Våld Labs Tresse: a multiengine synthesizer based on Plaits, for desktop.

video upload by Våld Labs

This one was sent my way via Meska who had the following to say: "It's 'basicaly' a standalone MI Plait with 3voice and extended oscilator models."

Video description follows:

"Tresse — 3-voice polyphonic desktop synth, 38 engines

Hey all,

Been working on this for a while and it's finally at a point where I want to share it.

*Tresse* is a standalone polyphonic synthesizer built around Mutable Instruments' Plaits DSP code, running on an ESP32-S3 with a custom PCB. Three voices of polyphony, 38 synthesis engines, USB, DIN/TRS and Bluetooth MIDI, and perhaps Ableton Link and our upcoming stack (VMB) Våld Modular Bus, expected to ship this summer, and which will a new wireless comms protocol with negligible latency, auto discovery and machine mesh capabilities (to be released soon).
Also enough knobs and encoders to actually play the thing without menu-diving, and a battery for when you're bored outside of your studio.

*The core idea:* take the full Plaits engine library — all 24 algorithms — and make it polyphonic in a self-contained hardware instrument. Then keep going and add 14 more custom engines on top.
There are hundreds of options similar to this in modular systems and i thought why not bring all these god-level creative tools to bedroom, desktop producers who don't have the money or the space (or will) to mingle in the modular space, and bring them one contained box with all they need.

What's inside

*ESP32-S3* doing all the DSP across both cores (voices 0+1 on Core 1, voice 2 on Core 0, parallel render)
**PCM5102A DAC**, 24-bit output, 32kHz sample rate
*4 pots + 4 rotary encoders* through CD74HC4067 mux and MCP23017 I2C expander
*OLED display* (128×64) for patch info, engine select, preset browsing
*USB MIDI + BLE MIDI* — works with everything, no adapter needed for wireless
Custom PCB, all through-hole friendly

38 engines

The first 24 are straight from Plaits — East Coast, Phase Distortion, all three DX7 variants, Terrain, String/Chords, Chiptune, Wavetable, Speech, Swarm, Particle, the Rings modes, the three drum engines, etc.

Then 14 custom engines built from scratch:

*Karplus-Strong* — proper physical string modeling with excitation morphing (noise → impulse → tonal)
*ByteBeat* — 8 classic formulas with pitch-tracked rate, gets wild
*CZ Phase Distortion* — Casio CZ-style, three distortion shapes
*Supersaw* — up to 7 detuned saws with PWM, the obvious one but it needed to exist
*Formant* — vowel synthesis with 3 bandpass resonators, gender shift control
*2-Op FM* — clean FM with 13 ratios and operator feedback
*Wavefolder* — sine/tri/saw/square source into a proper folder with bias
*Noise Drums* — SVF-based with pitch envelope, covers kicks through metallic hits
*Modal Resonator* — 8 tuned bandpass partials, morphs from harmonic → bell → bar inharmonicity, with a bowed excitation mode
*Sympathetic Strings* — 3 coupled Karplus delay lines with controllable coupling and interval ratios
*Comb Resonator* — 4 parallel comb filters with spread control
*Drawbars* — organ-style additive with 8 Hammond-ratio partials
*Complex Oscillator* — FM into wavefolder, Buchla-adjacent territory
*Grain Noise* — granular noise with smoothing, good for textures and pads

Controls

Three parameter layers accessible via toggle buttons:

*Normal* — Timbre, Morph, Harmonics, Color on pots; Attack, Decay, FM, LFO Depth on encoders
*MOD* — Fold, Detune, Ring Mod, Chorus on pots; LFO destination/shape/speed/sync on encoders
*SHIFT* — Filter Cutoff/Reso/Env/Type on pots; Portamento, Octave, Vibrato depth/speed on encoders

Hold both buttons → engine select overlay. Double-tap MOD → system menu (randomizer, MIDI config, play mode). Double-tap SHIFT → preset browser across three banks (own patches, generated, branches).

Play modes: Poly, Mono, and chord modes (Major, Minor, 7th, Sus4, Power, Octave).

The randomizer is one of my favorite things — it generates random patches with procedural names (stuff like "Velvet Moth" or "Iron Shard"), you scroll through them with the encoder, and save the ones you like to a generated preset bank. 512 slots each for generated and branch presets, 128 for your own.

What it sounds like

Honestly covers a lot of ground. The Plaits engines already span everything from classic analog to FM to physical modeling to noise, and the custom engines fill in some gaps I wanted — proper supersaw, real Karplus-Strong, the modal/sympathetic stuff for metallic and evolving tones, and the ByteBeat engine for when you want to go full chaos. The global FX chain (filter, wavefolder, ring mod, chorus) ties everything together.

The project should be available from April 2026, in kit or assembled units! Price to be discolsed once i have the final FINAL prototype, but shouldn't hurt the wallet.

This is a *Våld Labs* project from Lisbon Portugal. Much more to come.

Would love to hear what people think, and happy to answer questions about the build or the DSP. Be aware that this is a pretty advenced prototype, but still a prototype"

https://valdlabs.com

Note they also have the Consequencer pictured left but no additional info aside from the following on it yet.

"A portable, desktop-first sequencer with modular DNA — built for the art of shaping chaos."

CubuSynth also has a Consequencer announced back in 2024, but they appear to be unrelated.