KerBy

KerBy is a one-stop shop for kick and bass generation I've been building. Two voices, with an opinion about how they relate: the Kick is the backbone, the Bass gets ducked out of its way, and neither ends up off the grid unless you ask it to. It's set up for kicks and basslines, but can be used for much more.

Every envelope in it is a curve — amp, pitch, filter, the duck, and the oscillator waveform itself. Start from a preset shape or draw your own. Hold a note and the clock plays the pattern for you, or feed it a rhythm and it follows — live with your hands on the knobs, or as clips you launch or draw in.

Closed beta · v0.1.1

How it works:

Two voices, one clock. Each runs at its own division, and the Bass restarts on every Kick pulse so the two read as one figure — switch that off and it free-runs. Clip length counts too: a dotted Kick under a one-bar clip resets each bar instead of drifting across them.

The Bass is ducked by the Kick. The duck is a curve you draw, applied over a fixed quarter note after each Kick pulse, so it behaves the same at any Kick rate. A Duck amount takes it from off to full.

Everything is drawn. Amp, pitch, filter, the duck and the waveform all share one editor. Click to add a point, drag to move it, Cmd-drag to bend a segment.

On the grid, when you want it. Quantize (Q) keeps the notes snapped to the grid. Launch with Kick (K) starts both voices together, instead of letting the faster one in first.

Where it's at:

- Closed beta, v0.1.1
- AU and VST3 on macOS, VST3 on Windows
- Built with JUCE, in C++
- Not for sale — pricing isn't decided

If you'd like to try the beta, get in touch.