In Sine Machine, effects are an integrated part of the additive synthesis engine itself.

In other words, unlike most synths, the effects in Sine Machine aren’t off the shelf audio dsp algos slapped on top of the synth output.

Of course, we love all the usual effects on synths: filters, reverb, delay, unison, etc. Nothing like a Moog ladder filter or thick creamy unisons or a deep reverb.

But the raw power of truly independent harmonic oscillators opens up access to brand new sonic frontiers: per-harmonic effects.

Given that we have full access to every harmonic over time, we’ve taken the unique opportunity to ground-up redesign what kind of direct control one can have over a synthesized tone.

“Where are the LFOs?” ask the Pros

At least at the moment, you won’t find any LFOs to route or matrixes in Sine Machine.

Routable LFOs increases flexibility, but at a price — it increases the learning curve, makes it more difficult to visualize the signal chain, and adds indirectness when sound designing.

Designing sounds in Sine Machine is already very 3-dimensional (requires thinking about and visualizing amplitudes, time, harmonic number). We like it when it’s easy to reason about why a sound is a certain way or how to change it to be like something else.

But here’s the actual answer: Sine Machine probably has more LFOs than any other synthesizer in history. Every single harmonic of every single voice has its own independent LFO for each and every effect. Exposing them would mean trying to name and juggle thousands of potential sources and destinations.

Instead, we’ve aimed to do the work on how to best group and organize the modulation in Sine Machine to provide a wide palette of options. Sure, you can edit the the exact trem rate and depth for harmonic #23. But most of the time you’ll want to have the satisfaction of pushing around the effects in bulk.