MOD·05 / Spectral

HORIZON

Spectral freeze with a pulse. Capture an instant and hold it — then re-trigger it to the beat. From an eternal pad to a rhythmic stutter.

Free · AGPLv3 VST3 · AU macOS · Windows
HORIZON plugin interface
// What it does

Where time stops — and pulses.

HORIZON captures a single spectral frame and holds it — but the freeze isn't static. With RATE off it's a sustained pad; raise RATE — and especially with SYNC — and the same instant gates to the beat as a rhythmic stutter. One gesture suspends a moment; one knob makes it groove.

Freeze

The central gesture. Hit it and the instant under your cursor is captured and held — a latch you can automate.

Rate / Sync

The re-trigger of the freeze. Off = a sustained pad; fast — and locked to tempo (1/16–2 bars) — = a rhythmic stutter that beats with the track.

Whisper

Phase coherence vs randomization: from glassy and tonal (clean by default) to diffuse and airy whisperization.

Spread

De-correlates the freeze across the field — centred to fully spread, constant-power, so it stays mono-safe.

Duck

The frozen wet steps back when the dry hits and returns in the gaps — the freeze breathes with the performance.

Mix · In Phase

Dry/wet blend so you can freeze under the live audio. IN PHASE folds the wide freeze to mono-safe in one click.

// The physics

STFT freeze, re-gated to tempo.

The same spectral engine as AURORA — but instead of stretching time, it stops it and re-fires it on the beat.

STFT / overlap-add

Hann at 75% overlap with COLA — the frame magnitude is captured and re-synthesized indefinitely. Shared with AURORA's engine.

Rhythmic re-trigger

The held frame is gated at the Rate. In SYNC the period comes from the host tempo (bpm/60 / beats), locked to ppqPosition so the pulse never drifts.

Soft gate

Every re-trigger uses a smooth envelope (short attack/decay) plus a block crossfade — the stutter never clicks or rings, even when fast.

Phase character

Coherent phase keeps the freeze glassy and tonal; randomizing it (Whisper) blurs it to airy texture. Default coherent — clean, not noisy.

Constant-power spread

L/R de-correlation with constant-power panning spreads the freeze across the field without breaking mono on sum.

Honest latency

Block latency (one STFT frame, N = 2048 samples) reported to the host, PDC-compensated. Internal duck sidechain and flush-to-zero keep it click- and clip-free.

Formats: VST3 · AU Systems: macOS · Windows Build: Universal (Apple Silicon + Intel) Latency: ~2048-sample STFT block (PDC-compensated) License: AGPLv3 · open-source

HORIZON is free. And open.

HORIZON on its own, ready to go — the Mac installer (VST3 + AU, universal, macOS 11+) drops it straight into your plug-in folders: double-click, done. On Windows: VST3 (64-bit, 10+) as a ZIP.

Want the whole catalog? All 7 in one installer ↓

Free and open-source (AGPLv3) · VST3 · AU · macOS universal · Windows (VST3)

First time — macOS: the installer is unsigned; if Gatekeeper blocks it, right-click → Open (macOS ≤ 14) or System Settings → Privacy & Security → "Open Anyway" (macOS 15+). Windows: unblock the ZIP before extracting, then copy the .vst3 folder to Program Files\Common Files\VST3.