Largemouth Bass Series · User Guide
Every control,
explained.
Fish Station is a monophonic subtractive bass synth: three oscillators into a Moog-style ladder filter, shaped by two envelopes, an LFO and an arpeggiator. Everything lives on the front panel — this guide walks each section, top to bottom. Jump straight to the arpeggiator if that's what brought you here. New to synths? The step-by-step Tutorials build real sounds from scratch.
Quick start
From load to first note.
- 1
Add Fish Station to an instrument track and play a low note — you'll hear the default patch.
- 2
Shape the tone with Cutoff and Res in the Filter section — that's where most of the character lives.
- 3
Try a factory patch from the Patch menu at the top (Init · Sub Bass · Acid Lead), then tweak from there.
It's monophonic by design — one note at a time, with last-note priority when you overlap keys.
Section 01 · Oscillators
Three oscillators.
Two band-limited (PolyBLEP) oscillators plus a dedicated sub, mixed together before the filter.
The main oscillator's waveform. Saw is bright and buzzy, Square is hollow and reedy, and Sine is a pure, harmonic-free tone.
How much of oscillator 1 is in the mix.
The second oscillator's waveform. Detune it against Osc 1 for width and movement.
How much of oscillator 2 is in the mix.
Coarse-tunes Osc 2 in semitones — a fifth (+7) or an octave (+12) thickens the sound.
Fine-tunes Osc 2 in cents. A few cents of detune gives a slow, natural beating.
Level of the sub oscillator — a square one octave below Osc 1. This is where the weight comes from.
Hard-sync: restarts Osc 2 every time Osc 1 completes a cycle. Sweep Osc 2's Semi with sync on for the classic tearing sync lead.
Section 02 · Filter
Moog-style ladder.
A 4-pole transistor-ladder low-pass with resonance that climbs to self-oscillation. This is the heart of the sound.
How steeply the filter cuts above the cutoff. 24 dB/oct is darker and more classic; 12 is gentler.
The frequency where the filter starts to cut. Lower for a rounder, darker bass; higher to open it up.
Resonance — emphasises frequencies around the cutoff. Near the top it self-oscillates into a whistle.
How much the Filter Envelope moves the cutoff. Bipolar — positive opens the filter over the note, negative closes it.
Velocity → cutoff. Play harder to open the filter further.
Key-tracking — higher notes open the filter more (relative to middle C), so the timbre stays even up the keyboard.
Section 03 · Envelopes
Two ADSRs.
One shapes the volume, the other sweeps the filter. Each has Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release.
Shapes each note's volume. A fade-in, D fall to the sustain level, S held level, R fade-out after release. Times run ~1 ms to 5 s.
The same shape, but routed to the cutoff through the Filter's Env Amt. A fast decay with some Env Amt gives the classic filter "pluck".
Section 04 · LFO
One modulator, three destinations.
A low-frequency oscillator you can route to pitch, filter or amplitude — free-running or locked to your host's tempo.
The LFO's shape. Sine and triangle are smooth; saw and square step or ramp.
Where it's routed. Pitch = vibrato (±2 st), Filter = cutoff wobble (±3 oct), Amp = tremolo. Off disables it.
Depth of the modulation at the chosen destination.
Speed when Sync is off.
Lock the LFO to host tempo. When on, Div sets the speed and Rate is ignored.
The synced cycle length — one full LFO cycle per division.
Section 05 · Arpeggiator
The arpeggiator.
The arp plays the notes you're holding, one at a time, in a repeating pattern locked to your host's tempo.
Controls
Enables the arpeggiator. With it off, the synth plays normally (last-note priority).
The order it steps through the held notes (see below).
Step length, synced to host tempo. 1/16 at 120 BPM = a sixteenth-note per step.
Modes
Held notes are sorted low → high regardless of the order you pressed them. Say you hold C · E · G:
Section 06 · Master
Output.
Overall output level (default −6 dB). Fish Station has plenty of low-end weight — leave headroom.
Patches
Save & recall.
The bar across the top of the panel is the patch browser.
Load a Factory patch (Init · Sub Bass · Acid Lead — starting points to refine) or any patch you've saved.
Save As writes the current sound under a new name; Save overwrites the selected user patch.
Resets every control to the default patch — a clean slate to build from.
Your patches are stored as JSON in ~/Library/Application Support/Fish Station/patches.
The window
Resize & version.
Open the ⚙ menu (top-right of the panel) to scale the whole window. Handy on large displays.
The build version is printed under the wordmark in the header — quote it if you ever report a bug.