Quick start

HOROCYCLE works like a delay you already know, with one extra idea: DECAY moves the echoes across the disk instead of only fading them.

1. Pick a Generator. Spiral fades evenly and is the easiest place to start. Lattice wanders.
2. Set Time and Feedback the way you would on any delay. Click Lock to BPM to snap the time to your song.
3. Bring Decay up from the bottom. At its lowest you have a clean delay; as it rises the echoes scatter in time and across the stereo field.
4. Shape the colour of the tail with Tone, Dark and Reso.
5. Not sure where to go next? Press Randomize. The ‹ arrow beside it takes you back.

Installing and setup

• Formats: VST3, AU (Mac) and CLAP. Mac and Windows.
• Mac: run the installer. The plugins go to your system plugin folders. Then rescan plugins in your DAW.
• Windows: run the installer. The VST3 and CLAP versions go to the standard plugin folders. Then rescan plugins in your DAW.
• Where it goes: HOROCYCLE is an audio effect. Put it on any track or bus with audio coming in.

The window

Every knob shows its name underneath; point at it or turn it and the name changes to its value. Drag up or down to turn it (150 pixels covers the whole range), hold Shift for fine control, double-click to reset, or use the mouse wheel. Right-click any knob for Undo, Redo, Modulate with and Map to MIDI.

Generator

Each echo is one step of a movement across the disk. The generator decides what kind of movement. Echoes near the centre are loud and bright; as they travel toward the rim they get quieter and darker. Which way an echo faces decides where it sits in the stereo field.

Field

Wavefront

Every echo splits into a small circle of grains, a horocycle. These controls shape that circle.

Transport

Colour

Modulation

Twenty-one knobs can be moved by modulation: everything in Field, Wavefront, Transport and Colour. The sources sit in one row along the bottom of the window.

Route a source

1. Drag a chip onto a knob. A dashed ring in the chip's colour shows where it will land. Drop it, and an arc appears around the knob.
2. Set how far it moves. The arc has a dot at each end, and each dot moves on its own, further out or back in. Dragging a dot never moves the knob or the other dot. The one exception: pull a dot past the knob's pointer and the knob follows that dot, while the other dot still stays where it is. Hold Alt and drag the knob to change the amount without touching the dots one by one.
3. Watch it move. While the source runs, the knob's pointer and lit spokes follow the modulation live, a bright stretch and dot ride along the arc, and a small tick marks where the knob itself is set. Point at the knob to see your setting in place of its name.

Sliders take chips too. Drop a chip on the A H D S R sliders in the ENV window and a thin lane appears beside the slider in the source's colour, with a dot at each end: drag either dot to set how far it reaches that way, just like a knob's arc. While the source moves it, the slider's cap rides the live value and a small tick marks where you set it. Up to three per slider; an ENV can't move its own window's sliders.

Up to three per knob. Each knob takes up to three modulations; drop a fourth chip and the help bar asks you to remove one first (right-click the knob). They stack in the order you added them, the first one closest to the knob, and their dots never sit on top of each other, so you can always grab the one you want. Where space is tight, a knob with arcs draws its dial a little smaller to make room, and grows back when you remove them. Both dots of every arc can be automated from your DAW.

To put a two-way source's dots back to even, right-click the knob and choose Mirror the two ends. New routings, and presets and sessions saved before this change, start mirrored, so they sound exactly as before.

See what a source moves

• Click a chip and every knob it moves lights its spokes in the chip's colour. The help bar lists them: “LFO 1 moves 2 controls: DECAY, WAVEFRONT.”
• Hover a chip for the same view at half strength.
• Click a modulated knob and its source's card opens.
• Remove a routing: right-click the knob and choose Remove, or use the Matrix. Modulate with › on the same menu adds a source without dragging.

HOROCYCLE holds up to 32 routings. Every routing is saved with your presets and your project.

Envelopes · ENV 1–3

Click an ENV chip to open its card. Drag the dots on the curve, or use the A H D S R faders. The tabs on the left switch between the three envelopes.

Defaults: ENV 1 on INPUT (fast attack, short decay), ENV 2 on 1 BAR, ENV 3 on NOTE.

LFOs · LFO 1–3

Defaults: LFO 1 SINE at 0.25 Hz, LFO 2 TRI at 1 Hz, LFO 3 RANDOM at 0.08 Hz.

VELO, WHEEL, PRESS, KEY and RANDOM

Macros and matrix

The four Macro knobs on the right are one-knob performance controls. Each moves every control you route it to, by its own amount.

• Route a macro: drag its chip (M1 to M4) onto knobs, or click Targets and use + Click to add.
• Targets opens the Performance Macros card: every macro with its targets and amounts.
• Matrix lists every routing in the plugin, all 32 slots, with source, destination and amount. When an LFO's two ends are set apart, its down amount shows under the amount as DN.

MIDI MAP

The MIDI MAP lets a hardware control move any knob directly, each over its own range. Click MIDI in the header to open it.

1. Pick a Source: mod wheel (CC 1), aftertouch, breath (CC 2), foot (CC 4), expression (CC 11), sustain (CC 64), resonance (CC 71), brightness (CC 74), general 1–4 (CC 16–19), or Learn… and move a knob on your controller. The NOW meter shows the source live.
2. Click + Add to choose a destination, or Custom… and touch any control in the window.
3. Set From and To for each destination. Reverse them to turn the knob down as the control goes up.

Shortcut: right-click any knob, Map to MIDI. Mapped knobs show a small tag next to their name, such as MW or CC74. Mappings are saved with your project, not in presets.

The MIDI MAP and the Wheel chip are two different tools. The MIDI MAP turns the knob itself; the chip adds modulation on top of where the knob is set.

Randomize

• Randomize rolls a brand-new sound. ‹ goes back to the one before; › goes forward again.
• Right-click it for Mild (nudges the sound you have), Medium (the default, a new musical sound) and Wild (goes further and adds one to three new modulation routings).
• Lock a section: right-click a section name such as Field or Colour. It shows LOCKED and Randomize leaves it alone.
• Randomize never touches Master or your MIDI MAP. On Mild and Medium, Feedback stays at 85% or below. Keep a roll you like with Save.

Presets

Nine factory presets are built in. Step through every preset with < >, or click the preset name for the preset browser (see A / B, undo, size and the preset browser). In the browser each factory preset carries its GENERATOR as a tag, and MODULATED if it moves on its own. Presets keep their modulation: routings, envelopes, LFOs and macros.

Save stores your own presets, with a name and the tags you pick; they show under USER in the browser. Init, at the bottom of the browser, returns every control to its default. Copies of the factory presets that an older HOROCYCLE installed move into a _old factory presets folder the first time this version runs, so they don't show twice; any you changed stay where they were, as your own. Presets live in:

• Mac: ~/Music/Sequoia Synthesizers/Horocycle Delay/Presets
• Windows: Documents\Sequoia Synthesizers\Horocycle Delay\Presets

A / B, undo, help and window size

A / B, undo, size and the preset browser

A / B (in the header, right of SAVE). Two complete settings to compare. The lit letter is the one you hear: click the other letter to switch. The first time you click B it starts as a copy of A. The arrow between them copies the lit setting into the other one; right-click it for "Copy A to B" or "Copy B to A". Both are saved with your project, never in presets, and switching never clicks.

UNDO / REDO (the curved arrows left of the preset name). ⌘Z undoes and ⇧⌘Z redoes (Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y on Windows); Undo and Redo also sit at the top of every right-click menu. A whole knob turn is one step, and so are a preset load, INIT, an A / B switch or copy, a RANDOMIZE roll and a MIDI MAP change. Up to 100 steps; the help bar names each one. Automation from your DAW is never undone.

SIZE (bottom right, beside the version). SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE or EXTRA LARGE, or FIT TO SCREEN. You can also drag the bottom-right corner. The whole window scales as one picture, so nothing moves around. Your project remembers its size, and new windows open at the size you used last.

The preset browser: click the preset name.

• Type in SEARCH to find a preset by name or tag. ALL · FACTORY · USER · FAVOURITES narrows the list; click tag pills to narrow it further (every tag you pick must match).
• Click the star beside a preset to make it a favourite.
• ↑ / ↓ tries each preset at once while HOROCYCLE keeps playing. Enter, a double-click or LOAD keeps it (one undo step). Esc, × or a click outside goes back to the setting you had.
• SAVE in the header opens SAVE PRESET: type a name and click the tags that fit, so you can find it again.
• INIT, FILE… (load a preset file from anywhere) and FOLDER are at the bottom of the browser. ‹ and › beside the name step through every preset.

Parameter reference

Every control your DAW can automate, with its range and default. Modulation parameters (ENV, LFO, macros and the 32 routings) follow these in the automation list.

Troubleshooting and tips

• Set Spin to exactly 180° for a classic ping-pong, then nudge it to make the echoes circle.
• Grain Size at 2× is smooth; below 1× the echoes break into fragments.
• Reso with high Feedback makes the loop sing at the Tone frequency.
• For a freeze, choose Orbit, push Feedback toward 95%, and play over it.