undae

Undae

Optical vibe for iPhone, iPad & Mac

Undae (Latin for waves) is an opto vibe in the Uni‑Vibe lineage. A single slow lamp sweeps a cascade of staggered all‑pass stages, so the notches roll through your tone unevenly and vocally — the thing that makes a vibe a vibe, and not a plain phaser. Rock it into Vibrato for pure pitch wobble, widen it into a rotary swirl, add a touch of feedback for a throatier voice. Use it on its own or as an Audio Unit (AUv3) effect inside your favourite music app.

Quick start

Standalone: hit PLAY to run the built‑in demo chord bed through the effect, or switch the source to your microphone or import a song. BYPASS/ENGAGE A/Bs the effect, and you can export the processed audio to a WAV file.
As a plugin: load Undae as an AUv3 audio effect in GarageBand, AUM, Loopy Pro, Cubasis, Logic, Drambo, apeMatrix or any AUv3 host, and drop it on a guitar, keys, vocal or drum track.
Dial it in: set Speed (or flip Sync to lock the lamp to your project tempo and pick a Division), then Intensity for how far the sweep travels. That is the classic vibe already.
Voice it: Stages (2/4/6/8) sets how many notches, Shape morphs the lamp from a smooth sine to a lopsided photocell ramp, Bias moves the sweep centre darker or brighter, and Res adds feedback around the chain for a throatier, more vocal sweep.
Place it: Width spreads the lamp across L/R for a rotary‑style swirl, Tone tilts the output darker or brighter, Mix blends dry against wet, Level trims the output.
Presets: step the factory programs with ◀ ▶ in the header (Classic Chorus, Deep Vibrato, Slow Swell, Fast Throb, Rotary Wide, Underwater, Jet Phaser, Shimmer Wide, Sync Quarter, Tremble, Seasick…) and save your own.

Support

Need help, found a bug, or have a feature request? Email konst.schuetz@gmail.com and I’ll get back to you.

FAQ

What is an “opto vibe”, and how is it different from a phaser? In the original hardware a lamp glowed against photocells, and its uneven glow swept a chain of filters whose corner frequencies were staggered rather than evenly spaced. That stagger is why a vibe sounds watery and vocal instead of the even whoosh of a phaser. Undae models both: the log‑spread stage frequencies and the lamp’s asymmetric glow (Shape).

What’s the difference between Chorus and Vibrato? Chorus blends the swept signal with the dry one, so you hear moving notches — the classic swirl. Vibrato drops the dry signal entirely, leaving pure phase/pitch wobble with no notching. The rocker switch in the Vibe section picks the mode.

Can I lock it to my song’s tempo? Yes. Flip Sync and choose a note Division; the lamp follows the host’s tempo. Without a host tempo it free‑runs at the Speed you set.

What does Width do? It offsets the lamp between left and right (up to a quarter cycle), so the sweep moves across the stereo field — a rotary‑speaker‑like widening. It starts centred, which is the classic mono‑vibe sound; turn it up for stereo.

Does it work with my other music apps? Yes. Undae runs as an Audio Unit (AUv3) audio effect inside hosts like GarageBand, AUM, Loopy Pro, Cubasis and Logic, with host bypass, preset and parameter‑automation support, and it saves and restores its state with your session.

Why does it ask for the microphone? Only in the standalone app, and only if you choose the microphone as the input source, so the effect can process live sound. Nothing is ever recorded, uploaded, or shared. As an AUv3 plugin, the host provides the audio and no microphone access is needed.

Does it collect any data? No. Undae collects nothing and has no tracking. See the Privacy Policy.