Review: Dawesome Kontrast from Tracktion

Synthesisers with basic oscillator waves like sines and squares have been around forever, possibly since the age of dinosaurs. Ancient history was never my strong suit.

Back in the 1950s (assuming humans were already around then), clever folks had the idea to lash multiple waves into a set, which they could scan through to produce sounds that morphed between various wave types. Thus was born the idea of “wavetable synthesis”.

The concept grew popular in the 1980s and remains so today; you can scarcely swing an extinct Diplodocus around a studio without hitting a wavetable synth. A related but less popular idea emerged in the 1970s when other clever folks decided that rather than scanning wavetables one by one, like flipping pages in a book, it might be fun to glide across them like peaks and valleys on a relief map. This non-linear “wave terrain synthesis” idea gained less steam over the years, and the two methods of wavetable scanning have remained separate.

Until now. A new synth, Dawesome Kontrast by Tracktion, seeks to upend the pillars of wavetable synthesis (not to mention shrink, curve and warp them) in favor of wave terrain-like crawling, leading to sonic possibilities never before heard in the wavetable world. Can Kontrast pull off a plugin that’s two, two, two synths in one? Let’s find out.

Not another wavetable synth.

Kreative Kolossus

The best musical tools encourage creativity and exploration. The most exciting plugins allow (or better, tempt) users to try things they’d never previously considered. Not all those things will work out, of course. But the sounds and techniques produced by tinkering with truly creative tools are often unique, rewarding, and special.

The main thing I knew about Kontrast going in was its terrain-ish approach to wavetable scanning. Instead of a simple, static line, Kontrast would scan with moving, morphing shapes and curves. That alone was intriguing and I was eager to give modified scanlines a whirl.

An hour into my first session, I found myself here:

Above is a modified factory preset, with a wavetable based on a photo I took on holiday of an elephant. It’s scanned per note by a short curvy line that grows and rotates as it moves from left to right, then shrinks and shimmies for held notes. My MIDI keyboard plays notes “straight”, while MPE signals from a secondary controller adjust panning and a modal filter cutoff. I’ve also ramped up the preset reverb and added a granular effect to drag out the release.

How does it sound? On low notes, like a cross between a didgeridoo and an approaching passenger jet. At the high end, like guitar feedback played backwards near an active beehive.

Did I go a bit too far? Possibly. But my impromptu pachydermal patch sounds little like the original preset, and also not quite like anything I’ve heard before.

More importantly, I reached this somewhat bizarre point in minutes, with little prior knowledge and a random holiday snap. I’m confident I could walk back a few changes to tame this grey beast somewhat, or layer on and go further, or fiddle with the scanline and wavetable files to explore new territory altogether, quick as a wrinkly stampede.

My first moments with Kontrast have led to something novel, unexpected, inspiring, and highly tweakable. That’s rare with a new plugin, and deserves high praise indeed in my book.

The Kompleat Kontrast

Let’s take a tour through the Kontrast interface. Front and centre, beneath the header, is the wavetable view. Wavetable peaks are represented as white and valleys as black; Kontrast ships with around 200 wavetables, or you can drag-and-drop your own tables (or any picture, elephantine or no) onto the view. Images are converted to greyscale, then treated as any other wavetable.

Selectors below the wavetable view include the Wavetable menu and Next / Previous arrows, Reload and Export wavetable controls, and dials to adjust the Blur or Contrast. At far left, a constraining Scale can be selected from a list or specified manually with the supplied key buttons.

On either side of the wavetable view are Kontrast’s oscillator controls. The main osc is on the left, with controls for Trans(position), Pan, Unison, unison voice Tune, Fat, Bite, 8Bit, Phase Reset, Vibe, Vibe Mode and Vibe Intensity. The Vibe Modes include Warm, Modern, Console and Digital and colour the sound (and wavetable) depending on the mode and intensity selected.

Kontrast’s Osc2 can be turned off with a button near top right. You can also set the Osc2 Waveform, amount of PM (phase modulation), Unison, Mix (with Osc1) and various tuning controls.

Above these controls is Kontrast’s main menu bar, including a pulldown with various global settings, Undo and Redo buttons, and a preset browser with more than 350 factory presets organised by Type, Timbre and Author. Controls to select the Next, Previous or a Random preset are also available in the menu bar.

Kontrast, Kontinued

The centre section of Kontrast has two constant elements, located at either side under the oscillator controls. At right, the main output controls include the master Out gain, a (12- or 24-note) Polyphony selector, OTT, Comp(ressor) and Lim(iter) controls. On the left is the menu of sections that can be shown and edited in the middle area, including Seq(uencer), Scan(line), Filter and FX.

Scan is the only non-optional section, as it houses controls for the size, shape, morphing, and movement of the scanline used to traverse wavetables. These are broken down by section, including Position, the unlabeled “Shape”, Phase, Rose, Noise and Form.

Each scanline control section includes detailed options and controls that benefit more from exploration than detailed explanation – as the excellent included user manual suggests: “Click INIT. Play with each slider. See how the sliders alter the scanline and the sound.” Suffice it to say that with a quick bit of experimentation, you can scan wavetables with circles, spirals, flowers, sparks, curlicues and much more.

Kontrast’s Filter section includes controls for two independent filters, including Cutoff and Reso(nance) dials, multiple flavours of Filter1 Drive, a separate Modal filter with forty resonators and associated controls, an Inharm(onics) shifter, an additional drive stage and the ominously-named Chainsaw, described as “FM synthesis (crossed) with physically modeled gravitational systems”.

(Your guess is as good as mine. Just twiddle the knob and see what happens. It’s fun.)

The FX section includes five available effects slots, each of which can be populated with one of Kontrast’s three reverbs, four delays, four modulation effects, five distortions, or six utility modules. The effects can be reordered, swapped in place, toggled on or off, and adjusted with controls tailored to each module.

The Seq section provides a 16-step sequencer with per-step controls for Step on/off, Prob(ability), Pitch, Vel(ocity) and Gate, in addition to global controls for sequencer Mode, Trig(ger), Rate and Tuplet. Kontrast also includes randomiser dice for each of the per-step parameters and a number of sequencer presets to choose from.

Keep Kalm and Kontrast On

Modulation in Kontrast is straightforward and extensive. Nearly every parameter can be modulated by first selecting the param, which will highlight the button or knob. Then, simply pick a modulation source and dial in the range of modulation using the controls beneath the centre section, shown below.

Kontrast supports up to twelve modulators in a single patch, with several types available. From left to right, the first three are related to expressive MIDI information, like poly-aftertouch or MPE. These modulators, labeled X1, X2 and X3, control parameters for note-onset expression, intensity, and timbre, and can be configured to control specific parameters in the Setup section below the modulation controls. Options including MPE, MIDI, EXQUIS, OSMOSE and SEABOARD provide appropriate parameter mapping automatically for specific setups, though any param can also be assigned manually.

Likewise, the M1, M2, and M3 macro controls can be assigned to modulate any parameter, and the macro buttons relabeled for clarity. The macros can then be controlled manually or via automation to adjust several params at once.

The remaining modulation sources, except for Main Env, are “universal” sources, which can be any of six types, including Env(elope), LFO, Fun(ction), MIDI, Kbd (keyboard) or Rnd (random), with associated controls.

Finally, the bottom row in Kontrast includes a WAV Export for the last-played note, Mono(phonic) and Gliss(ando) selectors, with Time adjustment for the latter, a global randomization die, and a keyboard showing velocity, pressure and aftertouch for each note.

Koncluding Komments

My elephantal anecdote above sums up how it feels to work with Kontrast. Specifically, this synth encourages exploration, makes it easy and fun, and generally rewards experimentation with unique and usable sounds. You may not always know where you’re headed or what each knob does – even the manual suggests twiddling some of them to see what happens – but you’re likely to land somewhere sonically interesting, and sculpting or refining further is a breeze.

Half the genius of Kontrast lies in making workflow steps quick and simple. The “Init” patch is always a click away for a fresh start. Drag and drop works for wavetables (in or out), samples, loops, images or the last-played note. Modulation is intuitive, MPE setup is hardware-tailored and customizable, and the effects and filters sound great and borrow from Dawesome’s previous plugin features.

Simultaneously, new concepts like the “scanline” aren’t roadblocks to progress. Are there oddball parameters like Brute and Petals for shaping how the wavetables are scanned? Yes. Do you need to know precisely what they do before dragging some sliders around to see what happens? Not really.

The consequences of tweaking scanline shape, path, wavetable, effects, or modulation in Kontrast are immediate, usually obvious, and quickly become second nature. You learn quickly what a “flowery” scanline sounds like, which bits of wavetables are likely to be interesting, and how movement and modulation of the scanline alter the output sounds.

The breadth of those sounds is impressive, as is the number of ways to achieve them. Kontrast’s factory presets include everything from plucks to pads, bells to basses, and pulses to percs. It also includes additional presets for many specific components, from baked-in wavetables to multi-effect chains, scanline shapes, and sequencer templates.

Whether you branch off from a preset or build from scratch, shaping sounds in Kontrast feels different than in many other synths, including the wavetable synths I’ve previously encountered. Being able to easily swap or sculpt wavetables or the scanline feels like a level of creative control not accessible in otherwise comparable software. As a bonus, the results are widely varied, playable, and often quite novel.

Personally, I’m looking forward to diving deeper into Kontrast and seeing what other tricks and secrets I can uncover. I hope my holiday elephant is up for an adventure.

Buy Dawesome Kontrast from our partners at Plugin Boutique.

Discover more about Dawesome Kontrast on the Tracktion site.