Docs
Manuals
Pick a plugin. Install and activation work the same for all of them; the controls are specific to each. Looking for the hardware editor? See the Kronos 3 Editor guide.
Install
Download the installer from the download page and run it. It installs the Audio Unit (Logic Pro, GarageBand) and the VST3 (Ableton Live, Cubase, FL Studio); untick either in the installer's customise step if you only want one. Restart your DAW afterwards so it rescans plugins, then insert CymaticPlate on an instrument track.
Activate
Open the Presets view (top right of the plugin), paste the license key from your purchase email into the License field, and click Activate. Activation is checked locally; the plugin never connects to the internet. Lost your key? Use the resend form on the support page.
The three engines
The Engine selector switches what generates sound. All three share the same filter, LFO, delay, and visualiser.
- Plate: MIDI notes strike a physically simulated Kirchhoff plate. Inharmonic, gong-like tones; real plate physics, so it rings, beats, and shimmers rather than playing equal-tempered pitches. Low notes strike near the centre, high notes toward the edge.
- Sine: a pure tone played at standard pitch, with up to 8 voices.
- Saw: a band-limited sawtooth on the same voice pool. Brighter, and the filter section earns its keep here.
Controls
The main sliders change meaning with the engine, so every control always does something useful:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Stiffness | Plate: pitch register of the plate (modes scale together). Sine/Saw: vibrato depth. |
| Damping | Plate: ring-down time, from long gong decays to dead thuds. Sine/Saw: note decay time. |
| Mallet Width | Plate: strike hardness (narrow is hard and bright, wide is soft and dark). Sine/Saw: tone, dark to bright. |
| Strike Gain | Plate: how hard MIDI velocity hits the plate. Sine/Saw: velocity sensitivity. |
| Output Gain | Final output level. |
Filter & delay
The filter is a resonant low-pass with Cutoff and Resonance, modulated by an LFO with Rate, Amount, and a set of bell-curve Shape options. Sync locks the LFO to your DAW tempo with note lengths from 1/8 up to 8 bars, phase-locked to the bar so sweeps land where you expect. The stereo ping-pong delay has Time, Feedback, and Mix; its Sync switch swaps the free time slider for note lengths (1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32).
MIDI
- Mod wheel (CC1) pushes the first slider in every engine: stiffness on the plate, vibrato depth on the oscillators.
- Pitch bend bends two semitones in all engines.
- Velocity scales strike force (Plate) or note level (Sine/Saw), shaped by Strike Gain.
Sequencer (MIDI out)
Switch on MIDI Out and CymaticPlate fires notes from the plate's own ring as it decays, so a single strike sequences an evolving line. Route it to another instrument to play that synth from the plate (see Sending MIDI to other instruments below).
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Root / Scale | Quantise every fired note to a key, so the inharmonic plate reads as melody rather than noise. |
| Density | How busy the firing is: low is sparse and ambient, high is a flurry of notes. |
| MIDI Channel | The channel (1 to 16) the notes are sent out on. |
| MIDI Out | Enables sending. Off by default. |
The visualiser
The sand is not decoration: particles drift toward the nodal lines of whatever the plate is actually doing, the way sand behaves on a real vibrating plate. The Sand slider sets how much sand is in play, Palette changes the colour scheme, and Freeze holds the figure still for a closer look.
Sending MIDI to other instruments
CymaticPlate can send the notes it plays out as MIDI, so its pattern drives a completely different synth. Turn on the MIDI Out button at the bottom of the plugin (it is off by default) and pick the output channel beside it. CymaticPlate fires notes from the plate's ring after you strike it, so a single chord can sequence an evolving line. Shape what it sends with the Root, Scale and Density controls in the Sequencer section.
There is no destination to choose inside the plugin: it hands the notes to your DAW, and the DAW decides which track they play. You set that up on the track you want triggered.
In Logic Pro
- Put the synth you want to drive on its own software instrument track.
- Select that track and open the Track inspector (the i button, top left).
- Set Internal MIDI In to the CymaticPlate track, choosing its Instrument Output (the tap that carries the notes the plugin generates).
- Play CymaticPlate: its notes now also play the other synth.
Internal MIDI In needs Logic Pro 11 or later. Earlier versions cannot route an Audio Unit instrument's MIDI output, so the feature will appear to do nothing there.
In VST3 hosts (Ableton Live, Cubase, Bitwig, Reaper), load the VST3 build and point the receiving track's MIDI input at the CymaticPlate track instead (in Live, the receiving track's MIDI From menu).
Presets
The Presets view lists the factory presets and your own. Save captures the current state under a name you choose; the star marks favourites so they sort to where you can find them. User presets live in ~/Library/Application Support/Rumcake/CymaticPlate/Presets and survive reinstalls.
Support
Stuck? contact@rumcakerecords.com, and include your DAW and macOS version.