OktaDie - Symbiotic Synth

Eight touch voices, a cross-modulation matrix, a dual modulated delay and an overdrive. No keyboard, no scale, no quantisation anywhere.

Eight touch-sensitive voices, a cross-modulation matrix, a dual modulated delay and an overdrive - with no keyboard, no scale and no quantisation anywhere in the signal path. OktaDie is not a subtractive synth with a fancy front panel: it is a machine that responds to touch, drifts on its own, and never produces exactly the same sound twice.

Inspired by the legendary analogue "organismic synthesizer", OktaDie follows the same philosophy: the envelope is part of the oscillator, not a VCA after it; noise, bleed and crosstalk are features, not defects; and every position of every control is designed to produce a usable soundscape.

PLAYED BY TOUCH Eight multitouch pads replace the keyboard. Play them with several fingers at once, slide sideways to glide from one pad to the next. How hard you press matters: iOS does not measure finger force, so OktaDie reads the contact area of your fingertip - press harder, more skin touches the glass, the envelope opens further. Apple Pencil pressure is used directly where available. Choose POSITION, AREA or BOTH under SETUP.

THE VOICES Eight non-linear generators, closer to a vintage electric organ than to a VCO. TUNE moves each voice continuously across a huge range, untempered and unquantised. SHARP morphs the waveform from triangle to square. The envelope shapes pitch and waveform as it moves, and weighs how much the voice contributes to the FM matrix. Independent drift on every voice means two instances never sit perfectly in tune.

CROSS-MODULATION Voices work in four pairs and two groups. Each pair picks its modulation source: another pair, the Hyper LFO, or the instrument's own output. One switch reroutes the whole matrix into a single closed FM loop across all eight voices. TOTAL FB feeds the post-distortion output back in, turning the entire instrument - envelopes, delay and drive included - into one giant FM structure.

HYPER LFO Two LFOs combined by an AND/OR formula, plus a link that lets the first modulate the second. It drives the voice pairs and the delay.

MOD DELAY AND DRIVE Two delay lines with cross-feedback, each with its own time and modulation depth. Times follow the Hyper LFO or the lines' own output. Push the feedback past halfway and the delay self-oscillates into an instrument of its own. Lo-fi and noisy by design, dirtier as the times stretch. A drive stage with parallel mix closes the chain.

ON YOUR DEVICE

• Standalone app plus two AUv3 extensions: OktaDie as an instrument, OktaDie FX as an effect that runs your own audio through the delay, drive and feedback loop.
• Works in AUM, GarageBand, Cubasis, Drambo, Logic for iPad and any AUv3 host.
• 61 factory presets, plus your own. Preset files are shared with the desktop version.
• Portrait and landscape, pinch to zoom, fine adjustment by sliding a knob sideways, long-press for MIDI learn, double-tap to reset.
• MIDI notes, velocity, aftertouch and MPE, pitch bend and CC1 vibrato depth.
• No account, no subscription, no internet connection required.

OktaDie is inspired by the SOMA Laboratory LYRA-8. It is an original, independent software instrument: not licensed, authorised or endorsed by SOMA Laboratory, and in no way affiliated with or connected to it. It contains no code, circuit designs, samples or graphics originating from SOMA Laboratory. SOMA, SOMA Laboratory and LYRA-8 are trademarks of their respective owner, used here for descriptive purposes only.