General
Info
Main Modes
Envelope
Vactrol
Follower
Compressor
Alternate Modes
ASR Envelope
Plucked Vactrol
Cutoff Controller
Slow, Soft Compressor
Direct VCF Control
Other
Siamese Twin

General

Info

Streams

Streams is a dynamics controller by Mutable Instruments.

Streams icons are extracted from Warps panel design, available on Github under CC-BY-SA-3.0 license.

Alternate Modes

Access Alternate modes by holding the channel function button until mode LED turns red.

Links

Streams Home
Streams Manual
Mutable Instruments GitHub


Main Modes

Envelope

VCFA w/ Internal Envelope

Inputs

EXCITE Trigger or gate input. Sensitive to changes in amplitude, duration, and slew rate of trigger.
IN VCFA signal input. Accepts CV and audio. Normalled to +3.3v, so with nothing patched, sending triggers to EXCITE will generate envelopes at output.
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

SHAPE Controls shape of internal envelope; first it lengthens decay, then lengthens attack while decreasing decay, then it shortens both
MOD Controls how the envelope affects the filter cutoff via depth and offset. Fully CCW, the envelope does not affect Cutoff and the filter is fully closed. At noon, the envelope fully opens and closes the filter. As you increase past noon, depth of cutoff envelope decreases, but an offset is increasingly added so filter becomes more and more open without envelope. Fully CW, the filter is always fully open
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to Level. Becomes attenuator for Level input when jack is patched.


Vactrol

VCFA w/ Vactrol Responses

Inputs

EXCITE Vactrol exciter. Use trigs, gates, envelopes etc for typical LPG-style control of VCFA.
IN VCFA signal input. Accepts CV and audio. Normalled to +3.3v, so with nothing patched, sending modulation curves to Excite will "vactrolize" the modulation.
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

VCA CURVE Should be linear for accurate vactrol responses... but play with it for other weird curves!
SHAPE Controls vactrol response speed. As SHAPE increases from fully CCW to noon, decay increases with small proprotional increase in attack. From noon to fully CW, vactrol response occurs backwards in time (longer attack, shorter decay).
MOD Controls how the filter cutoff tracks the amplitude modulation envelope; from fully CCW with no damping, to noon with full damping, to fully CW with no damping but an offset added to keep filter open.
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to Level. Becomes attenuator for Level input when jack is patched.


Follower

Amplitude and Spectral Centroid Envelope Follower

Inputs

EXCITE Signal to extract envelope information from. Amplitude (loudness) is tracked, as well as spectral centroid (weighted mean of frequencies present in spectrum, with amplitudes of frequencies as weights - roughly how 'bright' a sound is).
IN Amplitude and Spectral Centroid envelopes of the EXCITE input are applied to this signal input so that the IN signal mimics the loudness and brightness of the EXCITE input. Sending the same signal to EXCITE and IN allows for gating/expansion. With nothing patched, +3.3v normalled to IN, so sending a signal to EXCITE allows for the envelope follower output to be reproduced at OUT.
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

SHAPE Controls how quickly the envelope follower tracks the EXCITE input. From fast (fully CCW) to muddy (noon) to wobbly (fully CW).
MOD Controls how the filter cutoff tracks the spectral centroid envelope; from fully CCW with no tracking, to noon with full tracking, to fully CW with no damping but an offset added to keep filter open.
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to Level. Becomes attenuator for Level input when jack is patched.


Compressor

Dynamics Compressor.

The compressor has a fast detector (0.2ms attack time, 150ms release time) and a hard knee.

Inputs

EXCITE Side chain input. If patched, then the level of the EXCITE input determines the amount of gain reduction to be applied to in. If not patched, the mode operates as a typical compressor on IN.
IN Signal to be compressed. With nothing patched, +3.3v normalled to In, so sending a signal to Excite allows for the sidechain gain reduction envelope to be reproduced at OuT.
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

VCA Curve Should be exponential for accurate compression.
SHAPE Controls compression threshold.
MOD At noon, no compression applied. Turning CCW increases the compression but with no makeup gain, thus taming loud parts but leaving quiet untouched. Turning CW from noon increases compression ratio but adds make up gain, thus boosting quiet parts but leaving loud parts untouched.
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to Level. Acts as an attenuator for LEVEL input when patched Should be at minimum for accurate compression.


Alternate Modes

ASR Envelope

VCFA w/ Internal Envelope

Inputs

EXCITE Trigger or gate input. Sensitive to changes in amplitude, duration, and slew rate of trigger.
IN VCFA signal input. Accepts CV and audio. Normalled to +3.3v, so with nothing patched, sending triggers to EXCITE will generate envelopes at output.
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

SHAPE Controls shape of internal envelope; first it lengthens decay, then lengthens attack while decreasing decay, then it shortens both
MOD Controls how the envelope affects the filter cutoff via depth and offset. Fully CCW, the envelope does not affect Cutoff and the filter is fully closed. At noon, the envelope fully opens and closes the filter. As you increase past noon, depth of cutoff envelope decreases, but an offset is increasingly added so filter becomes more and more open without envelope. Fully CW, the filter is always fully open
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to Level. Becomes attenuator for Level input when jack is patched.


Plucked Vactrol

Pingable Vactrol LPG

Inputs

EXCITE Acts as trigger input for pinging virtual vactrol.
IN VCFA signal input. Accepts CV and audio. Normalled to +3.3v, so with nothing patched, sending a trig to EXCITE will output a "vactrolized" envelope.
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

VCA CURVE Should be linear for accurate vactrol responses... but play with it for other weird curves!
SHAPE Controls vactrol response speed. As SHAPE increases from fully CCW to noon, decay increases with small proprotional increase in attack. From noon to fully CW, vactrol response occurs backwards in time (longer attack, shorter decay).
MOD Controls how the filter cutoff tracks the amplitude modulation envelope; from fully CCW with no damping, to noon with full damping, to fully CW with no damping but an offset added to keep filter open.
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to Level. Becomes attenuator for Level input when jack is patched.


Cutoff Controller

Cutoff (Spectral Centroid) Envelope

Inputs

EXCITE Signal to extract envelope information from. Amplitude (loudness) is not tracked, only spectral centroid (weighted mean of frequencies present in spectrum, with amplitudes of frequencies as weights - roughly how 'bright' a sound is).
IN Spectral Centroid envelope of the EXCITE input are applied to the IN signal input's amplitude. With nothing patched, +3.3v normalled to IN, so sending a signal to EXCITE allows the "cutoff frequency" of the EXCITE input to be reproduced at OUT.
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

SHAPE Controls how quickly the envelope follower tracks the EXCITE input. From fast (fully CCW) to muddy (noon) to wobbly (fully CW).
MOD Controls how the filter cutoff tracks the spectral centroid envelope; from fully CCW with no tracking, to noon with full tracking, to fully CW with no damping but an offset added to keep filter open.
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to Level. Becomes attenuator for Level input when jack is patched.


Slow, Soft Compressor

Dynamics Compressor.

The compressor has a slower detector and a softer knee than the default compressor.

Inputs

EXCITE Side chain input. If patched, then the level of the EXCITE input determines the amount of gain reduction to be applied to in. If not patched, the mode operates as a typical compressor on IN.
IN Signal to be compressed. With nothing patched, +3.3v normalled to In, so sending a signal to Excite allows for the sidechain gain reduction envelope to be reproduced at OuT.
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

VCA Curve Should be exponential for accurate compression.
SHAPE Controls compression threshold.
MOD At noon, no compression applied. Turning CCW increases the compression but with no makeup gain, thus taming loud parts but leaving quiet untouched. Turning CW from noon increases compression ratio but adds make up gain, thus boosting quiet parts but leaving loud parts untouched.
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to Level. Acts as an attenuator for LEVEL input when patched Should be at minimum for accurate compression.


Direct VCF Control

All mode LEDs lit

Inputs

EXCITE Filter cutoff control input. Opens and closes VCF portion of VCFA
IN Signal to amplify and filter
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

SHAPE Cutoff frequency offset control
MOD Cutoff frequency attenuverter for EXCITE input.
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to LEVEL. Acts as an attenuator for LEVEL input when patched


Other

Siamese Twin

Siamese Twin mode

Hold both mode buttons to enter Siamese Twins modes; mode indicator LEDs will alternately blink.

Compressor Modes

All other controls are identical to non-Siamese operation.

Ch1 SHAPE Attack
Ch2 SHAPE Release
Ch1 MOD Threshold
Ch2 MOD Ratio & Make-up gain

Non-compressor Modes

All other controls are identical to non-Siamese operation.

Ch1 SHAPE Attack
Ch2 SHAPE Decay

Inputs

EXCITE Vactrol exciter. Use trigs, gates, envelopes etc for typical LPG-style control of VCFA.
IN VCFA signal input. Accepts CV and audio. Normalled to +3.3v, so with nothing patched, sending modulation curves to Excite will "vactrolize" the modulation.
LEVEL Directly wired to VCA control input. Opens and closes VCA portion of VCFA.

Controls

VCA CURVE Should be linear for accurate vactrol responses... but play with it for other weird curves!
SHAPE Controls vactrol response speed. As SHAPE increases from fully CCW to noon, decay increases with small proprotional increase in attack. From noon to fully CW, vactrol response occurs backwards in time (longer attack, shorter decay).
MOD Controls how the filter cutoff tracks the amplitude modulation envelope; from fully CCW with no damping, to noon with full damping, to fully CW with no damping but an offset added to keep filter open.
LEVEL MOD VCA control offset with nothing patched to Level. Becomes attenuator for Level input when jack is patched.