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Mutable Instruments Ports

MAGDA ships native ports of three Mutable Instruments modules, faithful to Emilie Gillet's open-source designs:

  • Materia is a port of Elements
  • Halo is a port of Rings
  • Nimbus is a port of Clouds

Materia and Halo are instruments played from MIDI. Nimbus is a granular audio processor that works on an existing signal, so add it to a track's FX chain rather than playing it from the keyboard.

Materia (Elements)

A monophonic modal-synthesis voice with three exciters, Bow, Blow, and Strike, driving a modal and string resonator, followed by a stereo Space reverb.

Parameter Range Default Description
Contour 0 to 100% 50 Exciter envelope shape
Bow 0 to 100% 0 Bow exciter amount
Bow Timbre 0 to 100% 50 Bow timbre
Blow 0 to 100% 0 Blow exciter amount
Blow Flow 0 to 100% 50 Blow pressure and flow
Blow Timbre 0 to 100% 50 Blow brightness
Strike 0 to 100% 80 Strike exciter amount
Strike Mallet 0 to 100% 50 Mallet hardness
Strike Timbre 0 to 100% 50 Strike spectral content
Signature 0 to 100% 10 Resonator timbral colour
Geometry 0 to 100% 30 Resonator shape (bar, membrane, tube)
Brightness 0 to 100% 50 Resonator cutoff
Damping 0 to 100% 70 Mode decay rate
Position 0 to 100% 30 Strike position on the resonator
Space 0 to 100% 30 Stereo reverb amount
Pitch / Fine -24 to 24 st / -100 to 100 cents 0 Transpose and fine tune
Level -60 to 12 dB 0 Output level
Vel > Amp 0 to 100% 100 Velocity to amplitude depth

Halo (Rings)

A switchable polyphonic resonator with an internal exciter. There is no note-off: notes ring out and decay according to Damping, and the resonator rotates its internal voices as you play.

Parameter Range Default Description
Structure 0 to 100% 25 Modal-to-string character
Brightness 0 to 100% 50 Resonator cutoff
Damping 0 to 100% 50 Mode decay rate
Position 0 to 100% 25 Excitation position
Model Modal / Sympathetic / String / FM / Sym Quant / String+Verb Modal Resonator type
Polyphony 1 / 2 / 4 voices 2 Internal voice count
Chord 0 to 10 0 Chord voicing (modal and chord models)
Pitch / Fine -24 to 24 st / -100 to 100 cents 0 Transpose and fine tune
Level -60 to 12 dB 0 Output level

Nimbus (Clouds)

A stereo granular texture processor with four modes. It processes whatever audio reaches it, with an internal diffuser and a freeze control. Add it to a track's FX chain.

Parameter Range Default Description
Position 0 to 100% 50 Playback position / seek
Size 0 to 100% 50 Grain size and buffer length
Pitch -24 to 24 st 0 Pitch shift (Stretch mode)
Density 0 to 100% 40 Grain density and overlap
Texture 0 to 100% 50 Grain envelope and spectral tilt
Dry/Wet 0 to 100% 50 Processed-to-dry blend
Spread 0 to 100% 50 Stereo width and grain randomisation
Feedback 0 to 100% 0 Output to input feedback
Reverb 0 to 100% 0 Diffuser tail amount
Mode Granular / Stretch / Looping Delay / Spectral Granular Processing algorithm
Freeze Off / On Off Freeze the buffer and loop the current grains

Macros, modulation, and presets

All three ports are standard MAGDA devices, so their parameters accept macros and modulators, and patches save and recall through the preset system.