive.

The oscillators have 5 modes, semitone mode where each oscillator can be tuned in semitones, Free mode where you can micro tune each oscillator, flex mode where tuning is spread out from a point up to an octave or fine tuned for a more unison like effect , chord mode which is a fixed chord that doesn't follow a scale and modal mode another chord mode where it does quantise to a selected mode and key. Both chord modes have voicing and inversion settings.

The oscillator waveforms are global and you can sweep through from sine to a sort of saw. They also have FM. There's a global AMP adsr too.

There's a huge modulation matrix with eight LFOs, the ADSR, the AM wave, grain generation, Midi and MPE as sources and pretty much anything as destination.

In practice it all works very logically. As the blurb say you do kind of think in fours. Four oscillators into four busses.

The AM processor allows you to do Arp like things by offsetting each buss' phase. The offsets themselves can also be altered by Lfos so you can get really cool rhythmic patterns. Then feed that into the granulator for more shenanigans.

You can use the drive mode in the Plates without the reverb which adds even more dimension. That can be done on a buss by buss basis too.

One other cool thing is that it can be used as an audio effect by sidechaining audio into it. In this mode the left and right of the audio become the inputs for the busses. So it becomes as a quad granulator/reverb/drive multi effect.

It has a nice soundtage where you can position the four elements but also each bus can be routed to an individual channel in your daw for further fun.

It took me a minute to figure out but it's pretty easy and very flexible.

I have a few other Physical Audio VIs and this is the easiest to use and arguably the most useful

@kraster you have a way of explaining complex routings and possible use cases, in a way that's clear to those less technically inclined or experienced. That's a great trait to have as a communicator. And it helps others in the community to decide if a plug-in may be useful, or prohibitively complex and a possible waste of time and money.

So while I'd encourage @Funky40 to get into the habit of trying demos on their own system, I think it was a respectful nod to you by asking for your opinion. And your detailed reply is certainly appreciated. I'm just about to purchase the synth myself and I do have a quick question.

You mentioned that you already have a few other Physical Audio plug-ins. How is their support after the purchase? That's an important factor to me when considering which developers to support with my money. I'd appreciate your opinion on that. Thanks!

[kraster]

@kraster you have a way of explaining complex routings and possible use cases, in way that's clear to those less technically inclined or experienced. That's a great trait to have as a communicator. And it helps others in the community to decide if a plug-in may be useful, or prohibitively complex and a possible waste of time and money.

So while I'd encourage @Funky40 to get into the habit of trying demos on their own system, I think it was a respectful nod to you by asking for your opinion. And your detailed reply is certainly appreciated. I'm just about to purchase the synth myself and I do have a quick question.

You mentioned that you already have a few other Physical Audio plug-ins. How is their support after the purchase? That's an important factor to me when considering which developers to support with my money. I'd appreciate your opinion on that. Thanks!

Thanks.

I just love all these plugins and have always had an obsession of figuring out how things work.

Wrt, Physical Audio I don't think I've ever had a single issue with their plugins so I've never had the need to contact them so can't speak to their support but it is a testament to how well built their products are.

[morphex]

@kraster you have a way of explaining complex routings and possible use cases, in way that's clear to those less technically inclined or experienced. That's a great trait to have as a communicator. And it helps others in the community to decide if a plug-in may be useful, or prohibitively complex and a possible waste of time and money.

So while I'd encourage @Funky40 to get into the habit of trying demos on their own system, I think it was a respectful nod to you by asking for your opinion. And your detailed reply is certainly appreciated. I'm just about to purchase the synth myself and I do have a quick question.

You mentioned that you already have a few other Physical Audio plug-ins. How is their support after the purchase? That's an important factor to me when considering which developers to support with my money. I'd appreciate your opinion on that. Thanks!

Thanks.

I just love all these plugins and have always had an obsession of figuring out how things work.

Wrt, Physical Audio I don't think I've ever had a single issue with their plugins so I've never had the need to contact them so can't speak to their support but it is a testament to how well built their products are.

Cool, thanks. I share in your obsession of figuring out how these advanced tools work inside and out. Tetrad has introduced a very intriguing signal flow and an approach that is very unique. I look forward to giving it a spin this evening. Cheers!

[Funky40]

In short, really really cool!


I have a few other Physical Audio VIs and this is the easiest to use and arguably the most useful

Ok, i see. Thanks alots for your detailed description !
It was not that part i was looking for, but as morphex said, you´ve made something very complex look comprehenshable


Sounds good !
I have one or two from theirs myself already, and demoed others.
Personally i could only take advantage for me from one

why not demo it?

a legit point.
it just happened to me twice that when i finally wanted to test a demo, the demo time was already over, since i had it intsalled already. idk. it bothered me

[Funky40]

Tetrad has introduced a very intriguing signal flow .......

Yeah, it looks so.

Just, in my modular-live, it has turned out often enough, that this had not necessarily much a relation vs. how good or how musical something would sound.

it´s too hot here right now. I´ve just not made any music at all for the last 3-4 days, frankly speaking.
I´ll see how long the initial price lasts......I´ll give it a spin when mood is back

[Gribs]

I am demoing this synth. It is polyphonic, which is cool, and has an interesting signal flow. However, the GUI does not appear to be resizable. Am I missing something? I am turning 60 in a couple of months and use computer glasses, but this thing is just at the edge of my ability to resolve the text for smaller controls on my high res laptop screen. Modus and Preparation 2 are similar, but Tetrad’s color scheme is more difficult for me to resolve. Even just a couple of fixed scale factors upward like maybe 1.3 and 1.6 would be helpful.