DDM S1 is an '80s-inspired virtual synthesizer — a software instrument that lives inside your DAW and gives you the sounds of that era's iconic hybrid synths, redrawn for a modern session. An analog-voiced subtractive engine and a 6-operator FM engine run in parallel inside every voice, summed through a state-variable filter, soft tanh drive, and a three-stage analog FX bus — plus a 16-pad velocity-layered drum kit on the same chain — up to eight samples per pad, smoothly crossfaded as you play harder. The result is a single instrument that can be a warm pad, a glassy bell, a chrome bass, or a full kit — and is yours to shape into a sound nobody else has.
Every one of the sixty-four voices carries both engines simultaneously. They render in parallel and meet at a per-voice mixer with independent levels — so a single held note can be a pure analog pad, a pure FM bell, or any cross-fade between them. The combined signal then runs through a soft saturator, a 12 dB/oct multimode SVF, an amp envelope, a stereo panner, and out to the global effects bus.
Two anti-aliased oscillators with selectable saw / square / triangle / sine (polyBLEP — clean above the fifth octave), a square sub-octave generator, and white noise feed a soft tanh drive into a 12 dB/oct multimode resonant filter. Resonance is musical without going shrill at the top. A small per-trigger pitch drift keeps chords from sounding crystal-locked.
Six pure sine oscillators with programmable harmonic ratios from 0.5× to 16×, wired together in eight algorithms — from a deep serial chain through stacked carriers, parallel pairs, and a six-partial additive bank — plus self-feedback on Op 6 for saw and square approximations. Each operator carries its own ADSR, so the metallic strike of an electric piano can decay independently of the body tone — the move that makes FM electric pianos sing.
The classical FM intuition: which operators modulate the others, and which sum directly to the audio output. DDM S1 ships eight algorithms — a deep serial chain at one extreme, a six-sine additive bank at the other, and six useful patterns in between. Op 6 always carries a self-feedback path for the in-built saw approximation.
A pure six-deep modulation chain. Op 6 (with feedback) drives Op 5, drives 4, 3, 2, into carrier Op 1. The deepest, most spectrally complex sounds in the engine — each operator’s envelope shapes a different harmonic layer.
Five modulators feeding one carrier in parallel, with one short side‑chain (Op 6 → Op 5). Massive parallel modulation density. Great for FM brass, distorted leads, and “more index than necessary” character patches.
All five modulators stacked in parallel onto Op 1. No side-chains — just the simplest “everything on one carrier” topology. Use the per-op ratios and envelopes to dial in bell tones, electric pianos, and biting brass.
Two independent three-operator chains, summed at the output. Op 3 → 2 → 1 alongside Op 6 → 5 → 4 (with feedback). Two distinct FM voices in one slot — bell over sub, lead over pad, evolving on independent envelopes.
Three independent two-operator FM pairs running in parallel: 2→1, 4→3, 6→5 (with feedback on Op 6). Best for layered patches where each pair occupies a different harmonic register — low, mid, high.
Two pure-sine carriers (Op 1, Op 2) plus one richly-modulated voice — Op 6 → 5 → 4 → 3, with Op 3 as carrier. Choir-like additive base with one expressive FM voice on top. Hybrid pads where part of the sound stays glassy-pure.
Three modulators (Op 3, 4, 5) converge on intermediate carrier Op 2, which drives final carrier Op 1. Op 6 deepens the Op 5 branch. Dense, bell-like harmonic spreads with three independent envelopes shaping the strike onset.
All six operators are carriers, summed directly. Pure additive synthesis at six partials. Op 6 retains its self-feedback path so the highest partial can lean from sine toward saw. Organ-like patches, formant-style vowels, harmonic-stack pads.
Every saw, square, and triangle waveform is band-limited with a polynomial BLEP algorithm. The result: the high notes stay clean above the fifth octave, no zipper aliasing on lead lines, no digital crunch on supersaws stacked at the top of the keyboard. The sub-oscillator extends a square wave one or two octaves below the played note for true low-end weight.
polyBLEP · Saw · Square · Triangle · Sine · SubA 12 dB/oct multimode filter implemented in topology-preserving transform form, switchable LP / BP / HP. Resonance is musical at any setting, accepts modulation from a full ADSR plus key tracking and the global LFO, and stays stable when you push it into self-oscillation territory. The kind of filter people compliment without knowing why.
12 dB/oct · LP / BP / HP · TPT-form · key trackingPoly gives you 32-voice polyphony with oldest-voice stealing. Mono adds proper portamento for legato bass and lead playing. Unison stacks three detuned voices per note across the full stereo field for the supersaw tones that have powered a generation of trance, synthwave, and modern pop. A small analog-style pitch drift adds randomness at every note trigger, so chords don't sound like they were generated by a single quartz crystal.
Poly · Mono + glide · Unison × 3 · per-trigger driftEach of the six FM operators carries its own ADSR. The metallic strike of a tine on the FM E.Piano can decay in 200 ms while the body tone sustains for a beat. The percussive attack of the FM Bell can ride entirely on Op 4's envelope while Op 1 holds the long, glassy ring. This is the trick that gives FM pianos their distinctive bell-against-felt quality — and it's wired into the architecture, not an afterthought.
6 × ADSR · independent attack & decay · log taperA bucket-brigade-style stereo ensemble chorus with dual quadrature LFOs for lush movement. A ping-pong delay with damped feedback for rhythmic spaces. An algorithmic hall reverb — not convolution, which is why it adds zero processing latency. Room size, damping, and width sweep from a tight close-mic to a cathedral inside one knob.
Chorus · Ping-Pong Delay · Hall Reverb · 0 latencySine, triangle, square, and sample-and-hold shapes, free-running from 0.05 to 20 Hz, assignable to pitch, filter cutoff, or amplitude. The LFO phase resets at every note-on — a small detail that means chords sound coherent rather than chaotically beating against themselves. The kind of choice that distinguishes a synth designed by someone who plays one.
Sin · Tri · Sqr · S&H · Pitch · Cutoff · AmpNo dynamic memory allocation in the audio thread. No file I/O. No FFT, no convolution, no oversampling, no lookahead — pure stream processing throughout. Parameter access is via lock-free atomic loads, hoisted to block-rate so the per-sample inner loop stays free of host synchronization. On a current-generation Mac at a 64-sample buffer, round-trip latency from MIDI controller through the host to audio out clocks at ~1.5 ms. Sixty-four voices with all effects engaged stays comfortable on a single core. Live-performable, not just demoable.
RT-safe · lock-free · 0 sample latency · ~1.5 ms RT
Sixteen pads, and every pad holds up to eight velocity-layered samples. Hit softly, hear the soft sample; dig in, hear the loud one — exactly the way a real acoustic drum behaves under the stick. The engine smoothly crossfades adjacent layers across a ±0.05 equal-power window so transitions disappear into the playing, no machine-gun stepping between zones. Layer thresholds are user-definable per pad; defaults are equal-spaced. Two voice slots per pad keep both layers ringing through the crossfade region.
Right-click any pad for full per-layer control — add, replace, clear, or retune thresholds without disturbing the rest. Hover for a live tooltip showing every loaded layer's filename and velocity range. Each pad accepts WAV, AIFF, FLAC, or OGG, loaded fully into RAM for zero-latency triggering, with per-pad VOL · TUNE · PAN · REVERB-SEND and configurable MIDI routing (GM range, channel 10, or a custom 16-note window from any C). Drums bypass chorus and delay so transients stay tight, but each pad sends into the synth's hall reverb — a snare can be drenched while the kick stays bone-dry. Save and load complete kits as portable XML; old single-sample kits load identically as one-layer kits.
The tools to shape your own sound — not a different preset of someone else’s. Two original engines, an operator-level FM core, and a sample kit that all live in one instrument slot.
| Plugin formats | Audio Unit · VST3 · Standalone (macOS, Apple Silicon native) |
| Polyphony | 64 voices, oldest-voice stealing |
| Voice modes | Poly · Mono (with glide) · Unison (7-voice stack) |
| Velocity response | 4 curves (Linear / Soft / Hard / Fixed) + sensitivity (V→Amp), applies to synth and drums |
| Subtractive osc | 2 × DCO (Saw / Sqr / Tri / Sin), polyBLEP anti-aliased, ±2-octave per oscillator |
| Sub oscillator | Square wave, –1 or –2 octave |
| Noise | White noise generator |
| Per-engine octave shift | ±2 octaves on Sub side and FM side independently |
| Sub-engine filter | 12 dB/oct multimode SVF (LP / BP / HP), TPT topology, ADSR + key-tracking + soft drive |
| FM-engine filter | Independent 12 dB/oct multimode SVF (LP / BP / HP) with its own ADSR, key-tracking, and drive |
| Envelopes | Sub Filter ADSR · Sub Amp ADSR · FM Filter ADSR · FM Amp ADSR · 6 × FM-op ADSR (11 envelopes per voice) |
| LFO | Sin / Tri / Sqr / S&H · 0.05–20 Hz · per-voice phase reset on note-on · routes to pitch / filter / amp |
| FM operators | 6 sine operators with programmable harmonic ratio + per-op level + per-op ADSR |
| FM ratios | 0.5×, 1×, 2×, 3×, 4×, 5×, 6×, 7×, 8×, 10×, 12×, 16× |
| FM algorithms | 8 (Serial · 5→1 · 4→1 · Twin · Pairs · Triad+Stk · Y-Split · Additive) |
| FM feedback | Op 6 self-feedback path |
| FM anti-aliasing | Per-voice 16 kHz post-FM lowpass safety net |
| Drum Kit | 16-pad velocity-layered sample player · 1–8 layers per pad · per-pad VOL / TUNE / PAN / REVERB-SEND · kit save/load · WAV / AIFF / FLAC / OGG |
| Drum velocity layers | Per pad: 1–8 samples, user-definable top-velocity thresholds, ±0.05 equal-power (cos/sin) crossfade window between adjacent layers, 2 voices per pad to span crossfade region |
| Drum layer UI | Right-click pad → Add / Replace / Clear / Threshold edit / Reset (equal spacing) / Clear All · hover tooltip lists every layer's filename + velocity range · pad header shows layer count (e.g. kick_soft ×3) |
| Drum MIDI routing | Off · Channel 10 (GM convention) · Note Range with selectable start note (C-1 to C8) |
| Drum signal flow | Bypasses chorus/delay (transient-clean) · per-pad reverb send into the synth's hall |
| Effects | Stereo Chorus (Poly-6 style) · Stereo Ping-Pong Delay · Hall Reverb (per-engine on/off) |
| Saturation | Soft tanh drive on Sub side, FM side, and master |
| Master section | Volume · Tune (±50 ¢) · smoothed peak limiter · stereo VU output meter |
| Presets | 25 factory presets (subtractive, FM, hybrid, drums) + unlimited user presets stored as portable XML in ~/Library/Audio/Presets/Dream Lab LV/DDM S1/ |
| Diagnostics | Built-in Debug button — copies a state snapshot (active voices, peak-hold per pipeline stage, audio-thread CPU%) to the clipboard |
| Latency | 0 samples processing latency |
| Parameters | 120+ host-automatable |
| Engine | C++17 · polyBLEP / TPT-SVF / algorithmic reverb · block-rate APVTS access · lock-free atomic loads |
Phase-coherent 4-band mastering compressor with interactive spectrum and A/B peak-hold.
AI-assisted equalizer · 9 analog voicings per band · Gemma 4 local inference.
Dual 6-stage optical phaser with two sweep generators. Deep series swirls or wide parallel stereo motion.
Three oscillators, eight voices, and a modulation matrix built for trouble.
Circuit-modelled three-stage overdrive with tube-style compression, tape saturation, BBD chorus, pitch-bending echo, spring tank and a zero-latency cabinet loader.
A granular atmosphere engine — Drone, Reverse, Shimmer and Gliss modes, pitch-tracked grains, and a Freeze that holds a cloud indefinitely.
Sixteen voices on a step sequencer that works the way the originals did — per-voice tune, decay and filter, accent per step, and producer-style swing.
Neural amp capture and playback. Load a model or capture your own rig. Free · public beta.
Seven lo-fi modules on one panel — saturation, wow and flutter, bit crush, band limiting, dropouts, ambience and a ducked noise bed, under one Amount macro.
Stereo analog echo and ducking delay — tape and lo-fi character, repeat filtering, ping-pong, and program-dependent ducking.
64-voice hybrid subtractive + 6-op FM polysynth with 8 algorithms.
Multi-engine reverb: a true-stereo convolver plus six algorithms, with shimmer, freeze, duck, and delay-into-reverb.
Physically-modeled tape saturation — harmonic warmth, transient punch, smooth top end, and wow/flutter motion from a single insert.
Six-voice virtual analogue polysynth — rock-stable oscillator, creamy four-pole filter, and a two-mode stereo chorus. Zero latency, one panel.
3D placement panner with crosstalk cancellation. Works on headphones and real stereo monitors.
Real-time spectral suppression + envelope gate. Dual-stage attenuation with live activity meters.
AES67 / ST 2110 audio-over-IP between DAWs. Sub-5 ms on gigabit. MIT-licensed, open source.
Morphing spectral filter · 5 anchor shapes · dual-LFO motion · studio shimmer.
Stereo BBD chorus and pitch shifter. Wide, warm, and wild. AU · VST3.
BS.1770-4 loudness metering, phase scope, and a true-peak brickwall limiter. AU · VST3 · Standalone.
Real-time pitch correction — natural intonation to hard-tune, with formant preservation. AU · VST3 · Standalone.
Audio transient to MIDI generator. Tighten drums without losing groove. AU · Standalone.
Build your own impulse responses — design a space or capture a real one, deconvolve, and load it straight into Verb.
A MIDI plug-in that writes full ambient, neo-soul and lo-fi songs across five parts. Free · public beta.
DDM S1 is an original Dreamlab Digital Media product. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or derived from any hardware or software manufacturer. Specifications are provisional until release.