Intellectualist

Overview

Intellectualist is a complete performance instrument: five synthesised drum voices, a sixth breakbeat slicer, a polymetric step sequencer across five different views, two XY pads with fifteen effects each, a kick-sidechained master crusher, a bar-synced looper, and a bar-level pattern-transform system called FILL. It's built to be played live.

The shape of the plugin

• Five drum channels: Kick, Snare, Flex, Sub, Hat — each with a dedicated synth voice and an optional granular sampler mode.
• Five sequencer views, each with independent loop lengths per channel: SEEK (steps), FLAM (ratchets), HELLA CHOPPER (breakbeat slicer), SLOPPY JO (shuffle / humanise), FINGER BANG (hex-keyboard pitch) — plus a sixth SCALE view for key management.
• Two XY pads, each chained in series (Pad 1 → Pad 2), each hosting one of 15 effects with LATCH/MOM modes and optional per-step XY automation.
• Master-bus colour: CRUSHER (kick-sidechained duck + saturate + compress + bass lift) and a beat-synced LOOPER (1–8 bars with pitch shift, glider, filters).
• FILL: a lime-green button that rolls deterministic, per-bar pattern transforms — rotates, reverses, ghosts, octave-ups — for live fills and drops.
• Touch-first UI with multitouch, drag-paint step editing, and live visual feedback driven by actual DSP state.

Quick Start

1. Load the plugin and pick a factory preset — Four on the Floor is a solid start.
2. Press Play (standalone) or start the host transport.
3. Drag across the SEEK grid in an empty row — Y-position sets velocity, dragging paints a run of steps.
4. Tap a fader in the channel strip and push it — the voice changes in real time. Every fader is live-editable while the pattern runs.
5. Touch an XY pad at the top of the UI to engage the effect. Click the effect-name pill to swap it for any of the other 14.
6. Tap FILL on the transport bar to roll a one-bar variation. Hold it for continuous mayhem; release and it cuts cleanly on the bar.

The Interface

The window is organised top-down: transport · XY pads · tab bar · channel headers · main view + channel strip · mixer on the right.

Transport Bar

PLAY / STOP

Standalone transport. Plugin instances follow the host.

BPM

20–300. Numeric display with +/−, vertical drag for fine control.

SLOW · NORM · FAST

Tempo multiplier: 0.5× · 1× · 2×.

CRUSHER

Toggle + CRUSH slider (crunch) + DUCK slider (sidechain pump). Master-bus destructor. See § Crusher & Looper.

FILL

Lime-green button. Tap for a one-bar fill, hold for continuous. See § FILL Mode.

Preset

Prev/next arrows and a popup browser.

RESET ALL

Two-tap confirm. Clears every sequencer layer and resets channels to 16 steps.

XY Pads

Two pads side-by-side, always visible above the tab bar. Each hosts one effect. The left pad (PAD 1, cyan) processes before the right pad (PAD 2, violet). Either can be set to LATCH or MOM, and either can record its XY path with AUTO. Full detail in § XY Pad Effects.

Tab Bar

Seven views, described in § Sequencer Views, § HELLA CHOPPER, § MOD — Modulation Editor, and the SCALE section inside Sequencer Views.

Mixer

Top-right corner, 240px wide, six channels (5 drums + CHOPPER). From top to bottom:

• Scope — overlapping semi-transparent waveforms per channel colour.
• ARM / LP — looper arm button, compact in the scope area.
• BARS and MIX — looper length (1–8 bars) and live/loop crossfade.
• Channel labels — KCK · SNR · FLX · SUB · HAT · CHP.
• Vertical faders — volume per channel, with gate-flash on triggers.
• Mute buttons — per channel.

The Five Channels

Five drum tracks, each with a default voice. Any channel can be reassigned to any of six voice engines (five synths + the granular sampler) via the ENGINE picker on the channel strip — presets save the engine per channel, so layouts like "kick on the snare track" persist across sessions.

Voice parameters

Kick — CLICK · TONE · DECAY · PITCH · SWEEP · BODY

• CLICK — transient snap. 0 = pure 808 sine, 1 = sharp 909 attack click with a filtered noise burst.
• TONE — waveshaper drive on the main sine body; adds upper harmonics.
• DECAY — log-mapped 20 ms → 3.3 s. Each 10% of travel is an equal ratio.
• PITCH — MIDI 30–70 base note.
• SWEEP — pitch-envelope speed, log-mapped 500 ms → 2 ms. Always drops four octaves at trigger.
• BODY — sub fundamental (octave-down pure sine) level.

Snare — TONE · DECAY · PITCH · SNAP · COLOR · BODY

• TONE — tone-vs-noise balance. 0 = pure sine, 1 = pure filtered noise.
• DECAY — log-mapped 20 ms → 1 s.
• PITCH — MIDI 30–100.
• SNAP — transient pitch sweep on the tone oscillator, up to +48 semitones.
• COLOR — noise filter sweep, LP → BP → HP across roughly 200 Hz → 12.8 kHz.
• BODY — resonant bandpass on the tone path (low = wide, high = tight).

Flex — SHAPE · DECAY · PITCH · PUNCH · METAL · FILTER

• SHAPE — waveform morph sine → triangle → square (band-limited).
• DECAY — log-mapped 12.5 ms → 2 s.
• PITCH — MIDI 36–96.
• PUNCH — noise-burst transient + fast pitch-sweep (up to +36 semi).
• METAL — FM ratio 1:1 (warm) → 7:1 (metallic/bell).
• FILTER — SVF cutoff 80 Hz → 20 kHz, with rising resonance as you close it.

Sub — CHAR · FILTER · DECAY · PITCH · LFO SPD · RESO

• CHAR — archetype-specific character knob whose meaning depends on the selected oscillator type. Tap the TYPE button below the engine picker to open a popup listing SINE, SAW, SUPER, SQUARE, REESE, FM, SYNC — pick one to switch. Each archetype remaps CHAR to its signature voicing dimension (sub purity, saw bite, detune spread, PWM, beating, FM index, sync pitch).
• FILTER — SVF cutoff 20 Hz → 16 kHz, with envelope-follow and LFO modulation.
• DECAY — log-mapped 33 ms → 5 s.
• PITCH — MIDI 24–60.
• LFO SPD — 0.1 Hz → 15 Hz, routed simultaneously to pitch (vibrato) and filter (wah). This is the Sub voice's own hardwired LFO, separate from the MOD tab modulation system — you can also modulate this knob via MOD like any other.
• RESO — Q from 1.0 (audible) to 18 (self-oscillating), with musical coupling into the LFO-to-filter amount.

Hat — FM · DECAY · FREQ · PITCH · COLOR · BODY

• FM — modulation depth on the tone oscillator.
• DECAY — same log mapping as snare.
• FREQ — base noise pitch MIDI 40–120.
• PITCH — supplementary pitch MIDI 40–100.
• COLOR — noise filter sweep LP → BP → HP.
• BODY — resonant bandpass on the tone path.

Granular Sampler (any channel)

• SPD — playback speed (0–1, default 1×).
• GRN — grain size (0–1).
• DCY — decay envelope length.
• PITCH — ±12 semitones around the base rate.
• Remaining two fader positions are unused in sampler mode.
• Loading a new sample resets knobs to neutral (Speed 1×, Grain medium, Decay full, Pitch centre, Pan centre, Drive off).

Channel Strip

The right-hand panel for the selected channel. Six tall vertical faders in a 2×3 grid hold the synth parameters. Three horizontal controls (PAN / DRIVE / PROB) sit below. Automation, mute and engine assignment live at the top and bottom of the strip.

Selection row

At the top of the strip, a row of six buttons (KCK / SNR / FLX / SUB / HAT / CHP) aligns column-for-column with the mixer faders directly above. Tap to switch which strip is showing. Choosing CHP replaces the drum-strip body with a performance panel for HELLA CHOPPER — see below.

The 2×3 fader grid

Layout rule: the engine's tone-shaping knobs (filter/res or the closest equivalent) sit adjacent on the top row, and DECAY is always in the lower-right. Kick labels shown; only the labels change between engines.

Per-engine labelling (top row / bottom row):

Bass/Tom

CLICK · SWEEP · BODY / PITCH · TONE · DECAY

Snare

TONE · COLOR · BODY / PITCH · SNAP · DECAY

Flex

SHAPE · FILTER · METAL / PITCH · PUNCH · DECAY

Sub

CHAR · FILTER · RESO / PITCH · LFO SPD · DECAY

Hat

FM · COLOR · BODY / PITCH · FREQ · DECAY

Sampler

SPD · GRN · PITCH / — · — · DCY

Engine picker

The ENGINE: <name> v button just under the channel title opens a popup that assigns any of the six engines (Bass/Tom, Snare, Flex, Sub, Hat, Sampler) to the current channel. When the Sub engine is active, a TYPE: <archetype> button appears beneath it that opens a second popup listing the seven Sub oscillator archetypes (SINE · SAW · SUPER · SQUARE · REESE · FM · SYNC) — tap one to switch.

Horizontal controls

PAN

Stereo placement. Drag snaps to centre near 0.5.

DRIVE

Waveshaper saturation on the channel output.

PROB

Probability the step fires. Tap to open a stepper popup to enter an exact percentage.

Bottom strip

A single row of three big touch-friendly cells: KEY HOLD / SOLO / MUTE.

KEY HOLD

Pins this channel's scale-snap reference to the initial key (segment 0 of the scale sequencer, or the statically-selected root/scale when the sequencer is off). Scale-sequencer segment changes flow past it; the channel keeps quantising its full played pitch (base + step + hex) inside the initial scale.

SOLO

Standard DAW solo. When any channel is soloed — including HELLA CHOPPER — non-soloed channels are silenced at the mix and soloed channels play regardless of their own mute state. Non-soloed mixer faders dim to make the override visually obvious. HC has its own SOLO / MUTE pair on the CHP strip — anchored at the same screen position as the drum-channel pair so the buttons don't move when you switch between drum and CHP views.

MUTE

Silences this channel's contribution to the master mix. The voice still triggers and renders behind the scenes, so ENV followers, the mixer scope, and the gate flash keep reacting even while the channel is muted.

Voice DNA visualiser

The silhouette at the top of the channel strip is unique to each voice (Kick teardrop · Snare body+noise · Flex pluck-bell-chirp · Sub plateau+wobble · Hat noise burst). It reshapes live from the current knob values. A playhead sweeps it driven by the voice's envelope, and an attack bloom fires at the peak on each trigger. The silhouette is fed post-modulation values, so any active LFO / ENV / Macro assignment makes the shape breathe in real time.

CHP strip (when CHP is selected)

Tapping CHP in the selection row replaces the drum body with a HELLA CHOPPER performance panel. Everything here mirrors the controls in the HELLA CHOPPER tab's header, so changes flow in both directions — the strip is a shortcut visible regardless of which tab you're on.

• LOAD A / LOAD B — tap either to open the breakbeat sample bank popup.
• Mini waveforms — loop A rendered in orange above loop B in blue, matching the tab's MAP A / MAP B colours.
• CHAOS / SCATTER — two big vertical faders for the main performance knobs.
• Slice counts — A: N v / B: N v steppers open the slice-count popup.
• RETRIG — 1/16 / 1/8 / 1/4 selector.
• PERF · STEP/LIVE — mode toggles.
• SHUFFLE · CLEAR — one-shot actions. CLEAR requires tap-again-to-confirm within 2 seconds.
• SOLO · MUTE — Same semantics as the drum channel strip. HC's SOLO is part of the global solo group, so soloing HC silences all five drum channels, and soloing any drum silences HC (unless HC is also soloed).

Sequencer Views

Five playable views plus a SCALE view. Each channel has an independent loop length per view — your kick can run 16 in SEEK, 13 in FLAM, 8 in HELLA CHOPPER, and 64 in FINGER BANG, all layered together.

SEEK — Step Sequencer

The main grid. Each row is a channel; each column a step.

• Drag-paint — drag across the grid to fill multiple steps. Y-position sets velocity.
• Drag on active — erases.
• Row-locked — once you start dragging in a row, edits stay in that row until you release.
• Per-step data — active flag, velocity, pitch offset, flam amount.
• Step count — 1–128 per channel, shown in the channel header's 7-segment display.

FLAM — Ratchet / Retrigger Editor

Vertical green bars per step set a flam amount between 0 and 1. That maps to 1–4 retriggers within the step (1 + amount × 3), with each successive hit at half the previous velocity. Independent step count from SEEK. Row-locked drawing. Live flam gate-arrival pulse: the current flam step flashes in channel colour for ~1.5 s when the main sequencer's gate lines up — a visual aid for polymetric patterns.

SLOPPY JO — Shuffle + Humanise + Fill Sequencer

A 4-position shuffle template tiled across the pattern:

• Position 1 → steps 1, 5, 9, 13…
• Position 2 → steps 2, 6, 10, 14…
• Position 3 → steps 3, 7, 11, 15…
• Position 4 → steps 4, 8, 12, 16…

Per-position controls:

• Offset (vertical drag, 0–50%) — delays every trigger in that position. Actually scheduled in the sequencer, not cosmetic.
• Drift (horizontal bar, 0–100%) — adds random ± variation around the offset each trigger, so every loop iteration sounds slightly different.

Visualisation: live timing-dot scatter, column pulse-flash at the actual trigger position, animated drift particles.

Fill sequencer

The strip at the bottom of the Sloppy Jo tab is a bar-scoped step sequencer that drives the transport FILL button automatically. Each cell represents one bar; tap to light it. When playback crosses a lit bar, FILL activates for that bar and picks a transform, exactly as if you'd tapped the button yourself. The currently-playing bar shows a white ring; every four cells have a darker gutter for easy reading.

• Loop length — 1 to 32 bars, default 16. Set via the FILL BARS LENGTH box in the channel-header row of this tab (tap to open the steps popup).
• CLEAR — zeros all fill steps. Available both on the strip itself and in the channel-header LENGTH box.
• Override — holding the transport FILL button always forces fill on regardless of the sequencer. See § FILL Mode for the visual distinction between manual (lime) and sequencer-driven (amber) glow.

Example: set loop to 4 bars and light bar 4 only → fills fire on every fourth bar of the loop. Drummer's classic "fill on the turn".

FINGER BANG — Hex Keyboard

A tessellated Wicki-Hayden hex grid for live melodic gesture recording. Columns right go up a whole tone (+2 semi); rows up go up a perfect fifth (+7 semi). Root is C2, range ~5 octaves.

1. Touch a hex — that note controls the selected channel's pitch.
2. As the sequencer plays, whatever note you're holding is recorded into the current step.
3. Release — the recorded pitch sequence loops.
4. Touch again — overwrites steps under the playhead.

Per-channel advance mode: FREE (advances every clock tick) or GATE (advances only when that channel triggers). GATE mode syncs the hex pattern to actual hits, not time.

Right panel shows a real-time waveform scope of the selected channel and a 5-channel vertical level meter.

SCALE — Key Selection & Automation

Global scale system that works like an analog scale quantiser (think Bard Quartet / René). Whatever pitch is composed at trigger time — base PITCH knob + step.pitch + octaveOffset + hex gesture — gets snapped to the nearest note in the active scale before it hits the voice. MIDI Out emits the same snapped note.

• Root grid (4×3) and Scale grid (4×4) — pick the tonic and scale type.
• Piano keyboard — 2 octaves, in-scale keys lit, root marked.
• Circle of Fifths — visual scale browser. In-scale notes glow and connect geometrically.
• Scale sequencer timeline — chain up to 16 ordered segments (root, scale, bar length). Click a segment to edit; toggle SEQ to enable.
• Scale changes trigger a scale-segment flash on the whole UI in the segment's colour.

Seventeen scales: Chromatic · Major · Minor · Dorian · Phrygian · Lydian · Mixolydian · Locrian · Pentatonic · Blues · Harmonic Minor · Melodic Minor · Whole Tone · Diminished H-W · Diminished W-H · Pentatonic Min · Arpeggio.

HELLA CHOPPER

A breakbeat slicer on a sixth independent track. Two sample slots (Loop A and Loop B), energy-based transient detection, a per-step chaos system, and a perform mode for live finger-triggering.

Loops and slicing

• Two loops — load WAV/AIFF into slot A or B via the bank popup.
• Automatic slicing — energy-based transient detection with zero-crossing snap. Slices auto-map to steps on load.
• MAP A / MAP B — reassign slices sequentially.
• SHUFFLE — randomise which slice each step plays.
• FIT — zoom the waveform to show only the playable slices for the current loop length.

Per-step controls (5 rows)

Chaos and scatter

CHAOS

Global slider × per-step chaos = probability of random slice substitution. Locked steps are immune. Dial from faithful loop playback → total mangling.

SCATTER

Random pitch deviation on each trigger. Combined with the drawn pitch and snapped to a musical interval set: scale-aware when SCALE has a scale active (the active root is not used — the loop's natural pitch is treated as unison), or the breakbeat default (unison / 4th / 5th / octave) otherwise.

Perform mode

Toggle PERF to enable live finger-triggering. Touch a slice on the waveform to fire it immediately at full volume. Hold to retrigger at the configured rate (1/16, 1/8, or 1/4). Dragging across slices updates the target on the next retrigger grid boundary — no off-beat triggers during drag. Meanwhile STEP/LIVE recording still writes touches into the step grid.

MOD — Modulation Editor

A unified modulation system sitting on top of every channel's knob values. Six fixed slots — four LFOs and two envelope followers — can be routed to any knob on any channel with independent depth and polarity. All controls live in the MOD tab.

The slot layout

Left column, top to bottom:

• LFO 1–4 — free-running or synced oscillators. Each slot has its own rate, shape, and retrigger mode.
• ENV 1 / ENV 2 — two independent envelope followers. Each one tracks the audio level of a chosen drum channel; pair them up to get (for example) a kick-pump and a snare-pump on different targets at the same time.

Right column is a consolidated routing list: one row per active assignment, with a colour dot indicating the source, a depth slider, a polarity toggle (BI / UNI), and a remove button.

LFOs

Each LFO row carries a live-waveform shape picker button (tap to swap), a RATE slider, a RETRIG button, an ARM button, and a small playhead that sweeps the waveform so you can see the LFO running.

Rate — 0.05 Hz to 20 Hz, log-mapped, so each 10% of travel is an equal ratio change.

Shapes

Tap the shape button to open the 7-shape popup:

Sine

Smooth sine curve.

Triangle

Symmetric up-and-down ramp.

SawUp

Rising ramp, instantaneous reset at the top.

SawDown

Falling ramp.

Square

Hard-edged 50% pulse.

Sample & Hold

8 stepped random values per cycle. Every cycle regenerates new values — so a 1 Hz S&H doesn't repeat the same eight values every second; it picks eight fresh randoms each cycle.

Smooth Random

Same 8-step random backbone, but smoothly interpolated for drifting motion rather than stepped jumps. Also regenerates each cycle.

Retrigger modes

Tap RETRIG to open the picker:

FREE

Continuous free-running phase. Never resets.

BAR

Phase resets on every bar boundary. Locks the LFO to the grid — a 0.5 Hz BAR-synced sine takes exactly two bars per cycle, starting from zero on bar 1.

1-SHOT

Fires one complete cycle on a chosen trigger channel's note-on, then holds at the cycle's endpoint until the next trigger. Pick the trigger channel in the same RETRIG popup (KCK / SNR / FLX / SUB / HAT). Pairs especially well with S&H for "new random on every kick" patterns.

ENV 1 / ENV 2 — Envelope Followers

Two independent followers, each tracking the peak level of one channel's isolated audio through split attack/release smoothing and outputting a 0→1 modulation signal. ENV 2 defaults to the snare channel so the two don't overlap out of the box.

Per row:

SRC

Source channel picker (KCK / SNR / FLX / SUB / HAT).

ATK

Attack time for the level envelope.

REL

Release time.

SENS

Input sensitivity multiplier.

Live meter

Shows the tracked level in real time next to the row, with a two-digit percentage readout beside the LEVEL label for tuning sensitivity and attack/release at a glance.

ENV-sourced assignments default to UNI polarity, so the classic "pump up on kick" behaviour is one tap away. Flip to BI on the routing row if you want bidirectional motion around a centre.

Routing: ARM and tap

1. Tap ARM on any modulator row. The row border pulses to show it's armed.
2. Touch any fader (channel-strip fader, or a knob in the main view). A new routing is created and the fader picks up a coloured halo in the source modulator's colour.
3. The routing appears in the right-hand list with a default depth and polarity.
4. Drag the halo around the fader to adjust depth live; tap the BI/UNI pill to flip polarity; tap × to remove the routing.

Only one modulator can be armed at a time. Leaving the MOD tab auto-disarms.

Cross-modulation (LFO-to-LFO rate). While armed, tapping another LFO's RATE slider creates a routing that modulates that LFO's rate instead of a knob. The target slider picks up a source-coloured halo and shows a live white marker at the effective (modulated) rate, so you can see the rate being pushed around as the source modulator swings. Depth is log-scaled: at depth = 1, a full-swing source sweeps the rate across the whole 0.05 Hz → 20 Hz range. Self-routing (LFO → its own rate) is blocked, but chains like LFO 1 → LFO 2 → LFO 3 work fine, and ENVs can drive rates too.

Modulated-fader feedback. A fader with active routing always shows: a coloured halo (colour = source), a depth band indicating routing depth, and a live marker tracking the momentary modulated value on top of the fader's own value. This renders on every tab, not just MOD — so you can see what's wired without leaving the view you're working in.

Fader-to-routing highlight. Touching any fader also highlights every routing that targets it in the right-hand list — brighter background, thicker accent border — so with many routings in play you can tap a fader and instantly see which entries in the list correspond to it. The highlight sticks until you touch another fader.

Globals

In the MOD tab header:

FREEZE ALL

Freezes every modulator at its current value. Tap again to resume. Useful for holding a sound while you reach for something else.

CLIP / FOLD

Determines what happens when a modulated value would go out of range. CLIP hard-limits to [0, 1]. FOLD mirrors overshoots back into range — triangle-wave behaviour that keeps the motion shape going past the rails.

XY Pad Effects

Two XY pads in the top-left of the UI. Pad 1 processes before Pad 2 in the signal chain. Each hosts one of 15 effects, with X and Y as the two axes. Click the effect-name pill at the top of the pad to swap.

LATCH vs MOM

LATCH

Effect is always active. XY position sticks where you last touched. Touch-gated effects (Stutter, TapeStop) toggle on each touch.

MOM

Momentary. Effect only processes while your finger is on the pad. Release = instant bypass.

AUTO

Each pad has an AUTO toggle. Enable it, touch the pad — XY position is recorded per step across a 32-step loop. Release and the crosshair animates along the recorded path, driving effect parameters in sync with the sequencer.

The 15 effects

Touch-gated effects

Stutter and TapeStop behave differently under LATCH vs MOM:

• Stutter · LATCH — first touch freezes audio, second touch releases.
• Stutter · MOM — hold to freeze, release to unfreeze.
• TapeStop · LATCH — touch to brake. Once stopped, X becomes a scratch controller. Release to spin up.
• TapeStop · MOM — hold to brake, release to spin up.

FILL Mode

A single button, right of the Crusher on the transport bar. Rule-based, bar-synced pattern variation — the quickest way to introduce fills, drops, and rolls without editing steps. Lights lime when you're holding it and amber when the Sloppy Jo fill sequencer is driving it automatically.

Activation

Tap and release

One-bar latched fill. Auto-releases cleanly at the next bar boundary.

Click and hold

Continuous. Release to end, and the fill still cuts cleanly at the next bar boundary — never mid-bar.

Fill sequencer

Bar-scoped step pattern programmed on the Sloppy Jo tab. Fires automatically on each lit bar. Manual hold always overrides — your finger wins.

The transforms

On each new bar while FILL is active, one transform is picked deterministically from the bar index. Same bar → same fill (reproducible); new bar while held → new roll. The current transform name displays next to the button in bright lime.

Invariants

• Step 0 always plays the original — the downbeat never moves. FILL won't eat your beat-1.
• HELLA CHOPPER is never transformed — only the 5 drum channels.
• Release is bar-aligned — you cannot accidentally cut off mid-bar.
• Kick is mostly protected from SKIP and GHOST so the pulse stays locked during breakdowns.

Crusher & Looper

The two master-bus tools. Both are deliberately excluded from preset state so they stay consistent across preset changes during a performance.

CRUSHER

Toggle + two sliders in the transport bar: CRUSH (red-orange) and DUCK (cyan). Gate-triggered sidechain from the kick. Pump and crunch are independent so you can dial in either, both, or neither.

• CRUSH — drives the crunch character:
  • Saturation — Chebyshev polynomial waveshaper, drive 1× → 9×, adds 2nd + 3rd harmonics.
  • Bass boost — shelf at 120 Hz, up to +4.5 dB. Fattens the low end through the nonlinearity.
  • Glue compression — soft-knee feedforward, ratio 1:1 → 6:1.
• DUCK — sidechain pump depth, 0–80% gain reduction. Fixed envelope: 0.3 ms attack, 120 ms exponential release. Triggered by the kick (channel 1).

CRUSH at 0 + DUCK up = pure rhythmic pump, no distortion. DUCK at 0 + CRUSH up = crunch and glue without the pumping. Both XY pads render a red-orange pumping halo in sync with the duck envelope — halo only fires when DUCK > 0.

LOOPER

Compact controls in the top-right mixer area: ARM (or LP/REC/PLY), BARS (1–8), MIX (live ↔ loop crossfade). State machine:

Idle  ─▶  Armed  ─▶  Recording  ─▶  Playing  ─▶  Idle
        (click LP)   (next bar)    (buffer full)   (click PLY)

• Bar-synced record — once armed, recording starts at the next bar boundary (sample-accurate within the block).
• Gapless playback — starts immediately when the buffer fills.
• Pitch shift ±24 semi, glider (smooth sinusoidal pitch modulation), HP/LP filters, distortion on loop playback.
• MIX is global — not saved in presets — so you can blend the loop into any patch you swap in.
• Looper perimeter arc — the LP/ARM/REC/PLY button's border animates: breathing while armed, red fill while recording, green sweep while playing.

MIDI & Host Sync

Intellectualist plays its own voices, but it can also emit MIDI note events so each channel can drive an external synth in parallel.

Signal flow (summary)

Clock  ─▶  ScaleManager  ─▶  Sequencer  ─▶  Trigger callback
                                              │
                            ┌─────────────────┼─────────────────┐
                            ▼                 ▼                 ▼
                      snapPitch           VoiceRouter       MIDI Out
                      (composite:         → synth / sampler  (per ch,
                       base + step                            absolute
                       + oct + hex)                           note)
                                          → per-channel audio
                                              │
                                              ▼
                                     HELLA CHOPPER (to master)
                                              │
                                              ▼
                                     XY Pad 1 → XY Pad 2
                                              │
                                              ▼
                                     LOOPER (record / playback)
                                              │
                                              ▼
                                     CRUSHER (duck + sat + comp)
                                              │
                                              ▼
                                        tanh soft clip  ─▶  Out L/R

MIDI output config (Settings dialog)

Click the logo top-left to open Settings → MIDI. Per channel:

Enable

Emit MIDI notes for this channel.

MIDI channel

1–16. Defaults to the track index.

Octave offset

−4 to +4 octaves, independent of the plugin's internal pitch.

Route All

Force all enabled channels onto a single shared MIDI channel.

MIDI note = round(snappedTotal) + octaveOffset × 12, where snappedTotal = scaleSnap(basePitch + step.pitch + channel.octaveOffset + hexPitch). The emitted MIDI note matches what the synth plays — feed it into a soft-synth in your DAW and it'll track the scale-quantised audio note-for-note. Velocity maps from step velocity (0–1 → 1–127). Note-off is tied to the voice's own envelope decay so the external synth's note-off lines up with the internal voice's release.

Host sync

• As a plugin, tempo and transport come from the host.
• In standalone, use the transport-bar PLAY and BPM.
• The scale sequencer timeline is driven by totalBeats / 4 — it will always line up with a DAW bar grid.

Window sizing

The editor is freely resizable up to 8K (7680×4320) so it fills any monitor.

• Standalone — the window has the standard minimise / maximise / close buttons. Press F11 (or Ctrl+Cmd+F) to toggle native fullscreen with no titlebar — the layout scales up to use the full screen.
• Plugin — drag the window edge in your host. Hosts that support fullscreen plugin windows (Bitwig detached editor, etc.) will scale the editor along with them.

Themes, Presets & Settings

Themes

• Dark (Cyberpunk) — default, neon-pink accent.
• Midnight — deeper, cooler blues.
• High Contrast — near-black background, pure-white text for stage lighting or accessibility.

Each channel's colour is individually cyclable through 12 options in Settings.

Factory presets

User presets save to %APPDATA%/Intellectualist/Presets/ and persist across sessions.

What's saved — and what isn't

Full plugin state is saved with the DAW project or with a preset: all sequencer layers (steps, velocities, pitches, flam, volume, mute, probability), every fader, modulation slots + routing, shuffle config, fill-sequencer pattern + bar length, per-channel engine assignment (including the Sub archetype), effects + XY automation, looper bars / glider / pitch, hex loops, HELLA CHOPPER (slices, chaos, scatter), scale system.

Intentionally global (not in presets): CRUSHER enable + CRUSH amount + DUCK amount, and the looper MIX crossfade. This keeps the master-bus character and any live loop consistent when you swap presets during a performance.

Theme, channel colours, UI scale, and MIDI output config live in %APPDATA%/Intellectualist/settings.xml — completely isolated from presets.

Workflows & Recipes

Tips & Troubleshooting

Tips

• Let log-time do the work. DECAY knobs feel musical across their whole range. Don't be afraid to scrub them live.
• Use a slow LFO as a second sequencer. A SmoothRandom or Sine LFO at a multi-bar rate against a 16-step pattern gives you long-form evolution that never repeats exactly.
• Per-channel PROB is cheaper than writing variations. Drop a hat channel to 60% probability and every loop feels different without any extra editing.
• LATCH for shape, MOM for stab. LATCH XY pads to sit the effect under the mix; MOM to punch it in as a one-shot.
• CRUSHER sits in the mix. It's not a send — it's the character of the whole bus. Ride CRUSH for energy, DUCK for groove.
• Independent loop lengths per view are the fastest route to "why does this groove feel alive?" — try 16 steps in SEEK, 13 in FLAM.
• RESET ALL is two-tap on purpose. Don't be afraid of it.

Troubleshooting

No sound from a channel

Check: channel MUTE, mixer fader, VOLUME not at zero, and that the channel's own step grid has active steps. The gate-flash on the channel strip tells you if it's triggering.

Notes sound out of key

Go to SCALE and check the root and scale type. If SEQ is on, the timeline is driving the key — disable SEQ or edit segments. Remember: HELLA CHOPPER follows the scale's interval pattern but ignores the active root (the loop's natural pitch is its own anchor) — if the loop is in F and the scale is in C, the snapped intervals will read as F-rooted.

HELLA CHOPPER drawn pitch doesn't play exactly what I drew

The scale quantiser is in effect. Lock the step (Lock row) to bypass quantisation and play the drawn pitch literally.

HELLA CHOPPER is silent

No sample loaded, or FIT is on but the loop has no detected slices at the current step count. Load a sample, then press MAP A.

FILL does nothing

Transport must be running — FILL is bar-synced and only evaluates on bar crossings.

CRUSHER is too loud when swapping presets

That's by design: it's a global state. Turn the amount down manually, or disable the toggle.

Looper out of sync

ARM triggers recording at the next bar boundary. Click ARM a little before the downbeat, not right on it.

Modulation not moving a fader

Arm the modulator row in the MOD tab first, then tap the target fader. Check the depth on the routing row — zero depth shows no motion.

CPU is high

Common culprits: several resonant effects in series (MetalRes + CombBank), granular cloud at max density, or many channels in sampler mode with very small grain sizes. Simplify one pad's effect first.

Control Reference

Alphabetical index. Every top-level control, where to find it, and what it accepts.