From input to a moving sound field
Prepare an empty channel, listen to the incoming source, record a useful span, then play it continuously while shaping its position, tone, and delay network. The cards below follow that order so the first pass is repeatable rather than mysterious.
Start and stop the instrument
Play in the top toolbar starts a continuous note, so the current recorded material can run without holding a key. This is the normal way to develop unpitched drones and sustained textures: press Play, make adjustments, and let the result continue while you listen.
Panic silences everything immediately, with no click, and stops any active recording. Loading a preset ends the previous sound the same way. Keyboard and MIDI input are also supported, but playing a note automatically disengages the toolbar Play button. That makes a played note the deliberate, pitched alternative to continuous playback.
To play from the screen, choose MIDI Keyboard in the three-line menu to show or hide the on-screen keyboard along the bottom of the window.
Get sound into Polecat Blur
In the standalone application, open the three-line menu at the far right of the top toolbar, choose Audio/MIDI Options…, and choose the audio input and output device, channel routing, and MIDI input you intend to use. The standalone app is usually the quickest option for microphones, interfaces, hardware instruments, field recordings, or any other external source: select the interface, monitor it, and record directly into a channel.
In a DAW, use the VST3 version when the source is already in the project—especially a soft synth. Route the synth or audio track to Polecat Blur's input as your host provides, then record that signal into a channel. Let the DAW manage the project sample rate and audio device; use its MIDI routing if you want to play Polecat Blur from a controller.
Use New before starting a fresh idea
The New button in the top toolbar creates a fresh, empty patch. It asks you to confirm first: press Reset to continue or Cancel to keep the current sound. It stops playback and recording, clears the recorded channels, and returns the instrument to its starting state. Save the current preset first if there is anything worth keeping. This is the full-session reset; it is not the same as clearing one channel.
Monitor and Record
Select the channel you want to build. Use Monitor to audition its incoming source before committing it: set the source level, verify the routing, and listen for noise or an unwanted channel. Then enable Record to capture that input into the selected channel; turn Record off when the take contains the material you need, then press Play to hear it as a continuously running layer. Record is additive: it always adds the incoming material to audio already in the channel. Press Erase first when you want a replacement take rather than another layer.
The additive behaviour is intentional. Record several compatible passes into one Blur channel when you want a denser, more complex source before it reaches the Blur engine. Monitor each new pass, keep the level controlled, and stop to audition the accumulated result; otherwise the channel can become crowded before the spatial and filtering decisions have a chance to do useful work.
With only one channel in Record, Polecat Blur makes a mono recording of all available inputs mixed together. This is useful when several inputs are meant to become one source. Put Record on more than one channel when the inputs should remain separate: each recording channel then receives only the audio connected to that specific channel, rather than the combined input mix.
In the Global panel of Settings, Record Latching chooses how the Record button behaves. With it enabled, Record stays on until you turn it off; use this for a measured capture or an accumulating layer. With it disabled, Record is momentary and captures only while held, which is useful for short sounds and tightly timed snippets.
Load a saved channel or WAV file
Use the channel Load / Import icon when the source already exists. It can load a saved layer file (.mkl) or a WAV file directly into the selected channel. This is useful for returning to a prepared source, bringing a field recording into the instrument, or moving a recorded idea between sessions. The Preset browser and the circular modulator editor have their own Load controls, which are unchanged.
Load / Import is a replacement operation: loading either kind of file erases the audio content currently in that channel before the new material is brought in. Copy or save the current channel first if its content matters. Use Record instead when the goal is to build on the existing audio, rather than replace it.
Erase, channel New, copy, and paste
Erase clears only the recorded audio from the selected channel. Its channel settings remain in place: use it when the next take should keep the current sound design, position, routing, and control choices. The channel's New control is the full reset. It stops recording, clears the audio, and restores all settings for that channel to their starting state, including its spatial dot and channel-specific movement. Use Erase to replace the source inside an existing design; use New to start that layer again from scratch.
Auto Monitor, in the Global panel of Settings, can make either operation faster. With it enabled, pressing Erase or channel New automatically puts the cleared channel into Monitor mode, so its incoming sound is immediately audible and ready to check before recording. Disable Auto Monitor when you need to decide manually when a cleared channel should hear its input.
The channel Copy and Paste controls copy the complete channel: its recorded content and channel settings move together to the destination channel. Paste replaces existing content. If the destination channel already holds audio, Polecat Blur asks before overwriting it; choose Paste to replace it or Cancel to keep it. This is the fastest way to duplicate a useful recorded layer before making a variation. The Tuning, Filter, and Sends panels also have their own Copy and Paste controls; those copy only that panel's settings, letting you share one treatment without overwriting a channel's recorded material or other choices.
Choose Blur or Impact before recording
Each channel has two content modes. Blur continuously works with a selected span of recorded material, making it the natural choice for drones, tone, diffusion, and evolving textures. Impact plays the recorded material as a one-shot, making it the natural choice for an attack, hit, scrape, or other event whose initial transient matters. Set the mode before you record the channel.
Use the small switch to the left of the channel's Blur panel title; the title changes to show Blur or Impact. Once the channel holds audio the switch is locked: press Erase to change the mode and keep the channel's settings, or New to start the channel again.
For an impact, record the source, then trigger the channel and adjust Start while listening. Start chooses where the one-shot begins in the newly recorded material, and it plays from there to the end of the take. Sweep it from the beginning until the transient is found, then make smaller moves to decide whether the sound should begin exactly on the attack or a little before it. This is particularly useful when recording began before the hit, or when a take contains several possible attacks.
Impact and Blur are often used as a pair: keep the transient in an Impact channel, then set a second, empty channel to Blur, record the same source into it or load the same audio file, and shape the tail into a wider, sustained layer. The Impact provides definition; the Blur supplies the atmosphere that follows it. Balance and place the two independently so the tail supports the hit rather than masking it.
Build stereo or multichannel variations from one recording
To create a wider version of a recorded sound, Copy the source channel, select an empty destination channel, and Paste. The destination receives the same material and complete channel state. Set a different Start point on the copied channel, then place the two channels at different positions in the Surround Panner. The offset Start points make the pair read as separate views of the same recording rather than a perfectly coincident duplicate.
Repeat this into additional channels when the sound calls for a multichannel construction. Keep the offsets small and purposeful at first, then vary position, level, or filter one parameter at a time. Copy the whole channel when the source should travel with its settings; use the Filter or Sends panel Copy/Paste when only that treatment should be shared across several independently positioned channels.
Tune a Blur to the recorded material
Length changes the span of material used by a Blur. It only takes effect on an empty channel, before the source is recorded or loaded: set it, bring in the source, then listen to the result. Particular lengths can reinforce a pitch or partial and create a ringing resonance; other lengths can reduce or remove it. Do not assume the first useful length is the right one. Deliberately try several shorter and longer settings—Erase, change Length, and bring the source back in again each time—then return to the most promising area and make small adjustments there, listening in the context of the other channels.
When a Blur fights the pitch or spectral weight of the source, tuning Length downwards is often more productive than tuning it upwards. Lower tuning commonly gives the material room to become denser and less insistent; upward tuning can emphasise unwanted brightness or resonance. It is a listening rule, not a prohibition—use the direction that serves the sound. Trim is the corrective gain stage for the recorded source, while the channel's dial in the Channel Mixer sets its musical balance. The Channel Mixer, on the right of Editor/Recorder, has one dial for each channel, Ch. 1 to Ch. 8. The Record Via AllPass option in the Global panel of Settings diffuses the input before recording; enable it to soften a literal or percussive source, but leave it off when transient clarity matters.
Place the recorded channel in space
In the Surround Panner, select the dot for the recorded channel and drag it around the field. Moving it left, right, forward, back, up, or down changes where that channel appears in the output. Start with a clear, slightly offset position so layers do not all occupy the centre; then use the Global Spatial Spread controls to decide how wide, deep, and high the complete result should feel.
With height speakers, the Height slider beside the panner fades a channel between the lower and upper surround speaker sets. Dots you have moved stay where you put them if the track's channel count changes. Each channel and delay has a solid dot where you placed it, and a second mark showing where it is heard once the pan handle, Width and movement are applied. In the Neumorphic themes that mark is a filled dot in another colour; in the Accessible themes it is an open circle. The ring around the pan handle shows the Width setting.
A plain click selects a dot. Shift-click toggles that channel's mute state, and Alt-click toggles solo, which can be extended to several dots. Shift-Alt-click sends whatever is under the cursor to the back, so an overlapping dot underneath becomes reachable; it is a gesture in its own right and does not also mute or solo. Clicking the empty panner background deselects everything and releases all solo. These gestures apply to speaker dots as well as channel dots. The pan handle keeps its double-click to reset to centre, which is now the only double-click on the panner.
The panner also responds to the keyboard whenever the application has focus, without needing to be clicked first. Press 1–8 to select a channel dot, Shift+A–D to select a delay dot, and 0 to deselect everything and release solo. The letters are uppercase deliberately: lowercase a–d belong to the QWERTY note keyboard and still play notes, so the shortcuts take nothing away from playing the instrument.
Shape the tone with the filter
Enable the channel filter, choose one of its four models (SVF Lowpass, SVF Highpass, SVF Bandpass, or Ladder Lowpass), then set Freq for its operating point and Res for emphasis around that point. SVF Lowpass retains the material below the frequency and removes progressively more high content above it; use it to place a layer behind the foreground or make repeats recede.SVF Highpass does the inverse, removing low weight below the frequency; use it to clear rumble, make room for an Impact, or keep an atmospheric layer from filling the whole mix.
SVF Bandpass focuses the material around a chosen region while reducing both lows and highs. It is useful for finding a narrow, characterful part of a field recording or making a layer feel more distant. Ladder Lowpass is the fourth model; use it when its own response gives the Blur a more suitable character than the SVF types. In every model, increase Res cautiously: it makes the frequency point more pronounced and can quickly become the dominant feature of a resonant Blur.
Copy the Filter panel to carry the enabled state, filter model, Freq, and Res to another channel, then Paste it there. This is the right way to apply the same tonal treatment to different recordings without copying their content. The cutoff can also be modulated; begin with a low modulation amount so the underlying filter decision remains audible.
Build repeats and ping-pong movement with delays
Send a channel to one or more of the four delays, then set each delay's time, filtering, and output level to place its repeats around the dry layer. To make a delay repeat, select it and turn up its own dial in its Sends panel; the delay editor has no separate Feedback control. Start with one delay and a modest send; add a second when the first repeat has a useful role rather than simply making the patch louder.
Each channel-to-delay Send has a Pre/Post Filter switch. With the switch's knob to the left, the send is taken before the channel's filter (Pre); with the knob to the right, it is taken after the filter (Post). Hover over the switch to see which it is: Pre-Filter or Post-Filter. Choose Pre when the delay should receive a more uniform version of the source while the dry channel is filtered separately. Choose Post when the channel's filtering should be part of the delayed signal, so the delay inherits that tonal decision.
Delays can also send into other delays. For a basic ping-pong, send Delay A into Delay B and Delay B back into Delay A, then use different times and positions for each side. These inter-delay sends have the same switch: with the knob to the left, the signal is taken before the sending delay's filter (Pre); with the knob to the right, it is taken after that filter (Post). Hovering shows the same Pre-Filter or Post-Filter readout. A Pre path is useful when you want comparatively uniform repeats; a Post path lets filtering become part of the recirculating route, so its coloration can build as the delay regenerates. Keep inter-delay sends, and each delay's send to itself, conservative at first: their combined recirculation can build density very quickly. Filter the returns when you want repeats to soften or recede with each pass.
