Draw the playhead, the level and the pan across the last eight beats.

A tempo-synced time and volume shaper.

PriceFree
FormatsVST3, AU
SystemmacOS 10.13+, Windows 10+
Size
Download Lapse

A line that moves the playhead

Lapse keeps a rolling eight beats of whatever plays into it, then reads that buffer back through envelopes you draw. Where the read head goes is up to you.

Draw a line that falls and the audio plays backwards. Draw a flat step and it freezes on that moment. Draw a staircase and it stutters. Stutter, freeze, reverse, tape stop, pitch shift and glitch all come from the same shape, on one insert.

Time. Moves the read head, in beats behind now. Rest is now, playing forward.

Volume. Moves the output level, with its own attack and release on the envelope edges.

Pan. Moves it across the stereo field. Rest is centre.

Together. Three lanes run at once and are chosen independently. A time envelope from one preset, a volume gate from another, a pan sweep from a third.

The Lapse window with the TIME lane open: twenty-four time presets down the left, the envelope canvas with a flat 'thru' line and a dashed freeze reference behind it, the eight-beat buffer grid below, and the shape, sync and pitch controls across the bottom.

Drawing

Double-click the canvas to add a node. Drag to move it. Drag the segment between two nodes to bend it.

Each segment takes a shape: curve, s curve, hold, stairs, pulse, wave or half sine. Stairs, pulse and wave take a count, so one segment can hold sixteen steps instead of sixteen nodes. While one lane is being edited the other two stay on screen behind it in their own colours, so you can see how they line up.

Six tools

Reverse mirrors the envelope in time. Flip mirrors it in value. X2 halves it and repeats it, so one bar becomes two. Reset returns the lane to flat. Undo steps back thirty-two times. Dice generates a random envelope in the current lane.

Seventy-two presets

Twenty-four per lane, on the plugin face rather than buried in a menu. Stutters, rolls, tape stop, backspin and scratch on time. Gates, pumps and ducks on volume. Ping pong, sweeps and steps on pan. All three lanes save together as a user preset.

Buffer and grid

Thirty-two cells, one per sixteenth across the eight beats. One is lit where the envelope is reading, one is pale at the write head, and the run between them is the delay you are hearing. Drag across it to scrub.

Pitch

Minus 24 to plus 24 semitones, independent of playback speed, with fine tuning in cents and a grain size from tight and metallic to smooth and smeared. Pitch lock holds pitch while the time envelope changes speed, so half speed does not drop an octave.

Synced to the host

Bar position, tempo and play state are read from the host on every block, so the envelope sits on the grid whatever the project does.

Change tempo mid-song, loop a bar, jump the playhead. It follows. Preset changes are quantised to the trigger setting, so you can set it to one bar and click through presets during a take without any of them landing early.

Zero latency

It reports zero samples and means it. There is no lookahead anywhere in the signal path, so nothing shifts when you insert it and nothing needs compensating. With the time lane on thru, the output is a bit-exact copy of the input.

No clicks

Every jump in the time envelope is a discontinuity, and every one of them is crossfaded. The crossfade is yours to set from 0 to 12 ms. Tape start is the one factory preset that begins from silence, by design.

Nothing blocks the audio thread

Buffers are allocated once when the host prepares the plugin. Parameters are read as a single snapshot at the top of each block. Envelope tables are baked on the message thread and handed over at a cycle boundary, so drawing never interrupts audio.

Specifications

Stereo in and out. Eight beats of buffer, up to 14 seconds. 11 kHz to 192 kHz. 41 parameters, all host-automatable. Envelopes, presets and every parameter save with the project.

Lapse keeps a rolling eight-beat buffer of whatever is playing into it, then reads that buffer back through envelopes you draw. Where the read head goes is up to you.

Three lanes run at once, each with its own bank of twenty-four presets. Time moves the read head, in beats behind now. Volume moves the output level. Pan moves it across the stereo field. Mix and match freely: a time envelope from one preset, a volume gate from another, a pan sweep from a third.

Draw by double-clicking the canvas to add a node and dragging to move it. Each segment takes a shape, and stairs, pulse and wave take a count, so one segment can hold sixteen steps rather than sixteen nodes. Reverse, flip, x2, reset, undo and dice sit above the canvas.

Everything comes from the host, so the envelope sits on the grid whatever the project does.

Questions

Does it add latency?

No. It reports zero samples and there is no lookahead anywhere in the signal path, so nothing shifts when you insert it and nothing needs compensating. With the time lane on thru, the output is a bit-exact copy of the input.

Will it click?

Every jump in the time envelope is crossfaded, and the crossfade length is yours to set from 0 to 12 ms. Preset changes are quantised to the trigger setting and crossfaded at the boundary, so you can click through the bank while audio is playing. Tape start is the one preset that begins from silence, by design.

Does it run natively on Apple Silicon?

Yes. The macOS build is a universal binary, so it runs native on both Apple Silicon and Intel.

I put it on a channel and nothing happens.

Lapse is an insert effect with no sound of its own, so it needs a channel that already has audio on it. It also only reads the buffer while the transport is running.

Something is broken.

Mail us with your operating system, host and version number, and we will fix it.

Download Lapse

VST3 and AU. macOS 10.13+, Windows 10+. 64-bit, .

The macOS installer is signed and notarised, so it opens without a Gatekeeper warning. The Windows installer is not signed yet: Windows will show "Windows protected your PC". Click More info, then Run anyway.