Smiley Face Studio Waterline

Waterline is an instrument played by water. Press a key and a drop falls into a pool. You hear the drop land, then the air bubble it traps under the surface ringing at your note. Low notes trap big bubbles and ring deep; high notes plink.

Choose the liquid (water, oil, honey, milk, quicksilver, seltzer, lava, glacier) and what falls into it (water, oil, honey, milk, mercury, ink, hail, embers). Notes fall six ways: Single, Drip (in time), Shower, Drizzle, Storm, or Stream, which glides between notes. Move the microphone under the surface to hear it as a hydrophone, roll a swell through the pool to drive a chorus or phaser, and set the weather overhead: mist, overcast, wind, a thunderhead or sleet.

Shower and Drizzle can keep their drops in a chord and walk it like an arpeggiator. The Impact page sets each hit’s thump, click and ring; Width spreads the drops across the stereo field and Echo sends them off the pool’s far wall.

Press ? GUIDE and every part of the editor is outlined; touch one to read what it does. 78 presets. Everything on the screen is part of the sound.