FuzzyLotus
Member
Hey everyone,
I wanted to share a Terrarium firmware I’ve been working on for a while now. It’s called MoonChild.
This one ended up as a chorus, reverb, and freeze instrument. I spent a lot of time pushing it past the point where it just felt like three separate effects living in the same box. The whole goal was to make it feel coherent under the hands, with the chorus, reverb, and freeze actually feeding each other in a musical way.
Everything is written in C++ and runs at 48k on the Terrarium.
The process on this was honestly a lot of iteration by ear. A lot of the work was not adding new stuff. It was removing the things that made it feel smaller, flatter, or more processed. I cared a lot about keeping the amp feel intact, keeping the dry attack alive, holding onto low end, and making sure the wet path stayed rich without clamping down on the dynamics.
The chorus is built around three modulated delay voices, with internal spread and glue so it stays wide and lush without turning into wobble for the sake of wobble. The reverb is a diffused multi delay design that can move from a brighter, tighter plate kind of feel into a darker and larger hall space depending on the character setting and decay. The freeze side captures from the reverb path and turns it into a playable pad. It is not a hard static hold. It has its own internal movement, but the center stays stable so it still feels anchored when you play over it.
One of my favorite parts of the whole thing is the interaction with freeze. FS1 taps the chorus on and off. If you hold FS1, it momentarily sends chorus into the freeze path while you are holding it. That makes it easy to inject motion and color into the frozen layer without turning that into some permanent latched mode. FS2 taps the reverb on and off. Holding FS2 engages freeze when the reverb is on. If you turn the reverb off while freeze is active, the frozen layer fades out naturally instead of getting chopped off.
There are also switch states for chorus enhancement, widen / orbit behavior, deeper interaction between the sections, and reverb character. So you can keep it straightforward, or push it into a more fused instrument where the chorus, reverb, and freeze feel tied together.
A lot of the final work was in the details. Opening the chorus back up so it kept its character without killing dynamics. Letting the wet path stay big without turning the whole thing mushy. Recovering some of the low end that usually disappears once you start filtering effect engines. Making the freeze feel alive over time without turning it into pitch wobble or a weird unstable loop.
It took a lot of versions to get to the point where it felt right, but I’m happy with where it landed, so I’m releasing it.
If anyone wants to try it, here it is:
[link]
Here is a demo:
If anyone builds it or records with it, I’d really love to hear it.
Thanks
I wanted to share a Terrarium firmware I’ve been working on for a while now. It’s called MoonChild.
This one ended up as a chorus, reverb, and freeze instrument. I spent a lot of time pushing it past the point where it just felt like three separate effects living in the same box. The whole goal was to make it feel coherent under the hands, with the chorus, reverb, and freeze actually feeding each other in a musical way.
Everything is written in C++ and runs at 48k on the Terrarium.
The process on this was honestly a lot of iteration by ear. A lot of the work was not adding new stuff. It was removing the things that made it feel smaller, flatter, or more processed. I cared a lot about keeping the amp feel intact, keeping the dry attack alive, holding onto low end, and making sure the wet path stayed rich without clamping down on the dynamics.
The chorus is built around three modulated delay voices, with internal spread and glue so it stays wide and lush without turning into wobble for the sake of wobble. The reverb is a diffused multi delay design that can move from a brighter, tighter plate kind of feel into a darker and larger hall space depending on the character setting and decay. The freeze side captures from the reverb path and turns it into a playable pad. It is not a hard static hold. It has its own internal movement, but the center stays stable so it still feels anchored when you play over it.
One of my favorite parts of the whole thing is the interaction with freeze. FS1 taps the chorus on and off. If you hold FS1, it momentarily sends chorus into the freeze path while you are holding it. That makes it easy to inject motion and color into the frozen layer without turning that into some permanent latched mode. FS2 taps the reverb on and off. Holding FS2 engages freeze when the reverb is on. If you turn the reverb off while freeze is active, the frozen layer fades out naturally instead of getting chopped off.
There are also switch states for chorus enhancement, widen / orbit behavior, deeper interaction between the sections, and reverb character. So you can keep it straightforward, or push it into a more fused instrument where the chorus, reverb, and freeze feel tied together.
A lot of the final work was in the details. Opening the chorus back up so it kept its character without killing dynamics. Letting the wet path stay big without turning the whole thing mushy. Recovering some of the low end that usually disappears once you start filtering effect engines. Making the freeze feel alive over time without turning it into pitch wobble or a weird unstable loop.
It took a lot of versions to get to the point where it felt right, but I’m happy with where it landed, so I’m releasing it.
If anyone wants to try it, here it is:
[link]
Here is a demo:
If anyone builds it or records with it, I’d really love to hear it.
Thanks
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