Polecat Blur

Polecat Blur has eight channels, each holding a sound recorded live or imported from an audio file. Before recording, choose Blur for a sustained, evolving texture, or Impact to keep a short one-shot attack, which plays from its Start Position to the end of the take. Select a channel to tune it, filter it with one of four filter types, and send it to the delays from before or after its filter. Hover over a send's switch to see which it is. The toolbar below the tabs acts on the selected channel: Record, Monitor, Copy, Paste, Load / Import and Save. Clear: Audio removes its recording and keeps its settings; Clear: Channel resets it completely.

The Surround Panner shows every channel and delay, and the speakers you play through: stereo, surround or with height speakers. Drag a dot to place a sound. With height speakers, the Height slider beside the panner sets how high it sits. With Poly Panning on in Settings, each note takes its own place, following its own velocity, key, Poly Pressure, modulators with Global off and MPE expression. The four delays sit in the same space, with times that can lock to the beat. Send a delay into itself for repeating echoes, or send two delays into each other so the echoes bounce between them. Global Spatial Spread sets the width and depth of the whole sound field, and its height with height speakers.

The toolbar above the tabs appears on every tab. It shows the preset's name, with arrows to step through others, and has New, Save, volume, Play and Panic. Panic silences everything at once, without a click. Its three-line menu offers six interface themes, and MIDI Keyboard shows or hides the on-screen keyboard along the bottom of the window.

Each of the nine modulators is a shape you draw around a circle. As the circle turns, the shape becomes movement: a sound drifting around you, or a filter opening and closing. You draw one path for when a note starts and another for when it is released. Up to eight taps, which you add and remove as you need them, read the shape at different points on the circle. Each tap moves something you choose, such as a channel's level, tuning, filter or position, by as much as you set. Set the cycle in beats to follow the tempo, or in seconds. With Global on, every note shares one cycle, which starts with the first note you play out of silence; with it off, each note starts its own.

Each of the nine curves takes one source, such as the mod wheel, velocity, pressure or pitch bend. It can also be the note you play, or a MIDI controller such as a knob, slider or expression pedal. You draw a curve that reshapes how it responds, and choose whether it is Unipolar or Bipolar. Each curve has up to eight control outputs, added as you need them. Each sends the shaped control straight to whatever you choose it to move, including the pitch of the whole note or of one channel. A curve can also set how far a modulator's tap moves its target.

To play from an MPE controller, switch on MPE Enable in Settings: each note then follows its own bend, pressure and timbre. With MPE on, each note can also set its own sends to the four delays, and its own speed for any modulator with Global off. The Overview shows all nine curves at once, beside 16 switches that choose which MIDI channels Polecat Blur listens to. A light beside each switch flashes when MIDI arrives on that channel. Below the switches, Pitchbend Ranges sets how far pitch bend reaches, for an ordinary keyboard and for each MPE note.

The Dashboard shows every channel, every delay and all nine modulators on one screen. Each channel and delay has its own small panner, so you can see where every sound sits. Below them, each modulator shows the shape you drew and the taps that read it. Load a preset and look here first, then open the tab that edits the part you want to change.

Polecat Blur comes with 17 factory presets, including the four you can hear on this page. Click a preset in the list to try it, and double-click to load it. If your current sound has unsaved changes, Polecat Blur asks before replacing it. Sort by name or date, mark favourites with a heart, filter with the tag buttons, or search by name, tag or notes. Each preset keeps its own tags, author and notes, so your own sounds stay in order as the library grows. You can also choose the folder where your library is kept.

Settings holds the controls you set once and leave. The Preset Settings panel holds those saved with each preset: the toolbar volume, each recording's fade in and out, and how many notes sound at once. It also sets which held note gives way when you play more notes than that. Poly Retriggering, on or off, sets whether a repeated note's fading tail overlaps the repeat or is cut short. The Poly Panning switch, also saved with each preset, lets each note take its own place, as described under Editor/Recorder.

The Global Settings panel applies whatever preset is loaded. It starts with MPE Enable, for playing from an MPE controller. Transpose and fine-tune the whole instrument. The SMPTE 7.x Speaker Geometry switch chooses between two standard speaker arrangements for 7.x systems: on for SMPTE, off for ITU. With Auto Monitor on, Clear: Audio and Clear: Channel switch the channel's Monitor on, so you hear your input ready for the next recording. Record Latching chooses whether you click to start and stop recording, or hold to record. Another switch softens sharp attacks as you record. You can also tint the interface a colour of your choosing.