Visualisers

Visualisers

FWG visualisers help you see what a patch is doing while you design it. They are previews and diagnostic aids; the final judgement still belongs to the rendered audio in its intended context.

Playground has a Visualiser panel beside the Single Engine controls. Morph gives START and END their own START Visualiser and END Visualiser panels inside the endpoint columns.

Available views

Depending on workspace and modulation state, FWG can show:

• Base table;
• Phase-locked FM/PWM/Ring Mod;
• Animated stable modulation;
• Time-domain FM/PWM/Ring Mod;
• Spectrum analyser.

Base table

Use Base table to inspect the current constructed wavetable without time-varying oscillator modulation. It is the cleanest view for learning generator controls, taps, Wavetable Types, Drawn edits, and Source/Result Windows.

Modulation views

🎹 A phase-locked view stabilises visual phase so repeated comparisons are easier. Animated/time-domain views make motion more obvious, but fast modulation can strobe or alias visually at the selected Animation FPS.

Display stability is not Phase-Coherent Mode. Visualiser stabilisation makes the picture readable; Phase-Coherent Mode and Coherent Preview belong to sound/render state and have different ownership.

Spectrum analyser

🎹 Use the spectrum view to compare harmonic density, brightness, filter effects, FM/Ring sidebands, and changes across generator/tap/Wavetable-Type settings.

A spectrum plot cannot tell you whether a wavetable scans well in another synth or whether a transient is musically useful. Listen.

Pitch Offset and time scale

Pitch Offset changes the endpoint oscillator's nominal frequency. Time-domain/modulation displays may therefore run on a different time scale even when the underlying 512-internal-cycle-sample table is unchanged.

The filter likewise changes downstream audio/spectral behaviour without rewriting the generator table.

Performance

Animated views cost CPU. If controls become sluggish:

• lower Animation FPS;
• switch to Base table;
• collapse visualisers you are not using;
• stop unnecessary audition audio;
• close other heavy browser work.

Collapsed START/END visualisers skip hidden painting and repaint current state when reopened.

See Browser Requirements and Performance.

Drawn editor display

🔧 The Drawn editor uses a high-density backing canvas so hand editing stays sharp on high-DPI displays. Display dimensions do not change the data model: Drawn remains a 512-internal-cycle-sample waveform.

See Drawn Waveform.

What visualisers do not guarantee

⚠️ A visualiser does not guarantee:

• that a rendered cycle begins at the displayed phase;
• that another synth frames/interpolates the WAV the same way;
• that a spectrum that looks “clean” sounds better;
• that a visually discontinuous extreme patch is a bug;
• that every visualiser frame is painted at output PCM precision.

For wavetable acceptance, audition the actual WAV in the destination instrument.

Technical note: display workload

🔧 Animated views use visual-input change gates; static views avoid repainting unchanged state; collapsed panels suspend hidden painting. Reopening invalidates the display cache and repaints after layout.

These optimisations affect display workload only. They do not reduce generator/render precision or alter exported PCM.

Related pages

• Single Engine / Playground
• Drawn Waveform
• Phase-Coherent Mode
• Browser Requirements and Performance