Play Subswell

Feedback matrix effect

Subswell

Four effects feed back into one another, and you never set them directly. Play a box and several paths open at once, to multiply, merge and modulate the sound.

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Subswell on screen: the mix drawer open on the left, six translucent boxes with level lines on the right, and the loop buttons along the bottom.

What it does

Four effects, played as boxes

01

Play boxes, not routings

Drag a box up to fill it and it opens a handful of paths between the effects together. Drag sideways and its level moves by itself.

Six boxes with one selected, and its controls along the bottom: new, split, merge, simplify, grow, reroll, tide and delete, then wobble shape, speed and depth.
02

See what a box does

Each box hides its recipe. Turn on explain and every box shows a small map of its paths, and says them in words.

Seven boxes with explain on, each showing a small map of its paths and a line such as wear to heat, with a note like tone down.
03

Watch the matrix move

The engine tab lays out who feeds whom, with the delay on every path and where each effect’s settings sit right now.

Four effects, space, time, heat and wear, drawn as circles in a diamond. Arrows run between them in both directions. Thick arrows are paths that send a lot, thin faint ones send a little, so the picture shows who feeds whom and how much.spacetimeheatwearthicker line, more sent
04

Scenes to step through

Twenty-two factory scenes in calm, rough and strange banks. Type a word and the same scene grows from it on any device.

The words salt lantern on the left, an arrow marked grow, and on the right six boxes filled to different levels. A line says the same words always grow the same scene, on any device, and another that there are 22 factory scenes in three banks.salt lanterngrowthe same words always grow the same sceneor step through 22 scenes: calm, rough, strange

Features

The rest of it

Works on

Where it runs

Go deeper

Read on, or pick a scene

Subswell runs in your browser

Nothing to install. The sound starts after your first tap.

Play in browser Read the guide