Tessera is a tuned resonator effect. Feed it a drum loop, a guitar, a synth, or a voice, and it uses that signal to excite twelve parallel resonator voices, each pitched to a note of a chord or scale you choose. A single hit blooms into a full chord. A sustained sound becomes a slowly shifting pad. Under the hood are eleven resonator models: a plucked Karplus-Strong string, a bowed waveguide String, and nine banded-waveguide bodies, from tuned bars and glass to bells, bowls, membranes, plates, and tubes. Decay, Damping, Brightness, and Spread voice each one, from tight and percussive to vast and ringing. Five motion engines decide how and when the twelve voices speak: Contour, SEQ, Strum, Arp, and Swarm, moving from shimmering arpeggios to strummed chords to drifting swarms, all lockable to host tempo. Same as the rest of our catalog: Mac, Windows, Linux, and iOS. No DRM, no subscriptions, no dongles, perpetual license. Platforms & Downloads Fully functional demo. 20-minute session timer, save disabled. Windows CLAP VST3 AAX Windows 10 or newer 64-bit DAW Download Demo macOS CLAP VST3 AU AAX Intel or Apple Silicon macOS 10.13+, 64-bit DAW Download Demo Linux CLAP VST3 LV2 Ubuntu 20 or later 64-bit DAW Download Demo iOS AUv3 iPhone & iPad iOS 12 or later APP STORE Documentation Tessera Owner's Manual PDF · English Read In Use... Percussion is the fast way in. Feed a dry drum loop, pick a minor triad, and every hit rings out as a chord in key. Sustained sources like pads, held guitar, or a vocal drone turn Tessera into a generative instrument: start the SEQ or Swarm engine and it reshuffles the twelve voices on its own. We reach for the Glass Harmonica and Tibetan Bowl models the most, with Decay long and Diffusion up, for the endless-cathedral thing. And if you push Feedback on one of the delay engines, the resonators start feeding themselves into a self-sustaining drone. That last one is our favorite. Features Twelve tuned resonator voices - A parallel bank of pitched resonators. Whatever you feed Tessera excites all twelve at once, each tuned to a note of the chord or scale you have chosen, so a single transient blooms into a full voicing. Eleven resonator models - Two waveguide models (a plucked Karplus-Strong string and a bowed String) plus nine banded-waveguide bodies: Uniform Bar, Tuned Bar, Glass Harmonica, Tibetan Bowl, Membrane, Bell, Plate, Clamped Bar, and Closed Tube. Each has its own voice, from clean and pitched to inharmonic and metallic. Root and Scale - Choose a root note and a scale or chord, and the whole bank retunes at once. Ranges from simple triads and sevenths through extended and chromatic voicings. Decay, Damping, Brightness, Spread - Voice the resonators from tight and percussive to long and cathedral-sized, and set how far the twelve notes fan across the stereo field. Five motion engines - Contour, SEQ, Strum, Arp, and Swarm each decide how and when the voices enter, turning a static chord into shimmer, rhythm, or drift. Contour - Spreads the twelve voice entries into a shaped, arpeggiated wave, with adjustable amplitude, frequency, and phase. SEQ - A step sequencer that places each of the twelve voices on its own step of the pattern, for rhythmic, repeating figures. Strum - Rakes across the chord like a pick across strings, with control over spread, direction, curve, and rate. Arp - Cycles the voices one at a time, with rate, gate, and note order. Swarm - Lets the voices weave and drift around a moving center, for evolving, unsettled textures. Tempo sync - Any of the motion engines can lock to host-tempo beat divisions, so rhythmic patches stay in time. Three play modes - Leave MIDI off and the resonators self-tune to your scale, key them live from a MIDI keyboard, or gate them with held notes. Diffusion and Feedback - An allpass diffusion stage smears the tails toward reverb, and Feedback recirculates the resonators into longer, blooming, self-sustaining washes. Vibrato LFO - A global low-frequency oscillator adds gentle pitch movement across the whole bank. Microtonal tuning - MTS-ESP support: when a tuning master is connected, the voices follow its tuning instead of standard equal temperament. 100 factory presets - A full bank spanning plucks, drones, bells, rhythmic sequences, strummed chords, arpeggios, and dark cinematic textures. Mix and click-free Bypass - Dry / wet Mix defaulting to fully wet, plus a smoothed Bypass with a Tails option that either lets the resonators ring out or cuts them cleanly. Frequently Asked Questions What kind of effect is Tessera? It is a tuned resonator. Instead of adding a fixed space or echo, it uses your input to excite twelve pitched resonator voices, each tuned to a note of a chord or scale you pick. Percussion becomes chords, sustained sounds become pads, and everything comes out in key. Do I have to play Tessera with a MIDI keyboard? No. Tessera has three modes. Leave MIDI off and the resonators self-tune to the root and scale you set, so it works on an audio track with no MIDI at all. Or key the voices live from a keyboard, or gate them with held notes when you want to play the chords yourself. Can I use Tessera as a reverb? Sort of. Set a long Decay, turn up Diffusion, and it becomes a lush, resonant reverb, but a pitched one that rings in tune with your track rather than a neutral room. It is a different tool from a normal reverb, and most people end up using it as both. Does Tessera work on Linux? Yes. CLAP, VST3, and LV2 for Ubuntu 20 or newer. Every plugin we make ships with a Linux build, same day as Mac and Windows. What plugin formats does Tessera support? Windows 10 or newer: CLAP, VST3, AAX. macOS 10.13 or newer (Intel or Apple Silicon): CLAP, VST3, AAX, AudioUnit. Ubuntu 20 or newer: CLAP, VST3, LV2. iOS 12 or newer: AUv3, on the App Store. All desktop builds are 64-bit. Does Tessera support microtonal tuning? Yes. Tessera supports MTS-ESP. When a tuning master is connected in your session, the twelve voices follow its tuning table instead of standard equal temperament. With no master present, it uses equal temperament. Does Tessera use copy protection, require a subscription, or need iLok? No. Audio Damage does not use copy protection of any kind, and never will. Install it on every machine you own. Perpetual license, no subscription, no iLok, no online activation. You buy it, it is yours.