Beat Kitchen Harmonic Synth

BKS Harmonic is an additive synthesizer that builds sound from individual overtones, then gives you
tools to shape, scan and filter them by harmony. Load it as an Audio Unit v3 inside AUM, GarageBand,
Cubasis, Loopy Pro or any AUv3 host, or run it standalone.

A TUNER THAT KNOWS ABOUT STRETCH
Tune mode turns the scope into a tuner: it names the note it hears and shows how far sharp or flat it
is in cents, with a ring that closes as you land on the pitch. It tunes against the stretch curve
rather than equal temperament, so it follows a real instrument. Stretch shapes the overtones inside a
note; Key Stretch makes the keyboard follow it, so octaves widen the way a piano's do.

FOURTEEN TUNING SYSTEMS, AND A TEMPERAMENT EDITOR
Equal and Just, five historical temperaments, and six from outside the European tradition including
Maqam Rast, Turkish Rast, Slendro, Pelog and the Harmonic Series. The Temperament slider is a morph,
not a switch: fully left is Just, fully right is whichever you chose. Twelve bars show any system as
cents away from equal; drag one to make the tuning yours, then copy it out as plain text. Tunings
save with the preset.

FIVE HUNDRED SCALES
Searchable by alternate name: malkauns, nikriz, bhupali and freygish find the right set.

THE PARTIALS ARE THE INSTRUMENT
The partials display shows every overtone in your sound, and four tools work on it directly. FOLD
sweeps upper partials below the fundamental, redistributing energy across harmonic layers — not a
filter. The OVERTONE SCAN steps a spotlight through individual partials with triangle, saw or random
patterns, and can visit only partials in the active scale. The HARMONIC GATE reinforces partials
whose pitch class matches your chord and suppresses the rest: capture a chord, follow MIDI, split the
keyboard, or pick the notes on the gate's own keys. SCULPT draws the level and pan of every partial,
slides the curve up the grid as a formant, and locks partials in place while the rest moves.

THE HARMONIC VOCODER
Pass live input or a sample through the synth as an effect. Your sound travels through a bank of
tuned peaking bells rather than being replaced by filtered noise: open the Air and the source stays
dry, tighten it and the bands resonate into it. Key Track is the mode switch: on it plays as an
instrument, off it is a fixed filter you can sweep. Aimed at a sample, the bands track that sample's
spectrum as it evolves. One level-matched Blend control crossfades it against the oscillators.

PULSE-WIDTH MODULATION
Set the core to a saw and Source 2 to a saw: the two ramps subtract, which is what a pulse wave is,
and the phase between them sets the duty cycle. Modulate it and you have PWM. A preset in the Utility
folder is ready to play.

MODULATION
A cog on almost every control, so the synth's own engine can drive nearly anything in the interface,
including the display. Sources include velocity, envelopes, LFOs, how many notes you hold, how many
oscillators sound, the synth's own output level, and Atmo, a shape driven by 84 years of barometric
weather data from the Beat Kitchen Weather Sonification Project. Rates run from audio rate down to
cycles that span years.

THE SCOPE
A stereoscope, oscilloscope, spectrum and a live per-partial display. Glow takes the trace from a hard
line to a diffuse bloom, Colour sets the hue, Trace Speed and Dot set how it draws — and every one is
a modulation target. Route velocity to Colour and the trace shifts as you play.

LIVE INPUT
A headphone button passes the side-chain straight to the output, so you can hear and see your input
with nothing held: green when signal arrives, amber when a bus is connected but silent, red when
nothing is. Resynth Speed locks a sample's playback speed to pitch, tape-style, or keeps them
independent.

Every control has a tooltip, presets work offline, and a harmony wheel follows what you play.

One purchase, every update. Made by Beat Kitchen, a music production and teaching community.