SFS Audio · Lustra · in your browser
A four-knob modulation plugin: phaser, flanger, chorus and doubler on one Time knob, with vibrato at full Mix. The screen is a shell of mother-of-pearl grown by your sound: across is frequency, depth is time, height is what you hear, and the color is the comb filter itself, drawn as the thin-film interference that colors real nacre.
Lustra is a plugin for macOS 11 or later, on Apple silicon and Intel: VST3, AU and Standalone. $15 until December 31, then $29. More about Lustra, and buying it
A browser version, running Lustra's own sound code. In the plugin, Motion's tempo lock follows your DAW.
| Knob | On the knob | On the screen |
|---|---|---|
| Time | Newton’s rings: radius is frequency, the rings are the live notches (left and right channel in each half). The zone you are in lights on the arc; the voices orbit as moons. Flick it to sweep and it springs back, showing where it will land | A few broad color bands (PHASE), even jets (FLANGE), fine pearl (CHORUS), two offset singers (DOUBLE) |
| Motion | The orbit: the delay’s movement over the last two seconds; the moon runs at the true rate and the wobble is the depth in cents. Catches on tempo divisions and the ’82 rates | The bands flow into curves as the delay sweeps through the layers |
| Feedback | A Fabry–Pérot rosette: the loop’s resonance. Petals sharpen as it rises, turn half a petal when negative, and bloom past ±80% | Purer, sharper colors; the lines pinch harder |
| Mix | Young’s two sources, dry and wet: fringes are strongest at 50%; at 100% one source wobbles | Color contrast; at 100% the color goes neutral and the layers slide sideways (vibrato) |
TryPress Start: the band plays through Pearl. Turn Time slowly from left to right and watch the bands go from broad to fine; flick it hard and let go. Load Jet and Hollow, then Seasick. Switch the source to Pad or Voice. Flip SHELL and LINES. Press the smiley to bypass: the color drains to plain pearl.
In the pluginThe same sound and the same screen, with Motion's tempo lock on your DAW's playhead, presets you can save, and, until your license is installed, a brief dip in the output about 8 seconds in and then once a minute.
Knob contractDrag up or right · Shift fine · double-click resets · arrow keys when focused. A quick flick on a throwable knob swings it and springs it back; a slow drag just sets it.
NameLustra, from luster, the glow of pearl. The shell it grows is nacre, mother-of-pearl, whose colors come from interference, the optical twin of a comb filter. The wordmark is drawn in orchid and abalone behind the bone, and the copies part and rejoin at the plugin’s live Motion rate and depth.