RatFlute

Overview

RatFlute is a flute for ritual pads, temple leads, snake-charmer reeds, psytrance ney and trance-state drones, not a polite orchestral flute. There are no samples: each note is a pitched source shaped by its material's nonlinearity (a jet for the ney and kawala, a reed for the arghul, a double reed for the mizmar) plus breath turbulence, driving a tuned bore resonator, and every material is calibrated to within 5 cents from C3 to C6. A maqam quantiser maps every key to the nearest degree of the chosen maqam (Hijaz, Hijaz Kar, Saba, Bayati, Rast, Kurd, Nahawand or Phrygian Dominant, in any of 12 keys), so the whole keyboard lands on the scale, microtones included. A separate drone core breathes the tonic, fifth, octave down or tonic plus fifth, detuned so it beats, with no chiff and no gaps. Eight macros do one audible thing each: Breath, Overblow (pushes into the upper registers), Spirit (a vowel mouth from A through O to U), Drone, Trip (a pitch-shifting delay whose time warps), Sandstorm (drive that folds at the top), Afterlife (a shimmer reverb) and Swarm (up to four detuned flutes per note). The house Style switch plays each note as Sustain, Pluck (the bore struck like wood), Combined (struck, then breath swells in) or Mute (a pitched whisper), and MIDI keyswitches change it mid-phrase. Vibrato has a delayed onset, Ornament adds grace notes and slides, and a sub sits underneath. The Tomb UI shows the maqam on a Sun Disk wheel and the note as a standing wave in a gold flute. Twenty-four presets run from Temple of Karnak and Snake Charmer to Psytrance Ney, Sekhmet Rage and Book of the Dead.

Features

• ▸Four modelled materials: Ney, Kawala (jet) and Arghul, Mizmar (reed), each in tune to within 5 cents
• ▸Maqam quantiser: 8 maqamat plus Off, 12 keys, real quarter tones, no dead keys
• ▸Drone core: tonic, fifth, octave down or tonic + fifth, 0-10 ct beating, Always or While Playing
• ▸Eight macros: Breath, Overblow, Spirit, Drone, Trip, Sandstorm, Afterlife, Swarm
• ▸Style switch with keyswitches: Sustain, Pluck, Combined, Mute
• ▸Delayed vibrato, grace-note and slide ornaments, sub, poly up to 8 voices or mono with glide
• ▸Trip FX: sandstorm drive, pitch-shift delay (-12 to +12 st) with warp, shimmer reverb (+12, +7, +19 or -12), clipper
• ▸The Tomb UI: Sun Disk maqam wheel, breath column, 24 factory presets, user presets

Listen