The Metapad

The Metapad morphs the whole patch with one gesture. You store snapshots of every knob, place them on a surface, and drag a cursor between them: the patch blends towards whichever snapshots are near.

The idea is Ross Bencina's: the Metasurface he designed for his own patcher, the one Humus's ancestor took its patches from. The Metapad keeps that gesture and makes the cursor a parameter of its own, so it can be mapped, automated and captured.

Snapshots

Open the Metapad from its button on the window rail. New Snapshot stores the settings of every knob in the patch and puts a point on the surface; drag the point where you want it. Right-click a point to recall it, store the current settings into it, or delete it.

Morphing

Switch to Interpolate and drag. Every knob moves towards the snapshots nearest the cursor, so the space between a dark, still corner and a bright, busy one becomes an instrument of its own.

Morph parameters lists every knob the morph can move. Untick one to keep it where you set it by hand, whatever the cursor does.

Playing it live

• MIDI X and MIDI Y put the cursor on two controllers, or an XY pad.
• Performance capture records the cursor's path, so a morph can be scrubbed, redrawn and played back.