Effects
The art and science of sound
Aphelion is a research-driven audio company exploring the outer reaches of what is practically possible in sound. We build instruments and effects by starting from first principles, whether that means modeling the physics of a room, the behavior of an analog circuit, or rethinking the assumptions behind synthesis, sequencing, and signal processing altogether. Our work sits somewhere between engineering, acoustics, music technology, and experimental design: rigorous enough to measure, strange enough to discover something new, and always built in service of music. We are less interested in reproducing the conventions of audio software than in finding out what becomes possible when those conventions are treated as questions instead of rules.
The flagship
NETLISTSphinxographic Quartzalizer
Tidal Stereo Disruptor
An original circuit for a sound that didn't exist - yet.
- Leave the drums dry in the middle and let the tide tear the air around them
- Push HALO into its last few percent and let the sides drone
- Put GRAVITY on BOUND and hear the lines bend their own clocks
- Swing ECCENTRICITY from circle to pendulum
- Turn to THE OBSERVATORY and watch what the circuit is doing
VST®3 effect · Windows 64-bit · macOS VST3 and Audio Unit are in development.
Also up front
Hangar
Physical Room Reverb · Every Room Solved
Research Grade Reverb.
- Build the room you want and hear it, not a preset that sounds like one
- Stand in a stone church, a parking garage or an aircraft hangar
- Hang curtains on a wall and hear the room get shorter
- Fly a sound past the microphones and hear its pitch bend as it goes
- Put every track in one shared room, so the whole mix sits in one space
- Watch the sound travel: every reflection drawn, and the wave itself
VST®3 effect · Windows 64-bit · macOS VST3 and Audio Unit are in development.
Why a circuit rather than a curve
Because the parts have state, and a curve does not. A transformer core integrates voltage over time, so it saturates differently on a low note than a high one - the frequency is in the answer because the time is in the equation. A photocell has a chemistry that takes a tenth of a second to relax, so the sweep it drives is lopsided whatever shape you feed it. A shared supply droops under load, so the sound changes while you hold it and the other channel hears about it.
None of those can be drawn as a curve and then looked up, which is the whole reason to solve the circuit instead. It costs more to run and it is the only way to get behaviour that depends on what you just did.
The same library builds the synths and the drum machines.
VST is a registered trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.