Morph Render Modes

Morph Render Modes

A Morph Render Mode decides what FWG does with START and END. The same two endpoints can produce very different audio when the relationship changes.

In Morph, choose it in the MORPH / EXPORT column under Morph Render Mode. Bulk Random and Bulk Explorer expose corresponding workspace-local Morph-mode controls for generated or varied results.

If Morph is new to you, compare Wavetable Morph and Crossfade with unchanged endpoints. Wavetable Morph creates one evolving oscillator path; Crossfade keeps two complete endpoint sounds and fades between them.

Quick chooser

🎹 Choose by what you want to hear:

Goal	Good first modes
Hear controls/structures travel between endpoints	Full Interpolation, Dual-Path Interpolation, Hybrid Morph
Fade two finished endpoint sounds	Crossfade
Crossfade with reduced phase disagreement	Phase-Aligned Crossfade
One evolving oscillator/wavetable table	Wavetable Morph, Warm Wavetable Morph, Softened Morph
Hollow/phasery table motion	Comb Wavetable Morph, Phase-Offset Crossfade
Spectral interpolation	Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) Spectral Morph, Spectral Envelope Morph, Harmonic Level Morph
Use one endpoint to modulate the other	Moving START-mod-END, Fixed START-mod-END

For strict wavetable work, one-oscillator modes are intuitive starting points, but crossfades and spectral modes can also make useful tables. For ordinary samples, choose by sound.

v3 presents START-mod-END as a Moving/Fixed mode plus modulation family, Depth, and Source Rate rather than filling the main dropdown with every concrete combination.

Internal centring and level normalisation

🔧 The final DC Removal and Normalisation controls do not describe every centring or level-scaling operation inside every Morph algorithm.

Current one-oscillator Wavetable modes—Wavetable, Warm, Softened, Saturated, and Comb—construct intermediate tables through a finaliser that subtracts table mean and peak-normalises. Warm and Softened finalise again after smoothing. Comb centres/normalises both its base blend and completed comb table.

Current FFT/Spectral modes centre and peak-normalise anchor tables before analysis and reconstructed tables after synthesis.

These operations are part of the algorithms themselves. Setting final DC Removal or Normalisation to Off disables only the later export-cleanup stage; it cannot restore DC balance, level relationships, or amplitude movement already removed inside the Morph algorithm.

Phase-Aligned Crossfade is different: centred/normalised copies are used only to calculate phase offset, then that offset is applied to endpoint material. Ordinary endpoint-audio crossfades keep START and END as separate rendered branches until their documented branch cleanup and fade.

Changing these internal rules would change existing waveform/audio hashes and requires deliberate DSP and compatibility review.

Direct / Parameter

These modes move values or parallel structural paths instead of simply fading two finished endpoint signals.

Full Interpolation (Favours Digital Noise)

🎹 One path moves through intermediate settings. It can be particularly effective for digital fracture, unstable transitions, and audible structural change.

🔧 When one endpoint Filter Type is Off and the other is active, Full Interpolation treats Off as a real dry endpoint and wet/dry-fades the active filter path. Low-pass, High-pass, and Band-pass therefore reach exact Off endpoints; Band-pass is not approximated with a fictitious “neutral cutoff”.

Dual-Path Interpolation (Avoids Midpoint Switches)

🎹 Continuous controls move in START-type and END-type paths, then the two paths fade together. Use it when Full Interpolation produces an objectionable categorical midpoint switch.

Hybrid Morph (Values Move, Types Fade)

🎹 Matching structures interpolate directly; type/filter/engine changes fade between paths. It is a compromise between parameter travel and branch preservation.

Crossfade / Phase

These render complete START and END branches and blend their audio. Endpoint pitch rates remain independent.

Crossfade (Favours Analogue Warmth)

🎹 Renders both endpoint sounds and fades between them. Smooth and straightforward, but independent phase/pitch can beat or cancel.

Phase-Aligned Crossfade (Warm, Less Beating)

🎹 Rotates END toward START's phase before crossfading. It usually reduces hollow cancellation without turning the two endpoints into one oscillator.

Phase-Offset Crossfade (Analogue Phaser Motion)

🎹 Intentionally offsets one endpoint before fading. Expect cancellation, movement, and phaser-like colour.

⚠️ It is not intended for whole-file loop-closure tests.

Wavetable / One-Oscillator

These combine START/END table material before one oscillator path. That often makes them natural choices for coherent wavetable movement.

Wavetable Morph (Blends Tables Before Audio)

🎹 Blends START and END tables first, then runs one oscillator path. Continuous downstream controls can still move through the Morph.

Warm Wavetable Morph (One Oscillator, Smooth Blend)

🎹 Uses equal-power table blending plus light middle smoothing. Compared with ordinary Wavetable Morph, the centre tends to feel rounder and warmer.

Softened Morph (Rounded Middle)

🎹 Uses one oscillator and applies its strongest extra smoothing near the middle of the transition.

Saturated Morph (Warm, Compressed)

🎹 Uses one oscillator and adds gentle soft saturation to glue the transition.

Comb Wavetable Morph (Hollow Interference)

🎹 Blends the endpoint tables, then adds cyclic feed-forward phase-offset interference. Expect hollow, flangey, metallic motion.

START-mod-END

🎹 START-mod-END treats one endpoint as an external modulation source and the other as the audible carrier. It is often more useful for samples, drones, pads, hits, transitions, and resampling material than for conventional smoothly scanned wavetable frames.

Pitch Offset as modulation-rate control: an endpoint can be transposed across ±24,000 cents (±20 octaves). In START-mod-END, that allows source rates from extremely slow sub-audio motion through audio-rate modulation. Across the full negative-to-positive range, the available rate ratio spans 40 octaves—about 1.10 trillion×, or 12.04 orders of magnitude.

The interface uses four controls:

• Morph Mode: Moving START-mod-END or Fixed START-mod-END;
• START-mod-END Mode: Phase Modulation, Frequency Modulation, Pulse Width Modulation, Amplitude Modulation, or Ring Modulation;
• Modulation Depth: one shared integer from 1–256;
• Source Rate: 1×, 2×, 3×, 5×, ½×, ⅓×, or ⅕×.

The shared Depth position is unitless; each modulation family maps it into its own physical units.

Moving START-mod-END

START remains modulation source and END remains audible carrier while both branches travel through the Morph path. Reverse changes traversal direction without exchanging source/carrier roles.

Curve Mode, Curve Amount, and Cycle-stepped transition remain meaningful because a START→END traversal exists.

Fixed START-mod-END

No parameter interpolation occurs inside either endpoint branch.

• Forward: START = source, END = carrier.
• Reverse: END = source, START = carrier.

Curve Mode, Curve Amount, and Cycle-stepped transition are disabled because there is no START→END traversal. Their stored values return when another Morph mode is selected.

🔧 Those dormant values are also excluded from Morph cache identity while Fixed START-mod-END is active. Editing them does not force another render until a mode makes them relevant.

Phase Modulation

🔧 The complete filtered source output supplies a bipolar phase warp before the carrier table is read. Depth is linear:

• 64 → ±90°;
• 128 → ±180°;
• 192 → ±270°;
• 256 → ±360°.

Frequency Modulation

🔧 The complete filtered source output supplies a bipolar cents deviation. It combines with the carrier's own self-FM before FWG's bounded phase advance.

Depth calibration:

• 1 → ±10 cents;
• 128 → ±1200 cents / one octave;
• 192 → ±2400 cents / two octaves;
• 256 → ±4800 cents / four octaves.

The displayed 4800-cent setting is not silently reduced. The combined instantaneous effect of external FM and carrier self-FM remains subject to FWG's established phase-scale safety bounds.

Pulse Width Modulation

🔧 The complete filtered source output supplies a bipolar width-control signal at the carrier phase-remapping stage. The carrier keeps its own internal PWM; internal and external width excursions are added, then constrained to the established 0.02–0.98 width range. Depth is linear up to the full permitted ±0.48 external excursion.

Amplitude Modulation

🔧 START and END first complete their ordinary output paths, including their own modulation, Pitch Offset, and filters. The filtered source then applies a non-inverting gain envelope to the filtered carrier. At 100% Depth, a source of −1…+1 produces gain from 0× to 2×.

Ring Modulation

🔧 START and END first complete their ordinary output paths. Depth crossfades linearly from the dry filtered carrier toward true bipolar carrier × source multiplication. At 100%, the result is pure multiplication. No extra folding, saturation, or automatic level compensation is added by the cross-ring stage.

Musical use

🎹 Phase and FM can create pronounced spectra; AM and Ring Mod can sound related at some settings but use different gain laws; PWM depends strongly on carrier-table geometry. Pitch Offset on the source is often as important as Depth because it sets the modulation-rate region.

Spectral / FFT

These modes analyse harmonic information and rebuild intermediate table states.

🔧 Spectral States affect cache identity only in the Spectral families; their stored value is dormant elsewhere.

FFT Spectral Morph (Digital Tone, Less Crunchy)

🎹 Analyses 2, 3, 5, or 9 table states into harmonics, blends between spectral anchors, rebuilds a table, then runs the usual oscillator/output path.

Spectral Envelope Morph (Smooth Digital Tone)

🎹 Blends a smoothed harmonic envelope instead of every sharp spectral detail. Usually smoother and less crunchy.

Harmonic Level Morph (Stable, Less Phasey)

🎹 Holds phase more stable while morphing harmonic levels. Usually less swirly than full FFT morphing.

Random-selection exclusions

🔧 Manual selection remains available even when a mode is excluded from random Bulk pools. Random systems omit or restrict modes that listening tests found weak, stationary, or risky when selected blindly.

The established curated Bulk presets retain their previous START Phase-Modulation pools. Absurd and Bulk Explorer can use the full factored START-mod-END matrix.

Wavetable suitability

🎹 Useful starting points include:

• Wavetable Morph;
• Warm Wavetable Morph;
• Softened Morph;
• Phase-Aligned Crossfade;
• FFT Spectral Morph;
• conservative Crossfade.

Use extra care with:

• Phase-Offset Crossfade;
• Full/Dual/Hybrid interpolation;
• Saturated and Comb movement;
• START-mod-END modes;
• Glitch & Noise recipe choices.

A mode can be mechanically valid and still be musically wrong for a target synth or table.

Shared rendering optimisations

🔧 Morph previews and exports use the same table-generation and DSP core. Raw/derived Scanning caching, no-op checkpoint holding, spectral/additive invariant preparation, lazy tap construction, and Drawn bypasses therefore apply to both. Batch-only UI paint throttling and ZIP-memory release do not affect one-off preview semantics.

Warm / Softened smoothing continuity

🔧 Warm Wavetable Morph and Softened Morph vary extra middle-of-Morph smoothing continuously. FWG evaluates the two neighbouring integer smoothing landmarks, interpolates between those resulting tables by fractional smoothing amount, then applies ordinary table finalisation.

The established integer landmarks remain exact while hidden pass-count plateaus disappear. Ordinary Wavetable Morph does not use this smoothing path.