Instruments & Effects

CANTIA (FORMANT VOICE SYNTHESIZER)

Cantia is a voice synthesizer that models the human vocal tract using formant synthesis. A glottal pulse drives three parallel bandpass filters (formants F1, F2, F3) to produce vowel and consonant sounds.

Voice Types: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, Whisper (noise-only), Robot (narrow/metallic)

Lyric Input: Type plain text and Cantia parses it into syllables. Use IPA brackets for specific phonemes (28 available), glide arrows for transitions (e.g., [aa>ow]), uppercase for stress, and trailing underscore for sustain.

Parameters:

• Voice — Type, Breathiness, Vibrato Depth, Vibrato Rate, Formant Shift
• Amp — Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release
• Phoneme — Speed, Consonant Sharpness, Vowel Blend
• Chorus — Toggle with Speed, Depth, Mix settings
• Reverb — Toggle with Size, Damping, Mix settings
• Master — Level, Voice Mode (Mono/Legato/Poly), Voices (1-8)

Lyrics support up to 16 states with the State Selector. 12 factory presets: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, Whisper, Robot, Choir Pad, Gregorian, Ethereal, Beatbox, Vowel Drone, Chant.

The Presets button loads a built-in preset, saves the current voice as a user preset ("Save as Preset..."), or opens the full preset browser ("Browse All..."). User presets are stored in your preset library and load live into Cantia.

CHIRUSA (4-OSCILLATOR SUBTRACTIVE SYNTH)

Chirusa is Noemi's built-in synthesizer. Add it via Instruments > Chirusa. New instances load a random preset for instant sound.

PRESETS

Click the "Presets" button to choose from 10 factory presets:

• Pluck — Bright saw pluck with LP filter sweep
• Velvet - Warm sine pad
• Blade — Aggressive detuned saws
• Glass — Bell-like sine harmonics
• Drift — Evolving filtered square pad
• Ember — Warm mono bass
• Frost — Airy high-passed triangle texture
• Volt — Punchy square lead
• Haze — Soft noise-layered atmosphere
• Spark — Short metallic stab

PARAMETERS

• 4 Oscillators, each with:
• Waveform — Sine, Triangle, Saw, Square, Pulse
• Level — Volume (0-1)
• Tune — Coarse tuning in semitones (-48 to +48)
• Fine — Fine tuning in cents (-100 to +100)
• Pulse Width - Width of pulse wave (0-1)

• Filter:
• Type — Low Pass, High Pass, Band Pass, etc.
• Frequency - Cutoff frequency (20-20000 Hz)
• Resonance - Filter resonance (0-1)
• Amount — Filter envelope depth

• Amp Envelope (ADSR):
• Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release

• Filter Envelope (ADSR):
• Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release

• Master:
• Level — Master volume
• Voices - Number of polyphony voices
• Mode — Mono or Poly

• Randomize ("!!!") - Randomizes all parameters for sound exploration

LEEROY (SYNTHESIS DRUM MACHINE)

Leeroy is a synthesis-based drum machine with 8 channels. Unlike Ostion which uses samples, Leeroy generates sounds from oscillators, noise, and envelopes -- giving you deep control over every drum sound. Uses the same MIDI note mapping as Ostion (36, 38, 42, 46, 39, 45, 49, 51).

Per-Channel Parameters:

• Oscillator — Wave Shape, Tune (-24 to +24 st), Pitch Decay
• Noise — Level, Color (200 Hz - 16 kHz lowpass)
• Amp — Attack, Hold, Decay (AHD envelope, no sustain)
• Tone — Filter Cutoff, Resonance
• Character — Drive (soft-clip saturation)
• Output — Level, Pan

The pitch envelope is key to Leeroy's character: the oscillator starts at 4x base frequency and decays to 1x, creating the characteristic analog drum punch.

8 preset kits: Default Kit, 808 Classic, 909 Analog, Minimal Techno, Industrial, Lo-Fi, Trap, Electro. The Presets button loads a built-in kit, saves the current kit as a user preset ("Save as Preset..."), or opens the full browser ("Browse All..."). Randomize button randomizes the current channel only, and leaves the output level untouched.

OSTION (8-SLOT DRUM SAMPLER)

Ostion is Noemi's built-in drum machine. Add it via Instruments > Ostion.

• 8 sample slots, each with:
• Sample — Audio file name (load via "..." button)
• Note — MIDI note trigger (36-43 for slots 1-8)
• Gain — Volume (0-2)
• Pan — Stereo position (-1 left to +1 right)

• Load your own samples or use the built-in drum sounds (Kick, Snare, Closed HH, Open HH, Clap, Low Tom, Crash, Ride).

SIMSIM (WAVETABLE MORPHING SYNTHESIZER)

SimSim is a dual-oscillator wavetable synthesizer where each oscillator morphs between waveforms within a wavetable stack.

Oscillators (x2):

• Wavetable — 8 stacks: Basic, PWM, Formant, Digital, Metallic, Warm, Ethereal, Vocal
• Morph — Crossfade position within the wavetable (0-1)
• Tune — Coarse tuning (-24 to +24 semitones)
• Fine — Fine tuning (-100 to +100 cents)
• Level — Volume (0-1)
• Unison — 1-4 voices with Detune spread
• Pan — Stereo position (-1 to +1)

Filter (Cytomic SVF):

• Type — Off, Low Pass, High Pass, Band Pass
• Frequency — 10 Hz to 22 kHz
• Resonance — Filter resonance
• Env Amount — Filter envelope depth

Envelopes & LFO:

• Amp ADSR, Filter ADSR
• LFO: Sine/Triangle/Saw/Square/S&H
• LFO Route: Osc1 Morph, Osc2 Morph, Pitch, Filter
• Rate (0.1-20 Hz), Depth

Effects: Chorus (Speed, Depth, Mix), Reverb (Size, Damping, Mix) Master: Level, Voice Mode (Mono/Legato/Poly, 1-8 voices)

12 factory presets: Morphscape, Digital Pluck, Warm Bass, Crystal Bell, Vocal Drift, Glitch Lead, Ethereal Strings, PWM Lead, Texture Wash, Formant Stab, Metal Pad, Sub Wobble. Real-time waveform display.

INTERNAL EFFECTS

Noemi includes 7 built-in audio effects that require no external plugins. Each effect has 8 factory presets and a Randomize button. All parameters are modulatable. Every internal effect can also save the current settings as a user preset and browse the full library, and user presets load live into the effect. Randomize shuffles the sound but never changes the effect's output level.

• Reverb — Room Size, Damping, Mix, Width
• Delay — Feedback, Mix, Length
• EQ (4-band) — Frequency, Gain, Q per band
• Compressor — Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release, Output
• Chorus — Depth, Width, Speed, Mix
• Phaser — Depth, Rate, Feedback
• Multimode Filter - Frequency, Type (LP/HP/BP)

EXTERNAL PLUGINS

Noemi hosts AU, VST3, CLAP, and LV2 plugins for both instruments and effects:

• Instruments > (plugin list) — Add external synths/samplers
• Effects > (plugin list) — Add external audio effects

Supported plugin formats by platform:

• macOS — AU, VST3, CLAP, LV2
• Windows — VST3, CLAP, LV2
• Linux — VST3, CLAP, LV2, LADSPA

External plugin windows open in separate floating windows. CLAP plugins render their native GUI within Noemi. Plugin states are saved with the project.

PLUGIN SEARCH PATHS

Noemi scans standard system directories for plugins on each platform. To view the default scan paths or add custom plugin directories, go to File > Plugin Settings.

The Plugin Settings dialog shows each plugin format with its default search paths (read-only) and a list of custom paths you have added. Use the Add button to browse for additional plugin folders and the Remove button to delete custom paths. Custom paths are saved automatically and persist across sessions.

Default plugin locations:

• VST3:
• macOS — ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3, /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3
• Windows - %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Common\VST3, %ProgramFiles%\Common Files\VST3
• Linux — ~/.vst3, /usr/lib/vst3, /usr/local/lib/vst3

• CLAP:
• macOS — ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAP, /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAP
• Windows - %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Common\CLAP, %ProgramFiles%\Common Files\CLAP
• Linux — ~/.clap, /usr/lib/clap

• LV2:
• macOS — ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2, /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/LV2, ~/.lv2
• Windows - %APPDATA%\LV2, %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\LV2
• Linux — ~/.lv2, /usr/lib/lv2, /usr/local/lib/lv2

• AU (macOS only):
• Discovered automatically by the system — no directory configuration needed.

• LADSPA (Linux only):
• Uses LADSPA_PATH environment variable, or /usr/lib/ladspa, /usr/local/lib/ladspa, ~/.ladspa

After adding custom paths, rescan plugins to discover newly added plugins.

MIDI EFFECT PLUGINS

Noemi automatically detects MIDI effect plugins (AU aumf type, VST3 with zero audio I/O). MIDI effects display blue MIDI pins and a "MIDI FX" badge. Chain them between a source and instrument: Pattern -> MIDI Effect -> Instrument -> Mixer.

GAIN AND PAN

Every instrument and effect node has per-node gain and pan controls:

• Gain — -60 dB to +6 dB
• Pan — Left (-1) to Right (+1)